Chapter 2 #2
I made sure to stay a few steps behind as he made his way over them. The guy wasn’t overly menacing, but he still gave off a burly kind of rural energy that screamed Don’t fuck with me.
Not that I had plans to do anything of the sort. I was only here for one reason.
“You know the tavern down the street?” I asked, popping my gas tank cover and unscrewing the cap.
“Yep.”
“Do you know when it opens?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Okay…that was less than helpful.
“And when is that?”
The man grabbed the pump off its holder. “Whenever I finish helping my dad here and get around to unlocking the door.”
Oh!
“You’re Deke?”
He slid a suspicious look my way as he fit the nozzle into the tank and started filling. “I guess that depends on who’s asking.”
“I’m Hannah Carter.”
“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”
“God, no,” I chuckled. “I’m not anyone important.”
Shooting my aging compact car a disparaging glance, he said, “No shit.”
Right. I picked my ego off the ground and dusted it off.
“Relax,” I told him. “I’m not some long-lost daughter who’s come looking for her biological father, either.”
I meant it as a joke, but the look of relief on the middle-aged man’s weathered face was real. “Then who the hell are you?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer before locking the pump in place and taking a step back to let his eyes sweep over the handful of bumper stickers that dotted the back of my car. Most of them covered up the odd dents and scratches I’d picked up over the years.
Suddenly, I was grateful that I’d resisted the urge to slap any political ones on there from the last election. Somehow, I had a feeling that Mr. Doesn’t Trust Credit and I wouldn’t see eye to eye on the way the world should be run.
As it was, the back of my car told a pretty succinct and thorough tale of who I was.
There were my San Jose State Alumni and SJ Sharks Hockey stickers, as well as my neighborhood parking pass.
The American Association of Professional Photographers sticker that came with my yearly dues covered up the ding from a runaway shopping cart, and the one from the National Endowment for the Arts hid the damage from the time a bike courier wasn’t quite able to squeeze past me at a red light.
“What’s a photographer want with me and my bar?”
It was a good question. One I knew was coming and had six and a half hours to come up with an answer. One that didn’t have anything to do with nightmares, subconscious visions, or murderous ferus.
But it wasn’t until Deke was standing in front of me, asking the question to my face, that a simple, believable answer finally sprang up in my mind.
“To take pictures,” I said. “What else?”
Deke still looked skeptical—though I was starting to think that might just be his default expression. He crossed his surprisingly burly arms in front of his chest.”You drove all this way to take pictures of some rundown, backcountry bar?”
I shook my head.
“Not just the bar.” Now that the initial seed of inspiration had sprouted, the rest of the cover story came together quickly in my head. “The whole town of Goldwood. I’m working on an exhibition to showcase what life looks like in towns close to the Wall.”
“Is that right?”
Well…it was now. The whole town of Goldwood might only be a grid of four old residential streets and a handful of shops, but it was interesting. There was no denying that. I didn’t think I’d have any trouble filling a few days here, snapping shots of the place.
“I wanted to talk to you because, in my experience, bartenders are the best sources of information in a town.”
Now that was a lie.
I had no such experience. I was a portrait photographer, for God’s sake. I’d never roamed the countryside, going from town to town, looking to capture the essence of the place on film.
Making “art” was for people with wealthy husbands and trust funds. I, on the other hand, worked to make rent and keep the lights on.
Sure, I could have picked a more lucrative major back in college. All my friends had. But while my classmates dutifully followed their parents’ mandated paths into tech and business, I picked up a camera and fell in love with photography.
Which meant I was happy…but broke.
I found ways to get by, of course. There was the small but steady paycheck from Jeanine’s studio, of course, where I snapped traditional staged family photos, the kind where everyone is clustered together and straining to smile in their matching sweaters.
Those were always popular with suburban families.
Who knows—there might be one of mine hanging above your parents’ fireplace right now.
That meager salary was supplemented by freelance jobs during the summer wedding season, documenting the couple’s happy day, or hawking landscape prints at street fairs and farmers’ markets. And of course, I had the usual portfolio of stock photos up on all the major sites.
So far, all that hustling had earned me just enough to afford a nice little studio apartment downtown.
The kind of place that hadn’t skimped on the noise-dampening insulation when they built their thick walls.
And yeah, a place like that was more expensive, but it was also necessary.
I couldn’t have my neighbors calling the police every night when I screamed bloody murder.
So as much as I dreamed of gallery exhibitions and national acclaim, I knew it wasn’t in the cards. I couldn’t afford to waste time or take risks.
But Deke didn’t need to know any of that. In fact, it was probably better that he assumed I was the starving artist type. It would give him an easy pigeonhole to stuff me into.
“So what do you want to know?” Deke asked. His arms were still folded in front of his barrel chest, but I could tell some of his defenses had already dropped. The corners of his thin lips tilted upward, and his blue-grey eyes showed a spark of light.
Just the one question that had been driving me crazy for the last seven years.
“Do you know someone named Tauren?”
“Can’t say that I do.” Deke shook his head. “Who’s that?”
Oh, just the name I call out every night right before a ferus alpha rips my throat out. The man I’m hoping can save me from a brutal and violent death.
“A friend of a friend,” I lied with a casual shrug. “Apparently, he lives nearby. I’m just not sure where.”
“Maybe they do,” Deke allowed. “But if they don’t fill up at these tanks or drink down at the bar, I won’t know them. You should ask Vera at the Sunshine Cafe. That woman knows everyone.”
“Thanks.”
“You got a place to stay around here?”
Yeah, that was another detail I’d had plenty of time to figure out on the road…and hadn’t.
I shrugged my shoulders and looked at my car.
I’d been lucky enough that I’d never had to spend a night in it before, but there was no reason I couldn’t park it somewhere, recline the driver’s seat, and throw a blanket over me.
It was summer after all, and even up here near the coast, the temperature only dipped down into the fifties overnight.
“Well, I’ve got a couple of rooms on the floor above the tavern,” Deke said. “It’s not as fancy as a real hotel, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got around here. It comes with a bed, clean sheets, and not much else.”
“How much?”
“Thir—I mean, forty a night.”
“Does that include tax?”
Deke let out a bark of laughter loud enough to echo off the metal walls of his father’s garage.
“Ain’t no tax when you’re paying cash,” he informed me. “Not around here, at least.”
Well, that was hard to argue with. “I guess it’s a deal then.”
It wasn’t as if I was going to find a better deal, and I really hadn’t been looking forward to sleeping in my car.
“Great.” Deke stopped the gas and gestured down the street with the pump after pulling it out of my tank. “I’ve got more work around here, so I’ll meet you out in front of the tavern around 3:00 to open up and let you in. Vera’s cafe can take care of you if you’re hungry.”
I was.
As it turned out, there was only so long a person could survive on BBQ-flavored chips, trail mix, and diet soda before they needed to put something real in their stomach.
I thanked Deke and said goodbye to his dad—who grunted before dismissing me with a quick wave of his hand—then got in my car.
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to see a handful of people out on the sidewalks. Goldwood was a real town after all.
I passed the feed store with half a dozen farmers loading hay into the back of their beat-up farm trucks, and a trio of ladies out in front of the general store picking out fresh summer fruit from the wooden stand set up just outside the door.
Every last one of them stopped and stared at me as I drove by.
No. They didn’t just stare.
They scowled.
Damn, with as nasty as everyone here liked to be to strangers, it was no surprise the town was fading away.
That wasn’t fair. Maybe Goldwood wasn’t on its last legs, but I wouldn’t describe the place as thriving either. For every two or three stores I passed with their open signs on, there was one right next door with boards over the windows.
Though if the town of Goldwood was anything like Deke and his dad, then it was probably too mean to die.
Don’t be an asshole, I chided myself as I parked in a spot right in front of the tavern.
It was just a different culture up here next to the Wall. A more closed-off, guarded environment than I was used to. If I expected a small town to be like the city with its concrete, exhaust, and steel buildings that tickled the bottom of the clouds, I was setting myself up for disappointment.
Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad. Maybe if I relaxed a little, I’d find a patch of beauty hiding under the cracked roads, splintered wood, and glowering faces.
Something worth capturing on film.
I cut the engine and stepped out onto the pavement…nearly tripping over a half-decayed opossum carcass rotting in the gutter.
Or then again, maybe I wouldn’t.