Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1) (7 page)

13

Another twenty minutes passed beneath the blistering sun and Joe felt his fingers begin to slip off the handlebars. The highway had taken on a purplish, reddish hue, with waves of heat sizzling from the mangled road into the air. He licked his chapped lips, trying to summon moisture without success. Why hadn’t he asked Dick for water? It seemed so obvious to him now, but the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind back at the station.

Then up ahead, something appeared over a grouping of trees: a building, its flat roof barely rising above the branches. Joe expected whatever it was to disappear at any moment, for him to reach the woods and find that all that lay ahead was barren—more trees, more dead cornfields. As he passed the first row of trees, the remainder of the building came into view. It was an old rest stop, with cement picnic tables, the wreck of a semi-truck buried in weeds, and a red truck that looked to be in working condition parked in a lot spattered with jagged yellow lines.

Joe was about to pull into the lot when he saw movement on the other side of the semi-truck. He slowed down, and instead of parking in front of the gray building, he turned left and drove along a shady tunnel formed by the forest on one side and the gray wall on the other. He came to a stop and shut off the engine.

Steam rose off his body when he got off the motorcycle. He followed the gray wall for several feet, enjoying its coolness on the palms of his hands, until he came to a corridor leading to the foyer of the rest stop. It was a circular area with emptied vending machines, a condom dispenser, and two paths leading to the toilets. Keeping close to the vending machines, he leaned forward to get a decent view of the semi-truck. It briefly occurred to him that he should just pick around for spare supplies and be on his way. But he wanted to know who else was there. He ran towards the red truck in the parking lot, crouched down at the back tire, and peered under its belly towards the semi.

What he saw stripped the breath from his lungs. A bare white butt rocked back and forth in the air; there were two female legs sticking up in the air on each side of it. Another pair of pale skinny legs, pants bunched up around the ankles, stood idly by. Joe couldn’t hear anything. Then the female did something Joe couldn’t see and the man responded by launching his fist down at her. The onlooker shuffled around excitedly.

Joe jumped to his feet, leaning his back against the red truck to think. If he didn’t intervene, this girl didn’t stand a chance. She’d lie at this abandoned rest stop forever, the animals eventually coming to pick her clean. He shook the images out of his head and gripped the bridge of his nose. ‘Dammit,’ he whispered once his decision was made.

He leaned into the bed of the red truck and grabbed hold of a tire iron. He stole round to the semi, bending low every couple of feet to make sure his quarry remained in position. As he got closer, he could make out the woman’s muffled cries and the wet thuds of flesh on flesh. One of the men said something to the other who laughed pitilessly. The laugh reminded Joe of his mother’s boyfriend—a cackle devoid of humor, full of malice.

Joe crept along the nose of the semi-truck, its popped hood revealing its cobwebbed innards and rusted pipes. He rested his hip on the right headlight, grasping the tire iron in both hands so tightly that blisters began forming. Slowly he turned his head to look. There were only three people: two men, one woman. The woman was tied up and had some kind of dark material shoved in her mouth to keep her quiet. Her eyes were closed. The onlooker was holding a gun to her head with one hand and touching himself with the other. The man on top groaned repeatedly into the girl’s ear as he pummeled her, her slack legs bouncing on each side of him.

Joe hurled himself towards them, wielding the tire iron like a baseball bat. The onlooker heard his footfall and turned, his eyes lighting on Joe just before the tire iron smashed into the side of his knee, splintering the bone and forcing his leg to bend inward. He screamed as he fell to the ground, dropping the gun and his flaccid member. Joe leapt over him and swung the tire iron at the rapist’s head. He slid off the girl, out cold, his slimy penis sticking straight in the air.

Joe spun round. The man with the broken kneecap was unconscious. Joe winced when he noticed the bloody bone jutting out the side of his leg. He stepped over the body and, with finger and thumb, tugged the pistol from under the man’s thigh.

He stood over the girl. She didn’t move. If he’d been quicker to take action, perhaps he could have saved her. Joe kneeled down and checked her pulse. She was dead. He hung his head, still with his fingers to her neck.

He’d only encountered one other dead body before: a vagrant from Hell Paso who had begged for change on the corner of fifth and Rosario, near the strip club. One minute he’d been alive and the next he was dead, with no warning that his time had come.

But he didn’t have time to get sentimental. He yanked open the rusty semi-truck passenger door. The seats were covered in dust and animal feces. Wadded up on the floorboard was a filthy blanket. He grabbed it by the edge and dragged it out, letting it slowly unroll to rid itself of dust, leaves, and small turds. Joe lifted the dead girl into the cab of the semi and dragged her across the seat so she lay flat. He arranged her arms across her chest and covered her naked body with the blanket, tucking the edges in as best he could. Then he hopped out of the semi-truck and slammed the door, encasing the girl in her makeshift tomb.

Joe rifled through the unconscious men’s pockets and found forty dollars that he slipped into his jacket pocket. Then he ran over to their red truck and went through the cab, finding a bag of beef jerky, two bottles of water, and some extra cash.

He had no time to sit and mourn for the dead girl. He needed to put as much distance between himself and the rapists as he could; they’d waken up eventually in a lot of pain and would be extremely pissed off. Maybe they deserved to die. He could do it so easily, here and now, painlessly, with them comatose on the gravel. The death blows would be simple to deliver: one downward thrust onto the back of each head, break through the skull to the brain. But Joe had never killed anyone before, although the chance had arisen more than once, and he had no intention of starting now.

He made his way back out through the rest stop, past the vending machines to his motorcycle parked in the shade. Its side satchel was a perfect fit for the pistol. He took a long quenching pull of water before shoving the bottles and the beef jerky into his backpack. Reversing the bike awkwardly out of the shady tunnel, he eventually found himself back on the highway, where he started her up. He took one last look at the rest stop and silently said goodbye to the girl he had buried there.

14

Joe entered Slushland just as the sun was beginning to disappear between multiple skyscrapers, each building igniting into an elongated brick of gold. He hadn’t seen another soul since he’d left the rest stop, unless he counted the lonely armadillo wading across the sun-kissed road.

He dropped his speed and turned left into a street that he figured would take him to Slushland’s downtown. Buildings blasted with soot and ash crowded him on both sides, many of them abandoned, but some still had lights flickering in the windows, advertising restaurants, motels, nude strippers, and groceries. Raw shadows moved behind the glass, spinning and pirouetting, like ballerinas trapped in hell.

A group of men huddled around a fire burning in a rusted barrel on the sidewalk. They wore heavy jackets and smoked cigarettes, their free hands tucked into jacket pockets. As Joe passed, they shouted at him with voices so guttural he couldn’t understand any of it. One pointed at his motorcycle with a crooked finger then indicated for Joe to come closer. He shook his head at them and continued down the road, weaving past potholes and little cairns of crumbled rock.

He arrived at a wide river that was straddled by a broken bridge, its belly buckling low into the water. Its crippling malfunction hadn’t seemed to have stopped people from using it though. Much to his surprise, Joe could see them milling along the bridge, picking their way through abandoned vehicles crammed along its sides.

He stopped, peering through the gloom, thinking he could make out movement among the bridge’s upper rafters. Thin black shapes were swaying in the wind like leaves on a tree. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that they were bodies, about a dozen of them, hanging from the bridge, twirling like flies caught in a web.

With the sun sinking lower by the minute, Joe thought it best to find the auto shop as soon as possible in hopes of meeting with the owner. Even more importantly, he wanted to get off the street before nightfall. He stopped and asked the next available pedestrian: ‘Have you heard of Zebu—’ but the person took off at a sprint before he could finish his question, eventually ducking into an alleyway. Joe had better luck with the second person, who grunted and pointed along the street. He caught the mumbled words, ‘Right, yeah, right, and there you is.’ Joe nodded his thanks and continued on, trying as best he could to follow the incoherent directions.

After drifting along for another three miles, Joe came across a house boat, impossible to miss, floating on the river. The words ZEB’S AUTO were emblazoned at the front in flickering, dirty neon lights. Strapped beside the house boat was a canoe filled with fishing poles and a tackle box. The place looked quiet, quaint, and cozy, but also deserted. There weren’t any houses around, and the fenced-in yard that Joe guessed was used for auto repairs was empty. The peace and quiet was something Joe knew he would enjoy, especially being on the river, but he didn’t understand why a place like this would be hiring; it was obviously a one-man show and not very busy.

The dirt road leading to the boat house was barely wide enough for a small car. Embedded in the dirt were tiny bits of metal and glass shrapnel, the remnants of old projects presumably. He wove carefully through them and parked beside the fence. A
lantern befitting a pirate ship hung in front of the door illuminating the NOW HIRING sign tacked onto the wood.

‘Right place,’ Joe said before pushing through the front door with his fingers. A bell jangled above his head, startling him and making him duck sideways. He realized he was a little tense after the encounter at the rest stop. That, along with the rumors he’d heard and the articles he’d read about Slushland were enough to keep him on his guard. He figured he should get a holster for the pistol and start carrying it around with him.

‘Hello?’ he called out, knocking on the wooden doorpost. When there was no answer, he began making his way around the shop, examining a rack of tools, cans of oil, and old license plates. He stopped at an open window overlooking the water. Other boats drifted past along the river, some with floodlights piercing the dark and others that didn’t have so much as a match lit.

‘We’re closed.’ The voice came from behind him. Joe turned. A man stood by the front desk. Joe noticed for the first time a door in the back that led to another room. The man looked at him expectantly.

‘I didn’t come for a repair. I came for the position,’ Joe said, pointing at the door.

‘What position?’

‘You put an ad in the paper saying you were looking for a hand around here, and the sign out front says you’re hiring.’

For a second, the man looked at Joe like he was crazy, and then he seemed to remember something and began nodding, his bushy blonde hair falling forward over his forehead. ‘I didn’t run that advertisement in the paper. My partner did.’ He spoke with the slow, deliberate twang of a southerner.

‘Aren’t you Zebulan—Zeb of Zeb’s Auto?’ Joe asked.

‘Course I am. I just forgot I was hiring.’ He crossed the room and held out his hand. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Joe.’

They shook hands. Joe was surprised at Zeb’s strength. His rough fingers felt like railroad nails.

‘It’s a pleasure, Joe. That short for Joseph?’

‘Just Joe.’

‘Well, just Joe, I do happen to be hiring. Innit obvious we need an extra hand around here?’

‘I was gonna ask about that. It seems like you got a small operation going on here.
Enough for one person to handle alone.’

‘Oh, it gets busy sometimes. There’s always plenty of work to be done. Most who’ve applied so far have been Slummers without experience. So Joe, tell me a little about yourself.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, Zeb asked, ‘You want something to drink?
A beer or something?’

‘I wouldn’t mind a beer.’

Zeb bent down to a mini-fridge behind the front desk and brought out two beers that he cracked open using a bottle opener built into the counter. He slid one over to Joe, leaving streaks of condensation across the counter.

Joe drank some of the beer and wiped his lips with his fingers. ‘I’m from Hell Paso.’

Zeb nodded. ‘A Texas boy then.’

Joe gulped down another mouthful of beer. ‘That’s right.
Lived there all my life.’

‘Why’d you come here?’

‘This job for one. My mom’s boyfriend and I had some disagreements for another. I figured I’d had enough, so I came here to start a life for myself.’ Joe paused, worried that he might’ve said too much. He didn’t want Zeb to think of him as a pity case before he even got to know him. ‘But as far as auto work goes, I’ve been working with vehicles all my life. My dad taught me everything he knew before he went to war. Since then, I’ve been mostly self-taught. To make money I worked odd jobs all around Hell Paso. I was kinda the local handyman that people would call if their car started giving them any sort of trouble.’

Running his thumb around the rim of his beer bottle, Zeb nodded perfunctorily. ‘You ever worked with hover technology?’ he asked.

Joe paused. He’d been afraid that might come up. As far as he was concerned, his lack of experience in the new field of hover technology was his main weakness when it came to vehicle repair. He’d never had the chance or the time to really study it. In fact, he’d only seen one hovercar in his life—it had passed through Hell Paso so quickly that everyone figured it had been stolen from the North, where almost every car was converted to hover. ‘I’ve never really had the opportunity,’ was all he said.

Zeb didn’t seem to show any concern at this news. He just took another pull of his beer and said, ‘I expected as much. Only seen a couple hovercrafts myself and was lucky enough to be able to tinker with one of them.’ He added spitefully, ‘Those damn northern bastards are keeping that technology pretty much tucked away for
themselves.’

Joe decided to keep his mouth shut about the North. He didn’t like talking politics with people he barely knew at the best of times, but he especially didn’t like talking politics when there was a job on the line and he was in the middle of what he considered to be an interview. He ungracefully changed the subject. ‘I drove here all the way from Hell Paso on my motorcycle. I’ve been working on it for a couple years now. Wanna take a look?’

‘Lead the way.’

Zeb stood under the lantern outside while Joe pushed his bike up to the door and flipped out the kickstand with his foot. ‘She was my dad’s before he went off,’ Joe explained.

Zeb bent down beside the motorcycle and began his inspection. ‘You did this alone?’

‘Just me.’

He circled the bike, eventually standing up, leaving his beer on the ground, and sticking his hands into his pockets. ‘It’s good work. Just by the looks of it I can tell you’re not sloppy. No grease stains, nothing loose or old, ‘side from the seat. You keep it maintained. I like that.’ Zeb looked him straight in the eyes. For the first time, Joe noticed how pale they were, how deceivingly intelligent.

‘You’ve got my interest, Joe, I’ll give you that. But I’m not prepared to make my decision about you yet. Tell ya what.’ Zeb pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and lit one. He offered them to Joe who took one between his fingers. ‘What’re your plans tomorrow?’

Joe lit the cigarette, inhaled sharply, and shrugged. ‘Unless you want me back here, I was going to take a look around Slushland. I hadn’t really considered it.’

‘I want you back here at eight in the a.m. Think you can swing that?’

‘Absolutely. Just so you know, I had to leave all my tools behind. I don’t know if that’ll be a problem.’

‘You’re not gonna need ’em tomorrow. Remember, eight a.m.’ Zeb flicked his cigarette butt into the river and picked up his beer.

Joe turned and pushed his motorcycle down the dirt path towards the street. ‘Can you aim me to the closest motel?’ he called over his shoulder.

Zeb pointed further down the street.
‘Thatta way. You won’t miss it,’ he said, then he went inside and slid the deadbolt into place.

.........

Joe pulled up at the Starlight Motel, elation and fear rippling through his entire body. His meeting with Zeb couldn’t have gone better: the man was obviously impressed with his bike, and there was no doubting Joe’s dedication; driving from Hell Paso to Slushland was no easy trek, not anymore, not with the state things were in.

The motel reminded Joe of home: dimly lit, ragged, practically war-torn, and dangerous. He pushed open the door and took a look around before going to the front desk. A television blared on the corner wall—some news channel blabbering on about the state of Slushland. Joe heard the word ‘Guttermen’, but he was too tired to give the newscast any thought. He had a mind for a hot shower and a soft bed.

He paid the lady at the front desk thirty dollars for a room for the night. She took his money cautiously, saying, ‘Now we don’t want any funny business, son. We’re not
that
kinda motel,’ while looking towards the front door expecting his hooker. Then her eyes narrowed and a dry smile creased her lips. ‘We supply our own, hon. Whatever you like, we got.’

‘I just want to sleep,’ Joe said bluntly, holding out his hand for the key.

His room on the second floor overlooked the street and parking lot, and offered a good view of his motorcycle. The room itself was basic enough. A faded painting hung on the far wall over a lumpy bed that could have been filled with screws; wet hair clung to the porcelain bathtub. Joe tossed his bag on the bed and stripped down, throwing his dirty clothes into a pile. The pistol he set delicately on the bedside table, suddenly aware that he’d never used a handgun before in his life. He wasn’t even sure if this one was loaded. He’d shot rifles, a thirty aught six, when he was young, but he’d never had the chance to use a handgun.

Shouts from the street dragged his attention to the window. Joe leaned against the wall, clamping his fingers on the sill, and watched two muggers converge on a man who was groping drunkenly down the middle of the street. The drunk’s echoing voice died in the air as the men fell on him, kicking and clawing at his face with their bare hands, dragging him out of his clothes. Joe’s fingers tightened on the flimsy wood of the sill and his breath quickened as the drunk finally slumped over, motionless, while the two men stood over him.

Joe backed away from the window. With a shaking hand, he locked himself inside the room and wedged a nearby chair beneath the knob, knowing there was nothing he could do to help the man.

He took a quick shower using a leftover bar of soap and crawled into bed, completely and utterly exhausted. His life in Hell Paso seemed like centuries ago. He wondered if he would ever visit it, if he would ever see his mother again. He didn’t want to be apart from her forever, but as long as she was with Terrance, he was determined to stay away. Now, in Slushland, it was all up to him: his career and living situation, every
dime spent and penny earned, and every person he spoke to. Every bad and every good decision would be his.

Joe rubbed his face, unable to sleep despite his exhaustion, and lay listening to the riverboats tooting their horns and the gunshots ringing out round the streets. At one point the tarnished doorknob jiggled and shadows flickered beneath the door, but the sound of footsteps went on by down the hallway.