The Flucks is my (Ed) first novel and an experiment. We are independent creators, publishing chapter by chapter as a podcast and text. It’s designed to be heard. We’d love to receive your feedback so we can tell stories better.
Continue reading for Chapter 13, start at Chapter 1, or find where you left off.
Audio performance by Anthony Michael Malec
Text copyright © 2025 Ed Herrington
Last time on The Flucks
The video wasn’t over; she was just still, finger hovering over the stop button. She wasn’t done talking. She sat back, re-entered the frame, and stared back into the camera.
“Fuck this, this doesn’t feel right. I don’t know if you can have platonic soulmates, but damnit, I’m going to have one. I know you’re out there. Slacy, get your shit together and come find me.”
Slacy had good news. Maybe. Sort of. He now has something to drive for. Good thing he prepared for a long trip.
Chapter 13 — We are so back
“What? That’s it?” I screamed. Galileo had enough of my shit and crawled into the back, lying on the bed platform.
I checked to make sure the video didn’t have more at the end. I checked for other messages. I replayed the vid looking for clues. Nothing!
The vid was sent days ago. I sent a text reply, hoping we could talk.
Hi, glad you're fucking alive. Where the fuck are you?
Probably not the fondest message considering the one she sent me. But she knew me. She understood the love in all those ‘fucks’. No reply. C’mon, it’s been five minutes! Is she still in the same place? Is she okay?
Then, I pulled my brain out of my ass and looked at the vid metadata. It was geo-tagged with coordinates. I sent another reply.
Never mind, I'm an idiot. On my way.
I put the car in drive and floored it, wheels kicking up dust, yanking cords and solar panels along.
“Shit shit, fuck fuck!”
I forgot I had left them out all night. Galileo channeled my anxiety and paced the bed perimeter, looking out each window, pausing long enough to fog them with panting.
“It’s alright, girl—I’m just an idiot.”
I got out, rolled up each panel, shouting ‘shit’ each time I tripped on a cable with chunky camp shoes. I shoved them under the bed platform and grabbed the cables, throwing them on top. I’d patch them later. I jumped into the front seat, waiting for the closing hatch—c’mon c’mon c’mon.
I put the car in drive and floored it, wheels kicking up dust, speeding off towards Chuq.
✹✹✹
We drove throughout the night. Thankfully, satnav worked—to a degree. It wasn’t getting updates, but the onboard computer had road data up until the point services cut out after the Flucks hit. I didn’t think any roads were added since, but you never know.
Chuq was south—way south. The vid’s geotag said it was taken somewhere near um… I could type it, but had a hard time pronouncing it in my head. I tried aloud.
“o…zac…aa? — o…hak…aa? — waa…haa…kuh?”
Yeah, think that’s it—Oaxaca—sounds like waa-haa-kuh. Hopefully whichever AI or poor soul they get to narrate the director’s cut of my eulogy can pronounce Spanish better than me.
It was about thirty-five hundred kilometers south. At least she was still on this continent. If we were separated by oceans, then what? We all know I can’t swim.
From what she said, Chuq was reborn many more times than me. I ended up places that couldn’t be the States, so she probably did too. She called it oblivion. She said some deaths were by her own hand. Oblivion indeed.
This is going to be a long ride. I needed some music to occupy my galloping mind.
Auto-drive engaged while I flipped through my CD binder for something to listen to. Yes. CD. With streaming services down, it was the best way I could listen to music. Snackbot had climbed shelf after shelf pulling discs. The thought of a multi-billion-dollar robot disc jockey made me laugh every time. I miss it already.
The only kind of music still making CDs, though, was K-pop and J-pop. Every album package was an experience. They were filled with band member photobooks, stickers, postcards—all kinds of stuff. I don’t think they actually expected anyone to play the discs.
I had been growing quite a collection of album inclusions at the warehouse. The next guy to go in the manager’s office is going to find a shrine to K-pop all-stars.
While Snackbot had a large music collection in its memory, it was nothing recent or from my formative years. Also, I couldn’t exactly have it follow me around playing music all day, fun as that might be. But now I was also limited to K-pop and a few J-pop albums.
That reminded me, I left my latest favorite disc in Snackbot’s belly. Oh, well. Maybe I should have figured out how to get its music library transferred to GOATmobile before I left.
The car drove over a patch of snow, bumping the disc, causing a track-skip. Snackbot found a disc player that worked wirelessly—now velcro-mounted to the dash. No one ever bothered to solve the skipping problem once CDs were abandoned for digital.
Oh, you noticed I said ‘auto-drive’ before my K-pop ramble? Don’t worry, this isn’t like Shitmobile’s shit AI. It’s the latest tech, not some thirty-year-old garbage that was garbage when it came out. Voltivian made rugged stuff—reliable, even offline. AI was fully onboard, none of that shared with the cloud crap. It’s as if they were prepping for an apocalypse.
Just think of Snackbot and how well it was built. Though, I don’t think GOATmobile is anywhere near as capable as the big robot. I trusted Snackbot, and I could trust this car. Haven’t bothered talking with it, though it was able. I preferred physical buttons.
I didn’t mind the long drive. My mom and I would take cross-country road trips for camping. This would be like old times. My first road trip in decades. We avoided stopping in big cities—wasn’t her scene. I wouldn’t have time to do any sightseeing this trip, though.
I had a full charge when I left, so I could go sixteen hundred kilometers. The car’s integrated solar panels would give me about sixty kilometers of range per day. It would take months to meet Chuq at that rate.
Eight solar rolls gained me four hundred kilometers a day, but I had to stop to use them. Those, plus integrated panels—with six hours of winter sunlight—I could get about five hundred kilometers daily range. Not great, but I didn’t have much choice. So, I could see Chuq in eight days.
Could have driven faster, but that would have drained battery faster. Besides, AI wouldn’t self-drive more than 10% over the speed limit. Highway limit was 145 kph—ironically because of modern self-driving safety. Manual drive was an option, but let’s face it, I’d get bored of that fast.
I paid attention to the road even when GOATmobile was driving. Every dozen kilometers or so, a car sat abandoned on the shoulder. Never know when a dead car would be in the middle of the road. I say abandoned, but I’d probably find piles of dust in each one. I’m lucky the highway hadn’t been busier and left more car hazards. With the Flucks, most people stayed home.
Adrenaline from the Chuqmail was wearing off. Highway streetlights were still on, charged by solar. Rhythmic pulsing as we sped past them was hypnotizing. My mind started lagging.
It had been a few hours. Galileo was sleeping on the bed. I could have crawled back there and let the car do all the driving. I trusted GOATmobile’s AI more, but let’s not get too crazy.
It was then I realized I forgot the most important thing. I made an inventory todo list and everything—Snackbot was right, I should have let it tend the list. Crap—there’s no way I could make this trip without coffee.
Galileo and I had enough calorie-dense food and nutrient pills for a hundred days. Enough water for a few days and we’d harvest more along the way. I needed to pee. I needed to stretch my legs. I needed caffeine.
I saw a Scar Flucks sign before an exit. We were well beyond the city. Avoiding more big cities seemed a good plan, though for different reasons than Mom’s. I’ve seen way too many zombie shows and know how those turn out.
It was the middle of the night. All streetlights, traffic lights, and building lights were off. The town was dead. After hearing from Chuq, I now knew I wasn’t the only one left. So, I expected to see at least some sign of life.
We pulled into the Scar Flucks parking lot, shining headlights through its windows. Nothing jumped onto the glass and screamed—so that’s good, right? I grabbed Ash’s flashlight and got out, Galileo following.
We did our business in bushes, then I threw a big rock, shattering a store window into a million beads. I clicked on the flashlight, tightened my grip on Sir Terry Hatchet, and walked through, glass crunching under my boots.
It looked like any closed store—seats upside down on tables, clean counters. Like employees came in one day, completed a shift, and never returned.
I crept, low, ready to throw. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but it would find me ready. crunch. crunch. crunch. I spun around, coiling back my Hatchet arm, locking on target. A thick shadow crawled across glass beads.
“Jeezus! Galileo, you nearly gave me a second heart attack.”
With a racing heart, I took in the rest of the scene. No piles of dust. I ran my finger through a thick layer of ordinary dust on a table. No one had been there in a while. Satisfied there’d be no attack, I stowed Terry on his loop and surveyed my options.
I’d have loved to fire up the espresso machine, but we were on a tight schedule. Lukewarmbrew tap was moldy—nope. I settled for a few dozen canned coffee drinks.
With caffeine in my veins and GOATmobile doing most of the work, we drove on. I checked my blog for new DMs. Nothing. It was latenight—but come on—I was dying for a reply.
Eight hundred kilometers and six hours in, I needed to crash before I literally crashed. I pulled over to a rest stop—between towns seemed safest. My eyes were sagging, my bones were heavy, and my ass was sore from sitting, but I needed to roll out solar panels.
Sun would rise soon. My plan was to drive at night and charge during prime solar hours. Galileo sniffed around, got bored of hard parking surface, then ran towards picnic tables for peemails. She’d alert me if anything was hungry for flesh.
I set up panels with hardly any light. Moon was absent, and it seemed like this rest stop hadn’t upgraded to solar-powered streetlights. Looked like this whole thing hadn’t upgraded in decades. People didn’t drive as much since high-speed trains and drone transports were faster.
Crawling into the back of the car, I lay on the bed platform. Galileo curled up on the blanket, nestled behind my legs. I left the heater running, which shouldn’t drain battery too much since the sun would be up soon.
I awoke to screeching metal, a grackle on the roof rack. Sun was high overhead, peak charging time. My stomach growled—time to eat a cardboard-flavored mealbar. I slipped on camp shoes and jacket then did the awkward slide into front seat from back seat thing.
Galileo ran out as soon as I opened the door. She barked at grackles loitering in the parking lot wondering what kind of meal we would make. In the dark, I didn’t realize how much the terrain had changed. Afternoon was chilly, but it was green all around. We were surrounded by tall pines. Luckily, none of their shadows blocked any solar panels.
I grabbed a can of coffee and unwrapped a bar then sat in the driver’s seat to check the dash readout. That can’t be right. Only thirty-three percent battery? It should be at least forty-five by now.
When I set out panels in the dark, I hadn’t realized how damaged the cables were from dragging them as I drove off. Some insulation was stripped and most connectors were bent. Charging had degraded to a third of what it should be.
Fuck. This would triple the timeline. I did this. My own stupid fault for forgetting the panels were plugged in. I couldn’t afford to make mistakes out here. If I died, who knows where I’d come back.
I didn’t want to wait a long month to get to Chuq. I rifled through my toolbox finding some duct tape. Well, not really duct tape, some kind of fancy polymer stuff, but close enough.
I taped up stripped wires and bent the connectors back into place best I could. Now getting five kilowatts—better, but still only half what it should be. I’d need a better fix. I could get wires anywhere, but these connectors wouldn’t be as easy to find.
We sat for a couple more hours taking advantage of unobstructed sun. Before we started off, I checked my blog. Ding—I had a DM.
OMFG i knew it!!! send vid for proof of life
Author’s Notes
Slacy is well on his way to Chuq, I hope.
I’m guess I’m still posting on this platform—for now. It’s becoming obvious Substack doesn’t really care about enforcing their terms of service. Freedom of speech—not freedom from consequences—unless you’re on Substack, apparently.
People are harassing women with threats, racist slurs, bigotry, and deepfakes of their likeness. So far, the Substack team isn’t doing anything about it other than hitting the big, red delete button.
For more info, read the open letter to the substack team- a platform slowly turning into a sanctuary for online abuse, also sign the petition.
To get anyone up top to pay attention, we have to hit them where it hurts. Money. Like many others, I’ve turned off paid subscription. If we hurt their bottom line, then maybe they’ll do something. Signs point to no, though. Time for contingency plans. Stay and fight, or leave this site to the assholes?
Next Chapter Coming Soon
