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The dashed divider lines raced under the high beams of the station wagon on the illuminated strip of highway, the engine vibrating like one long mechanical groan in deep space. After driving for miles through blackness along the vast desert terrain, a billboard blew past the windshield, snapping Xeno out of his white line fever:
ADVENTURE DOESN'T AWAIT!
"Do you know when Trianne left the church?" Xeno asked Garry on the dashboard telepane.
"Yes, just hours ago. I just stumbled onto the satellite spy cam footage, after rewinding it." Garry cut to night vision aerial footage of the church on the dashboard telepane, showing Trianne's ghostly green figure hurrying to the side of the road and hopping on a bus. Garry re-appeared on the dashboard telepane. "She's heading north, in the same direction you are."
"What's north?"
"Arcade. If you continue at this pace, you'll be there by sunrise."
"Did you find Mephistodrone in your toxicological analysis of Black Magic?"
"We did, but we can't figure out the formula, and we can't isolate the molecular trigger that causes spontaneous human combustion."
"We're running on fumes." Xeno eyed the gas gauge, inching towards "E."
"There's a gas station coming your way. I'm going to get some shut eye. Buzz me if you need anything."
"Sleep tight."
Garry signed off from the dashboard telepane, and then it was back to the monotonous hum of the engine, watching mountain ridges looming like black tidal waves, another billboard whizzing by:
NO FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!
Andrea veered off the road and pulled into an automated gas station, parking alongside the pumps, starkly aglow under the arctic canopy lighting, the terrain beyond the perimeter falling into pitch blackness. Xeno got out of the station wagon and swiped his Intellegella card through the pump debit slot, followed the onscreen prompts, removed the nozzle and started pumping gas into the tank. He kept his eyes peeled for creepy drifters emerging from the shadows, spotting another billboard across the highway, the lettering hard to read in the darkness. He locked in the auto-pump latch on the gasoline nozzle, and walked to edge of the road, shining his black box flashlight beam across the road, onto the surface of the billboard:
THE RIDES DO NOT MOVE!
He heard the auto-pump latch click off, and went back to the station wagon. He closed the gas tank panel, reseated the pump and hopped back in the driver's seat. Andrea gunned the engine and sped off down the highway with a full tank of gas. After a few more miles of same-scenery-over-and-over fatigue, another billboard appeared:
NOW PLAYING!
SHOKI PAO STUNT SHOW!
"Did that last billboard say what I think it said?" Xeno telepathed to Andrea.
"Wow, you're a celebrity!" Andrea's lips telepathed from the dash-board telepane. "Should we check it out?"
"Hell, yes! . . . I think this is where we get off." The next sign whizzed past the windshield:
CREEPY PARKING
NEXT EXIT
Andrea veered off the highway at the next offramp, following the barren desert road until they arrived at a parking lot of bulging asphalt with weeds sprouting from the cracks. She parked the station wagon under the only working lamp in sight, the defective bulb emitting a spastic stroboscopic flicker. Xeno got out of the station wagon and crossed the uneven asphalt, towards the entrance of a faux castle, lying in ruins, the walls sewage stained, smothered in vines that looked like the spreading of lung cancer. The pointed roofs of the fairy tale turrets were perforated with huge uneven holes, the window panes shattered in mangled frames, dangling from the hinges. He came to the ticket booth, with a sign missing a few letters:
YOU ARE READING
Xenoman
Science FictionXeno yearns to have access to The Nth Dimension like The White Boys, famed telepaths who suffered brain damage when they made contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Out of work as a bartender since the Shoki Pao dance club mysteriously burned d...
