Monster Truckers - Episode One: East of Omaha (Pt 4)

EPISODE ONE: EAST OF OMAHA (NEW COUNCIL BLUFFS)

Dragula reached up and wrapped his fingers around an ornate silver chain hanging from the roof of the cab and gave it a sharp pull. The monster's chrome maw that served as the truck's grille split open just enough for the horn mounted inside to come alive. A shrieking, metallic howl tore across the prairie.

Mac had built it from a stack of battered metal discs salvaged from some forgotten pre-war technology. Nobody knew exactly what the discs had once done. Nobody cared. They made wonderfully terrible noises.

Over the years, Dragula had experimented with dozens of combinations, recording different tones and arranging them into a language only he and Mac understood.
Three short blasts, one long wail, a descending screech.

Mac grinned behind his hockey mask and shifted the Fluffy Bunny into gear.

Miles slipped beneath their wheels. The rain gradually gave way to low gray clouds. The broken remains of what had once been part of Iowa stretched toward the horizon. Before the war, the countryside had been a patchwork of corn and soybean fields.

Now it looked like the moon. Craters scarred the landscape where NT bombs had fallen. Charred silos leaned at impossible angles. The skeletal remains of grain elevators stood like broken spires against the sky.

Rusty combines and tractors lay half-buried in mud and weeds. On either side of the highway, Murder-Moos - mutated cattle with poor dispositions and a carnivorous nature "grazed" on the remains of some unfortunate animal. Their horns were chipped and stained with blood. Several raised their heads as the convoy passed. Yellow eyes followed the trucks. One snorted. Another tore a strip of flesh from whatever it had been eating before returning to its meal.

Sam keyed the CB. "You know... I invented cows."

Mac chimes in on the CB, "Demon, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Hahahaha..."

For several seconds, there was only the hum of tires on wet pavement. Then Sam sighed the long, weary sigh of someone who'd had to answer this question for several thousand years.

"The egg... because evolution is a thing. The first chicken hatched from an egg laid by something that was almost—but not quite—a chicken. I spent millions of years getting dinosaurs to turn into birds, and this is how humanity repays me."

Xaden grabs his mic, "Do you think there is more angel dust in the other crates?"

“It would make sense," Dragula answers, "Guess we were too thick headed to check the other boxes to see what they said. I was always told I was 'spare parts, bud.'"

Sam keyed the mic. "I think each crate contains Angel Dust, the containment case, and a dispersal unit. I'm more concerned that there's six of them. Enough to seed six different locations. So, New Council Bluffs is just the first stop."

Drags cranks up his radio and the chains dangling in the cab begin to rattle as the bass kicks and the windows rattle “Mars needs women. Angry red women” blares as the rig slings gravel and fishtails as it hits pavement before rolling loudly down the highway.

The convoy rolled east. Hour after hour, mile after mile, the interstate stretched ahead like a ribbon through the dead heart of Iowa. Rain came and went in scattered showers. Gray clouds raced overhead, casting broad shadows across ruined fields. Rusted windmills turned lazily in the breeze. Every twenty miles or so, the burned out remains of entire towns appeared. The blackened timbers of what were once homes and businesses jut into the evening sky.

Every so often, the singing returned. Never close by, always coming from somewhere beyond the horizon carried in on the wind. A lonely voice singing a line, maybe two, then silence.

A commercial jingle that fades into the distance. Someone, somewhere, softly sang the first line of Amazing Grace. The rest of the hymn never came.

The convoy passed the burned out shell of a roadside attraction shaped like a giant ear of corn. A billboard picturing a smiling family still stood beside it. The family stared straight ahead, motionless.

Three hours slipped by.

Then, Sam broke the silence. "Break one-nine, sign ahead."

A green reflective sign rose out of the mist.

NEW COUNCIL BLUFFS
NEXT EXIT

Someone had spray painted the word "Sing" on it in yellow. The paint looked fresh.

The exit ramp curved gently away from the interstate. The convoy slowed.

Mac comes over the CB, "'Bout time, I need to stretch and recharge."

Drags added, “I could use a Jolt and a cola.”

"You might not know this, but I invented Jolt Cola. When they stopped paying my royalty checks, I made the company go bankrupt." Sam sighs, "All the sugar - twice the caffeine. Those were the days."

“Sure you did”  Drags says to himself.  And keeps driving.

Sam answered immediately. "I did. Also invented New Coke."

Xaden yawned. "I could go for some food once we get to town." He looked out across the fields as the Last Cathedral descended the exit ramp.

At first, it looked like any other truck stop.

Then they realized nothing was moving. The parking lot was full. Row after row of parked semis, straight trucks, pickups, tow trucks, buses, and tankers filled every available space. More sat parked along the access road. Others rested on the surrounding grass. Some looked as though they'd arrived only hours ago. Others had obviously been sitting there for months.

The truck stop itself sat in the center of the sea of steel. Floodlights illuminated the lot despite the late afternoon gloom. Near the fuel islands, a makeshift stage had been assembled from stacked shipping pallets, rusty oil drums, and worn-out tires. A single spotlight shone down upon it. Standing beneath the light was a lone human in a filthy white laboratory coat. Even from this distance, his skin looked wrong. Dark sores mottled his face and hands. He stood perfectly still, watching the convoy descend the exit ramp.

Around him, people - truckers, mechanics, travelers, families, stood shoulder-to-shoulder in complete silence, totally still, eyes locked on him.

Xaden grabbed his CB, "This feels wrong boys."

Drags stops his truck and keys the handset, “I am not going to Church. I just here to get my 10%. Not give my soul to anyone.”

Without a word being spoken, the crowd began to shift. There was no rush. People simply stepped aside, one after another in perfect synchronization.

A lane, wide enough to drive through, opened through the sea of bodies. It stretched from the end of the off ramp all the way to the makeshift stage.

A lane, like the center aisle of a church.
Every pair of eyes remained fixed on the convoy. Every smile that could be seen from the cabs were identical.

Nobody beckoned them forward.
Nobody waved or spoke.
They simply waited.

The man stood beneath the spotlight at its far end, hands folded calmly in front of him and smiled.

Sam sighed over the mic. "See? This is what happens when a church doesn't spend the money on a coffee bar."

Mac says, "Hey, Demon, you know I invented coffee."

"No," Sam replies off-handedly, "That was Uriel. He used to say that turning entire cities to salt wore him out, so he created a little pick-me-up."

“Slow roll. Let’s get paid and the 'F' outta here.” Dragula replies.

The man in the filthy white lab coat stepped further into the spotlight. Xaden could make out a HumanCorp logo above the breast pocket. Yellow dust clung to his sleeves. It was visible on his hands. His face was gaunt, skin stretched tight over his skull. Weeping sores from radiation burns covered exposed flesh.

He smiled, "My friends..."

His voice carried effortlessly across the near silent truck stop. "You have wandered lonely roads. You have all buried friends and watched the old world die."

He spread his arms toward the gathered truckers. "But you were never forgotten."

The congregation smiled.

Every one of them.

Exactly alike.

"They called this contamination. They called it infection. They called it a weapon."

He shook his head. "They were afraid because they could not hear the song."

A murmur rolled through the crowd, not conversation but harmony.

Perfect, quiet harmony.

"They told you there was no family left."

"They lied."

"They told you Heaven was closed."

"They lied."

"They told you you were alone."

The man smiled wider.

"They lied."

He raised one hand toward the darkening sky.

"My brothers, my sisters, lift your eyes."

Everyone looked upward as one.

A light appeared. At first it looked like a star.

Then it grew. The clouds parted around it.
Soft radiance spilled across the parking lot. The figure descended slowly. She wore flowing white robes in the style of an ancient toga that drifted effortlessly around her. Great white wings stretched wide behind her. A warm halo encircled her head, bathing the rain in golden light.

Her hair fell in loose waves the color of burnished copper. Her skin seemed to glow with its own gentle radiance. Her emerald eyes swept across the gathered crowd with unmistakable compassion. She touched down so lightly that the puddles at her feet barely rippled.

The woman smiled. "My children..." Her voice carried without effort. "You have traveled far."

She looked first to the black Trans Am.
"Samael," her smile deepened. "It has been a very long time." The little demon shifted uncomfortably. 

Then to the silver-and-white Kenworth.
"Xaden."

To the black International.
"Dragula."

Finally, to the Mack tow truck.
"Mac."

She opened her arms once more. "Welcome. I will take the gift you brought me."

"#^%@," Sam said into his mic, "Mirrie was right."