Chapter 10 -- The Amazing Adventures of Ralph Kroder

Which way did they go?

       Ralph sat behind the wheel in the golf cart. The sun placed the time around 10 o’clock. 

       “Okay,” he said after a few minutes of contemplating grass and sun and the flat stones of the road. “We can’t stay here. Bodies are gonna get ripe and draw buzzards and whatever else feeds on the dead. Like wolves and bears.” He chuckled. “Hey, me who locked you away years ago. This place have bears and wolves?” -- I don’t know anything about this place. -- “Really? I thought you knew everything.” -- I don’t know any more than you do. -- “Well, damn. That kind of limits us on things.”-- Let me add a modification. I probably retained things you didn’t hear because you were busy answering or arguing. -- “I always listened before talking.” His mind heard a snorting sound. -- If that’s what you want to believe … -- “It’s a fact.” -- Ookay. -- “Got any suggestion on which way to go?” -- We’re pointed northwest. -- Ralph shook his head. “Nope. We’re liable to run into hippies or other kinds of dope smokers. I don’t want to be in the neighborhood of those people.” -- Kind of judgmental, aren’t you? -- “When it comes to some things, yes. I don’t want to be around hippies or liberals. Or survivalists, if I can help it. They’re all convinced their way is the only way, and anybody who disagrees is going straight to hell.” -- Well, I guess we’ll go southeast. The clothes on the dead men, I’d say means this place gets cold in a few months. -- “Southeast it is, then. We don’t want to test this thing’s cross-country abilities.”

Ralph turned the ignition key. The hand on the power gauge pegged on high green. “Here’s to my wife changing my mind about solar panels.”