Chapter 8

Although it took a few hours to extricate themselves from the cabin, Travis managed to drive to Sault Ste. Marie by the early evening. He couldn't just cut down from Lake Superior to the Mackinac Bridge without going to the city because he had stored the rest of his furniture pieces in a secured rental facility in town. They found a cheap little motel and snuggled in for the night.

'Snuggled' is one word and 'insomnia' is another. The confident woman who had overcome her qualms in the woods or in an isolated cabin became more and more anxious as they drove deeper into the little bustling town of Sault Ste. Marie and her never ending line of traffic across the international bridge into Canada. The noises of trucks and traffic unnerved her and the crowds of people at the Walmart silenced her. When the jackhammer bit into a cracked sidewalk next to the truck as they waited at the traffic light, she nearly crawled up the sleeve of Travis's jacket. Everything smelled of exhaust and industrial fumes, which burned her nostrils and gave her an occasional cough. Even the streetlight piercing through the thin drapes of the motel room disturbed her.

Travis was embroiled in his own panic. After days of waiting to pursue the sister fugitive, they were finally on the hunt. He didn't want to leave the cabin and he didn't want to rev up the chase. No less pressing on his mind were the unbidden visions that had started to assault his sanity. He didn't ask for them and they seemed to shake him to the core of his being, a place far deeper than he had ever explored. There was too much stuff down there, far too much for a cabinetmaker's son. Speaking of which, he was heading back to Detroit, first to drop off his furniture and then to face his father. He would have preferred having his nails ripped from his fingertips with red hot pinchers than face that bastard.

They were lying back to back on old, scratchy sheets topped with a mottled bedspread that had seen better days, probably thirty or forty years ago. He shivered once and she reciprocated with her own. For both of them, it was a long, restless night.

Bedraggled and cranky, the two hitched a trailer to the back of the pickup truck and loaded the goods. The trek down to Detroit was going to be more than six hours because Travis didn't want to jostle the furniture in back. They couldn't ignore their need for food though and Travis was forced to pull off the interstate, 45 minutes or so north of Saginaw. Anya couldn't stomach any of the fast food joints that would have made life easy, so he had to search for something 'sit down' that might use real ingredients.

Travis pulled into a little Mom 'n Pop place called "Bob's Country Cookin'" with parking in back for trucks. They sat in a booth by the window. As Anya picked her way through a chef salad, Travis tried out Pop's All American Hamburger heaped with grilled onions and green peppers. He took a bite and nearly puked.

Anya looked at his discomfort with a bit of amusement. She offered, "Take off the bun and you should be able to stomach the rest."

"The bun?" Travis puzzled as he spit out the hamburger into his napkin, "I ate them just fine the other day."

"The other day you hadn't used power to heal and maintain your body. Your strong distaste to a food is your body now imbued with power telling you that the bun is like poison to you. Take off the bun."

Travis peeled the grease soaked bun off of his burger with a sense of mourning, as if he was saying goodbye to a dear friend. Unbeknownst to him, all of his actions were being closed monitored by a couple of rough, unshaven men sitting at a table across from their booth. They glanced at each other and exchanged a grin.

The one looking directly at Travis wore a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off with a knife and a dirty orange sleeveless jacket vest that had seen better days. The tattoo of a skull with knife stabbed into the back of it and snake curling out of the eye sockets had faded to a dull green, but it looked menacing on his massive biceps.

"Hey, what's the matter, faggot," He called out to Travis, "you don't like Bob's cooking?"

Travis noticed first that one of the guy's front teeth was dead black. Travis sized him up, decided to keep his mouth shut, and returned his attention to his meal. Anya had visibly tensed.

"Just ignore them," Travis advised her in an even tone. "Remember what your father said about people? You're seeing them now."

Black Tooth stood up and turned to Travis. "Hey, faggot, I asked you a question?"

His friend in the red flannel shirt started laughing and encouraging his buddy. His buddy stood just over six feet and his Detroit Pistons cap was frayed around the brim.

The intimidation continued, "Hey, pretty little girl, why are you hanging out with a little faggot like him, when you can a have a real man?"

Anya stared daggers at Travis but kept his mouth shut. He slowly shook his head side to side giving her the cue to do nothing. His heart was pounding as he considered the options. His back was to the rest of restaurant so he had no idea if anyone was going to help him or if they were just gaping like idiots. He had been a few scrapes before, but nothing quite like this. The guy was an ape and Travis was trapped in a booth with an alien who had no clue.

Emboldened by the lack of response from anywhere in the restaurant, Black Tooth walked over to the booth and bent over towards Anya.

Showing her his tongue he oozed, "Pretty girl, you need to get away from faggots like him. I'm the real deal; you need real man meat."

Travis put menace in his throat, "Leave... her... alone."

The man turned slowly towards Travis. He ran his tongue over the inside of his cheek, "The little faggot has a voice after all. Your pretty little girl is a little young for you, don't you think? Are you bringing jailbait into a nice wholesome place?"

Travis seethed and his hands clenched into fists. In a flash Black Tooth jumped at him to seize him by the collar of his jacket with both hands. Travis saw him dive and then he didn't. The man grabbed thin air because Travis was now sitting next to the wall instead of in the middle of the booth in front of his plate.

Travis felt the power whirling in his head as he tried to sort out his confusion. At the same moment Anya grabbed the massive arm as it pulled back to throw a punch into Travis's puzzled face.

Travis felt her power surge and his attacker froze in place. Anya jerked back her hand as if she had touch fire and burned herself. As Travis watched her hand retreat in slow motion, the pungent smell of urine snapped him back into the active pace of reality. He looked down at his crotch and touched it with his hand to confirm that his underwear was dry. It was.

He jerked his gaze towards the massive bulk of his attacker and watched in amazement as the wet stain spread across the front of his faded jeans and started to leak down his leg. Travis revved up his right leg to kick the guy in the knee cap, when the kitchen door burst open and three men came rushing out, the front one carrying a baseball bat.

The big white guy with the bat banged the bat on a table once, and the loud crash made everyone in the room jump. The two Hispanic men in dirty white aprons both had wicked kitchen knives in their hands.

"Motherfucker!" the white guy called out, "you fuck with my customers and I'm going to fuck with you."

His face was raging red. Black Tooth still hadn't moved but his piss had made it all the way down his leg and started to drip in small puddles on the floor. His buddy got up to run but he made the mistake of pushing himself up from the table with his hand. The baseball bat came slamming down on the back of that hand with an unerring accuracy. Travis cringed at the distinct crunch of bones breaking.