The four of them stopped near Idlewild, California, for breakfast. Hep was relieved they were finally moving away from the ocean. The problem with getting thrown off-ship in a small coastal town is that there aren’t always a lot of roads leading directly away from the ocean. In this case, they had to go South before they could start moving East.
The restaurant smelled like ancient grease, and the top of the table was sticky. On the upside, the coffee was fantastic.
“So,” Samantha said, “how far East, exactly, do you need to go?”
“As far as you’ll take us. Then I guess we’ll try to scrounge up some motorcycles and keep moving on our own,” Hep said.
“I thought you guys were sailors.”
“Nope. Bikers.”
“How did you end up sailing in to Brookings, then?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” Hep said. He didn’t really want to explain the whole thing. As it was, he wasn’t exactly sure why they’d agreed to get on the boat in the first place. He decided it must have just been a poor decision caused by the shock of the massive upheaval they came home to.
Scroat’s hangover had kicked into high gear, and he wished they’d just shut up and drink their coffee.
Cindi said, “Well, we’re on a road trip for the time being. We have time for a long story.”
“Fuck,” Scroat muttered.
“OK, well, I guess it isn’t that long of a story, it’s mostly just dumb,” Hep said. “We were out riding around in Texas for a couple months, and Scroat here let a friend housesit for us. We got home in time to watch our house burn down. We went to stay with a relative in Los Angeles, who hooked us up with another relative that needed crew to sail to Alaska.”
“You’re right,” Samantha said, “That is a stupid story. Why didn’t you stay home and try to rebuild?”
“Because we’re not very good at staying still for long, I guess,” Hep said.
“That and to give the guy I let stay in our house a decent head start,” Scroat said.
“You think he burned your house down on purpose?” Cindi said.
“Who cares? It burned down on his watch,” Scroat said.
“Unless he wasn’t there. There was no trace of him when we got home,” Hep said.
“So, let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. You’re chasing a friend of yours who might not have even been around when your house caught fire?” Samantha said.
“Are we chasing him?” Hep asked Scroat.
“I don’t know. Seems like as good of a reason for being out here running around as any.”
“So, I guess we just want to find him and make sure he’s OK,” Hep said.
“And then kick his ass,” Scroat said.
“Unless we don’t need to,” Hep said.
“Great, we picked up a couple of psychos,” Samantha said to Cindi.
“Yeah, but they’re paying for breakfast, and we were planning to go to Bend anyway,” Cindi said.
Hep started to object (they were not psychos. Overwhelmed and confused, but otherwise sane), but then the part about going to Bend sunk in. Bend was high desert. And there would probably be a motorcycle or two there to be bought on the cheap. Perfect.
“Did you say you’re going to Bend?” Hep said.
Samantha sighed, and elbowed Cindi. “Way to tell them everything they needed to know.”
“Whatever.”
“Yes,” Samantha said, “We can take you as far as Bend, provided you can behave for that long. If not, we’ll kick you the hell out of the car so fast you’ll wonder if you were ever actually in the car.”
“Cool,” Hep said.
They’d been back on the road for maybe fifteen minutes, and Scroat and Cindi were already sleeping in the backseat. Hep had offered to sit in the back as well, but Cindi insisted he sit up front since he had bad legs.
Samantha’s car was an early 90’s Buick Century. It was an odd shade of maroon, and smelled like pine tree air fresheners and cigarettes. The interior was a little worse for wear, but Hep was impressed at how comfortable the ride was. For a car.
Hep and Samantha rode in silence for maybe twenty minutes before Samantha spoke.
“So could you explain why you’re so eager to get away from the water? I mean, it’s not like the guy whose boat you just wrecked can cover the entire coast all the time. The chances of bumping in to him are pretty slim. Especially if he’s going to Alaska. Why not just head South and enjoy the beaches along the way?”
Hep wasn’t sure how she’d take it if he explained they were all gods, and the god whose boat they’d been on was Poseidon and that, yes, he could in fact cover the entire coast, because every creature in the ocean could report back to him. Hell, the waves could report back to him. And it wasn’t just the ocean, but they’d be wise to avoid any body of water that lead to the ocean. And maybe lakes, he wasn’t exactly sure.
He was pretty sure, however, that the honest explanation would get them kicked out of the car in the middle of nowhere, Oregon. So he just said, “He’s got friends up and down the coast, and someone would be bound to notice the two of us. It’ll be best if we just wait a while, and let him cool off a bit.”
“How long do you think that will take?”
“Probably a while. Did you see the size of the hole in his boat?”
A while later, as they passed through Gold Hill, Samantha noticed a guy walking down the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board. He looked sober and serious. The sign read: The END is NIGH. REPENT, for the WORLD shall END on August, 19, 2016.
“Wow, that’s an oddly specific sign,” she said.
Hep turned to look. “Yeah it is. What’s he going to do on August 17, 2016 after the world didn’t end?”
The man carrying the sign looked directly at Hep. Hep waved. The sign-bearer paused a moment, then waved back.
“Seems friendly enough, at least,” Hep said. Soon after that, Hep fell asleep as well.
Hep woke up when he felt the car slowing down, and heard gravel crunching underneath the wheels. He opened his eyes and looked around.
“Why are we pulling over? What’s wrong?” Hep asked.
“The temperature light came on,” Samantha said.
Scroat woke up then, as well. “Hey, where the fuck are we?”
“On the side of the road, the car overheated,” Hep said.
Scroat opened his door and hopped out. He looked up and down the road intently, then leaned against the side of the car, looking behind them.
“What the hell is he doing?” Samantha asked Hep.
“No idea. Would you pop the hood? Have you got any coolant or water in your trunk?”
Samantha pulled the handle to open the hood, and opened the trunk as well. “Yeah, I always carry some extra coolant with me.”
Hep got out of the car, and lifted the hood. A wave of heat from the engine blasted him. There didn’t seem to be any obvious coolant leaks. He wandered around to the trunk and took a look inside.
Among a variety of tools he wouldn’t have expected to find, and other potentially useful odds and ends, were two bottles of pre-mixed coolant, and a funnel. He grabbed a bottle of coolant and the funnel, then walked around to the front of the car.
“Hey, Scroat, you want to give me a hand here?”
“Nope, you can handle it,” Scroat said.
“What are you doing back there that’s so important?”
“Looking for Robert Wheeler. That fucker is around here somewhere, I just know it.”
“You are crazy and paranoid. I told you it was all just a coincidence. Could you come up here and hold the funnel for me?”
“Nope. Any second that guy’s going to come around the corner in his car, or walk up to us or land in a hot air balloon, or something. I just know it.”
“Hot air balloon, right. Well, I’ll tell you what, if he thinks you’re on to him, he’s probably going to stay hidden, so would you give me a hand already?”
“Nope,” Scroat said.
“Dick,” Hep muttered.
He topped up the coolant in the overflow tank, and asked Samantha to start the car once more. The temperature light went off, so Hep closed the hood, and put the rest of the coolant back in the trunk.
“Any sign of Robert?”
“No, but that guy’s just being tricky,” Scroat said.
“OK. Whatever,” Hep said. “Let’s go.”
He got back into Samantha’s car. Scroat took another good look around, and got in.
“What were you looking for out there?” Cindi asked him.
“Just this fucking guy who keeps turning up everywhere we go,” Scroat said.
“Did you see him?”
“Not this time, but I bet he was out there,” Scroat said.
“You know that’s crazy, right?”
“So be it. I’ve been called worse things. That fucker is out there, and I’m going to figure out what it is he’s up to.”
“He’s not up to anything. He’s not out there,” Hep said. “He’s on his way home to his wife, and he’s presumably trying to reach his clients right now to scrounge up some more business.”
“Who on Earth is this guy,” Samantha asked.
“Just some guy we’ve bumped into a couple times.”
“Bullshit!” Scroat said. “He showed up when we were broken down in the middle of the night in the middle of fucking nowhere, which was weird. Then he showed up in the middle of the motherfucking ocean. That’s not bumping into someone. That’s getting stalked.”
“Scroat thinks he’s up to something. I don’t,’ Hep said to Samantha.
“I gathered,” she said.
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