Hwy 87

Dust dances and tumbles across torn bushes and Raises. Jokie chews on a straw from his soda can with an expression of death by boredom, “Oh my fucken Goddess. How much longer?”

“Not much longer.” Julli sighed in annoyance.

Jokie mimics, “NoT mUcH LoNgeR. Bitch, I have better shit to do.”

“Like hanging out with Heron from our compound? You know he’s playing you like a fiddle.”

“Mmmm, what if that’s what I want?! Huh?! What if I want my fiddle play’D wiTH! [tongue click]”

“Ew… I’m your sister, and 3 minutes your senior! Have some respecT, fool!” Julli says cackling as Jokie rolls his eyes with his palm to the air. “Girl, bye. ‘Bout 3 minutes.” A black truck pulls into Jackie’s Fill and Stop Diner. “Look alive. They’re here.” Julli says gesturing to the truck to Jokie who is taking cover behind a rock with a 12 gauge. Julli readies her rifle. “Three, two… one”

Julie points her M16 at the driver’s door and looks through her scope. As it cracked open, a white mohawk peaked from the edges swaying to and fro.

“Hold…” Julli gestures to Jokie holding up her closed fist. Her heart intermittently starts to beat so rapidly, as if she ran for miles into the past when times were calmer, sweeter and hopeful. Her rifle began to sway. “No. No. Can’t…” she said in utterance and assurance.

The white mohawked driver emerges from the vehicle from the driver’s seat relieving some of the weight in the car. A muscular person with tungsten arms and gray eyes pieced into the distance scanning for onlookers. Julli and Jokie ducked for cover.

“Fuck…”Julli expelled.

“Girl, what? We have a 5 minute window to storm they asses! What’s good.” Jokie said, peeping behind the rock.

“It’s them.”

“Who?”

“Wolph”

“Your ex is here! ‘The fuck, Ju!”

“New plan. After they leave with him we intercept them before they head into Tryterra.”

“Are you fucken crazy?” Jokie shook his head, “We gotta report this back to Mama. We were to gas ‘em storm the mothafuckas, get Sid and whip it out. In and out job.”

Julli lifted her head to peek over her cover. Two bodyguards walk to the entrance and open the door for a woman dressed in sapphire blue. Wolph escorts her into the diner and faint chatter starts. “They’re already inside.”

“Fuck that, I’m gon’ get Sid. I’m not waiting on you.” Jokie said running to get behind the Diner’s back door.

Jokie makes his way in the back exit to the Diner onlooking the kitchen in front of him and to his left steps heading down towards the basement. He holds his shotgun close and descends down the mortared brick exposed cold damp basement. A light bulb illuminated the center revealing the back of Sidney’s green and yellow buzz cut, propped up on a metal chair. “What do you want from me?...”

“Sid, It’s Joke. I’m gon’ getchu outta here. Sit tight.” Jokie whispered. He opened his switchblade and started to cut the rope. They heard faint talking through the vent coming from upstairs, “Walk me to the back, dear...”

Jokie began to cut faster. Sid shook his head and whispered aggressively, “Hide!”

Jokie panicked and ran behind a palette of flour. Footsteps descended closer with each click of a heel Syncing with the dripping tap adjacent from Sid. Red spotted towels hanging over the basin and cleaning jugs adorn the counter. The basement smelled of mold, dust and bleach.

“Sidney darling! Are you ready to talk yet?” Beta said, smiling exposing her bright white fangs that gleamed against her red lips as if to tell a not so secret fate.

Sid spits blood on the ground. Jokie peered to the other side of the palette and saw Wolph standing directly behind Beta.

Beta sets a briefcase on the table by Sid that was sitting by the sink. “That’s alright love. I can take all I need from right here.” Beta said, tapping Sid’s temple implant. He pulls away from her “No.”

“Oh but yes.” Beta pulls out a long needle and straps Sid’s head to the chair.

Jokie covers his mouth and looks over to Wolph’s side and sees Julli creeping up behind Wolph. Jokie startled, knocked into the flour and sneezed. Wolph and Beta look in Jokie’s direction “Who goes there!?” Beta yells. Jokie panickly grabs his shotgun and blasts it at Beta. Wolph sees Jokie and kicks over Sid and runs towards him. “Get Julli and run!” They whispered as they dragged up Jokie and threw him into Julli across the room. They struggle to come to their feet. Julli picks up her dropped M16 and points it at Beta. Wolph stands in the way and grabs the bore and bends it upright towards the ceiling. “Fuck you!” Yelled Julli. Wolph yanks the rifle from Julli and drops it like a disregarded toy. Wolph says in a low voice, “Get out of here, Ju.”

Swiftly, Beta grabbed a dagger from under her dress and threw it at Jokie stabbing him in the nape, killing him instantly. Sidney yelped, “Noooo!!!” Wolph grabbed Julli by the collar. Julli poked Wolph in the eyes and ran off as Wolph grasped at the air to find her. Beta threw more daggers as she ascended the stairs and bolted out the back door. Julli hid behind a nearby ditch beside the road covered by boulders. She hid for a good while. Julli thought ‘I’m not leaving without you, Joke’.

Julli watched Beta exit the Diner and the bodyguards opened the car door for her and carried her bloodied suitcase inside with her. Wolph soon appears with a body slung over their shoulder and then thrown into the back of the enclosed truck. Was it Jokie? Except Jokie doesn’t have white short mullet. Who were they? Beta rolls down the window and yells at Wolph, “Now Wolph, do you have to play with your food?” and sees a distant look on Wolph but then a slight smirk creeped on their face as they stared back into the trunk before slamming it shut. “What have you become, Wolph…” Julli said to herself as she watched them drive off. She runs out into the middle of the road and they disappear into the hazy distance headed towards Tryterrah City. Julli ran back to the basement to find the door to it locked with the door knob creased with blood as if wiped in a hurry. Julli kicked off the door and headed downstairs. Jokie laid at the foot of the steps with his and Sid’s head severed leaving nothing but the evident bodies behind. Julli sobbed in her palms and stormed out back to the compound.

~~~~~

Julli drags the car through the foyer; trailing a convolution of dust, hanging laundry and sand that swirled and twirled behind her. She came to a stop at the foot of Mama’s entrance. “Mama!” Julli sobs, grabbing Jokie out the car and carrying her headless brother to the door. The siblings crowded around Julli and the car helping her with the bodies of Jokie and Sid; carrying them to the community Infirmary. Jully ran into the house and found Mama speaking with the arms contractor, “-- and Jack, you make sure your idiots get it to me by Tuesday or else late fees will be the least of your worries. Good.”

Julli plops down into the tattered mustard yellow couch and then buries her face into her palms sobbing uncontrollably. “Hush now baby girl. What happened?” Mama said consolingly.

“They got Jokie! And, and Sid… They… She… Beta!... Wol–” Julli was hyperventilating and a sibling came to Julli and Mama with Julli’s inhaler. Mama hands it to Julli and she takes huge draws from it before continuing. “-- Mama. Wolph is involved somehow.

“I fucken knew it! I knew Wolph couldn’t be trusted. We open our home to them and this is how they treat this family. What did I tell you about strays, Julz–” Mama yelled pacing back and forth.

“-- strays live with a past disease or a path of dis-ease.” Julli finished.

“Exactly. Did they see you?”

“Not exactly…” Jullii said sniffing, wiping her face with her sleeve.

Mama placed her hands behind her head in disbelief, “What the fuck you mean, ‘not exactly’, Julz!”

“I ran away and I hid. Saw them leave the Diner with a huge briefcase and tailed outta there towards the city. If I stayed a minute longer, I too would have been a goner. But Wolph tried to warn Jokie and me. I don’t think Wolph is a part of this. I just feel it in my gut.”

Mama dropped her hands to her side, looked up at the ceiling and gasped, “Fuck… Julz?--” Mama caught one of the siblings in her peripherals that dropped off the inhaler standing off to the corner of the break area. Watching, listening crunching awkwardly while stuffing his face with toasted corn as Mama’s eyes met his. “Hey, make like the wind.” she said, gesturing toward the door. The boy walked out the door rolling his eyes, leaving the opened bag of toasted corn on the counter. “We have to tell the gang. It's only a matter of time until they rat you out. Wolph can’t be trusted. They decided to leave the family after we took them in. Wolph chose to run with trouble. Always did. I’m going to handle this myself. If I’m gone you know what to do. You and Jerikoe will look after the family and the business.”

“Mama no. Jokie is literally my other half–”

“-- and he’s my cub! I want to tear that bitch limb from limb with my bare hands myself, but this operation needs a cool head. We need more intel and excuse me. Speak of the devil, someone owes me a favor.” Mama paced out of the room and answered her phone. Her boisterous voice could be heard until you could hear her phone call in the faint distance.

Julli stood up and hopped in Jokie’s truck and drove to the peak of a rose dusted escarpment sitting at the ledge. Julli stared at the vulture that circled in the distance, contemplating the distance from the cliff to the ground. Whether it would be as painful as Jokie’s death. Julli snarled to herself and covered her eyes. ‘Joke. Why didn’t you wait for me? You said “from birth to Earth.” Why…’ She inched closer to the ledge. The vulture sways in hovering over the cliff. Julli’s eyes fill with tears, engulfed by the somber cobalt evening sky. Pastel yellow faded moon married to it, transient in color as it illuminated into the night. Julli stared at what was now the night sky. Yearning for a sign. Anything. Something. Someone. Her phone rings, Julli answers and rises from the ledge, “Hey.”

“Hey, I know we haven’t been on speaking terms and it must have been hard for us to meet in these circumstances. I’m sorry about Joke. Ahh… I–”

“Wolph, are you okay?”

“--I’m not regenerating anymore. I just called to say I’m sorry. I tried to make it right. I just hope I made Eryn proud.”

“Stop talking like this. Where are you?” Julli said, juggling her keys and jumped in the car.

“Julz, I–” Alarms blared on the phone before the call disconnected.

Julli opened an old app on her phone she used to track Wolph’s phone gps. Donahue-Owens Private Hospital in Kendichi Territory. Julli raced into Tryterrah City for the first time in years. She zoomed past the Lin’s Eatery and Venter Junction.

She drove past memories of first dates and forehead kisses. Collateral heartbreaks and betrayals. That sometimes-straight high school crush’s old house she used to leave roses on her doorstep from her neighbour's, Aunt Maeve’s, rose bush. Baring every torn that would prick her at the attempt to put roses and dandelions as bittersweet as the look she would give young Julli. Switching from endearment to cold eyes when their father walked by. She longed to be seen. Wondered if anyone would look at her like that again. Until she met Wolph.

Julli arrives at Donahue-Owen Hospital and enters the building and makes her way through the labyrinth of halls; following the signs to the Neurology floor while tracking Wolph's phone. Flames engulfed the corridors. The ceilings discitergates and begin to fall around Julli as she covers her face. She penetrates deeper into flames, ‘Don’t give up, Wolph.’ she thought as sweat beaded down her face. She kicked over plaster from a caved ceiling, maneuvered around shattered glass, and exploded substances geysered from bursting pipes into the stuffy atmosphere. Julli glances at the tracking app and sees her phone was signaling from room 780 where a shattered sign protruded over the door, ‘NCC Recov–’. A pool of blood drained out from under the door. The room was covered in debris and ceiling from the 7th to the 8th caved in. She enters the run down room, and finds Wolph’s phone sitting in a pool of what looks like Wolph’s blood. Julli grabs the phone and escapes out of the collapsing room. Everywhere she turns to is a raging inferno. At the opposite end of the hall, Julli sees a fire extinguisher beside an ajared staircase. Divided by burning vinyl and aluminum. There was no way she could get around the fire. Attempted to hesitantly dodge and two-step over every sin and secrets that the flamed both told and kept. Taking the ashes and infinite silence to its grave. She pulled her collar half way over her face and pulled her sleeves over her hands and ran through the infernus hall. She grabbed the extinguisher, sprayed her way down the staircase to the lobby and stormed out the building to her car.

She sat on the hood panting for air, opened the car and sat fumbling for her inhaler before taking a draw. She mourns Wolph in the car then sees someone stumbling out of the hospital and calls a cab. This was the same person Julli saw Wolph carry out of the Diner. White mullet muddied with coagulated blood and ash, dark chestnut skin, dark mahogany lips like lees of a 2020s bordeaux and smoldering eyes like they’ve seen the end of days. ‘Hot’ she thought, “What’s wrong with me...” she said out loud, shaking her head. Julli tails the cab to the hospital that services them. They climbed out the cab and walked into the hospital. Jullie follows them inside and witnesses the mysterious person secretly exchanging some slips of paper with the waiting nurse and escorts them down the hall. She attempts to follow after them but the security guard stands in front of her blocking her entry and points to the sign, ‘Please make an appointment before you see a nurse or take a number and be seated.’ Julli scowled at the guard and flipped him the finger.

She headed outside and in what was now pissing rain and called Mama, “Mama!”

“Yes Julli. Where are you?”

“I got a call from Wolph and pinged their phone to a burning private hospital in Kendichi Territory. Wolph is gone.”

Mama paused on the phone, “Did you find anything?”

“Do you even care that they're dead?”

“Of course I care. I care about keeping you safe.”

“No. You don’t.” Julli hung up and drove home.

Mama sighed.

Jericoke stood at the foot of the door waiting on Mama’s orders, “Samayat confirmed an Investigator and had briefed them on the details. She’ll follow up with you in the morning.”

“Where is the lawyer now?”

“Pub.”

“And Wolph?”

“Still no sign, Mama. You think they've survived those injuries from the fire?”

“No doubt in my mind. Keep close to this. I need you to be my eyes and ears.” said Mama.

“... And when I find them?...”

“Joke and Sid are dead because of them. I’m sorry I didn’t get to them myself. Bring them in alive.”

“Yes, Mam’” Jericoke said, stomping out with each heavy step. Absorbing impact into a dusty foyer adorned in Mezo-mosaic tiles gleaming from the broken mirrors illuminating from the moon.