The CB radio came to life, but Jill couldn’t make out what was said over the ringing of her ears. She racked her rifle and slumped into the driver’s seat; she sure as hell wasn’t walking back to the men if she could drive! The road was too narrow to turn the big rig around and her frontal visibility was blocked by the shattered windshield. But the side mirror was still there, if freckled with bits of blood and lemming brain, so Jill just threw Bertha into reverse. The back-up beeps started muffled almost beyond audibility, but became louder and louder as her hearing came back unnaturally fast.
As Bertha rolled even with the two men, one sitting on the edge of the roof of their U-Haul and the other on the ground giving each downed monster an extra stab with his sword, Jill felt strangely self conscious. She had never been responsible for saving anyone before - dropping off a load early was nice but just not the same - and had no idea how to act. Not like she’d ever been particularly good in new social situations in the first place. It didn’t help that the man on top of the truck was distractingly, improbably good looking, his chocolate skin and wavy curls of hair framing a strong body… Jill shook herself and forced herself to stop staring. Just act casual.
“Hey,” she said with an exaggerated nod, leaning an arm against the open window. “How you boys doing?” Boys was a bit of an exaggeration, but they did look a lot younger than her: early twenties to her late thirties. The family resemblance between the two of them was written across their faces, but the swordsman was less pretty and much stronger.
At her words the swordsman just stared at her with a funny expression on his face, but the mage started laughing. “We’re surrounded by dead monsters, you’re absolutely coated in blood, and it's the end of the world as we know it!” He said. While he looked like he could be from New Delhi, his accent was pure Midwest. He slid off the truck’s roof and landed gracefully, then picked his way between corpses to get nearer to her. He grinned at her. “So you know, just another Tuesday.”
“Ignore my brother, please, and thanks for the rescue. I’m Ras Bati,” the swordsman said, “and he’s Babu. And - ope! One’s still alive!” He surged forward and stabbed one last creature that had been dragging itself suicidally onwards with charred stumps of legs.
Dire Lemming (x31) defeated. Bonus experience awarded for: monster kill above your level (+0.1); monster kill significantly above your level (x2).
Your contribution: 60%
4092 Experience Gained!
Class upgrade required to proceed.
“Oh!” Babu cried out. “We let our guard down too early.”
“No, I was ready. You let your guard down too early. Head’s in the clouds, dont’cha know,” Ras said.
“Bullshit you were! Always acting like you’re better...”
Jill just watched, a half smile on her face, as the two brothers started to argue, each barb louder than the last. The bickering reminded her of her own family and it was oddly soothing; a bit of normalcy to settle the crazy things that were happening. A surge of panic flashed through her guts when fond thoughts of her family turned to worry about whether they were still ok, but she locked the feeling away. Nothing she could do from here, and - she checked again - her cell phone was still dead. She’d make her way east, but for now no use worrying.
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The silence of the brothers putting their bickering on hold startled Jill out of her thoughts. While she’d been thinking the brothers had stopped talking and were looking at her expectantly.
“Shitbags, I was miles away,” Jill said. “What was that?”
“I asked what your name was. You called yourself... Junkmouth?” Babu asked, sides of his mouth twitching. “Seems about right…”
Ras shot his brother a dirty look and seemed to be about to tell him off, but Jill spoke before he could say anything. “You’re damn fuckin’ right it is. The name’s Jill MacLeod, owner and operator of Highlander Hauling, and this here,” she banged a hand on the door, “is Bertha.”
Ras wiped off his sword and tucked it through a sash around his waist. “I hate to ask more of you, but do you think you could give us a ride?”
Jill shrugged. “Better that than let the monsters get you. It died on you?” she asked, nodding at the U-Haul.
“Yeah,” Babu said. “Right after the system initialized, even the brakes stopped working! We coasted off the road and then, well, tree.”
Jill slapped Bertha again. “That's what you get for using a dinky little rental instead of something reliable!” Bertha chose that moment for her engine to start choking, nearly stalling out, and Jill had to give her a bit of gas to keep it going. “Cockpile!” she swore over the noise. “Look I can drive you for a while, but no guarantees. Where are you heading?”
“We were going out to Butte,” Babu wiggled his eyebrows. “I had a gig there, dont’cha know. But,” he glanced at Ras with a worried look and got a nod in return ,“we need to get back to Billings. Family.”
“Then hop on in. Oh!” Jill said. “You can grab some of your shit too. I’ve got some room in the trailer and I need to check out the engine anyways.” Jill reached under the steering column and pulled on the hood release.
The brothers thanked her again and went, an argument soon breaking out about what things to bring and what to leave behind, potentially forever. Jill didn’t pay much attention, but after climbing down from the cab she opened the rear doors of the trailer for them. It was four-fifths full, stacked with palettes of dry and canned food being hauled to a supermarket whose regular shipper had needed to hire Jill as a subcontractor on short notice. Jill tilted her head as she stared at it all. With monsters around everything was about to go to complete shit; she was absolutely going to renegotiate how much to get paid for a shipment of food.
Getting the hood up to look at the engine was an ordeal. First she had to slide the monsterized lemming body off of it, which wasn’t too bad even if it got even more blood on her. But the repeated collisions of the night had done a number on the bodywork, and something had bent in the wrong way and jammed. Luckily she had a repair kit with a crowbar, and it was only a few minutes of prying and swearing to finally free the stuck hood. It hinged forward and up with a squeal.
The engine, rumbling away with an unhealthy broken rhythm that was getting louder each passing minute, seemed physically fine. No obvious breaks or fluid leaks, no clogged intakes, no pinched hoses, and all the belts still moved freely. Jill scowled and drummed her fingers on her leg. If she didn’t know better she’d say that the cylinders were suffering from compression failure and misfiring, but she’d had the engine serviced only three weeks before. Mechanically they wouldn’t wear out that fast, and the electronics controlling the fuel and injector timings were rated for years more.
“Talk to me old girl,” Jill said, putting a hand on her truck. “I’m gonna take good care of you like always, but you need to tell me what’s wrong.”
The engine gave one last misfiring bang, then stopped.