Author's Note FTW!
OMFG I'M SO SORRY! I doubt there's anyone following this story, but just in case there is, I'm so sorry for not updating in weeks. I've been so stressed lately with school, finishing everything (in Music Comp especially) in time for the end of the term. But the term just ended, so hopefully I'll update a bit more often.
Okay, so about that last chapter. I must apologize for all that emotional crap with Angel's fiancé. Like the rest of the story, it was basically made up on the spot. For some reason my nerves were on mush mode that day. And I'll warn you now, we're not quite out of the woods yet because there's still some sap to come. It'll get cleaned away soon though, no worries. ;D
June 9, 2019
The sun is barely peeking over the far-away horizon when I wake up. I feet a cold presence next to me, and jump when I see that it's him. I close my eyes, wanting to shut out last night's memory. Wanting to forget that he was dead now.
But I can't. And I know it's time to let him go.
I get up and stretch. Oooh, sleeping on the ground is SO not recommended. I walk around the camp, looking for a nice place to put my fiancé to rest. I don't just want to bury him in some forgotten grave in these flatlands—he needs a gravestone or something. So I settle on burying him beneath one of the boulders just outside the camp.
Making sure the grave will face the sunrise, I begin to dig using just my bare hands. It's gruelling for sure, and it is also not recommended. But I don't want to use any tools. I need some sort of reconciliation for being partially responsible for his death. It takes two hours for me to dig one a bit over two feet deep.
And then I drag him over.
And then I lay him in to ground.
And then I say my last goodbye.
Though I wish I could leave his body like that, forever looking to the heavens and hopefully seeing something nice, I don't want the vultures to pick him apart. Still, it seems so unjust to obscure his view with something so polluted as dirt. It's not fair. But then, his demise wasn't right, either.
Life sucks sometimes.
With one final glance at his pathetic grave, I head back to the central part of the camp to get breakfast cooking. However, I'm surprised to see that Poison beat me to it. He's eating Power Pup from a frying pan. He must have cooked it over the fire.
"Good morning," he cheerfully greets me.
I eye him suspiciously. "How long have you been up?"
He shrugs. "Half an hour. I didn't think you wanted to be disturbed." He holds up his frying pan. "Breakfast?"
I take the can and grab the Swiss army knife from my back pocket, pulling out the spoon extension.
He stares at my utensil incredulously. "You have one? Those haven't been around for years!"
I laugh. "My old man gave it to me before BL/Ind got him."
He gives me a knowing nod. "So where are you stationed, anyway?"
"The outamoft ed off Zone 2. Kinda near where Fan Fanshishco ushed to be."
"What was that?" He laughs. "Finish chewing."
I frantically swallow my lump of food. "Near where San Francisco used to be, in Zone 2."
"Oh yeah? So how'd you end up here in Zone 1? Alone?"
I scarf down a few bites more bites before answering. "I've got connections with Dr Death. I'm one of the people he trusts most."
"And yet you ruined it by telling me."
"Yeah, well, I took pity on you. That red hair of yours is hideous." LIES. I love his hair.
"Hey, don't knock the hair," he says as he smoothes it back. "Besides, it's prettier than yours. Blue? Purple? Indigo? What colour is it supposed to be?"
"ALL OF THEM." With that, I swallow my last spoonful. "So you heading back to Zone 4 now?"
He looks away and rubs his neck. I notice he has red dye on it. "Yeah, I'd better. No one was really crazy about me heading out by myself anyway."
"So why ARE you alone, anyway?"
He looks down. "Well, I kinda had a fight with my brother and just needed to get away from everything for a while. The camp was just an excuse for something to do, you know?"
I nod and stand. "I guess I should get going too. I need to get the info I collected back to Dr Death."
He gets up too and takes about two steps in the direction of the bikes before he stops cold. "Hang on," he says. "Is there a reason why we're not taking any supplies?"
I smack my palm against my forehead. "Crap on a cracker! Don't I feel like an amateur now. Okay, why don't you go through those four tents over there, and I'll get these."
"Sure. Then we'll split the goods, right?"
"Yeah."
I turn around and walk into the nearest tent, and start chucking everything out into the centre of the camp. Sleeping bags, food, tools, medicine, food, guns, sleeping bags, medicine, weird shit that I don't even want to know what it is. Typical Drac stash.
In the last tent, as I throw away a sleeping bag, I notice a small black briefcase-type thing that it was hiding. Picking it up, I notice it a keypad at the top, locking it shut. Beside the keypad sits a small square screen that I assume is for taking thumbprints. Hm. Obviously whatever is in here holds something important. Something they don't want someone like me to see.
Huh. Well, I'm definitely going to check out the contents anyway. "Hey Poison!" I yell over my shoulder. "Come here for a sec!"
As I wait for him, I turn the briefcase over in my hands. It's made of metal, and I'd be willing to bet it's laser and bullet proof. While it's pretty heavy, I think most of the weight comes from the case rather than the contents.
"What's up?" Poison asks as he pushes up the entrance flap of the tent.
"Check it out," I hold out the briefcase.
He grabs it from me. "Wonder what's inside."
"Something good, I'd bet. Can you break into it?"
"I doubt it." He purses his lips. "But you know, I think Fun Ghoul probably could."
I try to picture Ghoul in my head. "The short one?"
"Yeah." He puts on a frustrated face. "So, how do you want to do this?"
"Do what?"
"Unlock the briefcase. Do you want me to head back to my gang's hideout and you head to yours, and then I'll get Dr Death to tell you about it, or do you want to head back with me, or what?"
Hmmmm. Tough call. I'm pretty sure his hideout is in the opposite directions from mine, so that would mean a lot more driving for me. But then, I'd really like to be there when they get it open. I'm the one that found it, after all. It's my little baby.
"I'll come with you, I guess. Maybe it'll have some information or something that'll help my report for Dr Death. If you don't mind," I quickly add.
"Not at all, my little stalker."
"Stalker?"
"You follow me here, now you're following me home?" He laughs.
I just roll my eyes, not wanting to grace his joke with a reply. "All right, well, are you done going through your tents? Let's see what we've got here."
It takes us about half an hour to sort through everything. In the end we mostly just take food, as that's all our bikes can really carry. We got tools, too, like wrenches and knives and stuff. We also spent a fair amount of time arguing over a stupid comb that, in the end, I couldn't talk Poison out of taking. It has a built-in gel squirter or something, and it plays crappy music as you comb.
We left everything else where it was. I suggested lighting it all on fire, but Poison argued that BLI could spot the smoke and send someone out to investigate. To that I conceded.
"Hey, how long is the drive, anyway?" I ask him just before kicking my bike into gear.
"Six hours, give or take. You wanna do it all in one go?"
"Yep. Might as well." Idiot. I should not have said that. I should have said, "Nah, let's split this into two days and take lots of breaks." Because SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT I hate long bike rides. My ass gets so sore. And while the roar of the engine sounds like a good old friend at first, after a while it turns into that old friend you forgot talked too much.
On a positive note, though, we don't run into any more Dracs. On the other hand, we only stop TWICE—once because we both got hungry, and the second time because my bike needed more fuel. We don't talk at all except for when we were stopped—the engines are too loud for much conversation.
It's twilight when we approach an abandoned diner. I think it's kind of weird for a diner to be out here by itself. Hm.
I hear Poison shift his bike into a lower gear as we get closer to the diner. "Holy shit, this isn't it, is it? We're actually here?" I shift down my bike too.
He laughs and exclaims, "Home sweet home!"
Well, I'm officially jealous. The diner is absolutely gorgeous. It looks very worn down, and I'm thinking it's probably at least thirty years old. I try to imagine the stories behind the bright spray paint and faded posters covering its exterior. Some of those posters even advertise the day's specials, as if the place still got customers every day. I think it was some sort of 'last stop for 200 miles' type thing where people could meet and have a good time without really getting to know each other. All sorts of beautiful junk sits out front, ranging from old to new and working to completely trashed. Above the double doors is a sign that reads "DIE." Hm. Couple of letters missing there.
My bike just comes to a stop as a little girl—no older than ten—with big curly hair bursts through the doors, chased by a guy with equally big hair. I notice a gun in a holster on his thigh.
I glance at Party, who smiles, jumps off his bike and runs to the girl. He scoops her up in a hug as the guy with the big hair (and AWESOME aviator sunglasses) nods toward me and, with his hand twitching by his gun, asks Poison, "So who's she?"
"Oh, that's Angel Knives. It's cool, she's a friend. I met her out in Zone 1. Angel, this is Jet Star."
Jet relaxes and smiles at me. "Nice to meet—WAIT, ZONE 1?" He stares at Poison incredulously. "What the hell were you doing way out THERE?"
Poison lets down the little girl and laughs. "Killin' Dracs. What else?"
While Poison explains what he's been doing for the past three days and Jet tries to tell him how worried everyone was while still trying to sound manly, the little girl runs up to me and practically knocks me down in a hug.
"Hi Angel! My name's Missile! Missile Kid! Are you staying with us now?"
I smile. "No, sweetie, I have a bunch of friends out in Zone 2 that I live with."
"Oh." Her dirty face falls. I wonder it was last washed. "It would be so nice to have another girl around."
I look down at her with mock horror. "You mean you have to hang around these nasty boys all day?" Then real horror sets in. Has she ever played with other girls? Ever had a doll? Or has she been subjected to life on the run with a bunch of grown men?
"It's not so bad. They're all real nice. Come on, I wanna show you around!" With that, she grabs my hand and starts dragging me to the diner.
"Hey, whoa, hold on a sec there Kiddo!" Poison shouts after us. "We have some work to do before you go play."
Jet shoots him a look. "Oh?"
"Oh yes. We got something good."
"Aw, come on Poison! I'm just gonna show her around!"
Poison opens his mouth to say something, but Jet cuts him off. "All right, but send Kobra and Ghoul out here. Okay?"
Missile excitedly squeals and "OKAY!" over her shoulder as she drags me through the doors.
First impression of the interior: Men obviously live here. The place is a mess, but somehow I get the impression that it's an organized mess. All the beer cans are thrown into one general area by the counter; various magazines occupy the tables and the floors around them; tools mostly hang out by the door. More miscellaneous items are scattered here and there too. A cloth dummy with a Drac mask thrown on its head sits in a corner. A photo of a smiling woman holding a baby sits on the closest table.
"Looks nice," I tell her.
"Uh huh! Uh huh! Let me show you my room!"
She lifts up a portion of the counter top and walks through the gap, holding it up for me as I walk through too. Immediately she reclaims my hand and pulls me through an unused looking kitchen and into some back rooms.
"The people who owned this diner while it was still open lived here, so there're some bedrooms back here," she explains. "But mine used to be a storage closet."
She puts her hand on the closest doorknob, which is attached to a colourfully decorated door. There are tons of papers and other things attached to it—postcards, paper dolls, even small trinkets. Reminders of life in an otherwise dead world, I suppose. Before she opens it, she screams into the hallway, "GHOUL! KOBRA! JET AND POISON WANT YOU OUT FRONT!"
I laugh. "Think they heard you?"
She looks up at me, concerned. "I don't know, do you? I can yell louder." She sucks in a deep breath to call again.
I cut her off before she can. "No, no, sweetie, I think they did." A door opens down the hall. "See? Look."
From the door emerges a tall guy with dirty blond hair. He looks relaxed, if somewhat annoyed, until he sees me. Then his expression switches to alarm.
"Who—"He starts to ask.
"It's okay, Kobra, she's my new friend. Her name's Angel." Missile chirps.
He relaxes again and outstretches his hand as he walks toward us. "Nice to meet you. I'm Kobra Kid," he says as he shakes my hand.
"Good to meet you to."
"You'd better get out there or Poison's gonna be mad at you," Missile pipes up.
He rolls his eyes. "Not surprising. Why aren't you helping?"
"Because I have to show Angel around!" She said as if it were the only obvious answer.
A little smile lights up his face. "Well, have fun then."
"We will! Uh huh!" With that, she thrusts her door open and pulls me inside.
I don't know what I was expecting to see in her room. Maybe something like what mine looked like when I was her age, with posters of all my favourite bands covering the walls. Or maybe I thought I'd see toys scattered all over the floor.
But whatever I was expecting, it wasn't this.
Instead of posters of bands or celebrities or even cats, Missile's favourite guns are displayed on glossy paper on the walls. There are no books or video games or toys, but there are maps and tracking devices and, on a table, a white gun. On the floor sits a dirty mattress with a faded floral print blanket and a lumpy looking pillow.
"So this is my room! Isn't it great?" She asks me.
But before I have time to even think of an answer, she pulls me to her little table. "Come here for just a sec. I want to show you something special," she says. Her table is a bit higher than my knee and its bright red paint is chipping. Her gun rests on one corner, hiding the neatly folded paper behind it from view from the doorway.
And when I see it, I remember why I'm a Killjoy.
It's a picture. Drawn on scrap paper and coloured with whatever she could find. But the materials obviously aren't the concern. Her drawing depicts three people—a man, a woman, and a little girl. They're slightly better looking than stick figures. Anyway, they're all smiling and holding hands beside a house. Smoke puffs happily from the chimney, and there are flowers smiling in the windows. Printed messily at the top, just above a shooting star, was: "I wish I could go home and see Mommy and Daddy again."
My heart absolutely shatters. No one should ever have to write this.
She smiles broadly as she holds it up. "Ghoul says that if you see a shooting star, and you make a wish, it'll some true. So I drew this so I'd always have a shooting star, and a wish to go with it. Maybe it'll come true one day! Do you have a wish, Angel?"
I look at her for a minute, fighting back tears. She's grown up in this—this generation nothing. She grew up having to be what tomorrow needs, without ever knowing for sure if she'd ever actually get there. Not like me. I had everything. I almost vomit with the sickness of it. Maybe she'll have a true home one day, but she'll never see her mommy and daddy again. I'm sure BLI took care of that.
"I just want to stop the bad guys, Kiddo."
She nods enthusiastically. "That's a really good wish. I think it's important to always have a wish, because then you always have something, even if somebody takes away everything you own."
I smile and nod uneasily. "Well, it's very pretty," I tell her.
"Thanks! Now lemme show you the rest of the place."
I swear. I will stop BLI with my own hands to create a better future for her.
There are three more rooms in the hall. She explains to me that Ghoul and Jet get their own rooms, and Poison and Kobra share one since they're brothers. But then she adds that they all act like brothers anyway, so they probably just drew the short straws. She also explains to me that we won't be going into any of their rooms because they smell really bad. I believe her completely.
So she pulls me all the way through the hall and out the back door. The immediate view is uninspiring—just miles and miles of rocky desert, with a few hills and tumbleweeds thrown into the picture for variety.
Dragging me a little to the left, she points and smiles. "This is where we practice!"
Following her finger, I see a target range I didn't notice before. Dummies wearing Drac masks that are propped up with two-by-fours are scattered over the space of about twenty feet. The dummies are full of holes.
She pushes me back in the direction of the diner, but leads me past the door. I notice that the back of the building has just as much graffiti as the front. We stop at the corner of the house, where there's a small indentation in the building. There was probably a big propane tank or something there for a barbeque.
"Sometimes Poison comes over here and draws." She grins mischievously and puts a finger to her lips. "But it's our secret, okay? He thinks no one knows he draws."
I smile. "Okay."
She takes my hand once again and leads me around the corner. A lot of scattered automotive junk is scattered around here.
"And this is where the boys fix things. The Trans Am mostly, I guess. But the guns too." Without giving me much time to look around—a shame, because I'm actually quite the grease monkey—she brings me back out front. "And that's the whoooole place!" She proudly exclaims.
"Well, thank you very much, Missile. That was wonderful." I put on a bright smile, which deepens hers.
"Well, I guess we'd better see what Poison wanted to talk about so bad," she says shyly. Aw, that's so cute.
We walk together to where the boys were clustered. There are four of them there. I guess Fun Ghoul was working outside or something, and that's why we didn't see him in the diner.
As we approach them, Poison looks up. "Hey, there you are, Angel. Get over here. Ghoul got the thing open."
"The thing. Sure, that's what it's called," I laugh. It feels good to laugh, but bad at the same time. I'm still not completely over Missile's drawing. These aren't exactly happy times.
But then I see what's in the case, and my whole perspective changes.
