Disclaimer: Daria and her associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for fun.

Apocalyptic Daria

by

Doggieboy80

"Tell me again why we're here, at this convenience store, today of all days," Daria Morgendorffer said as she stood against her mother's car.

Jane Lane handed Daria a twenty ounce plastic bottle of Ultra Cola, a sub sandwich and a bag of potato chips. She smiled at her friend patiently and said, "The adventure of it, amiga." She opened her soda and sipped it briefly. "Best of all, it's here and not Lawndale."

Daria looked down, lifted her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose, then yawned. "You wake me up, con my mom into letting us borrow her car, just to have us drive some two hundred miles into West Virginia to eat lunch? Then what do we do?"

"We drive back to Lawndale."

"I could have stayed in bed another two or three hours."

Jane took a bite of her sub and chewed it while trying to smile at Daria. After she swallowed the food, she said, "You would have rather stayed at the same old house, reading the same old books or watching the same old TV. Then you would have wanted to eat the same old pizza and watched more of the same old TV." She waved her free arm at the hilly countryside. "You would rather have done all that when you could come here instead and see all this beautiful scenery?"

"And this is better how?"

"It's a change of pace. C'mon, Morgendorffer, it's Spring, time to shake off old man Winter and just be...spontaneous."

"How are we going to explain to my parents that we put four hundred-plus miles on Mom's car?" Daria asked and took a drink of the cola. "Sick or not, she's not going to accept 'spontaneous' as an excuse."

"You're an old fuddy-duddy. Just tell her that a band of roving gypsies forced us at gunpoint to drive them to a mini-mart in West Virginia." She saw Daria's blank stare and added, "Oh, all right, just tell her the truth. Tell her that we were abducted by aliens who wanted to examine the car in detail, including rectal probes. Also tell her that they dropped us off here and that we had to drive back, and were forced to listen to Slim Whitman on the radio."

Daria took a bite of the sub and chewed on it as she looked at her smiling friend. As she opened the bag of chips, she said, "You had me convinced until you mentioned Slim Whitman. No one will believe that one."

"I always go too far," Jane said with a shrug. "How do you like your lunch?"

Daria looked down at the sub. "What's this sandwich called? It's pretty good." Then she ate a couple of chips.

"A CBS sub," Jane replied and took another bite. As she chewed, she continued. "It has cheddar cheese, bacon and steak. I thought you might like it."

"It's nice to know that I can have variety when I clog my arteries. It gives me something to look forward to when I get older."

"Look at it this---" Jane was interrupted by a bright flash to their east. They looked to the east, as did a couple of men at the gas pumps. "What the hell was that?"

Daria still looked eastward as she said, "I don't know. Maybe a transformer explosion or something."

A second bright flash happened, this time to their north. Jane and Daria felt heat on the left side of their faces and one of the men pumping gas suddenly screamed. As the girls looked at him, he fell to the ground, his hands over his eyes. The gas nozzle he used flew to the side, gasoline spewing out the end. The other man stopped what he was doing and ran to offer assistance.

Daria and Jane then looked north, in the direction of Pittsburgh, and watched in numbed horror as a purple and red column rose into the sky. As the top blossomed into a black mushroom cloud creased with lightning, Daria whispered, "Oh, shit."

Jane scooped their food into the bag and said, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

The two girls jumped into the car and Daria quickly started the car. She then sped out of the mini-mart's parking lot and onto a four-lane highway. Doing so, she pulled out in front of another car and barely missed being hit.

As they rushed back towards I-68, Daria weaved the car around several stalled vehicles and narrowly avoided accidents with other still moving cars. A couple of times, she had to drive left of center to keep going forward.

"What's wrong with some of the cars?" Jane asked and shook with each near miss. "Why are they stopped?"

"Electromagnetic pulse from Pittsburgh," Daria said and glanced quickly at the black cloud still growing over the destroyed city. "Although I don't know why it missed us. The hills, maybe, or perhaps the mini-mart shielded us. I...I just don't know."

Both girls could hear thunder from the north. It grew in intensity as the seconds passed.

As they drove down the highway, a loud roar, different than the Pittsburgh thunder, could be heard. Neither girl could tell where it came from, however. Then the sound of a local air-raid siren could be heard.

Jane looked at Daria with tears in her eyes. "Where did the first one explode?"

Daria didn't answer right away, swallowed in her fear and said, " I think it was Washington."

"Amiga, that's not even fifty miles from Baltimore...and Lawndale."

Daria's chin quivered as she sped back onto the interstate's eastbound lane. "I know, Jane. I know."

Just then, the ground started shaking and the girls screamed as Daria fought to keep the car on the road and going forward. The car went off the right side once and she managed to swerve back onto the outside lane. A light pole just past the entrance ramp fell and landed on a pickup truck behind them, which resulted in a shower of sparks. Jane stared back at the accident and then looked at the growing cloud over Pittsburgh.

As the shaking subsided, Daria said, "There'll be another ground shock coming from the first explosion. Buckle up."

Jane moved and reached over Daria, grabbed the seat belt and connected it securely. Then she buckled herself in as well.

A black pillar of smoke rose in the distance ahead and Jane said, "Something's wrong up ahead."

"I think it's off the road," Daria said and swerved to avoid being hit by a bus.

"How fast are you going?" Jane asked.

"Seventy-five. I don't think I can handle the car good enough at any higher speed."

The interstate had the same amount of traffic that it did earlier that morning, but the smooth flow of it was disrupted drastically. Several vehicles in both lanes had stalled, and others were involved in pile-ups. One hill they passed had a massive fire on it and they saw what looked like the tail of a passenger jet sticking into the air from the flames. Flaming debris fell from the accident onto the westbound lanes, hitting vehicles or bouncing in different directions.

Some of the debris was human bodies.

Several more times they passed bodies on the road at an accident site or just off the road. They avoided all of them and drove on.

Then the second ground shock came, this time not as intense. Daria simply gripped the wheel tighter and said, "Turn on the radio. See what they're saying, if anything."

Jane pushed several buttons, but all they heard was static. Even the AM dial was silent. She covered her face and sobbed.

"Jane, stay with me here."

The tall girl held in her cries, took a deep breath and looked over at her friend. "I just thought of Trent. He was sleeping when we left."

"I know. I can't stop thinking about Mom, Dad, and Quinn."

"What if...what if Lawndale isn't there anymore?"

"I don't know, Jane," Daria said and looked forward. "I don't know."