FSE

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The next morning I actually managed to sleep in. That's not to say it was a comfortable sleep, quite the opposite. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to find an engine that would handle the power that had to go in it. 700 horses from a 2 liter only stays together for so long. There was more shit that you can dream of that can go wrong with these things. Oh, and speaking of shit that goes wrong, the next morning? Yeah it was about 20 degrees outside and it was fucking pouring rain. There was ice on the windows and the cold was biting me through the covers. I pulled myself out of bed and forced myself to dress before I went down stairs, finding Abbie screwing with a wall socket. Raf was sitting on a bean bag chair playing Minecraft and Jericho was asleep behind it.

"Replacing a plug?", I asked pulling my boots on.

"Yeah", she said, "I wok up and the damn thing was oozing out from the wall."

I laughed a little.

"what's so funny?", Abbie asked.,

"Just the thought of seeing a plug oozing out of a wall", I said, "anyway, can I have the keys to the F550? I wanna go see if I can haul one of those Rams back here and get the engine out of it."

"I thought we were doing that together?", Abbie said.

I tilted my head, "you did?"

"Yeah", she answered, "is there a problem?"

"No", I answered, "I just didn't think you wanted to come with me to look for car parts."

'I figured since it was my truck you'd be using it was a given."

"I didn't", I answered, "hell when I show up you handed me the keys to your hundred fifty thousand dollar Focus and basically said "here you can drive this even though I don't know you", you hand me the keys to a race car, but your protective of a flat bed?"

Abbie looked at me after screwing the socket cover back in place, "that flat bed is a 450 thousand dollar investment."

"How the hell does the truck that carries a race car cost more than the race car?", I asked.

"Because it was built from the ground up on a stainless steel frame and packs a V8 that drives all six wheels", Abbie said, "not to mention a 20 thousand dollar compound charging system. Plus it's a Cabover, they aren't cheap."

"I guess not", I said.

"Let me put this stuff away and check on Raf's bullet hole and then we can get going."

I nodded. I told Raf to shut off the box and get dressed. And then woke up Jericho. He wasn't too happy that I woke him up, whimpering and whining at me.

"You had all night to sleep instead of watching porn", I laughed.

My dog just looked at me, unable to understand exactly what I was saying. I couldn't help but laugh.

"You heard me", I said, 'until you stop watching that crap I won't feel sorry for you if your tried."

"Jericho watches porn?", Abbie asked coming back down stairs.

'All guys have at some point in their lives", I said, "either because they want to, or out of curiosity or a dare."

"I don't watch it", Raf said.

"You were never exposed to it either", I said, "hopefully you never will be."

"Hey Cameron", Abbie said, "why don't you get your guns and put them in the truck, this is a pretty big town and those trucks are on the other side of it, I doubt we'll run into anybody, but hell, I'd rather be safe than sorry, keys are on the table up stairs."

"Got ya", I said going back up stairs. I grabbed my M4 and my Browning high power as well as my vest, took the keys off the table and then walked out to the truck. I unlocked the passenger's side door and climbed in, shutting it behind me. The cabin was cold as hell, so I stuck the keys in the ignition, started the truck and turned on the heater. When the truck started, the radio came on. Instead of staticy nothingness, I actually heard something.

"This is DJ Spark with Radio New America", a man's voice said, "I wanna take some time this morning to hail anyone whose out there and let you know if your looking for safety, Silverton Texas is the place to be. Delta Force commandos are watching over the town and they are looking for anyone willing to pick up a vest and a rifle, take a tractor to the surrounding farm land, or work in one of the many safe zones around the town, helping people going North, headed south, East Or West. Also boys and girls, a reminder to stay on the look out for Cannibals and Bandits, these are horrible, desperate people that will whack you over a can of ravioli. Stay low and out of sight if you can, if not, have your weapons ready. And now, some Music, this was a request of a PMC guy captured by cannibals, how could I turn him down, "Counting Stars" by One Republic, hopefully for you people who are trying to rebuild away from others, this makes the work on your car, the cleaning of your neighborhood, or shoveling snow from this morning's frost a lot more enjoyable."

"Holy crap", I muttered as the song came on, "the broadcast wasn't fake."

I left the radio on and quickly went back inside, finding Abbie just finishing up changing Raf's bandages.

"Hey Abbie", I said, "you need to come listen to this."

"Listen to what?", she asked as she started putting her medical kit back together.

"The radio in the F550 was on, it was 99.1, which is Radio New America."

"Say what?", she asked.

"Come here", I said, "you need to listen to this."

"Let me get this stuff put away", she said.

She quickly put her kit away, grabbed her shotgun and the keys to her focus before coming outside, when she opened the door, the song was on the final chorus. The look on her face when she saw the radio screen said it all.

"Oh man", she said, "is that there you guys were headed all along?"

"Yeah", I said climbing back into the truck, "I heard it the day before we started out, but at that time it was just one man and a one sentence signal, now it's an entire station."

"This whole time I thought you were lying", Raf said.

"Why would I lie about that?", I asked as Abbie put the 550 in gear.

"I thought you just needed an excuse to get away from the house that Mom and Dad died in", Raf said, "we could have stayed."

"No we couldn't have", I said, "we wouldn't have been able to gather enough food to make it through spring, never mind summer, fall and winter. We would have had to pack up the Chevy eventually."

"Yeah", Abbie said, 'I left my hometown in California shortly before Day 20. Loaded the Focus onto the bed and just started West. In LA you had to shoot your way in and shoot your way out. I can't tell you the number of times I got stopped by people searching for food."

'How come they didn't take your cars or your fuel?", I asked.

'For one", Abbie said, "the Diesel in the 550 is mixed with Isopropyl alcohol because the turbos under the hood of the 550 are compressing 70 pounds of boost. Try putting that shit in a Ford F150 and watch what happens, secondly, the Focus is a race car with a manual transmission. There are very few people left in this world, and even fewer can drive stick."

"Manual transmissions were dying even before the out brake", I sighed, "when my Dad and I did my Cummin's swap and we went to the Chevy dealer to pick up the transmission to bolt to the VWD Box, the guy kept steering us towards a Ricardo 5-Speed Paddle shift even though I insisted on the six manual from the Camaro, telling me that manuals were for people who quote "have small brains and wallets."

"Yeah I remember you telling Mom about that", Raf said.

'That guy had some nerve then", Abbie said pulling up to a stop sign. She was going around the corner when she suddenly stomped on the brakes. The 550 lurched and the turbo's mad a blow off noise, while the drums on the rear wheels seemed to be shouting swear words.

'What was that?", Raf asked from the back seat.

"There's a pack of wild pigs in the road", Abbie said.

She pointed. Sure enough, there was a pack of about 12 wild hogs in the middle of the street, looking at the big off roader that had almost plowed through them as if it were just another tree.

"How does a wild animal ignore the sound of drum brakes, turbos blowing off 70 PSI of boost and an exhaust louder than a room full of kindergartners?", I asked, "if I were one of those hogs I'd be running scared."

"I have no idea", Abbie said honking the air horn, "get out the way!"

The Hogs made no attempt to move, the 550 obviously didn't scare them that much.

"It's not worth wasting a bullet to scare them off", I said, "let's back up and go around."

"Sounds like a plan to me", Abbie said putting the truck in reverse. She backed up to the sign, put the truck back in drive and took the opposite, right hand turn.

"So where were we?", Abbie asked.

"We were discussing the death of the Manual Transmission", I said.

"Okay", Abbie said, "so where do you stand on the Stock Vs Modified? At least when it comes to trucks?"

"I don't wanna be riding around with 14 inch wheels and drum brakes", I said, "that does nothing for me. I went to look at another 240 before I built the Chevy that was bone stock. I got in it, went about two miles, turned around and handed it back to the guy and said, "this is for you."

"Before I bought the focus", Abbie said, "I had a 455 horsepower Chevy Camaro, 1969. One of the best cars I've ever driven in my life."

"Why?", Raf asked.

"It was tastefully modified", Abbie said, "everyone wanted to swap motors into those things or leave them stock, John Hennessy was strapping twin turbo V-10's into them, changing the wheel base, re-bodying them. But the one I had had a wing, some tires and some wheels, a nice pair of Willwood brakes, heads, cams exhaust and a Twin Screw. It was just a good, clean build and I'm wishing I'd kept it, it was one of the best V-8's I'd ever driven, and I've driven a lot of V8's."

Abbie braked for another corner, going around it pretty easy. We drove across town as the rain picked up, ending up at a vet's clinic, there were a few Dodge Rams parked outside, two of them were old as hell, while the other two looked to be around....2000 or so.

"Will any of these work?", Abbie asked.

"That 2000 model year green one should", I said taking off the lap belt, "I don't suppose you have the keys to them?"

She handed me a key with a piece of green tape, "They were on the bodies in the vet's office", she said.

"Are they at least clean?", I asked.

"Would I be handing them to you with my bare hands if they weren't?", Abbie asked.

"Good point", I said taking the keys and getting out of the Ford. I walked across the parking lot through the icy rain and unlocked the truck. It was a stock 2004 Dodge Ram with what looked like light weight wheels, but that was it, the rest of the truck seemed untouched, my guess was it was the guy's daily driver. I stuck the key in the cognition and turned it, the Dodge rattled for a bit before coming to life. Abbie backed out of the parking lot as I put the truck into drive and waited for Abbie to swing the big cabover around. Once she was headed down the road, I pulled out myself and put the pedal to the floor to catch up.

It was amazing how desensitized I'd become to speed. The dodge felt weak. I couldn't believe that the engine under the hood of this Ram was the same one that was churning 735 horsepower and 1350 foot pounds of torque to the wheels in my Chevy.

"This is a four cylinder my ass", I said as truck shifted to second gear, "where the hell is my Transfer Control?"

Now I remembered why I got into car modding in the first place. The Ram had no power, it had traction control, slippery tires, a bitchy 5 speed automatic with no sort of manual shifting controls whatsoever, it was way to quiet and didn't leave the smell of burnt fuel behind it like my Chevy did. When we got back to Abbie's settlement, the first thing I did was drive up to the garage and shut off the dodge. I opened the door to the work bay and backed the truck inside. I turned on the Chevy's radio and started ripping the 4 banger from the Ram. I disconnected the bar on the suspension towers and took the engine cover off, tossing it aside. I dis connected the exhaust, the intake, the glow plugs and the turbocharger, taking the fan blades to replace my damaged one. The fuel system came off next, then the cooling system, the wiring, crank cover, the cam shafts, valves, pistons and the crank. Piece by piece, hour by hour and drop of oil by drop of oil, the Cummin's 4 under the hood of the Ram was soon reduced to a pile of parts and the one I needed, the block. The block was almost the same spec as the one I blew out, because the Cummin's stuff is pretty tough from the factory, but what I was worried about was the piston rods. I had lost one of my CHF (cold hammer forged) rods when the engine blew out. I had no idea what throwing a stock rod in there would do to the integrity of the motor. I mean, there were Cummin's engines making fourteen hundred horsepower on the stock rods, but they were six cylinder, supercharged monsters with CHF blocks and all kinds of computer shit. I had a 4 cylinder with iridium glow packs, mechanical injectors and a Garret Turbo, was no where near all the high end shit those guys had. Lucky for me this engine had been rebuilt, probably by a Cummin's repair shop and it had the rod I needed, but it had nothing else to offer.

And as if my worries about losing my forged rods wasn't bad enough, the fact that the cold was trying to eat me alive certainly wasn't helping. It was 20 degrees, windy, raining and an all around disaster all day. My hands were numb since I couldn't work with gloves on and trying to move a 100 pound engine block that will without a doubt shatter if you drop it with numb hands doesn't help very much. I almost dropped it when I was taking it out of the ram and again just before I got it into the Chevy. When I finally got the block in, the mother fucker didn't fit the transmission. So then, just barely managing not to lose my shit, I took the block out, cut the ass end off, took the linkage from my old block and spent 5 hours cutting it down and making sure it fit flawlessly to the new block. Even with the tools I had in the garage, plus the ones I had in the Chevy that were designed to do this kind of work, it was a long laborious process, especially since I decided, what the hell, might as well put my after market cylinder sleeves back in. And that was another two hours. By the time I had the block in the car it was seven in the evening and I could smell dinner cooking inside the hideout.

Hungry as I was, my truck was torn to shreds and I almost couldn't stand to see it sitting there, looking like it did, with the engine torn out and her parts strewn all over a garage like it was a zebra that got killed and half eaten before the lion decided, "no I want burgers, not zebra." I worked as hard as I could, making sure everything was done right. I had just gotten the valves and the camshafts back in when Abbie came out, she was wearing just sweat pants, untied boots and a heavy jacket. She had a plate of Spanish rice and tortilla chips in her hand, it was still warm.

'You missed dinner Cameron", she said, "I would have come and got you, but Raf said it wasn't a good idea."

"Probably not", I said, "the block fought me at every turn. It didn't fit the transmission, it was heavy as fuck, it needed to be sleeved."

"Sounds like you've had a bad day", Abbie sighed.

"I did", I sighed as I finished hooking up the fuel system, "but it's done now and all I have to do is finish hooking up the wiring and then I can see if it will start. Hopefully it doesn't blow up in my face. Can you do me a favor and get everything possible out of my truck, the only extra thing I want in there at this point in time is a radio in case it brakes down on me."

Abbie nodded and started taking the duffel bags out of my truck. Once I had the wire's hooked onto the engine, I closed the hood and helped her. Bit by bit we cleaned the truck out and then I handed her the radio from my vest.

"Might wanna stay on stand by", I said, "be ready to come and get me. I'mma drive out about 10 or so miles and see what it does."

She nodded to me. I climbed into the truck, put the clutch down, set the transmission to neutral and turned the key. The truck sputtered and coughed for a minute before coming to life. I gave it a few rev's before it settled into a cammy, 500RPM idle, about 400 lower than what it used to have.

"I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad sign", I said shutting the door, "guess I'll find out."

"What?", Abbie asked.

"It's idling at 500 RPM", I said, "that's kind of low for engines period, never mind that it's making 700 horsepower."

"I'll have the F550 on stand by in case shit goes bad", Abbie said, "I'll try not to get too comfortable, even though it's 14 minutes to eleven."

"I'll try and make it back without braking down", I said putting it in first. I idled from the garage to the turn off that got back onto the interstate. I put the blinker on and slowed to a stop before making the right hand turn and pressing on the accelerator to take the truck through first gear and into second. The truck had a bit of a burp at the top of the power band, but once I hit second gear it smoothed right out. I'd even dare say it rode better with the rebuilt engine.

"On the power", I smiled at myself as I pushed my Avalanche through second gear and into third. The engine sounded a lot more like a cross between a rotary and a V8-DSC than it did a diesel. There was the smell of diesel and the sound of the turbos spooling up as 4th gear stepped up to the table. Through all of fourth gear the truck ran perfectly. Once I got fifth, however, it started to brake up.

"Oh no", I sighed, "let's see what sixth does."

I pushed the truck through 5th and into 6th. The way the engine was crackling made me think that it was fuel starving. When I looked at the air-fuel ratio gauge, it was hovering over poor. Fuel starvation for sure.

"Oh wonderful", I said down shifting and coming to a stop. I let the truck idle for a few minutes before it sputtered and died off. I could smell diesel coming from every where and there was smoke coming from the hood.. My guess was I hadn't hooked one of the lines up correctly.

"Abbie", I said, "I ran into a problem."

"What happened?", she said.

"The truck fuel starved", I said, "I can see smoke coming from the hood, my guess is I didn't hook one of the lines back up."

"You need me to come get you?", she asked.

"Maybe not get me", I said, "throw my tool bag into your Focus and get up here, I'll turn the hazard lights on."

"I can see you from the house", she said, "hold on, I'll be up there in a minute."

I hung up the radio, got out of the truck and cracked open the hood. I could see the loose fuel line sitting right over the cam cover with a diesel flavored icicle sticking out of it.

"Oh that's why it was starving", I sighed braking it out and shining my flashlight into it, "It was trying to suck a popsicle."

A few seconds after that, I heard the Focus start. I looked down hill and could see three sets of lights come on and start from the hide. About two minutes later, Abbie pulled up behind me, still dressed like she was ready for bed.

"It was not only a lose fuel line", I began, "but the fuel inside it was frozen solid."

"Did you get it flowing again?", Abbie asked.

"Looks like", I said a fuel dripped off the line. I hooked it back up and got back in the truck, pressing in the clutch and turning the key. My Avalanche roared to life and blew black smoke out the the exhaust pipes.

"Hey", Abbie said, "if we can get up to the Shell station, I can turn on the generators and we can flush out your system and put some of the gas for the F550 in your truck, that stuff won't slush on you."

'Yeah", I said, "let's do that."

I shut the door and put the truck in gear as Abbie went back to her focus. I allowed her to lead as we went up hill. When we got to the station, only the covered area over the pumps was lit, while the inside of the store was dark. Abbie parked in front of one of the pumps while I pulled in behind her and killed the truck, Abbie stepped out of the Focus and went around back where the generators were. While she was gone, I took the opportunity to look over the Texas Circuit Terror. This was the first time I had seen one of my favorite rally cars of all time, at least in person.

Abbie's 2007 Ford Focus ST was Mate black with green side decals. It was sporting a WRC front bumper and side skirts, a tall, blacked out wing, TOXN RL rims and a scoop that allowed me to see the Roots blower that was feeding the 900 horsepower inline Five underneath the WRC hood. It had the standard doors and neon that lit the door sills when she opened it. It was sitting about four inches from the ground. High as hell considering it was made to be a sports car, whereas the Ford Fiesta was the rally car. The interior was done in black and red. All of the gauges, buttons and dials had brushed, red painted aluminum trim while the plastic that made up the rest of the interior was black. The shifter went up to five gears and the steering wheel was from Ford Racing. Raf was in the passenger side, which was a Momo Italy seat, asleep, covered with a blanket and Jericho was chilling in the hilariously small Sparaco Back seats which were made even smaller by the fact that there was a roll cage in the back that was holding onto the six point harnesses.

"Generators are on", Abbie said coming back, "let's flush out your fuel system and then fill it with fresh gas."

It took us till about midnight to get the fuel system out, cleaned and back in. Once it was full. Abbie shut of the generator's and climbed back into her car. She and I then went down the mountain. Through the whole way, the truck never once faltered. Once we were back at the hide, I parked next to the F550. I shut everything off and went up stairs. I took a hot shower to rid myself of the deep, penetrating cold, dressed in the heaviest night wear I had and then went straight to my bed. I was very nearly asleep when Abbie spoke up. It was a whisper, but just loud enough to hear.

"You guys are taking off soon?", she asked, "aren't you?"