Chapter 11- The Kill Joy

Author's Note: I actually wanted to incorporate a lyric from or the title of the song "Interstate Love Song" by the Stone Temple Pilots- but it didn't feel right. So I settled on some of my own brand of macarbe humor for the chapter name. I hope you enjoy not just my chapter name, but the story as well.

I also hope you approve of the piece I added in in the end. What is it that I'm babbling about?

Read and find out.

-- Mad Red Queen

Gerald was almost dizzy with relief. The phone had a dial tone. Because of his surroundings, he had believed that it wouldn't work. Pressing the phone to his ear, Gerald jabbed nine one one into the wall piece, his heart feeling more like the noisy, vibrating engine of a motorcycle.

Brrrinnng...brriinnng...brrinnnggg... "Hello, this is nine one one- what is your emergency?"

Gerald was at a loss for words at first. What was more important to mention first? The two insane men who had been talking earlier- and who might have killed him? The car crash?

"Hi, I've been in an accident, and I think the gas station I'm in has some guys in the back who might hurt me..."

"Sir, sir," from somewhere in his panicked mind, he recognized the voice on the other end as a female's. It had a slight southern accent to it. "I'm going to need you to calm down. Now, where are you?" Gerald forced himself to slow down his quickened breathing. Even to his own ears, he had sounded as though he had been babbling. Speaking slowly, he rattled off the highway he and Layla had been traveling- before she had crashed on it. "Now, sir, can you tell me the address of the gas station you're in right now?"

Gerald looked around rapidly. "Uh, no, but it's called the Gas Haven. Do you know where a place called the Gas Haven is?"

"Sir," the woman's voice was irritatingly calm and professional. "You'll have to calm down. You have to give me the address of the gas station- that highway you're on stretches on for so long that it'd be like asking us to look for a needle in a haystack. If the attendant or the cashier is nearby, please ask him for the address, or go outside. I will stay on the line while you get the address."

"But, but the attendant- he's probably one of the insane guys in the back- I heard them talking about fricking shit like, like killing this woman, about these weird people- things- called drifter clans, and, and-"

"You're not making any sense, sir. Are you dehydrated? Have you been hallucinating?"

"No, I'm not fucking making this up! You have to believe-"

A voice, loud, stopped him mid-sentence. "Who's there?!"

Reacting without meaning to, Gerald shoved the phone back into its cradle and leapt backwards. His fear- that the voice had been directly from behind him- was relieved when he realized that the voice had come from the back area. The men were not, at least, for the moment, right behind him.

He started to walk as fast as he could without running back to his spot behind the shelf. As he did, he heard the sound of feet hitting the linoleum from just outside of the doorway that he had been pressed against.

Please go back inside, like before. Please, oh god, please don't come in here.

The voice he recognized as the more powerful-sounding one spoke. He was still, thankfully, on the other side of the room. "I know that was somebody yellin'. Did somebody get back from scoutin' early?" Silence then. He heard footsteps coming towards him, loud on the linoleum. Gerald was literally frozen in fear. He heard the voice speak again. "Vult? Goggle? Are you guys hidin' in here?" More silence. The footsteps got closer and closer to Gerald. "I know that one of you's here. Just come on out." Getting closer. "How much didja you hear? You know I was kiddin', right, with Willy? I'd never think about hurtin' her..."

Gerald squeezed his eyes shut. How far- and for how long- could he run if he could just go through the entrance? Could he find a way back here to use the telephone?

One more footstep closer to him. Two. Then, suddenly, he heard the sound of electronic crackling- the old kind, like how imagined an old-time radio would sound before tuning into a station. He heard a voice coming from what had made the crackly noise.

"Boss, boss, bad-"

Jupe snarled. "I tol' you not ta call me that- anyone can be listenin' in, ya shithead. Tell me, now: whass wrong?"

The voice on the other end of whatever he was talking on stuttered an apology, then said, "I've been watchin' a car comin' south on the highway. I los' sight when I went ta go git Goggle- but when I looked back, it looks like the car's crashed on th' side o' the road..."

"'old on, 'old on!" Jupe shouted. "There was prey comin' this way... an' when were ya gonna tell me?!"

"J...Jupiter, I, I, I was gonna to... I promise-"

"Never mind." Jupiter said, growling. "So did either o' you idjits check th' car fer survivors?"

The voice hesitated before speaking. "...Yeah... I sawed two earlier... now there's only one in the car."

"Didja kill the other 'un?"

"The one thass gone?"

"No, piss for brains, the one left in the car."

"...She look dead ta me."

"And the other 'un?"

"Well..." the voice on the other end, very nervous sounding, hesitated once more. "We're not too sure..."

"I knew it. I knew it was a fuckin' mistake ta leave bot o' you idjits up there 'lone to watch th' road. Now ya've gone n' fucked all o' us over! Ya find that other 'un afore I have ta go down there an' do yer jobs for both o' you, or ya'll be lookin' forward to a beatin' once we all get back ta th' village!"

The voice, already shaky enough before, now sounded as though the person was about to begin crying. "I sorry, I sorry!" the male voice cried, sounding childish. "I didn't mean-"

"Just do yer job! Find the other 'un, even if he ran in th' desert, if he ran back down the highway, or if..." Suddenly Jupiter stopped. Gerald heard the sound of cloth being moved, and the audible click of something. Gerald felt as though his heart was about to stop dead in his chest.

The footsteps resumed their walk. He was walking nearer to the end of the shelf. He would discover him in a matter of seconds.

Being careful to make absolutely no noise, Gerald scooted backwards until he slipped to the other side of the shelf. He began moving backwards, putting as much distance as he could from him and Jupiter. He slipped along the linoleum backwards, certain that at any moment the man would peek over to behind the shelf and see him. Gerald felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

Silence then, with no footsteps. "Come on out. I know ya were in that car wreck. If ya come on out now, I can call th' ambulance to help yer friend. Don't ya want ta help yer friend?" more footsteps on the linoleum. "Come on, I know yer here. Jus'... come on out."

Gerald had scooted as far back on the shelf as he could. At the edge of the shelf, Gerald finally had a chance to get a look at Jupiter. He hesitated. What if he wasn't a human being- but was, instead, a monster? And, not a boogeyman-type monster. But a real one. The monsters that old stories were about. The kind that killed men, women, and children alike, and who ate them, using the bones left over to make necklaces, bracelets, or to grind up to use as seasoning?

Gerald had to shake himself out of his fear. It was a stupid fear, after all. The man named Jupiter might be insane and want to kill him, yes- but there were no such things as monsters. He had grown out of that belief back when he had gotten over the use of a night-light.

He took in a deep breath before he peeked over the counter's edge and up the middle aisle. He looked at the shape of the man turned with his back to him.

The man had long, long, greasy brown hair. He wore a heavy trench coat that dragged on the floor. Even from only being able to see him from the back, Gerald got more than an appreciation for how filthy he was.

Well, he wasn't a monster. That theory, at least, was ruled out. But that left him with the question of just who this man was.

One word that struck Gerald from the conversation he had heard before in the back room was drifters. Was this man homeless or something like it?

The man walked closer to the end of the aisle. Gerald's mind buzzed with the need to survive. He rejected many ideas with what to do then before he settled on one when the man finally turned around. Gerald had to duck back behind the shelf. He waited for a moment, and when Jupiter did not rush at him, Gerald looked over the edge of the shelf. As he had hoped, Jupiter had gone down the aisle on the other end of the store.

Struggling to remain crouched, Gerald rushed down the opposite way, still behind the shelf. It was the door he was hoping to reach before anything bad happened, and he was spotted by Jupiter.

His knees were aching and he was out of breath as he reached the end of the aisle- but the sight of the dirty glass door, bright with the blaring light of midday, made everything else seem small in comparison.

Gerald had been thinking about it, and he had decided that out of all of that junk he had seen in the front, he would be able to hide until he thought it was safe to sneak back in and use the phone-

He had been about ready to crawl out of the moderate safety that was behind the long shelf, but as he was poised to break for the door (still on his hands and knees) a shape appeared just outside of the door.

He was able to see all of it (it couldn't have been a real human being- it was too horrible, too horrible), although its face was darkened as it was turned away from the sunlight. He wished that he could not see its face- that distorted, unreal tumor-like mass that was where a human being's nose should have been.

Dirty blond hair stuck out from under the edges of an old fashioned bowler's cap, looking as filthy as Jupiter's had been. On his body, he, too, wore clothes that suggested he was as unclean and wild as the other man Gerald had seen looked like.

He heard screaming- he barely registered it as his. It felt like he was watching some movie in slow motion as the thing turned to look over at him, its head tilted to the side in a sick imitation of a puppy's look of confusion.

Then the thing reached for the door's handle and threw the door open.

Gerald fought to get to his feet, not paying attention to the fact that he was still screaming, and began to run in the other direction. The air, the expired food, and the freezers all blurred past him. He didn't know where he was going, he didn't care. Through all of his fear, enough to make his already strained mind fully snap, he felt something in him that made him want to break down in tears, but also made him want to begin laughing as though he was insane. I've doomed myself with my big mouth.

Gerald skidded on the linoleum as he got to the end of the center aisle. He turned to run into the doorway that he had earlier sat next to. He hoped dearly that there was either a back door through there- or a weapon.

He ran past the threshold, the thought of the two in the room behind him an overriding fear. His heart was pounding so hard that he barely registered that a gunshot had gone off. Or that a second had. Or the third.

Pain finally pierced Gerald's abdomen, his shoulder- and his chest. He grabbed at his chest, stunned almost as much at the notion that he had been fired at as well as the feeling of the bullets ripping through his body. He sank to the ground, finally conceding to defeat without fully realizing he was, choking.

He sank down face first with no real idea that he was. As he was dimly aware of the presence of others around him, Gerald was, in a way, grateful that the last thing he was going to see wasn't the faces of the monster-creatures- if the thing that had caused Gerald to scream in the first place was any indication of what the others would too look like.

When he choked again, he felt something hot- liquid- spurt out in his ragged gasps. He only realized it when he stopped gasping for a moment, but the sound of the gun going off again had been loud enough to create a loud, near painful buzzing in his head.. As he began to sink more onto the linoleum, the buzzing seemed to cease, and he heard the unforgettable voice of the long haired one named Jupiter speak.

"I believe I've found th' survivor. Now, didja call fer back-up already fer that wreck?" --

It had was bad enough that the gas prices had forced Ben Givins to work harder than he ever had in years- but when he had woke up that early afternoon, he knew, even before he fully opened his eyes, that he was behind schedule.

It was hot in his truck. He had to cut corners everywhere these days- and that had included air conditioning. He was sweating buckets as he drove.

At forty-three, he was no model of a man. His gut rolled out from every shirt he wore, and the last time he had looked in a truck stop's bathroom mirror, he was starting to grow one of those scruffy, mountain-main-type beard/mustache combinations. But the one thing he did have- one thing that he may have once prided himself in- was his ability to drive his rig with the utmost expertise.

His best-earned skill, after many years on the road, had been the ability to multi-task. Now, he didn't do it often- he would usually opt to pull over to eat a particularly messy meal- but sometimes, when it was a long, empty stretch of unceasing highway that he was on, he would turn around, one hand keeping the wheel stilled and on course firmly, and he would choose from his stash of cassettes and CD's.

On that particular late, late afternoon, it had been a very, very long stretch of highway he was driving on. Usually, at speeds as high as what he was driving, he would have waited until he had to stop somewhere before he would have chosen to dick around with his music and audio books, but he had not seen anyone, literally, for hours. Also, his CD- a new one, which is why it made him angry more than any other reason- stopped working as he was mid-way through a song.

Growling, he turned backwards, digging around for the probably now nonworking CD's case. He frowned. It seemed to have disappeared.

He kept looking, feeling angrier and angrier that he had bought that Greatest Hits collection at a truck stop two days ago for fourteen dollars, and now it had broke on him. Eventually, it became more of a need to set things right- the broken CD would be out of his player, and he could wing it back onto his back wall- than the fact that he wanted to listen to music then.

He didn't care that he was still driving- or even that he had, unchecked, excellerated over the speed limit- he just kept looking for that case.

It felt like eternity, but as he flicked past a CD case he knew he had flicked past at least three times already, he finally saw the cover with the smiling man in the white cowboy hat. As he reached over to, finally, pick the damned case up, he got a jolt as the CD player began to play again, as though it had not stalled for more than thirty, forty seconds before.

Shaking his head, Ben pulled himself back up and into his seat. Eyes now completely on the road, Ben reached down next to him to grab the warm, mostly empty, tin of Red Bull he had been drinking for the last couple of hours. He sighed as he scanned the road ahead for any signs of life. There appeared to be none.

What he did not know was that from the time the CD had stopped playing and he had been turned around, looking for the right case, and he had rocketed faster than he would normally have down the road, he just missed two landmarks that might have held his attention for different reasons- a car wreck, where a woman was going to come to in the next couple of minutes, and a gas station, where a man's still-warm body was being drug out the back door, to be thrown in the back of a pickup truck. --