Gallows Humour

The Lonely Highway

Morning again. They walked the shoulder of the freeway outside the city. Pride and stubbornness kept their feet from dragging, but they were tired. Bone heavy. Heart worn. They didn't know where to go from here.

The sky was lightening to a frail eggshell blue and a gentle breeze soothed their burning lungs. They stopped. Didn't sit, just stopped walking, and waited, and watched the sky morph from robin's egg to cornflower.

Eventually, almost predictably, a familiar small black lump materialized at their side.

"Not in the mood," True grumbled. Radio remained, not making noise, but not leaving either.

"Go away."

It shuffled just outside their periphery. As if it believed in extreme out of sight, out of mind. This was not the morning for its shenanigans. True rounded on it, fists clenched so hard their nails bit through the old gauze on their palms.

"Quit following me, you creepy little thhhi—sth—thss—" they cut off with a frustrated shout. Radio watched, wide-eyed. It held one of its arms close to its torso, the other it lifted in a half-hearted shield. But that was all.

"I don't know what you want but I don't have it. I will never have it, and even if I did I would never give it to you. Forget about whatever made you think following me was a good idea and fuck. Off." They punctuated their laugh words with two sharp shoves to Radio's chest, forcing it back. This time was final. Radio was going to walk the fuck away and True was going to watch it leave until they were sure it would never come back.

Except instead of walking away, Radio pressed a single finger to the bridge of its nose and drew it down, tracing a mirror image of True's scar.

True's anger burst; a wildfire; a spark to gunpowder.

Radio shifted deftly to the side of their punch. Catching them by the elbow, it held firm, trapping them in close proximity. Only for a second, then it dropped them and opened its mouth. It took a beat for True to comprehend what they were looking at. They had never seen the remnants of a cut-out tongue before.

Judging by the way the two sides buckled over each other, it had been a savage hack job. Nothing like a reminder of human suffering to douse a rage fire. True's fist unfolded, momentum lost.

"No wonder you never talk." Dick thing to say. True cringed internally. Radio grinned, closing its teeth on the ugly scene. It didn't seem particularly bothered. Sighing, True scuffed their sole on the pavement and noticed for the first tie the puddle of blood growing there.

A fat droplet fell from Radio's other, immobile arm and plipped on the dirt. It had been injured. Probably in that tussle with Otsana. Images of the boxcutter she'd held to their throat conjured in their mind.

Unclipping their pack, they gestured to Radio's injured arm.

"Let me look at that," they said as they rummaged for their first aid kit. Salve, check. They scooped some out. But the last of their bandages were in tatters around their hands. Damn, right. Their bandana would work, but... well, actually, it was their only usable option.

Reluctantly, they unfastened the bandana from around their face and took careful hold of Radio's arm. Its skin was mottled, and not only by blood. The dark olive tint of its skin was lost somewhere under a mass of pink and bloodless white. Frowning, True pushed its loose sleeve up to its elbow and uncovered more scar than skin. Burn marks twisted like ropes up its arm and further into the places hidden by its clothes. It shivered and tugged its sleeve down again, covering the scars.

"Sorry," the word came unbidden and unfamiliar to True's lips, they trailed off, uncertain how to finish that sentence, and settled for tying the bandana tight over the fresher wound instead. They fumbled the knot a couple times, fingers sluggish and a little alien. When sharks stopped moving, they died. When True stopped moving, exhaustion caught up.

They had to keep going to the next After Market, and maybe the next one after that. Or the Market after the one after that. Until they got there in time, convinced the right people. Then... then what? One Market survived while the Red Faction crushed ten? True bit the side of their tongue until they tasted blood, and lingered a beat longer with the only other person on the entire planet who knew what was going on.

There was one tiny upside to having a stalker: It sort of made the end of the end of the world a smidge less lonely.

"I don't know what to do," they sighed. Then turned around and kept walking, their soles scuffing on the blacktop.