Chapter Six: Departure, Part 1

Wendy sat alone at the bar table as Stan conversed with the man wearing a Miller High Life hat who she had seen earlier. She figured he must be Travis. Her eyes followed the movement of their lips, but they were too far away for her to catch a word. She crossed her fingers and hoped that Stan was vouching for her.

Her eyes briefly flickered toward the crowd. She could have sworn that she spotted Ash striding through the sea of people, with a briefcase in his hand. If she was right, that meant the drugstore thieves were searching for her, so she slipped the switchblade she'd been hiding in her sock into her pocket. No matter how desperate her situation got, even if Travis flat-out refused to let her join, and even if Ash was her only hope of getting to California, she was determined not to hop back in the Ford Explorer with those lunatics, lest she suffer the same fate as Daphne.

"Wendy," Stan called out, catching her off guard. "I just talked to Travis about bringing you with us."

"Oh, yeah?" Wendy asked. "What did he say?"

Stan smiled at her and threw up a thumbs-up. "You're good to go!"

Wendy's spirits were lifted. "Thank you, man! You're a lifesaver!"

"No problem."

A tidal wave of relief washed over Wendy as she got up from her seat, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and followed Stan and Travis out the door and back into the dark corridors.

"You must be Wendy," Travis said with a grin as he extended his hand. "I'm Travis."

"Nice to meet you," Wendy said, shaking his hand. His resemblance to a coworker she used to have at the Mystery Shack brought back memories of her time there.

"Stan was tellin' me that someone was needin' a ride."

Despite Travis's apparent friendliness, Stan didn't fully disclose everything about Wendy's predicament to Travis, believing that if he mentioned the drugstore thieves, he would kill her chances. A wise choice. Travis was initially reluctant to bring a second passenger on board, but he had grown to like Stan, so it didn't take much for the young man to get through to his kinder side.

"Well, let's get going," Travis said, motioning them to follow him down the corridor.

A part of Stan wanted to be happy about finally reaching the Golden State. He wanted to be happy that, after two months of hitchhiking or walking under the hot sun, going days without food, sleeping in homeless shelters or under bridges, and experiencing turbulent setbacks along the way that slowly eroded his optimism, he would finally complete his quest. But he wasn't.

Instead, a mild sense of melancholy swept over him. Randy Marsh's face kept appearing in his mind, like a ghost from the past, reminding him of his guilt. Was Stan finally ready to face his father after all this time?

Wendy, on the other hand, beamed with excitement. Words could not adequately express how grateful she was to Stan and Travis. They were life savers in her book. It seemed like fate was smiling upon her. In her mind's eye, she saw herself in sunny California in the company of her good friends, the Pines Twins.

However, her new-found sense of relief was quickly shattered when, suddenly, she felt a hand catch her shoulder from behind, followed by the voice of one of the people she never wanted to ever see again.

"Aw, there you are," Ash said, clutching her. "Where the hell did you go?"

She didn't speak or turn to look at him. Her entire being stiffened with shock.

Just as Stan and Travis were about to pass through the exit, they stopped in their tracks when they realized Wendy had fallen behind. They turned to see her standing in the middle of the long corridor with a crazed stranger holding her. Suddenly, two women stepped out from around the corner, standing by him. "Oh shit," Stan blurted in a hushed tone. "It's them."

Stan looked over at Travis, who gave him that look that could be interpreted as him saying, 'You didn't tell me she'd bring trouble.' Stan was at a loss for words; all he wanted was to help someone in need.

"Anyway, take a look at what we've got," Ash boasted, waving a briefcase in Wendy's face. "Cha-ching!"

Easy Pete was so pleased with his narcotics that he dropped one hundred thousand dollars in cold, hard cash on them. Ash wouldn't let Wendy look inside the case, but she got the idea when she spotted a few one-hundred dollar bills poking out. A growing rage began to well up inside her.

"Gaaah! Ash, why are you showing off our prize to her?" A frustrated and jealous Blair yelled. "Come on, let's go!"

"Hold the fuck up!" Ash shouted back. "I said I'd take her to California and that's what the fuck I'm gonna do!" He turned back to Wendy and lightly tugged her. "What do you say we make that trip?" he asked.

"Get... the fuck... away from me." Wendy swatted his hand away from her shoulder.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Ash looked as if his hand was burned. "Wh-what kind of fucked up way of showing gratitude is that?"

"I'm not coming with you!"

"Oh yeah? Well, how the hell are you gonna get to California without us? Huh?"

Despite Travis' whisperers of not playing hero and just walking away, Stan decided that he could no longer remain on the sidelines. He pulled the revolver from his backpack and put it in his back pocket in case the situation got out of hand, though he hoped it would not come to it. "Hey!" Stan called out to Ash as he began walking toward them. "She said doesn't want to go with you!"

"Who the fuck are you?" Ash barked.

"None of your business!" Wendy retorted.

"Jesus Christ, Ash!" Blair yelled. "Why are you arguing with this whore? Just leave her ass and let's go!"

"Yeah, we should've tossed her down the road in the first place," Margalo chimed in.

"You two shut the fuck up!" Ash shouted at them before turning to Wendy and snatching her arm. "And you... you owe me!"

"Let me go!" Wendy cried out as she struggled to break free from Ash's grasp, which was crushing her arm.

"You're not going anywhere!"

"I SAID LET GOOO!"

"YOU CAN'T RUN FROM ME!"

Stan rushed to Wendy's aid, revolver in hand. However, before he could draw Ash's attention, she grabbed her switchblade with her free arm and slashed her captor across the face.

"AWWWHHH!" Ash howled in agony. Blood gushed from his face, which he had tried in vain to cover with his hands. "Fucking whore!" He wailed as he tumbled to the ground, dropping the briefcase, which cracked open on the floor. One hundred thousand dollars popped out and flew all throughout the corridor like confetti.

"YOU'RE DEAD!" Blair screeched, charging at Wendy and tackling her to the ground. The switchblade fell to the floor and ricocheted across the room. Blair's hands went for Wendy's throat. "I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you, bitch!"

It happened too fast for Wendy to process; she went from freeing herself from Ash's grasp to being strangled by his insanely jealous girlfriend. Wendy croaked, "Glk-glak-glik," as her airway constricted.

"Hey, leave her alone!" Stan yelled at Blair. And just as he raised his revolver at her, he was suddenly attacked from the side.

"He's got a gun!" Margalo yelled as she lunged at him.

Blair took great pleasure in this, to the point where she tried to sink her nails into the girl's neck to increase the pain. But Wendy wasn't going to give her the satisfaction she wanted. Through the painful spasming in her throat, she forced herself to scream, "Glk… Fuck you!" Wendy then jabbed her knee into her strangler's stomach. Blair groaned in pain and collapsed to the ground.

Seizing her moment of weakness, Wendy rolled on top of her strangler and rained down punches on her face. Blair tried to block the blows to her head, but to no avail.

Margalo had pinned Stan to the ground, and he fought with all his strength as she tried to yank the revolver from his grasp like a tug-of-war. However, it seemed like a losing battle for Stan. His arms felt like a vise was crushing them from the inside. Margalo gave the barrel of the gun a good yank and attempted to turn the weapon toward Stan's head. However, Stan managed to catch her off guard by punching her in the mouth, allowing him to swerve the gun away from himself. And before either of them knew it, Stan's index finger had slipped onto the trigger.

KA-BLAM!

Echoes of the gunshot that hit the ceiling resounded throughout the building. But for Stan and Margalo, all sound vanished from the world and was replaced by an excruciating ringing in their ears. Stan saw Margalo fall on her back, put her hands over her ears, and clench her teeth as the pain in her ears got worse.

He turned his head to his right and saw Ash crawling on his knees and right hand while covering the wound across his face with his left hand. The floor and dollar bills he was resting on were soaked in his blood.

A short distance ahead, the two women were still locked in combat. For a moment, it seemed as if Wendy had the upper hand as she landed blow after blow upon Blair's face and torso, but she managed to turn the tables when she dodged one of Wendy's blows and bit down on her hand, causing her to yelp. Blair then grabbed Wendy by her red hair and pulled vigorously with the intent of ripping it off.

Suddenly, Stan was startled by a string of deep thumps he felt on the ground. When he turned his head to the left, he noticed that Travis was nowhere to be seen near the exit. He had abandoned them. The thumps became steadily louder until they were indistinguishable from footsteps. Suddenly, a group of men holding rifles emerged from one of the other corridors. They approached the chaos, shouted at everyone, and they held their rifles above their heads. The battle between Blair and Wendy came to a grinding halt when Blair was the first to surrender. Then, as Ash was beginning to regain his bearings, they kicked him to the ground.

Stan looked down and saw that he still had the revolver in his hand. It was too late to hide or get rid of it now. When he looked up, he saw Jericho looking back at him.

And then, darkness.

TO BE CONTINUED...