Mycenea, N.M.

Episode 2: Land of Dust

Well, this is it. You're officially running empty.

At least, your Airflow says the tank is empty. You've learned to trust your instincts, not machines. It's a valuable skill you learned in the Air Force, and it serves you well.

The needle is deep in red, stylized font over the meter screaming EMPTY in a silent, insistent bray. But you don't believe it, because you're still moving. And even if the gas is gone, you can still coast on momentum... for a little while. You're good at doing that.

This promised town of "Mycenea" doesn't appear after five minutes, or even ten. Your engine is making a stuttering, gasping noise, and you think it may be choking on the last remnants of gas. You roll down the window to look ahead, peering through the blazing desert heat... And, there it is. Just on the edge of perception, a cluster of square shapes.

Mycenea.

You pull yourself back inside the Airflow, and stomp on the gas.

The car jerks, bucks, roars up over a sandy incline. The chassis rattles. Now you can see the town more clearly. Five or six houses, and what looks like a pumping station...

Then a shadow passes above you.

You flinch, reflexively confused, and peer out the window. Something huge blots out the sky, then passes, the onslaught of the blinding sun afterwards preventing you from catching exactly what it was. Whatever it was, it moved fast--behind the squiggly lines of sun-flash on your retinas, you have hazy impressions of a silver object, moving rapidly across the endless blue.

Jesus Christ.

You must be losing it. Taking the warm Coke from the passenger seat, you unscrew the resealable cap and guzzle it down, gagging on its overheated, sludgy brown mass. You're dehydrated, that's what's going on. You're dehydrated and you're seeing shit. There was no object in the sky up there, no... no goddamn Foo Fighter. You're alone out here. 

There's no danger. You're fine. Just... A little hot under the collar, that's all. Just a little rattled from your journey.

And what you're running from.

You pull into the pumping station, just as the last creaking wheezes of gasoline pass through the Airflow's engine. You end up parked at a slant, because the damn thing is dead: there's no way you can realign to match the angle of the pump, unless you put the whole thing in neutral and shove it around. Something about the angle of it bothers you. It's... uncouth.

The pump station itself is nothing special. Plate-glass windows over a storefront, shiny red pumps hooked up to fat nozzles racked in their slides like waiting snakes. Your average hole-in-the-wall, in the middle of nowhere.

There's something shabby and falling-apart about the place, though you can't put your finger on what it is. Maybe it's the girl on the tomato paste poster in the window: PASTE WITH THE BEST, says the logo above her sunny red cheeks. You certainly don't know what that's supposed to mean. 'Paste with the best.' Good gravy.

There's a man inside the pump station store, a big man, enormous really. Farmer's tan and a white eyepatch over one eye. He's standing at the counter, his fingers working deftly over a pile of dollar bills.

Counting the day's take, maybe? But it's hardly noon. At least... You think so. Your watch has been broken since Route 66. You tap and flick at it, but the second-hand sits immobile. Ditto the minute, and hour-hands.

Well, there goes fifty bucks, you think. What a waste.

As you get out of the car, figuring on talking to the big fella and maybe getting some goddamn gas for a change, someone whispers right in your ear.

"Take heart, traveler... For this is a land of terror."

Pins and needles shoot through you, harbingers of panic. "Guh!" Your tongueless mouth flaps, and you whirl, hands already forming sign signals ready to ask what the hell this lady (for it was a woman) wants sneaking up on you like that. But there's nobody there. Just the hardbaked land beyond the pump, and the old dirt road trailing off into... nothing. Just a shade of a shadow, of what once was a road.

Shivering despite the heat and straightening your coat, you move with a crisp and nervy gait into the gas station.