destruction1_0: (on the roooooad agaaaaain)
[personal profile] destruction1_0
This is not the Winnemucca road.

Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I'm a killer

Just as well. There's not enough in his pack to justify the verb 'to tote'.

Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana, Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana, Monterey, Ferriday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa, Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa, Tennessee, Hennessey, Chicopee, Spirit Lake, Grand Lake, Devil's Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete's sake

It's pretty dusty, though.




Start asking yourself a couple of questions about entropy and things get a little overwhelming. Better to just stop paying attention. The world has moved on. Is still moving on.

He whistles, and bootheels clock on hardpan hellground. He's a tall man, an ageless stranger in faded, pegged jeans and a denim jacket and a Boy Scout knapsack. He's a walking dude.

This isn't Highway 51, though. Not even

(God said to Abraham, kill me a son)

Highway 61.

Not even some two-bit two-lane highway.




There are highways in hiding that are traveled by the poor and the mad, by the professional revolutionaries and by those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwanted except by others like them, who welcome them to cheap rooms with slogans and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe are held in padded vises while they are stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans are laid: to kill a Cabinet member, to kidnap the child of a visiting dignitary, or to break into a boardroom meeting of Standard Oil --

Or maybe Citgo.

-- with grenades and machine guns and murder in the name of the people.

Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika, Shefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica, Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport, Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond Du Lac, Davenport, Idaho, Jellicoe, Argentina, Diamontina, Pasadena, Catalina, see what I mean

Mid-World is right up his alley.




He strides on at a steady, ground-eating pace, and there's something in the air: something is coming. It's a sooty hot taste that comes from

Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravellburg, Colorado, Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado, Larrimore, Atmore, Haverstraw, Chattanika, Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika, Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City, Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity

everywhere, as if God is planning a cookout and all of civilization is going to be the barbecue.

The land's time of transfiguration is almost at hand, and he's on hand. He always is.

Everywhere.

He's been everywhere.

Date: 2006-07-26 04:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
"Amen," she says, dry as dust.

Date: 2006-07-26 04:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
She does, though. That's the bitch of it.

"Just endings," she says, looking out to the shrinking horizon.

Date: 2006-07-26 04:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
Endless is Endless, and she must keep her temper, but this one brings out all the worst in her. Her eyes flash, cold gunmetal, and she sets her jaw and her patience. "I do."

Date: 2006-07-26 05:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
"It's not my barn," she protests. "I'm a stranger here myself." It's nobody's barn; this is a waystation.

"And I suppose you might. The place we want--" She looks at Patrick for confirmation-- "Is on the other side of the mountains. There are doors there."

Date: 2006-07-26 05:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
"That way is shut," she says flatly. "I've got a sweatshirt in the barn."

Date: 2006-07-26 05:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
Most Focke-Wulf German fighters were single-seaters, but they did make a few twin seat models, including the F187 Falke; in this, and models based on it, there was so little space that the instruments had to be put on the engine nacelles. The rear seat was for a gunner or radio operator.

This particular model was a prototype; the F298 Habicht.

It's very fortunate that Patrick is scrawny, and the gunslinger is missing her legs; they wedge inside the rear seat with quit a bit of difficulty. God knows how the massive red-bearded man managed to fit himself behind the controls.

Date: 2006-07-26 05:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
She's facing backwards, looking into the gunnery hatch where a machine gun might've been nestled once.


Something else is nestled there now. She shrieks, which cannot possibly sound like yes, ready, let's get going.

Date: 2006-07-26 05:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
Detta is screaming: "There is a MOTHERFUCKIN' SNAKE on this GODDAM PLANE. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU--"

The snake is not a happy snake; it strikes. So does she. Many's the time Detta Walker's been compared to a snake, in terms of speed and meanness; this is the test. One deft plucks the pencil from behind Patrick's ear before he can even yelp and plunges forward. Her fang strikes home before the viper's two can, punching under the shelf of its jaw and into its tiny reptile brain, and now Patrick is yelling as it flails in its deaththroes, ropy scaled tail thrashing around his already-ropeburned neck.

She throws the corpse over the side of the plane as it leaves the ground, still screaming over the engines: "--THINK YOU'RE DOIN YOU CRAZY MAHFAH?"

Date: 2006-07-26 06:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
For one black moment, she thinks Detta is going to for his throat and send the plane spiralling down into the mountains.

(the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain)

But although her hands curl into fists, and she twists within striking distance of the Endless--

(be ye mad or looney sane)

--she keeps her temper, conjuring up from memory Sophia, the doll she made with this bastard's younger sisters. Sophia means wisdom, she remembers, and that's some kind of trigger; some kind of handle on her rage.

(the planes in Spain fall mainly in the rain)

Her fury does not abate, but it allows itself to be restrained.

Date: 2006-07-26 06:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
There's nowhere to land to the north (south), where the beach stretches along, but beyond the golgatha and the foothills and the entrance to the tunnels beneath the mountains there's a flat stony cliff running alongside the sea that might make a landing strip.

Date: 2006-07-26 06:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowsusannah.livejournal.com
Patrick is rigid with fear; her own breath is coming in short, sharp, adrenaline-driven pants. The desire to either slap or kiss his grinning face is very strong.

Instead she closes her eyes, and tries to breathe. "Thank you," she says, finally, her voice a little shaky and a little acerbic, but she means it.

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