Crank palace re-adapted

16. One last adventure

Dawn seemed to come late the next day, as if the sun had decided to sleep in, the sky wrapped in gray clouds, the threat of rain heavy and imminent. They'd decided to get a good night's rest... well, at least for Dante. Because Newt and Kath had been busy taking anxiety and excitement out thru sex. They stood outside the little hut they'd called home for a few days. He looked at the pathetic little structure, wondering if he could've spent the rest of his descending days in such a place, with a kid who didn't talk and a girl would cry if you'd leave her to go to the toilet without telling her first. Kath and Dante already meant the world to him, but staying in this place until they went completely insane sounded like a special kind of hell on Earth.

"Here they come," Kath said. She had her backpack hitched up, packed to bursting with food and supplies, just like the one on his own back. Dante sat on the ground at her feet, staring at the approaching group of ragamuffins as if to say, "you're putting our lives in the hands of them?"
Jonesy led the group of eight shady-looking Cranks down the path, right on time, one hour past sunrise. Newt didn't know why the word ragamuffin had popped into his head just now. Surely a term his mom or dad used to describe the teenage hoodlums in the neighbourhood, but it seemed to fit. There were more tattoos, piercings, leather boots, and ripped shabby clothing than Newt had ever seen in one place. And they apparently weren't too keen on baths or getting haircuts. But they had volunteered to risk their lives to help him reunite Kath with her family. That said all that needed to be said.

"Master Newt," Jonesy called out, a huge grin revealing the less than full load of teeth inside his mouth. He slicked his hair back with one hand, a favourite hobby of his. "Are we ready for the adventure of a lifetime?"

Newt gave him a nod, like he'd imagined a cowboy doing in the stories of old. "I'm truly hoping for the lamest adventure of my lifetime. With the guards gone, let's hope we can walk straight there and be done with it. Kath says it's about twenty miles."
Jonesy usually had a goofy, blank look on his face, but he had a flash of something very serious cross him upon hearing Newt's opening salvo, as if he knew - absolutely knew - that there was zero chance on God's green Earth that they'd just stroll to Kath's meeting place without incident. Without an incident that left scars.

"I hope you're right," Jonesy said, mostly recovering his former and normal carefree expression. "I'm sure you're right. Who'd mess with a bunch of dudes and ladies like us?" He gestured at his friends, as if revealing a prized possession. Maybe he was. Newt noticed, with a sadness that pierced him more strongly than he would have thought, that Jonesy's girlfriend had not come along. He almost asked about her but thought better of it.

"I don't guess the Munies left any launchers behind?" Kath asked. "That would have been down right peachy of them if they did."

"Not a one, the bastards," Jonesy replied. "But we've got plenty of sharp objects." He lifted his shirt to reveal a shard of glass tucked into his pants, half of which had been wrapped in black tape. "I'll try not to cut my hand this time."

Kath eyed him up and down. "Better be careful or you might cut something worse. I wouldn't run too fast with that thing stuck in your pants."
This earned a respectable enough laugh from the group.

"I'll be super-duper careful," Jonesy responded. "Shall we get a move on? The sun only stays up for so long, you know?"

"Good that," Newt said, something he hadn't uttered in decades - or so it felt. "Let's get the hell out of this place."

"Who wants to carry the kid first?" Kath asked.
Newt refused to believe that each and every guard had left, at least he wouldn't until they'd put the wall a few miles behind them. All the same, he'd taken his launcher out of his backpack and held it, charged and ready to Jones anyone who needed it. That's what Jonesy kept saying Newt had done to him, like it was a badge of honour.

"Remember that time you Jones'd me?" He'd ask. "Oh yeah, that was yesterday." Or, "I was Jones'd by a Maze kid, ain't that a thing?"
Newt was really starting to like this guy he'd violently electrocuted not twenty-four hours ago. As they approached the gate through which they'd just entered less than a week prior, he saw that it was open, which was a good start. One of the doors had been knocked off a hinge, the big slab tilting toward them. There wasn't a single person in sight.

"Careful now," Jonesy called out. "Everyone wrap around Newt and his girlfriend. Keep them in the middle."
"She's not-"

"I'm not his girlfriend" she interrupted him

"And I'm the one with the launcher." He continued

"Don't matter. Do as you're told." He gave Newt a creepy wink that did nothing to make him think this man was sane enough to be their leader.
Gotta work with what you got, Newt thought.
They made it to the gate, looking in all directions between the ten of them - eleven, if you counted Dante, but he wasn't much good as a lookout. Newt eyed the doors, expecting the boogeyman to jump out at any moment. The gray morning made it hard for him to adjust his eyes between the lights and the darks, but the world seemed abandoned by the human race. The sounds of birds were the only signs of life besides his little group.
They passed under the archway created by the open gate. No one jumped from the top of the wall, no one sprinted from the woods, no one swooped down from the sky with man-made wings. They were alone, at least for the time being.
Newt looked back up at the wall, remembering that he'd seen a sign on the way in but didn't catch the words in time as their truck zoomed past. It was just a piece of wood that someone had nailed to the planks of the main structure, a short message scratched onto its surface with a nail. Then someone had filled in the grooves of the words with dark mud, now dried.
Here there be Cranks, it said.
Stupid, Newt thought, although it struck him that he really was a Crank now, a word that had become synonymous with monstrous ghoulish cannibal people before he'd caught the Flare himself. He knew he'd be there before too long. Soon, if the incident in the bowling alley had been any kind of indicator. Past the Gone.
He shuddered as he stared at the sign. He wanted Tommy to kill him so he didn't have to go through it all. But Thomas had failed him, hadn't he? Or maybe he hadn't read the note in the envelope yet. Maybe.

"Hey, Captain Newt," Jonesy said, interrupting his morbid thoughts. "You having another episode or what?"

Newt turned to him. "No, just gonna miss the place is all. So many good memories" he smirked at Kath "Shame to leave so soon." He set off after the others, ignoring the urge to look back one last time.
And so it was that his short stay at the Crank Palace came to an end, he thought with a melodramatic flare. He swore he'd never come back. Not alive, anyway.