Dead End World

Chapter Ten: Coyotes

The Next Morning

Iris woke up before everyone else and went outside. She walked over to her side-by-side and turned it on to check how much fuel was left in the fuel tank. It was about three quarters full, good enough to get to Aston and back. She shut the vehicle off and backed up to gaze at it. The side-by-side was her pride and joy, her hobby and her passion. She grinned at the UTV, putting a hand on her hip. She glanced down to the front wheel and she suddenly felt her heart drop. The left front wheel was completely flat. She knelt down by the wheel and examined it. She found a nail lodged into the tire. She shook her head and stood back up straight. She knew this would be a huge problem.
     She walked back into the house, and by that time, Spencer was up and in the kitchen. He glanced to Iris and then looked back down to the map he held in his hands, Iris' map.
     "Hey, put that down," Iris told him, walking over and grabbing a flathead screwdriver from the junk drawer.
     "Why is this thing so water damaged?" Spencer questioned, rolling the map back up. "Is it all the sweat that dripped off of you while making it?" Spencer laughed, putting the map back on the table.
     "No," blankly said Iris. "It's because the roof of my house leaks whenever it rains."
     "Boohoo," said Spencer, adjusting his cowboy hat.
     "Yeah, boohoo, Spencer. Boohoo that I lost my nice home in my nice neighborhood and my nice job that rewarded me nicely."
     "You deserved it after tricking me into thinking I could trust you. You almost killed me."
     "Enough, Spencer. Enough," Iris mumbled, cracking her thumb. She watched as Spencer knelt down to get a pan from one of the cabinets under the counter. "We can't go to Aston today."
     Spencer looked to Iris, still kneeling. "What?"
     "I hit a nail yesterday with the tire of my UTV. I got a flat tire, and those types of tires are super hard to find."
     "A nail? Are you kidding me?!" Spencer exclaimed, standing up.
     "It's not my fault!"
     "What're we supposed to do now? My truck exploded, and you hit a goddamn nail with your UTV!"
     "I don't know! I can try to find a tire, but I don't know how likely it is that I'd find one."
     Spencer sighed and shook his head, tugging on the bandana around his neck. "You always find a way to piss me right off, Iris."
     "I'm sorry. But you're the bigger person here. You're 13 years older than me, so start acting like it," Iris told him. "Quit acting like you're still a teenager."
     "Ha!" sarcastically exclaimed Spencer, starting to walk towards the living room door. He stopped right before the doorway and looked to Iris with sneering, mocking eyes. "You're a bitch." He walked into the living room.
     Iris scoffed and watched him walk out of the room. After a moment of being alone in the kitchen, she growled and kicked a leg of a chair and walked back out to the front yard.
     Iris pried the nail out of the tire with the screwdriver. It took quite a bit of effort, but eventually, the nail slid out. It was a rusty, long nail that was bent a little in the middle. She sighed and looked at the flattened tire. She hated to see her baby so hurt, so injured. She stuffed the nail into her pocket and gazed down the street. She could see about finding a new tire at some sort of auto parts shop, but the tire she needed just wasn't sitting on shelves. They usually needed ordered and would come from a factory, and there was definitely not a UTV tire factory anywhere in the wastelands of Arizona. She was out of luck. She went back inside of Spencer's house frustrated, the most frustrated she's felt since getting kicked out of Aston. They needed to find a new way to get to Aston.

     Shoot at the heart of whatever you're killing (unless it's a zombie). If you strike the heart, no more blood flow can reach the rest of the body, including the brain. This rule can be applied to more situations other than anatomy. It can be applied to a certain plan to save a certain bunker from impending doom.
     Anton Le Roux. The beating heart of all of Aston's guards, as well as the information-radiating brain. With each beat, new commands and orders are pumped towards his subordinates. The orders are followed and obeyed without question, just how a brain sends signals for the limbs on the body to move, and they submit to the brain's directions immediately. So, shooting the hub of any functioning creature or operation will kill off the rest of the body.
     That's why Anton Le Roux needed to go down.