"Why are we coming all the way out here for our SUV?" Little Rock said. "We already have everything we need from the vehicle pool."
"Because," Tal said as they shot past the limits of Las Vegas in a '64 Jeep dubbed "Tremors truck", "it's not just an SUV, it's my SUV. My Caddy." When they arrived in Vegas, it had been by helicopter. The vehicle they had used since leaving the home of the late Bill Murray had been left on the wreck-choked road to Las Vegas. Repeated requests to go back and retrieve their vehicle had been refused.
"Has the Sahara patrol been clearing the road?" Little Rock said. "Because it sure seems like there's a lot fewer wrecks."
"No," Tal said, swerving around a pileup, "they've got their hands more than full just in the city. But you're right, things are different. It's not like any road-clearing job I've seen, though. They didn't clear it so much as push the wrecks to one side or the other- never the same side, either. You can get along fine, but you can't go very fast and you can't see very far ahead." He swerved around another pileup. "What the-" There, straight ahead of them, was the "Caddy".
"Wait here," Tal said. As he started to get out, two men wearing lots of leather stepped into view. One lazily twirled a ball and chain.
"Move on," he said, "or you'll get a real mace face."
"That's not a mace," Tal said. Little Rock handed him a 4-foot specimen from an abandoned weapons shop. "This is a mace... See, the ball part's attached directly to the shaft, no chain. What you have there is a flail. Now get out of the way. All we want is that caddy."
"Maybe it's not yours to take," said the biker.
"It is mine!" Tal said indignantly.
The biker who up to that point had been silent spoke: "It's him!"
The other biker lowered his weapon and raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. "Okay, just a bit of a misunderstanding. We're guarding it, see? Orders from the Chief himself."
"Who's the Chief?"
"Branson Missouri." Before they had come to Circus Circus, they had had a run-in with a band of bikers led by Branson, who before entering the gang had been relieved of his car by Wichita and Little Rock.
"What does he want with me?"
"Actually, he wants to talk," said the biker with the flail. "He left a letter in the glove compartment." He shrugged. "That's all I know."
The two bikers pulled their motorcycles from among the wrecks. The other turned around and spoke: "If you ever do see the chief, watch out for a big guy named Nails- well, now we call him Nails. He's awfully sore about what you did to him."
Tal frowned. "If he's the one I'm thinking of, all I did was hit him over the head." Now both bikers looked at him, with surprised and confused expressions.
Little Rock spoke: "I was the one with the nail gun."
"Really," one biker said with a smirk. Then the pair rode off.
"You can drive the Caddy back," Tallahassee said. "I'll drive this truck."
Little Rock nodded and started to open the door, but then shut it. "Tal, there's something I have to know," she said. "When we ran into Branson and the other bikers, you didn't shoot. You said you couldn't , because they weren't zombies. But when we met in the grocery store, and you thought I was bitten..." She teared up, leaving the question to hang unasked but obvious.
Tal was silent for the better part of ten minutes, twice opening his mouth as if to start to answer only to say nothing. Finally, he said, "I could have done it, then... And I've thought ever since, about what I could have done, almost did... And now I can't. It's that simple."
She embraced him as they both cried. "It's okay," she said. "I forgive you... and thank you."
