I know it hasn't been that long, but since this chapter isn't a proper story (just an introduction bit), I'll just get this up now.
Meet the Humans
Long before the Interstate was built, there were three human families living in Radiator Springs, including an extended family of three generations.
Perhaps the extended family, the Donovans, would be the best ones to start off with meeting.
William and Alice Donovan, both born in 1897, were childhood sweethearts from Oakland, California, who met on their first day of school. They had been inseparable ever since. The longest they'd ever been apart was when William was sent off to fight in World War I. The whole time, Alice feared he would never return and when he did return with his right leg missing, she was just grateful that he'd returned at all. Not long after the war, while travelling across America, they came across a small town in Arizona headed by a friendly car named Stanley. Not only did they like Stanley, but they admired his ambition to create a town in the middle of nowhere. So, they decided to stay and help with the development of Radiator Springs, eventually being part of both the expansion of the town and the Radiator Springs Board of Tourism. They had three children: Peter, born in 1919; Francis, born in 1923 and Ethel, born in 1939.
Peter and his wife, Susan (born in 1920, originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania), ran a clothing store in town back in its heyday. They had four children: Johnny, born in 1951; Richard, born in 1953; Agnes, born in 1960 and William AKA Billy, born in 1963.
Francis was a war hero in the Second World War. This was, in fact, where he met his wife, Katherine (born in England in 1920; known as Miss Katherine by the children and Kath by the adults), who was a nurse during the war. Afterwards, they returned to Radiator Springs together where Francis became a doctor while Kath became a teacher for all of the children in town. Kath and Francis had six children: Irene, born in 1956; Francis John Donovan, Jr. AKA Frankie, born in 1957; Constantine AKA Connie, born in 1958; David AKA Davey, born in 1959; Suzanne, born in 1960 and Molly, born in 1962. These kids also had a German Shepherd named Bruce, whom everyone in town loved. (By the way, all of the children that lived in Radiator Springs had been born in Ashgrove, but raised in Radiator Springs. Fudge was the first human to ever be born in Radiator Springs.)
Ethel worked in the cafe in Radiator Springs and never married. She always wanted to and when she got pregnant in 1956 when she was seventeen, she got engaged to the father, a law student named Julian, who lived in Velo City. However, Julian was killed in a plane crash before they could get married. Ethel named her daughter Julia after him.
All of the people born into the Donovan family had reddish-gold hair and green eyes (Davey and Irene wore glasses). Alice and Susan both had brown hair and Alice had blue eyes while Susan had brown. Kath had blonde hair and brown eyes.
Also living in Radiator Springs at the same time as the Donovans were the Warszawskis, a Jewish couple named Jonathan and Miriam, both born in 1924, who had fled Europe right before World War II broke out. They arrived in Radiator Springs in 1944 with their identical twin daughters, Anna and Rachel, who were only a few months old. Jonathan and Miriam worked at the Cozy Cone Motel while their daughters went to school and sang, danced and performed, dreaming of making it to Broadway. The four of them all had dark, curly hair and brown eyes.
The final human family to live in Radiator Springs in the town's heyday was the Morrisons. Howard, born in 1931, was Sheriff's deputy while his wife Audrey, born in 1933 in Seaford, Delaware, was a second teacher for the children alongside Kath. Howard and Audrey had three children: Robert, born in 1955; Janice, born in 1958 and Victoria, born in 1964. All five of them had blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Dad-gum!" Mater exclaimed. "I remember dem! Irene and Frankie and Connie and Davey and Bruce used ta play wit' me all da time!"
"Really?" Fudge was interested.
"Yeah, dey was my best friends!" the tow truck insisted. "But now, Lightnin' McQueen is my best friend!"
"And you're mine, buddy", Lightning responded with a smile.
"I thought I was your best friend!" Fudge piped up, sounding hurt.
"I can have two best friends, Fudge-O", Lightning assured her.
"Okay", she agreed. She turned back to Luigi. "So, what happened to all of the humans? How come they don't live in Radiator Springs anymore?"
"Well, that is partly due to the Interstate", Luigi explained. "A lot of the cars were leaving too, hoping they could find more business and more money in bigger towns and cities."
"But... Radiator Springs is home", Fudge pointed out. "How could they leave?" She remembered how much she hated facing the possibility of leaving her home.
"I am glad you think so, angel." Luigi kissed her. "But not everyone felt that way. We were all worried that we were not going to have any money. And a lot of the children started leaving when they grew up. They wanted to go to college."
"They all promised to be back", Lizzie added, "but I suppose the big city life was everything they dreamed of."
"Yeah, a lot of them got their dream job, got married and started families or both", Ramone spoke up.
"Or they ended up like Johnny Donovan", Sarge muttered.
"What happened to him?" Lightning wanted to know. He was just as curious about this as Fudge.
"Got into a bunch of fights and wound up in juvenile detention", Sarge explained. "Then he got into another fight there and it killed him. He was only sixteen years old." Under his breath, he grumbled, "That good-for-nothing kid."
"Hey, he was a good kid, man!" Fillmore defended him. "He just made some bad choices."
Sarge rolled his eyes.
"So, all the humans left?" Fudge asked.
"No, no, no!" Luigi answered. "Quite a few stayed. Except for Francis and his family, who moved away to Chicago, all of the Donovans stayed. Jonathan and Miriam stayed. The Morrisons stayed... It is just that some only stayed for a while and others... they started to pass away..."
In 1966, thirty-four-year-old Howard Morrison was killed during the Vietnam War. Later that year, his thirty-three-year-old wife, Audrey, was shot and killed in a protest against the Vietnam War. (Their children stayed in town for a while, being adopted by the entire town before Janice and Victoria grew up and left in favour of the big cities.) Two years later, in 1968, Jonathan Warszawski was also killed in the Vietnam War. He was forty-four and had been shot dead while helping a wounded nineteen-year-old soldier to safety.
"That was just the type of person Jonathan was", Sarge commented with that long, kind of wistful stare he got whenever he talked about brave soldiers, especially those who had lost their lives. "Loyal, caring, unselfish..."
"I think we met the soldier he saved once", Sheriff piped up. "He was so grateful, he bought everyone in town drinks and spent a week here... What was his name again?"
"River Rose, I believe", Sarge replied after thinking for a moment. "He was a nice man."
A year later (1969), Peter and Susan realised how bad things were getting for the town with a lack of business. So, they set their clothing store on fire in an attempt to collect the insurance money. It didn't work; they were arrested and sent to prison for arson. So, their three younger children were sent to live with Susan's sister in California. Peter committed suicide in his cell a year later at the age of fifty-one and when Susan was eventually released from prison, she just decided not to go back to Radiator Springs.
For a while after that, it did seem like the humans in Radiator Springs were dropping like flies. In 1984, sixty-year-old Miriam died of a heart attack. She'd just been cleaning out cone number seven when the heart attack came- as sudden as a sneeze- and then she was gone.
"Is that why Mater thinks cone number seven is haunted?" Lightning questioned.
Sheriff nodded seriously. He loved a good ghost story, but this one had one obvious flaw. "Although, why Miriam would choose to haunt the town, I don't know. She loved it here. Even if she was depressed after losin' her husband."
"There's not really a ghost, is there?" Fudge questioned fearfully, her blue eyes wide.
"Even if there was", Sheriff replied, "I told you Miriam liked this town. She wouldn't be hauntin' us. She'd just wanna keep an eye on her home."
Fudge nodded, but she was still a little spooked.
Lightning noticed this and decided to change the subject. "So, what about everyone else?" He wanted to know as well.
In 1988, Ethel was hit and killed by a taxi while running errands in Ashgrove. She was forty-eight. The previous year, Robert Morrison and Julia Donovan, who were married by then, were expecting their first child and decided they wanted their child to be raised in a larger town. So, they moved to a town- larger than Radiator Springs, but still relatively small- just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Finally, only two humans remained: William and Alice Donovan. Unfortunately, that didn't last very long either. William died of a stroke in 1993 when he was ninety-six years old. Two days later, his ninety-five-year-old wife, Alice, died too. According to the official records, Doc listed her cause of death as "natural causes". However, all of the residents of Radiator Springs knew that she had died of grief and loneliness after the death of her husband.
"It was not for another seven years that a human lived in Radiator Springs", Luigi concluded. "And, of course, we were so happy she did." He kissed Fudge on the top of her head and cuddled her.
She beamed. "Thanks!" Then she added, "Wow! They all sound like really cool people. I wish I could have met them. Except for Peter and Susan. That fire sounds really scary." Fire scared Fudge more than anything.
"And Johnny", Sarge reminded her.
"And Johnny", Fudge repeated in agreement, remembering how Johnny had been described.
"The rest of them were wonderful people, Fudgie", Luigi proclaimed. "They would have loved you so much!"
"Of course they would", Sally agreed with a smile. "How could anyone not love Fudge?"
The eight-year-old girl beamed again.
There was a moment of silence as the townsfolk remembered their departed friends mournfully. Lightning, Sally and Fudge, who had never met any of them, simply tried to picture these humans living in the small town. Hanging out at Flo's. Children playing with Mater. Lending a helping hand to anybody who needed it.
Finally, Doc, as the unofficial mayor of Radiator Springs, broke the silence. "So, did, uh, did anyone have a story yet?"
"I do!" five or six of the others replied.
"All right. Who wants to go first?"
"Oh!" one rusty, dented tow truck exclaimed excitedly, jumping all over the place. "Me, me, me!"
Everyone laughed. That was classic Mater. It would've been classic Fudge too, but she didn't have an idea yet.
"All right, Mater", Doc obliged with a laugh. "Why don't you start us off?"
So, the next chapter is gonna be the first story. That one and the one after it are based on Cars stories I've read, but I'm hoping I can create some original ones as well. Please review.
