General Lee's Revenge

Chapter Seven: Dixieland

General Lee couldn't recollect what'd happened. He remembered sitting next to the pickup, then someone lifting his hood and connecting jumpercables to his battery. There'd been a surge of electricity and that's when he'd blacked out. Now, as he awakened in the cool waters of the Shenandoah, all he could think of was the tugging on his back axle. His rear end was being lifted up, out of the water, and he watched as the muddy bottom was slowly pulling farther and farther away.

General rolled up onto the bank, shaking mildly with fear. He jumped at the sound of a winch dropping to the sand. There was a hum as the winch was retracted. General turned around slowly to see the pickup sitting there.

"Who... who are you?" General asked.

The truck didn't reply. Its engine roared to life and he backed away from the bank. He whipped around, charging out of the swamp.

"Hey! Wait! Can you at least tell me your name?" General called, chasing after it.

The truck sped up, driving into the junkyard. General followed it inside. He swerved through the maze of scrapped cars, trying to follow the truck through. General had been in this junkyard dozens of times before but still managed to lose the truck. He found himself at a dead-end. He turned to go back out the way he came, but the truck suddenly zoomed past him, knocking over a pile of cars, and blocking General's escape. He was trapped inside the small area, alone and in the dark.

"P-please, I didn't mean nothin' by it, I just wanted to know who you were!" General exclaimed, trying to get the truck to come back and let him out.

The only reply from the truck was an approaching thunderstorm that had quite literally come from nowhere. General flinched as the cold droplets of rain began to splatter onto his windshield. He sighed and turned his headlights on. He turned his engine off, listening closely to his surroundings. He could hear the soft rumble of an engine through the wall of junk in front of him.

"I know you're still there, why don't you come in here and fight me like a real car?" General taunted.

"General? Is that you? Where are you? It's like a bloody maze in here!" came a distressed reply.

"Christine? What're you doin' here? How'd you know I was here?"

"If I'm being totally honest here, I wasn't looking for you, I was looking for Cooter's pickup truck. It's a Defect you know."

"I'm sorry... Defect?"

"Uh, yeah. Like a living car, you and me, we're Defects."

"What kinda insightful name is that?"

"Listen, I'm going to get you out of there, just hold on."

Defect? That's what living cars were to humans? That term burned holes in General's mind. There was nothing defective about them, they could do more than normal cars! He thought about how when he'd started acting up, Luke thought there was something mechanically wrong with him. A mechanical defect, people didn't see them as living cars, they saw their hearts as mechanical problems, defective engines. Wait a minute...

"What d'you know about that truck? Are y'all friends?" General asked Christine.

"We're not friends, actually, I've never met him, I've just heard rumors," Christine called in reply.

"Rumors from who?"

"Cars passed in and out of Cooter's Garage every day, there's more Defects out there than you think."

"Will you please quit callin' our kind Defects?"

"That's what we're named, there's no changing that. You can either wear it with pride or shame yourself and others."