TFW CH 8 Patrick Til-Bury

This Disorder   by The Features 

A pale face leaned out of the window of the big truck and shouted, “What is going on?”

Glinty raised his pistol back up and whispered, “Someone is trying to steal your vehicle.”

I put my hand up and said, “No!  That’s his own truck. We stole both him and his truck.  His name is Patrick.  He’s kinda banged up.”  I nodded at Joey.

Joey said, “Yeah, I pulled him out of his ride, dude.  He’s taken a bump to the head.  He ain’t quite right at the moment.”

Glinty put his Colt .44 back down into its holster and said, “Seems to be a lot of that going on.”

Tellesco turned to him and said, “That’s like Sean!  He had a bandage on his head, and I drove him to the hospital in that hearse.”

Glinty looked back at him.  He put a finger up and itched the eye that wasn’t there anymore.  His finger went into the socket and rubbed around in there.  He said, “What happened to that hearse?  I can’t seem to locate its whereabouts.”

Tellesco pointed at me and said, “Mr. Will.  He drowned it in my swimming pool!”

Glinty pulled out a small stone and examined it with his eye.  Then he flicked it away.  “This true?”

I said, “Yup.  Seemed fitting.  Drown it in the desert.”

Glinty tilted his head back and laughed big.  His preacher’s hat fell off and he just kept on laughing loud.  I didn’t know what to make of it.  I thought he might be laughing at me, but I didn’t care.  I hated that hearse and the one who owned it.

Glinty settled down a bit and spat out a clam.  He said, “Drowned in the desert.  Hehehe…  ‘Seemed fitting,’ you said.  Hehehe…  Yessiree, I guess that about sums it up.  Well done, m’boy.”  He clapped my shoulder.

That didn’t answer anything, but he was walking away from us to the white utility truck.  I looked around at the faces of the others and I could see they had no clue either.  So I turned and followed Glinty, and the others followed suit.

Patrick shrank back from the window as the old cowboy closed in on him.  He shouted out, “Hey!  Who’s that guy in the Hallowe’en costume?”

I shouted back, “Nothing to be afraid of.  Just ghost preacher.  He’s gonna help us.”  Yeah, I was an asshole like that.  Sorry about that.

Glinty strolled around the big truck and inspected it.  He saw the front was all dented up, but still intact.  The huge guardrail bolted into the front end had taken a beating, but it was still solid and attached to the chassis.  He walked along the passenger side and hopped up on the door step.  He peered in and said, “BOO.”  Yeah, he was a bit of an asshole, too.  No apologies, baby.

Patrick screamed and was quiet again.  Probably fainted, poor bastard.

Glinty climbed back down and resumed his stroll.  He examined the panels and opened each of them up, one at a time, to look at their contents.  He whistled, like a watery breath from a grave.  He said, “You boys have a lot of wonderful tools at your disposal.  Most of these I don’t know what in the hell they for, but they look to be well made.  Very well made.”

Then he reached the back, and saw the bucket and arm, attached to the lift at the middle of the bed.  He turned back to me and said, “Is this some sort of fancy elevator?”

I nodded.  “It’s a man-lift.  It can get up pretty high.  Controls here and in the bucket.”

Glinty smiled, and reminded me that he had no teeth.  Those had followed his eyeball, an hundred years ago.  I got the creepy crawlies again.  Blecch.

He went to the other side and opened and closed more panels.  He turned around to face us all.  He said, “Well, this sure is one blessed event.  You have tools here that can make for weapons.  But we ain’t got much time to go practicing what they can do.  That red moon is heading for the western range way off yonder.  I figure we got ninety minutes to hide this vehicle while under the cover of the dark.”

I looked back up at him.  “Then what?”

He smiled again.  Blecch.  He nodded at the Sans Joaquin range behind us, to the east.  He said, “Then the sun will be up and about, and the shit is gonna hit the fan.  We have to find that boy with the missing part in his head.  Someone else come to town, and he wrong in the head, too, so to speak.  He needs to be set straight.  All these Purple Robes folks, well, I got a beef to settle with them.”

Tellesco said, “ We gonna go save Sean?”

Glinty nodded.  “First we gotta find him.  He’s out there right now, doing some very bad things.  But he ain’t at the reins.  He ain’t driving the herd.  He’s locked away in his own head.”

Tellesco began to weep.  Glinty came over to him and put a dusty old hand on his shoulder.  He said, “Now don’t you worry, young fella.  You go ahead and get your eyes wet all you like.  But I promise you, we will be doing our best to save that boy.  We have to.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but had another, more pressing concern.  I said, “Uh, Glinty, how the hell are we going to do that?  We don’t even know who our enemy is!”

Glinty nodded.  He said, “Neither do I.  but you can be sure of one thing.  He will make his presence known.  There will be no denying that.  You see, the enemy has been infected by a cannibal.  He’s gonna eat them up from the inside.”

He was talking about Sven Slindlivrenn, but none of knew who was that at that moment.

We just felt like we were in the dark about the whole thing.

Where Will We Go   by Iamdynamite 

.

TFW CH 7 Diamonds and Gold

Thank you for following all this time, my friend.  Three books. Damn.  I should tell the ending, that is only fair to you.  Almost there, baby.

Ok. Let’s go.

 

I’m Not Through   by OK GO 

The rider atop this hearse had a preacher’s hat atop his head, and he wore a pair of eyeglasses, with one lens shot out.  He’d lost that eye from a bullet that killed him a hundred years ago.

He pulled the reins up in one hand and swung the other behind him as he reached for something.

And then he whipped up a double-barreled shot gun and swung forward.

The blast from both barrels erupted the dark desertscape with an explosion of bright blue light that cast shadows and blinded us like the death of a star, a supernova.

Bryan fell back in horror and I turned back for them books.  They were our only hope.

But I couldn’t see anything.

The Glinty shouted something to his huge horse and probably held the reins back, but I couldn’t tell.  I had my face buried in the sand.

The sound of a carriage hearse skidding with the wheel brakes fully engaged thundered  from behind my turned-heels and the beast came to a stop right behind us.

I heard a voice that spoke from a hundred years ago, from thousands of miles above, desiccated like the surface of the moon.

The Glinty said, “I done told you boys you did it the hard way!”

The ghost preacher dropped his spent double-barreled shotgun upon his perch atop the hearse.  He hopped down and ran beyond the car named “Phoenix” with his side arm held straight out. 

He swung the pistol about and muttered, “Ambush.  Rest in peace, you bastards.”  He walked back past Phoenix towards us and then knelt in the desert dust and grabbed something up.

He examined it and said, “Hard gotten, easily lost.”

He stalked over to us with his huge pistol in one hand and the book in the other.

He said, “Drop all that other crap.  This is all you need,” and he flung the book at me. 

I dropped everything and caught the book.  It was the one that had been glowing.

I’d dropped it in my panic.

The others on the white utility truck shouted out.  Joey said, “I got a cannon back here, and I’ll fucking blast you if you hurt them men!”

Tellesco shouted, “Where’s Sean!”

I looked up at the creepy dude as he took his broken spectacles off.  I said, “Umm, Bryan, I’d like to introduce you to Glinty Mc Flintlock.  Mr. McFlintlock, this here is my compatriot Bryan.”

Bryan stood up, wiping dust from his face and spanking his hand across his jeans.  He adjusted his tie, so to speak.  None of us wore ties, you know.  Just a figure of speech.

Bryan said, “Hello and welcome to Earth, Mr. McFlintlock.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but when a ghost laughs his ass off, it creeps the hell out of me.

Ole Glinty said, “Well met!  You can call me Minister McFlintlock, if you prefer.  I’m a preacher, son.  And a preacher’s son.  But my friends call me Glinty.”

Bryan said, “I would like to be your friend now.”  I guess he had the willies.

I looked over his shoulder, past the buried golden car.  I said, “Who were you shooting at?”

Glinty said, “You boys almost got bushwhacked.  Ambush.  Them Purple Robes over there been hiding in wait. They take turns, you know, I been watching them.  I been protecting this place.” 

Diamonds   by The Boxer Rebellion 

Glinty swung his pistol up and aimed it behind us.

Tellesco came running up first.  Gawd dayam, I wondered why he didn’t get shot by the ghost dude.  He shouted, “I don’t know who you are mister, but I figure you know about Sean!  Where’s Sean and what did you do to him!”

Glinty pointed the pistol down and I heard the soft release of the trigger click from it.  He said, “I am no one of consequence to you right now.  You need to get yourself together and stand up tall.  Your friend is in a sad state.  He needs your help.  He needs the help of all of you.”  He looked about at us.

Tellesco began to weep, and that was when Joey came sneaking up.  Glinty nodded over our shoulders at him and said, “Call your friend off.  Only one of us, him and me, will get hurt here and now.”

I turned around and shouted.  “Joseph!  Easy, bud!  We cool!"

The little Lion Man eased up next to me.  He was carrying a fire extinguisher from the truck.  I looked down at it and said, “What were you hoping to do with that?”

Joey dropped it in the dirt and shrugged.  “Ain’t no guns on that big truck.  But you think I’d come empty handed to save your ass?”

Glinty laughed again, and it didn’t sound any prettier.  It echoed across the sand dunes like a death rattle.  He said, "No need to go check on them bastards.  They gone now.  Kinda ugly over there.  Who's these boys?"

I said, “Glinty, this is my friend Joseph.  This other one here is my friend Tellesco.  These two and Bryan over there are my best friends, along with that lost dude Sean we looking for.”

Well, mister, they shook hands all about, well met and all that, and I was thankful that I didn’t have to shake hands with  skeletal remains, skin hanging on by the tendon.

Glinty said, “You young men got a powerful bond here, I can see that.  Must be said, this might be why you all are still alive.  Ya got that loyalty thing going on here.”

No, it wasn’t all “aww shucks” and shit like that.

Them boys spoke about what they had been going through.  It was like respite, rest, escape.

Loyalty was true.  No one had let anyone else down.  Except…

In that moment, I turned to look back to the car buried there, drowned in the desert that awful night. It was Phoenix.  Katheena named him that.

Now, I wasn’t one who allowed himself any emotion at all, except fear. And panic.  (Do Not Panic).

She had given her life. 

Katheena was my star. 

She had the presence of mind,back at the mansion, before it got drowned, to steal some books.

Just when she was supposed to make her escape and wait for us in that car, our get-away ride, she had gone back inside that fucked place.

How, why?  For what?

We should have all gotten away, you know.

She might be with me now. 



She should have been there with me.


We could be laughing about that crazy shit, and telling the tale of how in the hell we had gotten away.

If only our path could be better written, maybe she and I would have a better ending.

Escape.

Huh.

There is no escape, no exit, I guess.

There is only Entrance to the next thing. 

You can never step in the same river twice, you know.

Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to happen in such a way, happy endings and all.  No Hollywood there in that ugly, dry desert.

I wiped the mud out of my eyes and then turned back to this group of sad bastards who were laughing in the way folks do after adrenaline has been spent and there was a friggin ghost standing there and everything…

Loyalty.  Did we really have it?

Well, that is, when you came right down to it, and after first appearances might have said otherwise… 

This is what Glinty was talking about, this being at the lowest point and still holding together and true.

It was what might save us.  We might have a hope to get Sean back.

As for the city of Fuckno?

No, we weren’t superhuman.  We weren’t superheroes.  Hell, we weren’t even heroes at all.

We were just a bunch of scraggly losers out for a joy ride in the desert, come upon a mess of a pile-up.

There was no hope for Fuckno, and that was for the best.  It had fucked itself.

But do you know, there was hope for Sean after all.

It simply meant that we would have to get our hands dirty, my friend.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out

Denial Twist    by White Stripes 

.

TFW WAR CH 6 Glint of Hope?

Please read the previous part before you continue, cool?  Ya know, each previous page can be found by clicking the right arrow at the very end of each page.  Blogger is odd.

Here we go, my friend.  We are nearing the very end.

Your Heart Is Black  

by Beth Hart and Joe Bonamossa 

As I stumbled across the desert sand towards the utility truck with my arms full of books, I heard a sound that only a horse can make when it is about to charge.

It was scary, because it was quite close.

It was behind us.

Bryan pushed himself out backwards from the drowned golden car in a panic.

 

The golden car that Katheena had named “Phoenix” gave birth to Bryan.  He came out feet first, like a breached infant.  From under the red light of the dying moon in the west, he shouted, “Someone’s coming!  I can feel it in my bones!”

I turned back to try to say something to calm his frazzled nerves, and beyond him I saw a blue fire.  It was heading directly towards us from the dunes way off.

The only thing I could say was this:  “Holy shit!  Let’s get the fuck outta there!  He’s coming!”

I turned back to the truck with the weight of the books in my arms and they felt like a ton of desert hard pan.  I felt them slip from my grasp with the exact same feeling you get when you have left your keys in the ignition, and you have slammed the door shut to your car.

In that brief instant, you know that you have fucked yourself over, and there is nothing you can do.

A

GLINT

OF

HOPE

?

I fell down on top of them books and they slid about.  I rolled over and that was when Bryan tripped over me in his panicked state and fell face first into the desert hand pan.

He said, “Who?!”

I rolled over and spat dirt out.  The Glinty was upon us.  I scrambled for them books, hoping that I didn’t lose one.  I said, “It’s the motherfucking ghost dude!”

Well, I tell you my friend, that got Bryan up fast.  He got to his knees and wiped dirt from his eyes and coughed out desert dust.  He said, “You really need to tell me about this ghost shit before it happens dude!”

He crawled over and helped me collect the books.

I looked back and saw the blue fire.  It was the mane of a giant horse, hauling a death carriage behind him.  A hearse.  The horse was named, “Mayhem.”

The rider atop this hearse had a preacher’s hat atop his head, and he wore a pair of eyeglasses, with one lens shot out.  He’d lost that eye from a bullet that killed him a hundred years ago.

He pulled the reins up in one hand and swung the other behind him as he reached for something.

And then he whipped up a double-barreled shot gun and swung forward.

The blast from both barrels erupted the dark desertscape with an explosion of bright blue light that cast shadows and blinded us like the death of a star, a supernova.

Bryan fell back in horror and I turned back for them books.  They were our only hope.

But I couldn’t see anything.

The Glinty shouted something to his huge horse and probably held the reins back, but I couldn’t tell.  I had my face buried in the sand.

The sound of a carriage hearse skidding with the wheel brakes fully engaged thundered  from behind my turned-heels and the beast came to a stop right behind us.

I heard a voice that spoke from a hundred years ago, from thousands of miles above, desiccated like the surface of the moon.

The Glinty said, “I done told you boys you did it the hard way!”

I about shit my pants.

He was talking about me and Sean, my first best friend, there in that fuckhole of a city, burned into the high desert valley of the long-dried and dead Sans Joking River.

I thought that it had been a dream.  Or a hallucination.  Or something that one sees when they have been injured in a car crash.  A dream about a visit to the moon.

Something had happened.

Somehow, this was all connected.

As we near the end of this trilogy of three books written all this time, it matters that you have followed along all this time.

There are two things you should know, which are these:

1.  You have been witnessing a story unfold as is written.

2.  The end of this tale is quite close.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

.

TFW WAR CH 5 DIG

D I G

I heard the sound that a mighty steed makes when it is in fear. I knew three things, which are these:

1.  Big Bryan had driven us out into the nightscape to the north in this white-painted utility truck to the place where Katheena drowned in the desert.

2.  The mighty horse was Mayhem, and he had died in a stable on fire, locked inside by evil people.  Now long dead, he pulled a carriage hearse driven by a ghost cowboy preacher once called The Glinty.

3.  We should get the fuck out of there, because The Glinty had come back.

Inhaler   by Foals 

I stumbled out of the white-painted utility truck and ran after Bryan.  I could see him from under the light of the huge red moon overhead, and she was heading to the west.

East was my home, my homeland, my island in a river.  I should have never left it.

The glow from his flashlight reflected back from the shiny side of a large golden stone rising up from the hard desert sand.

A furious rain had embedded this golden nugget into the earth during a very bad night.  Katheena had given up her life for us all.  She had stolen books from the library of the baptized mansion.  Them books held secrets about which we had no clue.

As I ran, I saw Bryan walk to the other side of the golden nugget, and when I reached him, I knew without having to see that is was Katheena’s car.

All sorts of emotions surged up, but I stuffed them back down.

I was good at doing that.

You have to keep the emotions away when you are in a war.

You have to become a machine, a robot.

Later, there is no hope for you.

Bryan looked just when I rounded the front end of the Thunderbird that Katheena had named Phoenix.  He said, “There’s a blue glow from the back seat.”

I slammed into him and he dropped the flashlight, and it went out.

He said, “HEY!  What the fuck?!” as he went down hard.

I said, “Bryan!  You took us out here when the Glinty dude is coming!”

He got back up and he shouted, “Will!  Why did you attack me?!”

I stepped back.  I was ready for a fight.  It didn’t matter that he had gotten very strong in prison.  It didn’t matter that he was now very angry at me. 

I had the fear of being here.

It was all about self-preservation.

I guess that our sense of betrayal was mutual.

And then he stuffed it all down inside, just like I always did.

He said, “OK.  I don’t get it, but OK.  I guess I fucked up.  We need to get away from here, I understand.”

I nodded, and my knees felt weak.

He said, “Then we will go.  But first, tell me why you fear this car.”

I shook my head.  I said, “I don’t fear this ride.  I fear this place.  This is where my lady died.  I don’t want to die here like she did.”

We both heard a horse whinny off in the dunes.

Bryan said, “Do you keep hearing that?  Is that what makes you afraid?  It’s just a horse!”

I said, “Bryan, that is an evil omen.  Bad things are going to happen.”

He said, “Bad things always happen.  But just hear me out.  Would you please just hear me out for a minute?”

I felt my ankles get weak, but I heard myself saying, "OK.  Shoot.”

Bryan pointed down, in the waning red light of the red moon that was nearing the western horizon.

He said, “There is something here.  I was drawn here by it.  You have to trust me. Right now.”

I thought about all of the things he had always done to protect me, and he had never failed me, even when I thought that he had.

I heard myself saying, “I trust you.  Go ahead.”

He crawled into the drowned car through the busted out driver’s side window, across the hard sand that had once poured inside it like water, and made his way to the blue spark.

I heard a horse snort in approval, and it sounded like it was from a hundred years ago, echoing across the red desertscape.



I shivered in my boots.

Bryan reached the back seat of the car.  He shouted back, “The blue light is coming from between the seats back here!”

I moved my boots.  I went to the window and bent down and looked in.  I said, “It’s a secret compartment.  Katheena crafted it to hide things.  You have to reach in there.”

Bryan turned back to me in the dark interior of the ride.  The side of his face was lit by the blue glow shining between the back cushions.

He said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me dude.”

I said, “Hey.  You wanted to come here.  You asked for it.  Now ya gotta stick your hand in there.”

He swung his head to look at it, and then he looked back at me.  He said, “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

I said, “That’s what I’ve been telling you Bryan!”

He said, “Fuck it.  I’m going in.”

I have to tell you, my friend, that he showed true Mettle in that instance.

He reach in and said, “Arrrgh!   It cut my hand off!  Arrrgh!”

I jumped back in horror.

And, of course, 

He was joking. 

Fucker.

He pulled some books out and said, "I did all of this for some overdue library books?  That's fucked up, man.  Just pay your dues!"


The glow from inside the secret compartment glowed brighter, and he looked back at it.


He said, "i guess there are more in there."



He stuck his hand in there and reached around for more, and he pulled them all out.

One particular book glowed with blue light on the rear seat of the drowned car.

He handed them to me all, and when he did, the blue glow evaporated.

I had a bunch of books in my arm now.

I just had no clue what this meant.

But I singled out the one particular book, and I put it up on top of the pile in my arms.


I smelled it.



It smelled like a desert rose.






When you are in a war, every little hint means something.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Jewels and Gold   by Angus and Julia Stone 

TFW CH 4 BLUE DUNES

When you think that you have nothing left, what do you do?

It might be, in that moment, when you look inside.

You may find true wealth.

I hope that you do.

Tahoo.

The white utility truck backed out and swung around.  Bryan stepped out of the driver’s door and hopped up on its roof and shoved away the broken cinder blocks on it. 


It was time for us to go.



I helped Bryan get everyone collected up and into our new ride.

We had some interesting times ahead.  Ya think?

For My Friends   by BethHart and Joe Bonamassa 

Big Bryan looked down at his friends, sitting there in the cab beside him.

One was a little lion man, another was a utility worker, and another one was a huge dude who went by the name of Tellesco.  And then there was his best friend.

It was me.

The only one who looked back at him was me.  The others were out for the count.

He put that white-painted utility truck into gear and drove us out of that little tar patch, down to the country lane ahead.  He turned left, to head north.  He had a plan.

In a while, he would take a right turn and deliver us all from the evil of Fuckno.

Head to the desert,

Head to the East.

Look for the answer,

Look for the Beast.

The answer would be to find the beast, and kill it.

He just didn’t know that the beast was dressed in a purple robe, there in the ugly desert megalopolis of Fuckno.

It was a beast that had many heads.

He would help us escape this night, and then we would return to fight the beast.

Bryan drove her forth, thinking about what lied ahead for himself, and for us all.  He felt like he was the only one at the wheel, and he was correct.

What had he been thinking?

All this time, in jail, waiting to be released, and then that girl with the frosty voice had joined him.

He didn’t know who she was, but that didn’t matter.  What mattered was that she had told him a dream.

It involved one of those beside him on the bench seat.

He simply did not know which one it was.

Hell, he had his own demons to face.

Who was he to judge another?

Who was he to help anyone at all?

A demon to face, indeed.

As he drove forth, he saw a peculiar blue spark ahead, in the north of the desert.  It beckoned him to come closer, like a moth to the flame.

The attraction was quite powerful.   He looked over at we four passengers, and saw that we were all asleep.

Exhausted, from a hell of a night.

He looked forward, at the blue spark, and he thought that it was a haven.

He would take us there.

You know, Bryan did the best he could, in that moment.

He should not be blamed.

Everything’s For Sale   by Henry’s Funeral Shoe 

The tiny blue spark beckoned him, and it would not be ignored.

He drove that huge truck toward the light, and he felt like it held all of the answers.

He was correct, but it was too soon.

The others beside him dozed in various states of unconsciousness, all awaiting our doom.

But instead of a small cabin at the end of tiny lanes in the unforgiving night desert, he found a pile of vehicles to the right.  Across from the pile, a bit further northward, he saw the blue spark.

He stopped the heavy utility vehicle on the side of the road and opened the door.

The blue spark to his left vanished.  He grabbed the flashlight and hopped down and out.

He strode forth, over the hard-packed sand and looked about on the ground, searching for clues.

As he walked, he heard behind him the sounds of his passengers awakening. He ignored them.  He was going to find something truly marvelous, he was sure of it.

He heard his best friend shout from the big truck, “Bryan!  Where did you go?!  You drove us out here?!”

He shined the flashlight ahead, and something glinted.

As he neared it, he saw that it was a smooth, low, golden rock.

It was quite large.

He jogged closer, shining the light all about it.

It was submerged in the sand, drowned in th the desert.

It was the roof of a car.

He heard his friend shout after him, “You did it all wrong!  We were supposed to head away from here!”

He ignored my shout.

He reached the car.  The window was intact on this side, but broken on the driver’s side.  Sand, like once-wet mud slurry, had been poured into the broken window like a lung full of a death gasp.

Drowned in the desert indeed.

Katheena.

Bryan had found Katheena’s car, her once-adored golden beast.  It had made the claw marks in the weak, sun-scorched tar south of us all.


She had named her car, "Phoenix."

The rear of the vehicle held books that no one knew anything about.  They were hidden inside a secret compartment, and Katheena had stolen them from the drowned mansion.




Before she had died.


I had taken her from this vehicle in the desert rain storm.

Them books were the tools we might be able to use to make a stand.

Across the dunes, Bryan heard the sound a horse makes when it is afraid.

Bryan shivered.  He did not know what the hell he was doing there.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

I Shiver   by Robert Cray 

TFW CH3 SACRILEGE

Nearly Lost You   by Screaming Trees 

I turned around to tell Big Bryan to help me get Joey out of the little truck, but he wasn’t there.  He was probably attending to Tellesco, who was still up in the cab of the broken semi trailer tractor.  It was a good thing that the fuel was located away from the engine, in double-walled tanks.  The red light from under the tractor faded, but I could still feel the heat of it on the backs of my jeans.

I leaned in the little truck and said, “Joseph!  Are you hurt?”

His eyes came back to the front and he said, “Yeah, I’m hurt that you almost ran me down…”

Bastard.  Still cracking jokes.

I pulled him out and dragged him away from the little truck.  I set him down on his side near the sage brush.

I crawled back into the little truck and put her in gear, and tried to back her out.  The weight of the truck was on the wrong rear wheel.  The wheel with power only spun and made a small dust cloud.

Shit.

We would have to push her out of the ditch by hand.  She was hung up against the tree that had stopped her.

I got back up and out from the passenger side door and went to go see how Bryan was doing with Tellesco.

Tellesco peered down from his high perch in the semi and said, “You guys didn't get me fries?”

I thought, Hah?  Where's Bryan?

I rounded the front of the semi and saw a flashlight shining about in the cement-block structure.  Bryan was inside the power station?

I went to check it out.

“Bryan!” I said, and he whipped the torch's light over at my face. 

He said, “Will!  Watch where you’re going!  There's live wires on the ground!”

All I could see now was a big blue dot in front of my eyes.  Fucker had blinded me, so I stopped in my tracks. I said, “What the hell you doing in here?”

Bryan said, “This big truck is kinda smashed up, I mean, the windshield is gone and there’s bricks and stuff in the cab.  But the engine is still running.  No steam or anything!”

Huh.

I considered the little truck I had just pulled Joey out of, and how it had been running all night with it’s tiny fuel tank.

I thought of those two large men and Joey and me, all trying to fit into the little cab.

Yeah, right.

Four men in a tiny boat.

Someone would have to sit in the bed.  Probably two of us.

My vision began to clear a bit.  I said, “Bryan.  What are you thinking?”

He said, “I’m thinking that this truck is our new ride.”

I would have to agree.  I didn't say anything about the Glinty, but he was sure to be following us.  I had no idea what he intended to do, but that didn't matter.  We just needed to get away from here, and fast.  And, for gawd’s sake, far away from the desert dunes.  That was where I had once visited his cabin in the desert.  Fuck that shit.

He had fallen from the sky, from the moon.

Shit was about to erupt.  Time to bail, baby.

That was when I heard the moan of someone behind me.

Hah?

I said, “…Bryan…  Someone’s behind me…  Gimme your flashlight…”

He held the light down to the ground and stepped over wires and cables and busted switch boards and huge relays strewn about.  He came up to me and cupped the light in his hand. 

He said, “…where?”

I turned around and he let the light loose.  On the ground at the end of the tar lied a man in uniform.

No, not a police officer.  It was the guy who had been driving this truck.  He moaned again, lying on his back, and he put a hand up to his head.  He winced.  Then his eyes opened and he looked over, into the light.

He said, “Please don’t hit me anymore.”

Hah?

I went over to him and knelt down on one knee.  I said, “What happened to you?”

He shielded his eyes from Bryan’s flashlight and said, “I think I got attacked.  Can you help me?”

I said, “Of course.  Anything broken?”

He moved about a bit, and said, “I don’t think so, I just feel all banged up.”

I said, “Let’s get you up.”

He sat up with my help and said, “Do you have any water?”

Ya know, in the desert, it’s important to always keep yourself properly hydrated.  I just shook my head.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I have some in my rig. Please, I have dust in my mouth.”

I said, “Ok, hold on.”

Bryan took the flashlight from directly out of the man’s face and sat down on his haunches.  He said, “What’s your name?”

The man looked fearful and said, “Your voice changed.  Wha…”

Bryan said, “Now don’t panic.  Me and my friend will help you.  You can call me Bryan.”

In the off-glow of the flashlight shining on the ground, the man’s face eased up a bit. He said, “I’m Patrick Til-bury.  You can call me Pat.”

I left them two and went back to Tellesco. He was like a big kid.  A really big kid, strong kid.  He was a bit stunned.  I think it wasn't from the straight shot of Bryan’s fist.  It might have had more to do with the whole situation.

It was a bit much for a young, pampered rich kid to take in. 

Tellesco just might have had enough.

Time to take a mental break.

I climbed up into the black, broken truck and slid across the bench seat to him.  He looked up from his hands and said, “Got my fries?”

I said, “Tellesco, you need to get out of this cab here.”

He looked out the busted windshield.

Ahead, from where we sat up high in the semi without a rig, the barren desertscape beyond was lit by bright red light shining down from the moon overhead. 

Desolate, without compassion.  Hatred, almost.  The moon had no worries.  War had begun, and she knew it.

She had given birth to a tiny blue spark, and that was the return of the Glinty.

Dark times lay ahead for us all.

Sacrilege   by YeahYeah Yeahs 

I turned back from where he stared and said, “You know, Sean is still waiting for us.”

Tellesco looked at me and said, “Sean.  Sean…”

I looked to where Big Bryan was, with that utility worker.  Bryan wasn't there anymore.

Then I saw the big, white utility truck that was smashed halfway into the cement structure. The brake lights flashed on, and they went out.

The big truck began to pull itself away from the hole it had created.  Bricks and other things fell down upon its snub nose of a hood, and the truck sped up a bit.  As it came away, the roof of the building slunk down.

As the truck cleared free of the structure, the roof caved in.

I looked back to Tellesco and said, “Sean.  He’s waiting for you.  He wants to give you a big hug.”

Tellesco’s eyes widened.  He said, “Shut the fuck up Mr. Will.”

He pushed me away and un-clicked his seat belt.

I hopped down from the semi just as Bryan climbed up onto the roof of the big truck and began to push bricks off.

Tellesco followed me to the utility truck.  He said, “Where is Mr. Joseph?”

I  said, “Over here.  Follow me.”

Joey lied on the ground where I had dragged him minutes before.  Tellesco bent down and grabbed him up, and he cradled him in his arms like a baby.  Joey looked up and said, “Mama?”

Tellesco began to laugh.

It was good to hear that.

I think that Tellesco, at that moment, took a step back from the cliff.

That mattered.

You recall, he was a king.

It mattered quite a hell of a lot.

We just didn't know why, at that point.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Touch Me I’m Going To Scream   by My Morning Jacket 

.

TFW WAR CH2 MARTYR

La Vie En Rose  by Louis Armstrong  

WAR

CHAPTER

2

MARTYR

Big Bryan had said, “Will.  I came back for you guys.  You are why I came back here.  You are why I have been in jail all this time.  You did all this.  You’ve started a war.  So, what is the next step in your plan?”

The Glinty was coming down the trail, and I knew it was him.  I just didn't know what this meant.  But I found that I had a clue.

It had something to do with Sean, who was acting all weird now.

Of course, I didn't know how weird he had become.

But I would soon find out.

War had begun, in that desolate desert megalopolis of Fuckno.

We carried Tellesco together and dragged him up into the cab.  For once, he wasn't sitting bitch.  We slid him over the wide bench seat, across to the other side against the passenger door.  He was groggy from his fight with the Purple Robes, from the cold breath of a girl new to death, and a solid punch to his head from another large man: Big Bryan.

But he would wake the hell up.  Things would be getting pretty clear to him now, and to us all.

An old cowboy ghost was riding a carriage hearse with Catherine wheels towards us, drawn by a mighty black horse with a mane of blue flames.  The horse was called Mayhem.

Mayhem awaited us all.

I sat down next to Tellesco and Big Bryan got behind the steering wheel of the semi rig.

He looked at the dials and said, “She’s getting hot.  She ain't long for this world.  But she has some life left.”

He pushed the triple shift button down low and set her in reverse, and then he pressed her petal towards the mettle with a delicate touch, and we moved away from the mess in front of her grill.

The black semi rig was connected to the cars all piled up in front of her, all smashed by her, and the ones in front were connected to her grill.  He pressed down more on the accelerator, and the eight wheels behind us (two huge tires on each end of the two axles) well, they began to hum and then squeal on the tar driveway.

Bryan took her out of gear, and put her into low first.  He chugged her forward and the smashed pile of cars in front of us howled with broken metal pain.

He sped forth a bit and then swung the gear back into reverse while the momentum of the car pile kept going forth.  When he did this, the front end of the semi rig tore away and hung against the pile of smashed metal before us.

He floored the her petal and her bumper came away as well,  hanging there on the pile, and one end of the bumper dragged a car with it out of the wreck.

He stopped the semi, drove forth a bit and the sound was like the shriek from a newborn.

He stomped on the brake petal, held down the clutch and gunned the engine.  He looked over to me and said, “Duck down.  Something heavy might come this way.”

I did, and he stared straight ahead with the engine roaring with higher howls and coolant and oil dumping out on the ground.

Then he let the clutch go and the rear wheels shrieked, digging into the tar.

The semi lurched us back.  We both went forward.  I hit the foot well and Bryan hit the steering wheel.

The semi broke free of the car in front with the sound of metal rivets busting and pinging the cars in front of us.

Free at last.

I looked over Tellesco who said, “Who’s banging pans?”

Over his slumped shoulders the tiny blue spark below the foothills had disappeared. 

Mayhem and the Glinty were heading towards us.

We needed to collect Joey (whom I called Joseph back then, and whom I refer to as The Lion Man).

The truck swung herself to the right as we went back and we swung left inside the cab.  Tellesco fell over on top of me and Bryan shouted.

He said, “Steady!”

Tellesco pushed himself off of me as we spun around.  He said, “Sorry Mr. Will.  I feel dizzy..."

Bryan whipped the wheel around and put that old iron bitch into gear.  We were now heading back out down the driveway toward the old country lane.

We didn't have much life left in this old rig, but she was ready to give up her last breath for us.

Just like my first car, Matilda.

Bryan said, “Which way?”

I said, “Hah?”

He said, “Left or right?  Where is Joey?”

I said, “Turn right!  Head south!  He’s near a power station!”

Bryan entered the old country lane and we were going to Joey.

We were going to collect him.

Red Eyed And Blue   by Wilco  

Tellesco said, “How do I be a King?”  He was murmuring to himself.

I looked back behind us, out of the high, narrow glass in the rear wall of the cab.  There was no sign of the Glinty coming our way.  Yet.

I don’t know if I felt relief or disappointment.  I just knew that what I felt most was hesitation.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go forth with any of this.

The future was uncertain, and it was like standing on a precipice before a deep chasm.

Hell, I had lost my little bag of white powder.

I’d dropped it in the pool of scorching-hot oil and boiling coolant from the black beast we now rode.

Amazing, the power the powder had held over me.

I actually wanted to go back and try to retrieve it.  I remembered that it was me; I had poured it out.  What was I thinking?

I should have kept it and then I would still have it.  It would give me courage now, when I needed it most.

I would---

Bryan stomped the brakes and turned us on a dime.  A tiny red light on the power station building marked out target.

We sped forward without headlamps or even a front end, down the small driveway to the structure.

Indeed, the semi rig was bare on the front end, showing her tits.

Bryan stomped and locked her brakes, and we skidded until we stopped.  He opened the door and climbed out and hopped down to the tar.  He left the motor running because it might not start again.



I followed him down.  Tellesco muttered behind me, “I want chili fries and a Coke.”

The structure was lit from overhead by the red light from the moon above, and it was a mess. Something had happened to it.  The ass end of a huge truck stuck out from the side, and a single red light bulb glowed from the door nearby the hole.

The red light bulb was protected by a tiny metal cage about it, and it was probably powered by battery.  We didn't know that almost everything in Fuckno was powered now by batteries.  We didn't know that Joey had caused everything in the huge desert city to go dark when he smashed that white-painted utility truck into this power station.


We didn't know that he was a hero.




I looked around.

Our little truck was gone.

Joey had flown the coop.

Hah?

Joey?

He had fucked us?

I couldn't believe it.

Our escape vehicle was fucking gone.

Like my powder was.

I screamed.  I roared.  I was pissed.  I said, “FUCK!”

The semi rig's engine started to shudder.  It began to make loud, metallic grinding noises and the ground rumbled from it.  Then the radiator whistled like a chorus of birds. 

Big Bryan pulled me away from the front of the semi just when all of her hot breath burst out in a spray of high temperature steam and we rolled onto the side of the little tar driveway.

The huge beast shuddered and howled and screamed.  The windows and glass blew out from the cab.  With a mighty CLANG the air in the desert was silent again.

The engine had melted into a solid chunk of iron.

It glowed red, beneath the chassis, from where we lied in the dirt.  Steam hissed and sputtered and died down.  I could see the red glow of the engine.

All was lost.

We were alone.

Tellesco tottered up in the cab and said, “Where's my fries?”

He looked down at us in the waning light of the red glow from the engine beneath and the moon overhead.

He said, “Did you at least remember my Coke?”

The ringing in my ears dissipated a bit, and I thought I heard the whinny from a horse.

I pushed Big Bryan off me and sat up.

I listened.

It was a voice.

I got up on my knees and slapped Bryan on the arm.

He looked around.  He heard it too.

It said, “Weeeee-ill...”

I got up on my boots and went closer.

There, on the side of the tar, against a tree, was a small truck.  The engine was still humming.

Joey.

I ran over to the truck and looked in the side window.

I said, “Joseph!  You didn’t bail on us!”

He said, “Fuck no.”

I said, “Why you down over here?”

He said, “You guys trying to run me over.  Fuckers.”

We had almost killed him?

Joey said, “Weeee-ill.  I’m kinda fucked up.”

I said, “Joseph!  You gonna be OK.”

He said, “ I don’t know about that, but whatever you do, don’t stall the engine.”

Then he leaned over passed out.

Huh.

Dude didn’t bail after all.

How about that?

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

No Deliverance   by Toadies