A/N: I don't own the wrestlers or their families. I do own the OCs. Zzyzx road is a real place, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California, though I'm pretty sure it isn't anything like the place in the story. ;)
Zzyzx Road
Chapter 12: The Dinner
They ended up staying overnight in Portland, so they could catch an early morning flight the next day. Neither of them felt much like going anywhere, but by the time seven pm had rolled around, they couldn't deny their need food any longer. "We could order in from the bar menu," said Jericho.
Punk shook his head. "I don't want to do that. I don't think the staff would bring us the right meal, and anyway, it's a very limited menu. You'd be happy, since they have a lot of alcohol, but it's not going to do me much good."
"So what, then? Should we attempt to find somewhere to eat?"
"It's that or eat in the bar, which is not something I'm willing to do."
"Okay," said Jericho with a sigh. "See if you can find us a place, then. Somewhere that meets your dietary needs."
Punk grabbed the phone book and flipped through the pages, his brow furrowed. "Looks like there's an Applebee's not too far from here."
"I saw it on the way to the hotel," said Jericho. "It'll probably be crowded. Those places usually are."
"I don't care. It's not like we can't take it to go. I just need to get out of here for a while."
"All right," Jericho said. He grabbed the car keys. "But fair warning. You may have to drive back."
Punk shrugged. "I can live with that." He set the phone book back on the nightstand between the two beds and headed for the door.
Applebee's was crowded, as they'd expected. "We're never going to get a table," said Jericho. "Maybe we ought to bite the bullet and sit at the bar."
"No way," Punk said. "I am not about to throw my morals out the window and sit at the bar. Let's just get it to go and head back to the room."
"It's depressing there," Jericho said.
"It'll be more depressing here if we sit at the bar. Because I'm not going to let you hear the end of it."
"Fine," Jericho sighed. "Maybe we can eat in the car or something."
"That sounds pleasant."
"Phil! Chris!" Both men turned, frowning as they heard their names.
"Who do we know in Portland?" Punk asked.
"I don't know." They scanned the restaurant. Jericho saw her first, and he started to chuckle.
"What?" Punk asked, and then he saw her, too. "Sarah."
Sure enough, their seatmate on the plane was waving to them from a table in the restaurant. "What do we do?"
Punk looked at the crowd, then sighed. "I guess we go and say hello. Then we can order our food to go."
They wove their way through the restaurant, stopping at the table of Sarah and her father. "Didn't think I'd see you guys again," Sarah said. "Do you want to sit with us?"
"I don't know," Phil began.
"Sure," Jericho said quickly. "If that's all right with your father."
"Absolutely," said Sarah's dad. "So how long are you boys in town?"
"We're leaving in the morning," Jericho said.
"That's not enough time to see the sights," said Sarah's father.
"Oh, we've seen it before," Jericho said. "We travel a lot on business."
"Well, we used to," Punk amended. "We haven't done so much lately, since we were in the same place for a few years."
"Yes," said Jericho thoughtfully. "Though time passed in a flash, so it seems like we were just here a few months ago, even though it's been years. But really, how much has changed in the last few years?"
"Not much, I guess," said Sarah's dad. The girl herself was squinting and Punk, a frown on her lips. He made a face at the girl, which made her stare all the harder. "Sarah?"
"What?" She blinked and looked at her dad. "I'm sorry. I guess I was daydreaming again."
The waiter came and they ordered their food. As soon as he left, Sarah's father said, "I need to go call Denise and let her know when we'll be home. She had to work tonight, or she'd have been here, as well." He nodded to the Superstars, then kissed his daughter's brow and walked off.
"What?" Punk asked, seeing that the girl's stare had landed on him yet again.
She smiled and said, "I've got a little brother. He's twelve this year. His room is practically wallpapered in the stuff that little boys care about. No girls on the walls yet, but lots of posters of skulls and lots of pictures from his magazine collection. Do you know what his favorite magazine is?"
"Ranger Rick?" Punk ventured.
"I don't even know what that is," Sarah said. "No. It's his WWE magazine."
"Oh. Awesome."
She shrugged. "I don't have much use for wrestling, honestly. But sometimes, when I'm bored, I'll flip through the magazines. About six months ago, he brought me this article and begged me to read it. Some kind of special retrospective called something like, 'Death in the Desert- the Strange Case of Chris something or other and something Punk'."
"That was the name of it?" Punk asked, his nose wrinkled.
"Well, it had their actual in ring names," Sarah said. "Anyway, I got to thinking about it, and I asked my brother to scan the article in and e-mail it to me. And do you know what I found?"
"No," said Jericho, firmly. "We have no idea."
The girl looked thoughtful. "It wouldn't have clicked, except that you called him 'Punk'," she told Jericho. "I mean, what kind of a nickname is that? I looked that up on Google and found a reference to the disappearance and death, and then I called my brother and asked him about the article. Here." She pulled her phone out and scrolled through it to the picture she wanted. "You look like them, except that it's been years and you haven't aged a day. How is that possible?"
"I wish I had an answer for you," Jericho said. "But I don't."
"Maybe we should just go."
"Are you guys ghosts or something? Or like guardian angels, meant to get me on that plane?"
"No," Punk said. "We're just a couple of guys who have a lot of questions about this."
Sarah nodded slowly. "Where have you guys been? I mean, this is you, right?"
Jericho cleared his throat. "Yeah, it's us," he said, earning him a look from his friend. "And as to where we've been, I wish we knew."
"My brother may be a wrestling fan," the girl said, "but if you went missing for years, that's my up my alley. Maybe you fell into a wormhole or found a thin spot in the universe or something. I hear those things happen."
"Yeah," Punk said, "that's where the socks all go in the dryer."
Sarah glared at him. "I'm serious."
"So am I."
The girl huffed out an annoyed breath. "I want to help you guys."
"I'm not sure how you can, aside from not saying anything to anyone," Punk said. "Very few people know that we're back, and it looks like that may not last all that long."
"What does that mean?" Sarah asked.
"It means," Punk said, "that we're going back to the source for answers, and if said source disappeared us once, it could do it again- maybe this time permanently."
She frowned at that. "Where is this source you're talking about?"
"I think we've already said too much," Jericho said, glaring at Punk. "Look, Sarah, don't worry about it. We're just a weird little blip on your radar right now, and we'll be gone from Portland by the morning. No big deal. Then you can go on with your life and we can do what we need to do."
"No, that is not okay," she said angrily. "Look, Chris..." But before she could get any further into the tirade, her father appeared at the doorway of the restaurant. She hissed out an annoyed breath. "This isn't over, guys," she muttered.
"I'd say it is," Chris said.
Sarah's father sat down at the table. "Sorry about that," he said. "My wife likes to talk sometimes. So what did I miss?"
"Nothing much," said Chris, smiling at the man. "We were about to take our leave."
"We just ordered!" Punk protested.
"I know," Chris said, "but we really do have an early flight in the morning, and we should probably take our food back to the room so we can get some sleep, don't you think, Phil?"
Punk grumbled. "I guess so."
"It was nice running into the both of you again," said Jericho politely.
"If you ever come back through," said Sarah's dad, "you should give us a call. I'm sure Sarah would like to see you again."
"I'm not sure how likely that is," Jericho said, "but sure. Next time, we'll stay longer and buy you guys dinner. Bring your wife."
"I will," said the other man. "Have a good night."
Jericho and Punk nodded to the man and his daughter, then walked away from the table. Punk grumbled, "I wanted to eat here."
"It's a small price to pay to get away from Sarah's curiosity," Jericho said. "Besides, we really should get back to the room. We have to be up at a ridiculous hour."
Punk sighed. "You're right," he said, "but I still hate it, anyway."
The two men stopped by the counter and Jericho asked the waiter, "Do you think we could get our order to go? Something came up, and we have to leave."
The waiter muttered something before smiling wearily. "Sure. Just give me a few minutes. You may as well have a seat."
Punk said, "I'm going to go outside, okay? I'll take my food to go, but I'm not going to sit in the bar and wait for it."
"Fine," Jericho said.
Punk wove his way through the bar and out of the restaurant. He leaned against the building, closing his eyes. "I want to talk to you." At the voice, his eyes flew open and he found himself alone with a very annoyed Sarah.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
"I came out because you guys need my help. Chris may not want to admit it, but you know I'm right."
"Sarah," he sighed, "I can't tell you anything. We honestly don't know where we've been, and the only people who seem to have the answers are the ones who caused us to disappear in the first place. Chris doesn't want to involve you, and I think that's smart of him. We don't know what we're dealing with, and you're just a kid."
"I'm almost an adult!" the girl snapped. "And I'm not stupid, you know."
"I wasn't suggesting that you were. Chris lost everything because of what happened. His wife remarried, his kids think he's dead... He doesn't want to drag anyone else into this mess, and frankly, neither do I. If you know too much about what happened to us, you're going to get curious, and it's going to ruin your life, too. We don't want that. I'm sure you don't, either."
"Don't tell me what I don't want, Phil," she growled. "Because you have no idea."
Jericho pushed through the door then. "Ready to go?" he asked Punk, glancing at Sarah.
Punk pushed away from the wall with a sigh. "Yeah. Goodbye, Sarah. Have a nice life."
