The Restoration Project

4.07 - Plain-Faced Charley

Charley began to think Righty was right—which he rarely was—and the fact she had to think about him in the past tense made her heart constrict. They never should have gone to Walther's. They had a good system before that kept them alive. Now Righty was gone, buried beneath a mound of dirt in front of her that was already turning to mud from the pelting rain.

"Do you have anything to say?" Charley asked.

Skillet stared at the mound with the stick poking out of it. He was barely cognizant, his scalp bare save for a few tufts of hair. Charley put a hand on his shoulder and he relaxed into her. "Righty was a good friend. I will miss him."

"Righty was family," Charley started, taking her hand off his shoulder to clasp it with her other in front of her. "We didn't always get along—he pissed me off more often than not—but that's how family's work. I miss him already and I'll miss him for a while. He was the best friend we could ask for."

Charley knelt down to pat the ground and then stood up. Skillet tried to mimic her but fell over, unable to maintain his balance. Her heart hurt for him too. He always tried so hard and would do anything for her; and she couldn't even keep him safe.

She knelt back down beside him. His massive shoulders sagged, heaving with each breath. "Make...it...stop," he said.

Charley put an arm over his shoulder, this time feeling the heat radiating from his skin. The nanobots were taking over his body and rewiring its circuity to suit their needs. Liquid Gold wouldn't do anything beneficial for him now, but she found herself tapping the vial in her bag slung over her shoulder anyway. It was valuable, if you talked to the right people.

"I know where we can go. We'll make it stop," Charley told Skillet, urging him on even though she was certain he couldn't hear her anymore. But he did, and her words spurred him back to his feet.

Her sense of direction wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. And the rain didn't help any. It was midday before she managed to guide them to where she wanted to be: the small town strip-mall they had spent the previous night. After what she pulled on the Junkie, she would have avoided the area for a few weeks, but the Junkie happened to be the exact person she needed to see.

"We're here," Charley told Skillet.

Skillet grunted in reply as she guided him to a stop, not caring whether he was moving or standing still. She led him into the pharmacy, not expecting to find the Junkie exactly where they had seen him the previous day, but needing to find shelter from the rain.

"Stay there," Charley said, raising her voice over the constant patter of raindrops on the steel roof above them. Skillet followed her finger to a spot in front of the shelving and stopped. Charley turned to the window and peered out to see if they had been spotted.

The street was still, at least as far as she could tell. At first she thought the rumble she heard was thunder, but it was too consistent and grew in intensity rather than faded away. She exchanged what she thought was a worried look with Skillet—she had heard stories about the Heaven's Devils—but Skillet's face was impassive. She hunkered in the shade of the window as the sound crescendoed into a vintage muscle car that blew by the front of the pharmacy, tires screeching when it banked a hard left down another street. It stopped, its taillights throwing a red glow on the road. No one got out.

Metal crashed behind her. She jolted and bumped her forehead on the window. She whipped around to see Skillet sitting on the floor, after collapsing through one of the shelves. He didn't look up at her, but just stared ahead with a blank expression on his face.

She turned back to the window as a figure slammed the car door and disappeared around the corner. She caught a glimpse of bright red hair.

"It can't be," she muttered, the picture of Marybelle popping into her mind. She was sure there were plenty of redheads still alive, but the chances of this were good to pass up. She needed to investigate. "Stay here," she ordered Skillet.