Tales of Junction

by Davis IV, John L.

  Corey felt his guts twist with an urgent desire to climb Laidlaw’s ladder and pound his face until he looked like a freshly killed funker.

  Parking between the faded yellow lines in front of Planet Janet, Corey shut the scooter down and rooted in the messenger bag slung over the back of the bike. Pulling out a thin plastic case he slipped it inside his jacket and headed for the door.

  Whenever anyone opened the front door of Planet Janet a bell sounded that was far too cheery for this town of the barely living. It always set Corey’s teeth on edge.

  Bibi “Janet” Reno, the short, stocky looking woman with a massive bosom and an attitude far larger came out of the proprietor’s door behind the counter.

  “Heya, Janet.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed darkly, staring across the dirty entryway. “Why you little shitbird,” Janet said.

  Corey flinched when her hand dropped below the counter and his line of sight. He began to back toward the door he just entered. Hands up, pleading, he said, “C’mon Janet! Damn, I thought this was settled.”

  “Settled my dirty ass,” she growled. “You ran outta here too fast for me to catch you last time.” Janet came around the counter, advancing on Corey, a hunting knife gripped in her right fist.

  “Janet, please, it was a misunderstanding! The bitch bit me! I told her not to bite!” Corey’s voice began to rise with feigned terror.

  “And you broke her nose, fractured her cheekbone, and busted out two teeth, you Sore-sucking prick. You know how much I owe Shoup just for the fix-up, not to mention hardly nobody wants a busted-up girl, Balmont!”

  Janet was close now, almost within arm’s reach. “I brought you something, Janet, something that’ll make up for it, I promise.”

  The woman paused, the scar along her chin flaring red in her anger. “Brought what, boy?”

  Reaching slowly into his jacket, Corey pulled out the slim plastic case between thumb and forefinger and held it out to her.

  Janet snatched it from his fingers and examined the item.

  Corey let his hands fall as the knife drifted downward, the red arc of Janet’s scar quickly fading to normal. He watched as she flipped the case open and pulled out the shiny disc, checking it for scratches.

  “Johnny Cash. Damn, kid, where’d you find this?”

  The sheer pleasure on the woman’s face told him everything he needed to know. “Just got lucky,” he said. “Found it buried under a pile of crap some Sores had been living in.”

  Janet looked up, awe in her eyes. “You killed some Sores for this?”

  “It was just a few of ‘em, and I got the drop, caught them sleeping.”

  Janet just nodded as she turned back toward the battered check-in counter. Going behind it and reaching underneath, Janet pulled out a portable disc player, small speaker, and a battery pack she kept charged with one of the solar chargers campers and hikers used to favor.

  Corey smiled as she slid the disc into the machine and started it up. Soon the voice of the Man in Black issued from the speaker.

  The speaker was worn and the sound thin, but it was a sound that pleased Janet greatly. Her smile grew as her eyes closed, lost for a moment in the sound of a life long forgotten by most.

  Corey stood silently waiting, allowing the usually bitter woman to revel in the music. Several minutes later she clicked the player off and stored everything under the counter once again. “This doesn’t square us, Corey, but it damn sure puts us on better footing. I’m not saying there’s going to be a next time, right now, but if there is you best keep your hands on her tits and not pounding her face, you get me?”

  Corey nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Janet, I do understand.”

  “Now, if you find any more you bring them to me, screw Filler and what you owe him. A stack of these and I’ll sell you your very own whore, Balmont.”

  “Sure thing, Janet, you got it.” Corey stuck out his hand, and Bibi “Janet” Reno shook it as firmly as any man.

  He kept to himself that he had several stacks of the compact discs hidden away within twenty miles of Junction. He knew he had something Janet wanted. He also knew Filler wanted her little music setup. Besides, owning a whore was too much responsibility.

  “Well, I’m outta here Janet, thanks for not stabbing me,” Corey said with a smile as he reached the door.

  “Oh hell, I wasn’t gonna stab you, Corey.”

  “Sure looked like you were,” he said as he pulled the heavy door open.

  She had been gazing at the disc, no doubt waiting for Corey to leave so she could listen without his annoying mouth around. Looking up she gazed directly into his eyes. “Nope, I was gonna cut your throat.”

  Corey stared back briefly before stepping out and letting the door close behind him. The draft from the door set the large globe hung in the window to spinning lazily, the neon-pink spray paint on it spelling out “Planet Janet” reflected light off glitter that had been sprinkled onto the paint, twinkling as it turned back and forth.

  Corey took a deep breath, calming the rapid stomp of his heart. “Fuckin’ filthy whore-pedaling whore,” he muttered. “Cut my throat? Cut MY throat?” he mumbled aloud as he straddled his scooter, starting it up.

  Doc Shoup’s place was just down from the motel, sharing the same broken building as Trina’s school and daycare. “Daycare my ass,” Corey chuffed as he pulled up in front of Doc’s.

  The storefront furthest from the motel had collapsed some time ago. It looked to Corey like another building just beyond it had exploded, causing damage to the nearest building. Doc’s place was what had been the center store, and Trina’s sat on the end closest to the motel, making it easier for Trina and the girls when it came to dropping off and retrieving their kids.

  Corey could hear the sounds of chattering and screaming children from Trina’s as he walked up to the Doc’s door. “One of them could be mine,” he thought. The consideration of it gave him chills. Being a father was something he did not want to contemplate.

  Doc sat in a stitched-up cloth recliner, leaning back with a tattered book propped on his chest. He twitched, then sat upright, the book falling aside as he kicked the leg-rest of the chair down.

  Slipping on a pair of glasses with a crack in one lens the Doc stood up, brushing crumbs from his shirt. “Hello there, boy. Feeling poorly today? Got an itch that you can’t rid yourself of? Hemorrhoids maybe?”

  Doc Shoup stood just over six feet, though his shoulders were hunched from years of stooping over patients. His dark, greasy hair was neatly combed and parted down the middle. His long legs and thin limbs gave him a gangly appearance that always made Corey feel ill at ease around the man, as if the Doc would suddenly start bending in strange and terrifying ways.

  Few people ever liked coming to the Doc. He’d been known to throw needles at his patients when in his cups, attempting to administer medication from a distance, while chuckling to himself. Then there were the stories that the good Doc would occasionally experiment on the newly dead for unknown reasons.

  Corey hoped they were just stories.

  “Hi there Doc. No, I’m feeling fine. Stiff from the road, but just fine all the same.”

  Looking out the window, Doc asked, “How the hell you keep that little thing going? Ain’t much gas to be found these days.”

  “I modified it to run on the souls of the damned, Doc”

  Doc looked back at Corey, squinting. “Eh, I suppose you’ll find plenty of them out there, huh?”

  It annoyed Corey that the Doc didn’t find his little joke at least worth a chuckle. “I was wondering if you had any poison, Doc.”

  “You say poison? What the hell you need poison for?”

  “I need to poison some rats.”

  “What, rats? Why poison ‘em, meats no good if you poison ‘em, kid.”

  Corey bristled at yet another reference to his youth, despite being twenty-four years old. He knew it was a veiled slight, just another needle from the pricks in
this town, hating him just because he was here. Well, they can piss off and die, he thought.

  “I know that, Doc. I’m not hunting the rats. There’s this place a ways out from here, three houses set close together, a few outbuildings. The whole place is full of rats, and Sores. Looks like they’ve been there a while.”

  Doc Shoup wore a quizzical look on his weathered face. Corey sighed at the insufferable stupidity of the old man.

  “Those brain-dead savages don’t know half of what they got in those houses, Doc. My guess is there’s all kinds of good shit in there, but I can’t get to it. I figure I’ll set out a bunch of poison for the rats. The Sores eat the rats, the Sores die or at least get really damn sick. I go in and clear them out. Then it’s easy pickin’. I just have to spend some time waiting for it to happen, and time is something I’ve got a lot of.”

  Doc Shoup shuffled around the room, favoring his right side. From what Corey had been told, a pissed off patient had broken Doc’s ankle a while back. That’s what you get for going to see a quack, he thought.

  “Yeah, OK, I can see that. I think you’re crazy to even be messin’ with those Sores, but hey, that’s your prerogative.”

  Damn right, old man. Out loud Corey asked, “So, do you have anything Doc?”

  Taking a key from his trousers pocket, Doc snapped open the padlock keeping a battered metal cabinet locked. As he rummaged through the contents of the cabinet, he said, “Yes, I do. Potent stuff, won’t need much of it. Gonna cost you, kid.”

  “Of course, Doc. I got time.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, while Doc pulled jars and bottles down from his cabinet, mixing ingredients, Corey regaled him with new tales of events that had happened to him on his recent runs. Occasionally he would embellish, stretching the truth and other times he would outright lie, making things up as he went.

  Many of those living in the village had not left its walls in years, and the stories that scavs and travelers brought through the gates were the preferred form of currency. In Junction those stories meant life, vicariously. In Junction the tales must be told.

  “The saddest was the man I met travelling with his son. They were heading out to Cali, kept talking about some safe haven out there. You and I both know there’s no such thing as a safe haven these days Doc, but the boy swore by it. The man told me his wife had killed herself; couldn’t handle living in this crazy-ass world anymore.”

  Doc Shoup cocked his head, looking askance at the kid sitting in his chair spinning stories, some of which he was sure were true and others he knew to be outright lies.

  “I’ll be damned, that’s heartbreaking, kid,” he said with a faint lilt of sarcasm. “Here ya go.” Doc proffered the bottle, top twisted on tightly. “Be careful with that stuff, boy, it’s potent.”

  “Hey, thanks, Doc, I appreciate it.”

  “Yep. You find anything in that mess out there I can use, bring it on over here. Supplies could use some topping up.”

  Corey pushed through the door, casting a nod over his shoulder as the Doc stood, watching him go.

  The door clunked shut and Doc stepped over to a bookshelf brimming with tattered tomes. Fingering the spines, he read through the titles and smirked, shaking his head. Out loud he said to the empty room, “I read that book, you stupid cheating shit.”

  Falling back into his well-worn chair, Doc Shoup picked up the book he had been reading, returning to sleep minutes later, the book once again open on his chest.

  Corey spent two more days in Junction before heading back out on another run. He spent much of his time lounging in one of the empty “houses” that Filler rented out to scavs when they were in town, flipping through old skin mags or looking over an old map of the region, plotting new scavenging destinations. He even offered to help Tool on his condom run, though it was more a courtesy than a genuine offer of assistance.

  What he had told Doc about the small homestead full of rats and Sores was true, and he was anxious to get started. He pulled out of Junction early one morning, rolling up to the gate and waiting while Mitch Burton opened the gate.

  Before pulling away he shouted up to Frank. “Hey, Laidlaw, no hard feelings man.” Reaching into his messenger bag he pulled out two worn plastic bottles filled with water. He glanced at the bottles, switched them in his hands and tossed one up to Frank, and handed the other to Mitch. “Some water, on me, guys.”

  Glancing from the bottle to Corey, Frank shrugged and said, “No hard feelings, kid.” Twisting off the top, he chugged a swig as Corey pulled through the gate and away from town wearing a face-splitting grin.

  3

  Bill Robb plodded down the side of the cracked pavement, following the faded white line with his eyes as he placed one foot in front of the other. Despite the fact that few people drove vehicles anymore, due to lack of fuel, he couldn’t bring himself to walk in the center of the wide four-lane. It was just one of those silly little things he was unable to shake from before.

  He shook his plastic canteen, dismayed at the last few drops of water left. Saving the water, he let the canteen drop to hang from its strap over his shoulder.

  A distant buzz drew Bill’s eyes up from his worn-through boots. He could see a speck slowly drawing closer and he stopped to watch. His right hand fell to rest on the weathered grip of his Springfield .40 caliber kept in a drop-leg holster that had seen better days.

  Several long, dry minutes later a battered scooter towing a trailer pulled up beside him, the driver tugging up old swim goggles, leaving them sitting on his forehead.

  Bill nodded, hand still at rest on his pistol. “Hello.”

  “Hey there, you heading for Junction?”

  “That I am.”

  “You don’t have much farther then. About two miles, I’d say.”

  “That’s about what I figured,” Bill said. His voice rasped with want for water.

  “You sound like hell, man. How long you been out here?”

  Bill thought before speaking, casting a glance at the sky as if he kept a calendar of days written in the clouds. “Been about ten, maybe eleven months since I was last in Junction.”

  The man on the scooter glanced at the pack Bill wore. “You must’ve gone pretty far out. Not much left to scav these days, is there?”

  Shifting the pack, which was heavier than it looked, Bill tilted his head, looking at the rider. “Eh, just depends on if you know where to look. Listen, can you spare a swallow of water?”

  “Sorry, man, gotta make it stretch. You’re not far from Junction, you can get there pretty quick, get all the water you need from Filler.”

  Bill chuckled, “Son-of-a-bitch is still alive, huh? Yeah, I’ll just do that. What’s your name, kid?”

  Bill took noticed of the dark flash in the rider’s eyes when he called him “kid”.

  “I’m no fucking kid, asshole. Name’s Corey Balmont.” Corey looked closely at the man shifting on tired feet. “You look familiar. We met before?”

  Bill’s smile tugged at the deeply puckered scar on his left cheek. He held out his hand, “Bill Robb. We may have crossed paths, Corey Balmont,” he said the name with just a touch of sarcasm, “but I think I’d remember you. I get that “you look familiar” thing all the time. Just that kind of face I guess.”

  Corey ignored the hand, slipping the goggles back over his eyes. “Well, good luck Bill Robb. Shit to do and all that.” As he revved the harsh sounding little engine he said, “Don’t die of thirst before you get there.”

  Bill turned to watch for a moment as the scooter and its asshole rider faded into the distance. “Well aren’t you just a happy little ray of shit-shine,” he mumbled.

  He pushed on, a little extra bounce to his step as he drew closer to his destination. Ten minutes later he could see Junction’s wall and the heavy gate just down the road. “’Bout damn time,” he said to the dry air and glaring sun. Lifting his canteen, he chugged his last mouthful of water.

  Once he was close enough to see e
verything clearly, he was surprised that no guards were on the platforms he knew to stand on either side of the gate.

  Hobbling up on aching feet, he could hear raised voices beyond the gate. Had he not been so tired and thirsty he would have listened for a minute before banging on the tall, heavy door.

  No one answered his pounding, but the voices became quieter.

  “What the hell you want?”

  Bill looked up to the man that now stood on the platform looking down at him.

  “Scav business. Here to see Filler and take a load off for a bit.”

  The man disappeared without a word. Bill stood waiting for a full minute before the gate began to swing open just enough to allow him in.

  “You been here before, ain’tcha?”

  Just past the man, at the base of the second tower lay another man, with a tall fellow leaning over him. Bill could see pinkish foam still bubbling from the mouth of the man on the ground. “Uh, yeah, I have, been awhile though. What happened to him? He asked, gesturing at the foaming man.

  “Wait, I recognize you. You’re right, it has been a while. Well, you know how things work around here then.” Glancing back at the man he would have never called a friend, Mitch Burton said, “Fuck all if I know. Doc thinks he was poisoned.”

  “Damn, any idea how, or who?”

  “Yeah, I think it was that fuckin’ Corey kid. Little mouthy ass piece of shit asshole Sorefucker!”

  Bill Robb spent much of his time out scavenging, alone, away from the small towns that had sprung up around the Midwest. This instance was one of the reasons why he avoided people; the other was the occasional person that still recognized him, despite the scar, from his days in Hollywood.

  Taking a breath, Bill said, “Smart-ass with an attitude, right? I just met him, on the road a few miles ago.”

  “Little piss-wick better not come back,” Mitch said, spitting.

  “Well, I’m sorry about your friend there.”

  Mitch turned around, watching Doc Shoup as he worked. “He wasn’t my friend, but he damn sure didn’t deserve that.”