CHAPTER SIX: THE STREAK OF WHITE

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I stood silently behind the counter. Chicken was frying in the vat in the back, and a timer sitting on my counter would alert me when it was done. I probably needed to brew some more coffee, but we had two of them for a reason and I didn’t really feel like it at the moment.

My legs were killing me, as was normal on one of these late nights. The hours were shitty but damn if it wasn’t nice having so much more money than Monroe and April. I was by no means rich, but for high school? Rich enough to be the one everyone stole fries from at lunch.

I’d become a little bit privileged. Even I wasn’t dumb enough to deny that. My mom made bank for her knowledge, and her ability to see Sunsoul was apparently one of the best in the South. Grandma’s bills had started straining that recently, and my own surgery after the burns had been expensive, but not enough to truly impact us.

Dad, while making significantly less than Mom, still made enough to give me an allowance that trumped most kids. Well. He had. Until they demanded I get a job. Blah blah, character building, blah blah. Which I supposed I was glad for. Still, didn’t the noonday crap prove my character at this point? Even if it was my fault Clara got hurt, I still dove into the sun to try to save her. That counted for something, didn’t it?

Should at least get me out of standing here for hours a night.

“Fuck, my legs are killing me,” I groaned, voicing my pain and leaning heavily on the red countertop that held the lottery dispenser, the cash register, and the warmer.

Five hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday night as well as a good portion of my Saturdays were spent cooped up in this awful corner of one of the local truck stops, working for pennies.

It wasn’t tiring work, like fast food or god-forbid construction. It was tedious. Boring, and oddly painful. People in professions that showed physical results never really seemed to understand just how difficult standing in one place for hours could be, leaving me always feeling just a little inadequate next to guys like Damien who actually did construction, sun risks and all.

Despite all that, speculation about my upcoming date with April, along with that strange woman’s promise that Clara would be alright, was giving my mind an unusual break from the tedium. For once, I actually enjoyed the slow paced job and the seemingly endless hours it gave me to think and daydream.

If only my legs weren’t killing me. I cursed, realizing I’d subconsciously locked my knees again, and did a few squats to get the feeling back. As anyone who’s ever worked a job where standing for long hours was the main order of business knows, it barely helped at all.

The register started beeping suddenly and I craned my neck over to look at it.

Pump 7?

Glancing outside I saw that a Semi had pulled up, somehow entirely without my knowledge. I cursed, irritated. It was understandable that I hadn’t heard it, but its gaudy green siding meant I should’ve spotted the thing. They ran more quietly than my own car. Solar panels were expensive but leaps in technology made them a viable alternative to gasoline for people planning to brave the sunlight in one. Most of them used both and now had two engines. A day engine, powered by the solar paneling, and a regular gasoline one as a backup and for those who didn’t mind driving at night cross country with the roads going to shit.

I hastily clicked a button or two on the register, turning on the fuel for the pump.

The Raceway Truckstop was on the southwest corner of the West Steppe. It was about as far from the school as it could be and still be part of the Hub. Once it had been separate entirely. Now it was just one of the many wings that branched out as construction workers continued expanding the ever-growing labyrinth of the Hub. The interior was nice, grout-tiled flooring with walls as clean as I could keep them. The showers were perpetually in need of cleaning, and the usual assortment of truck stop snacks and goodies lined the racks, sporting absolutely nothing healthy.

It was rundown, shoddy, and a little bit dangerous since it was close to the highway where so many Californians and Caroliners passed through. I didn’t care for either type based on reputation alone, but any of them beat the Northerners.

Northerners were sort of lumped into the same category as celebrities. Most people usually professed to hate the vast majority of them, while harboring secret dreams of being one someday. I wanted to be one simply to get away from constantly fearing being caught out in open sunlight at noon.

Or… watching anyone else stuck there.

The alarm for the food whined from the counter and I sighed. Hours of nothing and then suddenly I had to juggle watching the trucker and putting the food out in the warmers. Oh well. The guy had a large truck and he’d probably take a while to fill it.

I left the small room behind the counter and the rows of various snack foods and headed into the equally small kitchen where the fryer was just pulling a metal net of sizzling chicken out of the dripping oil. It smelled freaking delicious.

Oh yeah. Definitely having a piece of chicken tonight.

I grabbed the rack by the handle and gave it a few small shakes to get as much of the hot oil off of it as possible before I poured the chicken legs and wings out into a tray that I’d already set up. When I’d first started doing this I’d burned myself way too many times to count but I was a bit better at it now, and managed to pour the pieces out to where they lay evenly. I couldn’t wait to tear into one, but duty first.

I rinsed the metal net with some water before opening a bag of fries. I poured them into the rack and dropped them back into the oil to a glorious sizzling echo that filled the room. I started the timer again, set up a rack that would hold the fries, and grabbed the tray of chicken.

Stepping out of the backroom I was immediately annoyed by the man standing in front of the counter, staring at me expectantly like I was somehow imposing on him. I walked behind it and slid open the back door to the warmer, blinking in further annoyance at the lack of heat. I could’ve sworn I’d turned it on, but I must’ve forgotten.

The man standing at the counter watched me like a hawk as I laid the metal tray of chicken down in the warmer. The man had a tan, which was odd in and of itself. Probably in his forties. His hair, what little of it I could see was stringy and thin. Black with hints of grey, the mess spilled down out of an Atlanta Falcons baseball cap that had definitely seen better years. Even so, the hat still fared better than the city it represented.

A few burn marks dotted his bared arms, signifying a few bouts with sunlight, or more mundane fires. He had a long mustache that expanded into two thick whiskers which framed his lips, but he’d shaved his chin clean. His hands were dirty with either paint from the driver’s wheel or soot of some sort, and he had a scent of cigarettes about him. The smell was deep, the type that would linger in the store long after he was gone. A gun, a large black pistol, was holstered on his right leg that I couldn’t help but notice.

“Sir?” I asked, trying to remain pleasant. “Sorry, I didn’t expect you in so quickly.”

“Mm,” He grunted, his tone deep and accented, handing over a card. “Just toppin’ ‘er off.”

I took the card and glanced at the register. He hadn’t come close to filling a whole tank. I rang him up, pushing the card up to the reader where it beeped. He pressed his finger to the ID checker and it beeped as well.

“Where you headed, sir? The Carolinas?”

“Well your break room back there seems nice enough for the moment.” He joked, avoiding my real question. “And that chicken looks good. Gimme’ two legs.”

He replaced the company card in his wallet and pulled out another personal card to pay for his food.

The Raceway was a rest area for truckers heading through, but only a small one. There were four more here in the Hub, all of them bigger and more accommodating than the Raceway, but this place stayed afloat due to the sheer volume of trucks coming through. Those who couldn’t find parking at the four other stops usually found their way here. We didn’t have the indoor lots like they did though. Sure the trucks could stand the heat but it made walking into the station impossible during the day.

West Steppe wasn’t the largest Hub out there, but once Tellroan went online, that would certainly change. The first southern tower. I couldn’t wait either. Everyone was anticipating a population flux in the order of millions.

It had happened in New York, since Telanex had been built a pretty long way inland from the city. The hurricanes on that coast were so bad that the city’s center had actually moved to resolve itself on the tower over the course of a year. Milwaukee had taken most of Chicago’s population when they finally finished theirs. Seattle’s had been built near enough the city that no one needed to relocate, but people from the surrounding states did.

Everyone wanted to live under a tower. The trend was obvious. Anyone with the money to buy was buying land here, and anyone with the equipment to build was building houses. Rumors were that some northerners had even decided to move to West Steppe.

Construction was booming already. Newly constructed ghost towns, a few miles out near some of the closest obelisks were waiting for movers as soon as the Tower went active. There were even Hubs being built overnight, empty now, but ready for franchises to open, knowing profit would come. The world would suddenly spread from only where I could get in a car safely overnight, to anywhere within a hundred miles. What would it be like… to stand in the sunlight and be unaffected?

I had the uncomfortable realization that I already knew. I shuddered, trying to push down the memory of Clara’s skin burning while I remained fine.

“Yeah, Carolina,” The man answered. “I figure I’ll head that way in a week or two. For now, I ain’ never seen a Tower light up before. I wanna see that. This one here’s even bigger’n the one up in New York.”

“Twice as big!” I bragged, before I registered what he’d said. My eyes widened as he set his coke down on the counter and I almost dropped the chicken leg I was getting for him.

“W-Wait what? You’ve… you’ve actually seen Telanex!?” I breathed excitedly.

“Sure have!” He bragged. “Just came from New York. How else ya think I get this tan?”

I had wondered about that. Tans were machine-only these days. Real ones were actually a pretty heavy sign of major money most of the time. Since people couldn’t use the sun to do it anymore the price of tanning salons jacked through the roof during my childhood. The cheaper option was smearing on tan lotions or spray on tans. April and I both thought that looked a little tacky. This man though, he had the appearance of having sat in the sun. The real thing.

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“I guess I just thought it was natural,” I replied, trying to save face. “I see all sorts here. Not many who have been allowed up north though.”

“Aw we drivers can go anywhere for the right price. Risky though, drivin’ through the warzones and all. Virginia sure as hell ain’t the place to be. Plenty a folks willing to just break open a truck and take whatever’s inside on the borders. Most down here aren’t willing to take the risk. Paperwork’s a bitch too. Gotta make sure you go straight to your location. No detours, no tourism, blah blah. Fuckin’ strict up there. I like you southlanders a lot more.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

You southlanders?

“You’re a northerner?”

For some reason I thought he’d be more… menacing somehow. Not to mention his accent was about as deep south as they came.

“Kinda? I spent a lot of time on both sides. Born in Wisconsin. But I’s raised in Georgia.” He trailed off, his eyes going glassy. “Damn shame that… Losing Georgia I mean. Damn shame.”

I sighed along with him. I might’ve hardly ever left West Steppe but I understood at least a little of the nostalgia he seemed to feel. It was shared by a lot of the truckers I met working here.

“What do you miss most?” I asked.

“Sweet, fuckin, tea. Even here right on the Scorched Lands doorstep it’s just not the same.”

I groaned. Everyone missed the South’s sweet tea, and apparently the sweet tea we could make now, loaded down with a fifty fifty sugar to liquid ratio, still wasn’t the same. I’d been to Louisiana once when I was a kid, before everything had gotten too hot. New Orleans. I’d tried the sweet tea, and I remembered it was nothing to write home about.

The old man grinned at me. “Heard that one before eh?”

“More often that you can imagine,” I said with a long-suffering tone.

He laughed warmly and his modest gut jiggled under his faded red shirt. “Eh, I’m sure you’ll hear it again. Ey, you got showers here?”

“Yep, fifty six bucks,” I retorted good naturedly. “They’re not the best in town but they’re the cheapest.”

“Aghh figures. Not too bad, actually.” He commented with a grimace. “Paid almost ninety for one in St. Louis last night, and it “wasn’t the best” either.”

I was about to reply when a loud snarling sound echoed from outside the building. A low, menacing growl like something that would come from an enraged dog or a…

I chanced a glanced out the window, not seeing anything unusual until… there.

The gas station’s overhang was well lit at night but off to the left out the window I could see into the darkened prairie land beyond. In that darkness I saw something move. Something enormous.

“The hell?” I murmured, walking to the right side of the window to get a better view. Whatever I had seen was gone before I could get a good glimpse of it, running around the other side of the building.

“Did you hear that?” I asked the man at the counter. Turning back to him, I saw his own expression was as curious and perplexed as mine.

“Yeah… I did,” he said. Something in his tone made me feel tense.

I headed around the counter and to the door, and stepped outside. I’d expected the usual sweltering heat of early evening but it was actually quite cool. I hardly noticed though. Something felt strange. Off.

Another truck was pulling up beside the man I’d been talking to but it was far enough away that I could still hear.

Hear… nothing.

I didn’t know why but my blood suddenly ran cold. No crickets. The little night sounds that were so common normally were just… gone. Staring out across the parking lot at the open field where I’d seen the dark shape moving in the night, I slowly backed up towards the door.

Something felt wrong out there.

I walked back inside only to find the trucker standing right by the door, his gun in his hand.

“You alright?” He asked, concern seeping through his features. He didn’t look at me though, instead keeping his eyes focused out the window.

“Yeah…” I murmured, feeling chilled. “Yeah, I’m fine. Any idea what that might’ve been?”

He sighed and holstered his gun, as nothing appeared to happen. Maybe it was something in the plumbing?

What sort of growl could you hear through a wall and across a parking lot anyway?

“No… It sounded like a wolf or somethin’, but I’d thought those all died off after Fontaine’s Folly. Most things did. Cept the bugs.”

I grinned, no longer feeling quite as shaky. Why had I gone outside anyway?

“World could freeze over or burn and the bugs would still make it,” I declared.

“Eh so would we, though,” he replied. “What’s your name, kid?”

I would’ve been miffed by that if the man hadn’t looked old enough to be a grandfather. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, and he certainly seemed like he could take a joke.

“Brandon. Yours, old fart?” I asked.

“Bruce Engel.” He replied and proffered a meaty hand. “Nice to meet ya.”

I shook it, feeling the worry ease.

Bruce went back to the lounge to eat his chicken and I remained on vigil at the front counter, clicking the register as it blared telling me another customer wanted gasoline.

It took a while for me to stop watching the fields out of the corner of my eye, but nothing happened.

I got the fries in the warmer, and also wrote up a ticket for the manager to look into why it wasn’t actually heating up. I tested the metal and it was as cold as… well as cold as air-conditioned metal could get, though the light was on, and the customers seemed content to keep buying the food.

Ten o’clock seemed to come agonizingly slowly. It hurt that there were so few customers that night. As the anxiety began to fade, I slipped back into my usual boredom. Bruce stopped by the counter and asked for the key to one of the showers stalls about an hour later and I handed it over to him. Since it was likely I’d be leaving before he got out, I wished him luck wherever he was going.

He grinned and waved. “You too, Brandon.”

At ten minutes after my shift was supposed to be over, Danielle, a beautiful girl who I’d become acquainted but not friends with finally arrived. As usual she stepped out of the passenger’s seat of some loser’s car outside. She rushed around the hood of the car but obviously didn’t feel in too much of a hurry as she took the time to stop at the driver’s window and lay a kiss on whoever was inside.

The tinted windows hid him from view, but I already didn’t like him. One of those people who spent their whole life tricking out their cars in order to make them loud for no reason I could understand. I heard the girl give a muffled “Bye babe” and turn to rush to the door, while the driver burnt rubber, peeling out of the parking lot so loudly that I could no longer here the truckstop’s intercom radio.

I rolled my eyes. The car was vintage and looked like it actually had a sunroof. The idiot probably played Hotrush, or at least pretended he did.

Danielle was an annoyingly beautiful Latina college girl that I probably would’ve asked out if it hadn’t been for Haley, or if I hadn’t ever met her. She’d been a year above me but I’d only gotten to know her since I started working this job. Our shifts overlapped on Saturdays pretty often so we’d spent some time together and… she wasn’t my type.

She strolled in with a pissed off look, her hair slightly askew as if she’d been running to get here.

“Hey,” was all she said, before walking past the counter to the back room where the timecard punch was.

I glared at her lightly, waiting as patiently as I could while watching the clock. I couldn’t clock out until someone was out here at the counter, which meant I had to wait for her to clock in.

Oh well. Extra fifteen minutes was a few extra bucks for me. I’d survive. At least, that was what I told myself while I stewed in anger. I hoped the manager would fire her soon, though I knew she wouldn’t. Prolonging these already late nights was killing me.

It felt like an eternity later when she finally came back out, headphones in her ears and not even a word of apology for me.

I sighed, glad that I’d already run my register out, and in my boredom, set hers up for her while I’d waited. “There’s a guy in shower one, and I think the warmer’s broken.”

She blinked and then looked at me, tugging an earbud out. “What?”

“I said there’s a guy in shower one; he already paid. Also, the warmer’s broken.” I told her putting my hand on the metal and pointing at the red light on the side. “Cold as ice.”

“Cool,” She said taking my spot behind the register and plugging her earbud back in.

I sighed. Apparently she didn’t give a damn that she’d now made me wait twenty minutes. Oh well. What was I going to do, yell at her? I wasn’t the one who paid her, after all.

Walking to the door, I was surprised when the girl suddenly stopped me.

“Hey, Brandon, nice hair.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

She pointed to my head with a grin that seemed a little condescending. “You trying to make a statement or something?”

I raised a questioning eyebrow at her and then just shrugged. I hadn’t looked at my hair since this morning, and certainly hadn’t done anything unusual with it.

“Not that I know of,” I told her.

I strode out into the night and was surprised by how chilly it felt. The thermometer read ninety six degrees though and I supposed that was a little cooler than usual. As I reached my car, I realized that I still couldn’t hear the sounds of crickets chirping. The night was dead quiet.

I got into my car and drove away fast enough that my own tires peeled out a little, silently hoping that it was all my imagination. Ten minutes later when I made it home, I finally pulled down the visor and looked at my hair in the window. To my surprise, a streak of white hair was visible hanging down the front. All of the rest of it looked perfectly normal, except a few perfectly white strands that looked purposefully dyed.

Did someone play a prank on me?

I shrugged it off. It was noticeable, but this whole night had been weird.

Something kept tugging at my memory about white hair. Even so, I was tired and I just wanted to sleep. I’d deal with this strangeness tomorrow. It was nearly eleven and school the next day was already going to suck. I drove home, irritable and groggy, and stumbled my way into bed without bothering to do more than tug my pants off.

I awoke six hours later to a frantic tugging on my arm.

“Brandon. Brandon wake up!” Someone said, panicked.

“Wha…?” I murmured, drowsily as life crept back into my eyes. Gale was there, but there was a worried frown on her face. “Gale? What’s up?”

“The Raceway. That’s the Truckstop you work at right?” she hissed, whispering for some reason.

“Yeah…? What’s going on?”

“You should get up. You need to see this.”

She dashed out of the room before I could question her further, but the worried look in her eyes made me rush. I threw on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and dashed out to follow her into the living room.

To my surprise, my Mom was there, along with Dad and Gale. How early was it? All of them were staring at the dining table’s hologram.

“Mom?” I asked plainly. “What’s going…?”

I cut off as I saw the image displayed. The front of the Raceway. Only something was wrong with it. There was a massive tear in the door. It had been ripped and shredded off its hinges, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. What did was what looked like a massive dead wolf lying just inside the place where I worked, surrounded by a pool of blood, slowly oozing from the corpse.

“What the hell?” I breathed, as I read the marquis along the bottom of the screen.

“MONSTERS CONFIRMED. SUNSOUL TO BLAME?”