Forged From Ash (11 page)

“Got any gas left?” he asked the three men leaning against the front wall of the station.

All three were slender and similarly dressed in clothes that looked to have been looted from a pile of Salvation Army’s leftovers. The one in the middle replied, “Some, but it’ll cost you. What’ve you got to trade?”

“How about some chocolate? I got six bars that are fresh off the shelf.”

That caught the interest of the guy leaning against the wall to the right of the one who’d already spoken. “What kind?”

“Two Hersheys with nuts, a Three Musketeers, and some Snickers.”

The guy looked over to his friend in the middle of the group, who said, “That’ll get you two gallons.”

“I was looking to get at least half a tank.”

“Then you’ll need more to trade,” the middle guy said through a grimy smile that had the confidence of someone who obviously had the upper hand.

The biker unbuckled one of his saddlebags and pulled out a large plastic grocery bag. He fished out some candy, tossed it over and then opened his jacket to pat his jeans pockets while also giving the trio a good look at the pistols holstered beneath his arms. His hand switched to one of the jacket’s interior pockets to find something which brought a smile to his face. “How about silver?” he asked while removing two shining dollar coins.

All three men moved away from the station wall, eyeing the biker with interest beyond that of simple curiosity. “You got silver?”

“Sure do. It’s the pure stuff, too. See for yourself.” With that, the biker flipped the coin through the air. He moved his hand to one of his pistols as a precautionary measure, but did not draw the weapon.

Expecting as much from anyone in that position, none of the three locals reacted to the mildly aggressive display. The man on the far right was the one to catch the coin, and he examined it for a few seconds before handing it over to the leader of the trio. The guy in the middle looked the coin over and even sniffed it before saying, “You got another one of these and you can fill your tank.”

“Another one fills my tank as well as one gas can.”

“The other coin as pure as this one?”

The biker nodded. “From the same set. You melt those down and you should be able to add some werewolf hides to your collection.”

Near the front door of the station, hanging from a wooden rack that had probably once been used for displaying cheap stadium blankets or decorative flags, were three pelts taken from small Half Breeds that had been brought down by at least four shotgun blasts each. The local man looked back at the skins proudly. “All right then,” he said. “Hand it over.”

“You keep that one there and you’ll get the other one when I’m done filling up.”

The spokesman nodded. “You take one more drop than what we agreed and you won’t leave this station.”

The price he’d bartered was a good deal compared to what he’d found in Brigham City. Even so, the biker grumbled as he rummaged in his pockets for one of the several silver coins he had stashed away. Instead of a simple silver dollar, the ones he’d used to pay for the gas had been found in an abandoned house in Colorado and were from a commemorative set engraved with the faces of Mount Rushmore. They’d been minted as overpriced keepsakes but were now more valuable than most any other form of currency. Since he’d developed a knack for sniffing them out in ruined houses and pawn shops, the biker tossed the second coin over without any more argument.

As he used one of the pumps to fill the tank in his motorcycle, the biker kept a close eye on the three men at the station. When he was done, he untied one of the two plastic gas cans secured to the back of his seat by a pair of bungee cords. He was watched extra carefully while filling up, and he replaced the nozzle before giving any of the three men a reason to assert themselves.

“I need to log in somewhere,” the biker said. “Is there any internet access in this town?”

“What do you need it for?” replied the local with the sweet tooth.

“Does it matter?”

“Only one geek in town. I’ll tell you where to find him for another Snickers.”

“You guys aren’t very friendly to visitors,” the biker said.

“We don’t get many around here.”

“So you squeeze them as much as possible, huh? Not a good way to win someone over.”

“What the hell are you gonna use to plug in anyway?” the candy man asked. “If you want road reports or if you need a few pieces of mail passed along, we can set you up for a lot cheaper than any geek will charge.”

The biker reached into his grocery bag and found a bag of M&Ms. He tossed it to the guy with the sweet tooth who examined the little package closely. Fortunately, the local seemed to be a fan of almonds.

“There’s a place on Fifteenth and Salisbury Avenue,” the local said. “Little gray building with a wood awning out front. Double garage on either side. If anyone can get you connected, it’s the dude who lives there.”

“You need directions?” the one in the middle asked.

Squaring away his saddlebag and gas can, the biker replied, “I can find it on my own. I’ve had about all the hospitality I can afford.” He climbed onto his bike, tensed and ready for a confrontation that didn’t come. That was surprising since he’d shown himself to be a source of good silver. Then again, he doubted the local boys would do much with any coins apart from handing them off to someone who could melt them down and really put them to use.

It was a gray afternoon accented by a biting chill of rain storms that had been following the biker during most of his ride from Utah. The streets were slick, and the air stank of ammonia and antifreeze; a mixture used as Half Breed repellant. There was no telling if the stuff made werewolves think that another pack had pissed all over the place to mark their territory or if it just made them sick, but it did a fairly good job of keeping pack intrusions down to a manageable level. As he drove further into town and the stench got stronger, the biker reached for the bandanna tied around his neck and pulled it up to cover his nose and mouth.

The gas station guy’s description of the place had been brief but on the money. It would have taken a blind man to miss the wide, low building with the wooden awning and multiple garages. As promised, there were two garage doors on either side of the awning. All four were shuttered. Now that he was taking a closer look, he could see a sign painted onto one of the doors that read, “Meyer’s Auto Body & Repair”. There was a phone number as well, but those didn’t mean much anymore.

The rider parked his bike in front of the large square door directly to the left of the awning. After climbing off, he went to the small case strapped behind his seat where his more valuable possessions were stored. It was unlocked by a four digit combination which the rider dialed in so he could reach inside for a laptop computer. By techie standards, it was a dinosaur: wider than a placemat and lacking the power to run any of the games that had come out before the big fall. Its operating system was near obsolete but built to last. The fact that it didn’t have all the bells and whistles meant there was less to break. He grabbed a bundle of cords and turned toward the door to find a man already watching him.

“Shit,” the rider said. “How long you been standing there?”

The man stood just over six feet tall and had a thick mat of bristly hair that had been unattended for a while. The .40 caliber rifle in his hands was almost as outdated as the rider’s laptop. When the man spoke, his words were muffled by a surgical mask placed over his nose and mouth. “What do you want?” he asked.

Approaching the door beneath the awning, the biker stopped when he noticed the rifle in the other man’s hand come up. “I was told you can help me log this baby in.”

Sharp blue eyes narrowed into slits above the surgical mask. “That thing still works?”

“Good enough.”

“Who told you I was here?”

“Some dudes at a gas station on the outskirts of town. There were three of them.”

Slowly, the man nodded. He lowered his rifle. “You looking for information? I may be able to help you with that for cheaper than getting you online.”

“Not unless you can tell me, word for word, what’s written in the emails I’ve been sent.”

“Everything sucks here. Somebody died. The wolves won’t stop coming. Hope you’re well.” The man pulled down his mask to reveal a full beard that was parted in several spots by thick scars crossing his face. “That’s about the gist of every email anyone gets anymore. That do it for you?”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to read them for myself. I can pay.”

“Fine, then. Come on in.”

The room just past the front door had been a lobby of some sort. There was a counter and a spot where a few chairs were still bolted to the floor. On a rack in one corner near the ceiling was a television with so much dust caked onto it that it looked more like a penthouse owned by the richest dust bunny in the known universe. The man with the rifle led the way behind the counter through to a door which opened into a wide garage. Both garage doors were locked down and fortified. One corner of the room was lit by electrical bulbs, and the rest was left in dusty shadow. Heat was provided by a crackling fire set in a bathtub that had been dragged in and left near the workspace in the well lit corner.

“What’s your name?” the bearded man asked as he walked over to the desk and pulled away a blanket to reveal an extensive collection of monitors and computer towers.

“Dressel,” the biker replied.

The other man looked up from the monitors which were glowing brightly enough to cast a light upon his scarred face. “That sounds familiar. Oh yeah. I know where I heard it.”

“Where?”

“Doesn’t matter. Who’s sending you emails? Pretty expensive nowadays.”

“Usually I pay for access and I get access,” Dressel said. “Do I have to tell you everything I’m doing?”

“Just making conversation. Takes a bit of time to hack into the systems. You want something to eat?”

“No. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Now you want to talk?” the bearded man grunted.

“Hey, I’m not trying to start anything. I just thought I could refer to you as something other than The Geek.” When he saw the other man’s eyes lock onto him, Dressel shrugged and added, “That was what those boneheads at the gas station called you.”

A wry grin appeared beneath the other man’s beard, and his gloved hands tapped furiously at his keyboard. “They are a bunch of charmers around here. Most everyone calls me Meyer.”

“As in Meyer’s Auto Body and Repair?”

“You got it.”

“Did you own this place before the fall?” Dressel asked.

“Nope.”

“Family business?”

“I’m in,” Meyer said.

“You mean logged in?”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Yeah,” Dressel said as he stood up. “Just thought it might take longer.”

“Usually does. If everything lines up just right, it’s a whole lot easier. Guess your timing was pretty good. Now, about my payment. You have any silver?”

Dressel reached beneath his jacket, which caused Meyer to reach for the rifle propped against his desk. Carefully opening his jacket to reveal the guns holstered there, Dressel diverted his hand to a pocket to fish out a few of the commemorative coins. “These are pure,” the biker said. “Want a look?”

“Toss one over.”

Meyer caught the coin, turned it over a few times and then set it on his desk. “One more like that and you got yourself a deal.”

Sighing, Dressel asked, “How about something else for a trade?”

Meyer nodded. “We can work something out,” he said. “You want me to get you to any site in particular?”

“No, I can take it from here.”

Getting up from his chair, Meyer made a sweeping gesture toward the spot he’d just abandoned and headed for one of the dimmer corners of the chilly garage. “It’s all yours. I’ll be working on some things over here. Just let me know if you need anything or if the connection crashes.”

“Will do.”

For the next couple of minutes, the only sounds in the garage were the tapping of fingers on a keyboard and the clang of a hammer against metal. Dressel positioned himself at the desk so he could see the monitor as well as the corner of the room where Meyer was working. By the time Dressel had gotten to the correct website and put in his password to read his mail, Meyer had gotten up and carried what looked like a short length of pipe covered in a brown blanket to a different corner. The guy seemed engrossed in whatever he was doing, so Dressel went to his email account and quickly found the messages he’d been waiting for.

Looking up one more time, he saw Meyer hunched over with a dirty rag in his hand. He flipped open the blanket, but was too far away for Dressel to see what he was working on. It was probably another rifle or shotgun. If the bearded man wanted to rob him, Dressel was ready to defend himself. Until then, he continued typing as if he didn’t have a clue about what the other man may be doing.

The connection was a good one. Dressel would know because he’d been using plenty of them over the last several months. Some stars truly must have aligned because there were no interruptions in service and very little lag. The emails he’d been sent were encrypted, and when he entered the proper code sequence, they eventually linked him to another site. Knowing that link was secured beyond all reproach, Dressel clicked on it and prepared to input his next key code.

There was a flicker on the screen, and the cursor stopped blinking. In one corner, a circle started to spin to tell him that something somewhere was loading. After a couple seconds, it became clear that something was frozen. “Shit,” he grumbled.

“What’s wrong?” Meyer asked.

“Computer’s locked up. Probably just some connection thing.”

“Let me take a look.”

When Meyer started to get up, Dressel waved him back. “Don’t bother. It’s already cleared up.”

“Oh. Cool.”

The circle was still spinning, but Dressel didn’t want the bearded man to have a reason to hover over him with the shotgun or rifle he’d been hiding. More than likely, the issue with the computer really would clear up on its own. Ever since the werewolves had started running wild across the face of the earth, the internet had been spottier than usual. The fact that it was still running at all was either a small miracle or testament to the fortitude of porn and cat videos.