Chapter 64: Road Trip

Murphy was so packed with camping gear that his occupants needed to sit in the front seats instead of lounging in the back, as they had become accustomed to. At first Bael had been annoyed by the steering wheel, but after some careful finagling he managed to make use of it.

“You’re ridiculous,” Six said as she watched her adoptive father dig into the party platter strapped to the steering wheel. Then after a second she got hungry and reached over for some chips. “But I will admit that you might be onto something.”

“HE IS,” Titan told her, laying his massive head on the console between the front seats, “PASS ME SOME CHICKEN TENDERS, PLEASE.”

Bael loaded up a paper bowl for the hellhound. “Do you want ranch dressing?”

“YES.”

Six watched as Titan devoured a dozen chicken tenders, along with the bowl they were in. “I BELIEVE WE CAN CHECK THAT OFF MY LIST AS WELL.”

“What do you mean?” Six asked.

“CONSUMING SOMETHING NOT MEANT TO BE EATEN, BUT NOT OVERTLY HARMFUL IS SOMETHING DOGS DO,” Titan said, “AT LEAST, ACCORDING TO YOUR LIST.”

“Ah, right.” She looked to her father for moral support (which was a bit like looking at the sun to try and find shade). “Good job, I guess.”

“YES. I AM THE BEST,” Titan agreed before turning to face Six, his tail wagging back and forth, “PERHAPS WE CAN PLAY SOME GAMES TO PASS THE TIME. I HAVE BEEN DOING RESEARCH IN PREPARATION FOR OUR TRIP.”

Bael reached over to scratch behind the hellhound’s ears as he spoke. “We have about three hours left until we get to the lake. I read somewhere that less than four hours total travel time was ideal for preventing road trip fatigue.” The demon paused. “You know, I’ve never been camping before. At least, not unless you count what I did during the war.”

Six looked over at the mention of her father’s past. He was normally tight-lipped about his life before joining hell’s bureaucracy. “Which war would that be?”

“The war in heaven,” Bael said, “It was before your time.”

“Obviously,” Six replied, “You never talk about it. But I’d like to know more.”

She walked through the aisles of questionable snacks and instant foods with Titan at her side. If the cashier noticed the hellhound, he made no mention of it. The pale scrawny man continued to scratch at his face and watch the security monitors as if they were his favorite TV show.

Six didn't know it, but there was a good reason why truck stops seemed otherworldly. Conventional wisdom was that they followed the highways and interstates, being constructed to serve the people who passed through. This, of course, was false. If an area met the special conditions for them to spawn, namely being remote and magically dense enough, one would start to take shape. The roads would follow later.

Their lesser cousins, the gas stations, tended to crop up in groups of two or more to take advantage of magical nexus points. They usually were placed on opposite sides of the street to prevent them from merging and forming a Walmart. They were mostly harmless, often gathering in packs with other lesser predators like all-night restaurants to lure customers off the road. But truck stops were different.

If the right conditions were met, they could warp reality and trap the unwary. Like carnivorous flowers they lured prey in with the promise of gasoline and cheap sugary drinks, only to consume them. Or at least, to take a little nibble from time to time. Actual deaths were rare, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to leave feeling drained, or with items they had no memory of purchasing.

Six watched as a glassy eyed couple in Hawaiian shirts unloaded their haul for the cashier to ring up. Neither knew why they had decided to purchase a novelty fondu set, two dozen donuts, and a gas powered blender, but they didn’t question it. One did not question the will of the truck stop.

The young witch came to a stop in front of a display case containing illegal knives, incense, and what looked suspiciously like a grimoire. She grabbed Bael’s hand to get his attention and pointed. “What do you make of that?”

“I’ll be damned,” the demon said between bites of burrito, “I think that’s a travel version of the Om-Nom-Nomicon.”

She looked up at him with confusion. “Don’t you mean the ‘Necronomicon’?”

“No, this book is much more useful.” He waved to a bored man in a stained polo shirt. “We’ll take this too.”

Bael paid in cash and hauled away their assorted snacks. The demon had so far managed to resist the unnatural desire to buy a t-shirt with a humorous joke about fishing on the front, but knew not to push his luck. The longer one spent at a truck stop, the stronger the urge to purchase things he didn’t need would become.

“This is for you. Just promise me you won’t try and read it before we get to the lake,” Bael said as he handed Six her prize.

“Why?” the young witch asked, looking at her new book for any signs of danger, “Will it summon something nasty if I do?”

“No,” Bael told her, “I just don’t want you getting motion sickness. Apparently that happens a lot on road trips. It has something to do with the body feeling movement that the eyes can’t see.”

“Ah,” Six said as she tucked the grimoire under her arm, “That is a good reason.”