Lodetrippers

There was not enough money or human capacity for patience contained in this earthly world to make this job worth it. Especially not with the measly daily stipend Briel was about to completely blow through at a gas station on a state line so unremarkable, he couldn’t remember which side he was on. 

If he hadn’t owed his aunt a favor- the kind of looming favor that would strip away every ounce of joy if you ignored it and tried to sunbathe on the beach, which Briel knew, because he had tried-he would have been back on the sand as fast as his legs and credit card could take him, relaxing in between the busy seasons like he always did. 

This summer in particular, he had absolutely gorgeous company in the form of Eric, who he had left at his house on the shore, which felt somewhat similar to leaving a meal at a five-star restaurant without actually eating any of the food. 

Instead, Briel was looking at an overwhelming array of off-brand dried fruits, nuts, and assorted candies. He hesitantly lifted a hand to a bag of fluorescent orange mangoes, then one of the more reasonably toned desiccated apples. He sighed, tugging it off the metal post and adding it to the pile of similar bags he had crammed into the nook of his other arm.

This was only the third day on the road, and he was already half-seriously considering hitchhiking back to the East Coast. He ran his free hand over his face, the rings on each finger spinning against his cheeks in a familiar pattern, and steeled himself to look at the drink selection. The heat drafting in from the doors had met the frosted glass panes of the refrigerators, leaving what was behind the doors a mystery. 

Briel opened door number one, unsurprised to find a skimpy but typical array of branded sodas and sugary drinks. He opened another, finding cartons of milk and various other animal products. As a vegan, he had no use for any of the items from the second mystery door but let his eyes close to take a breath and enjoy the cool air. 

“You done?” A gruff voice came from behind him. Briel jumped a little and met the eyes of the man behind him. He was heavy-set with large Coke-bottle glasses, a thick gray mustache, and a trucker’s hat emblazoned with an elegant purple script that read “Mo’s Ho’s,” with the “S” trailing into the outline of a pair of women’s legs in fishnet stockings. For a second, Briel thought his traveling companion had left the car and bought himself a novelty hat because the resemblance was truly striking, but in another blink, he realized that the man in front of him was a stranger. There was way too much hair under that hat to be Bayer.

Briel had been ready to chew him out, had he been Bayer, but switched gears, smiling his famous 1000-watt grin- the one that had got Eric to wait for him for an undetermined amount of time as he unexpectedly traveled the country for work he couldn’t explain. He gestured with his free hand, stepping to the side. 

“All yours, sweetie.” The mustachioed man grunted his acknowledgment and stepped in front of Briel to thumb through the milk options. Briel moved to the next mystery door, hoping there was something at least halfway resembling water. His arm, full of snacks, was starting to cramp with the weight. 

“Yessss.” Briel exclaimed to no one in particular, celebrating this small success- two ice-cold bottles of water were left. The gas station must have been completely cleared out throughout the day or was going through hard times because there was more grime on the shelves than actual product. Briel took the waters and shut the door with his hip, making his way to the counter. He dropped the load of items with a sigh of relief, stretching his arm. 

The cashier, a woman who looked to be in her 40s who had her back to him and visibly still had hair curlers in, didn’t turn until she had finished emptying the carton of cigarettes into the wall behind her. Briel was both impressed with her boldness and sympathetic- if he had to work the night shift at the gas station, he would probably do the same.

“Anything else?” She asked without turning to face him. Her long nails clicked lightly and quickly along the rows of boxes, ensuring everything was aligned. 

“Also, a full tank over at that second pump.” Briel gestured to the crusted old dark blue sedan they had rented. The woman finally turned to meet his eyes and then to look in the direction he pointed. She was also wearing the tell-tale paper half-moons of an under-eye mask, and Briel clocked it was not a cheap one. Good on you, honey. Real beauty never sleeps. Briel said to himself mentally. 

“Thank you so much.” He said aloud as the woman expertly plugged his purchases into the register. 

“You’re welcome, hon.” She replied. “Do you need a bag? I’ll need to charge you a dime. It’s the law now.” She wrinkled her nose with her distaste for the idea, her face mask crinkling with the movement. 

“I’ll be ok.” He pulled the envelope from his pocket, extracting a few bills. He hadn’t brought a wallet with him, as it had been an eternity since he had handled cash. The attendant’s well-plucked eyebrows raised slightly, but not with real surprise, as she caught the wad of cash in the folds of the crumpled white paper. Probably not the first stack of money she had seen on the night shift.

“You be careful out there, honey.” She said simply and earnestly. She turned back for the next carton to continue stacking. 

Briel collected his assortment of fruits and nuts, feeling almost comically like a squirrel, before heading back to the car. Even this late at night, the air was thick and hot, like inhaling steam over a boiling kettle, and he craved the AC again as soon as he stepped out of the gas station. The overhead blue lights bathed the neighboring fields of sparse scrub grass in a ghostly glow, their reach faltering at the edge of the darkness. In the quiet night, it seemed as though this wasn’t just the last gas station straddling Kentucky and West Virginia. It felt eerily like the final station at the end of the world.

He balanced the water bottles on top of his haul, struggling with the rusted handle of his sedan. After a few tugs, the door gave way with a loud crunch. The noise was so abrupt that it startled a man — Mr. Mo’s Ho’s, who Briel had blocked at the dairy door — who was leaving the gas station with his gallon of milk. The man jumped, nearly dropping his milk.

Mo’s looked over at Briel, who had started tossing items into the backseat, and then at the sleeping man in the passenger’s side window, who was completely undisturbed by the noise. Bayer had slid against the window, and his forehead was pressed hard against the glass, the window fogged with his breath. The man shook his head, communicating his disdain from across the parking lot, which Briel felt was an audacious decision from a man with a hat like that.

“We all got our ho’s, babe!” Briel couldn’t help himself as he yelled across the parking lot, winking dramatically. The man immediately broke eye contact, walking quicker into the darkness towards his truck. Bayer lightly snored from the passenger’s seat, oblivious to the world.

Briel got back into the driver’s seat, turning the car on and, most importantly, the AC on full blast. He looked at the radio- 2:45am, so he still had some time. He backed away from the pump and into one of the parking spots. He grabbed a couple of the packages from the backseat and opened them, mixing them to cobble together a somewhat substantial meal. He downed a water, tempted to have a second, but he knew it would destroy his bladder later. 

Briel’s phone pinged, and his heart leaped to his throat. He opened with an eagerness that brought a smile to his face. It was Eric. He opened the message thread.

U still up? Briel texted back immediately.

Unfortunately yes. Briel glanced at the clock again- he only had a few minutes left, so he had to make them count. He didn’t wait for Eric to respond like he usually would. 

but fortunate to catch you. He added a winking emoji. The ellipsis of Eric responding cycled a few times. It seemed like he was really thinking about how to respond, which was an absolutely excellent sign at almost 3:00 in the morning. 

An alarm blared, breaking his focus on the text conversation. It was actually exactly 3:00 am. Briel reluctantly locked the screen, where Eric still deliberated. 

Bayer was still sound asleep despite the piercing sound of the alarm, which would have been unusual and concerning had they been in any other situation. Briel put his phone in the cupholder and reached for Bayer’s tightly clasped hands. He forced the first hand open with effort, revealing a silvery rough-cut lodestone. Dried blood covered his hand and the stone. Briel carefully removed it and then moved for Bayer’s second hand. 

This one was harder to open, so Briel pulled a pen from his pocket, deftly inserting it into Bayer’s fist. With a few turns, Bayer’s hand relaxed enough to pry it the rest of the way open and pull out the small, blackened branch of hardened wood. It was y-shaped and polished from the pressure of many hands holding it as Bayer had. Briel carefully placed both of the items on the dashboard. Feeling the unmistakable tackiness of someone else’s dried blood on his fingers, Briel pulled a wet wipe from a container that sat at Bayer’s feet. 

Before Briel could raise his head from where he bent over Bayer’s body, he felt a cold, thin, sharpness against his throat. 

“You kill me now; neither of us gets paid,” Briel said easily. He gently pulled the knife from his throat, feeling Bayer’s arm pull back with little resistance. Briel righted himself and met Bayer’s eyes, which were still heavy with sleep. This was not even close to the first time a knife had been pulled on him in his line of work.

“Sorry there buddy, you Gabe me quite the fright.” Briel fought the urge to scream. He had known Bayer since he first started Practicing as a teenager, and Bayer’s jokes had gotten increasingly stale with every second since. Bayer was one of the last– maybe the actual last, come to think of it– people who still called him Gabriel. Or, more officiously, Gabe, which he had always hated.  

Bayer slid his pocket knife closed and put it back in his pocket. He flexed his hands, working the muscles out after being in the same position for the past twelve hours. 

“Where to?” Briel was impatient to get back to his phone and then to work.

“Well, first, the can. From there, I got some good stuff.”

“You should do it now while it’s fresh.” Briel insisted. 

“There’s something else I need to do now while it’s fresh if you catch my drift.” Bayer laughed at his own joke, stretching one last time before opening the door. Briel made a face at his back as he walked into the gas station, reaching for his phone. 

Eric had responded with a blushing, smiling face emoji, which made Briel’s stomach flutter. But the following sentence stilled it. 

do you know when ur coming back ?

Briel debated his answer, his fingers hovering above the keyboard. Depending on what Bayer found and what Briel himself might find next, this could take another day or another month. In his frustration, he typed out his frustration without any intent to actually send it.

Im on a magical treasure hunt with a middle-aged man in the heartland no it is not a euphemism but we are pretty much inseparable until we find the bullshit hole in the universe where someone left the toe of a dragon or some fucky nonsense like that idk

Briel, who had been relaxing with his seat belt off, almost fell out of the car when his door opened. 

“Miss me? Your time to drive, kid.” Bayer had opted for the plastic bag, which looked to be brimming with everything in the gas station that Briel had carefully avoided. Briel slid out of the seat and walked along the front of the car before getting into the passenger seat. 

“So where are we going?” Briel asked. Bayer rolled up the sleeves of his threadbare flannel, eagerly unwrapping a sandwich and taking a bite as he motioned for Briel to open up the glove compartment. Briel rolled his eyes, hitting the button of the glove compartment hard enough to bounce. 

“Why can’t we just use the map on the phone?” Bayer gave him a sideways glance, slowly chewing the massive mouthful of sandwich. Briel slapped the map on the dashboard, unwrapping it with deliberate carelessness.  

“It’s my method.” He said thickly over the food. He grabbed a package of bandaids from the bag and started unwrapping them, carefully wrapping them around his fingertips that had held the lodestone. 

“There is where you should start.” Bayer gestured to a spot on the map with a mayonnaise-specked finger. Briel took the pen from his pocket and marked it, staring for a long minute. As he memorized the spot on the map, he put the pen back in his pocket and pulled out a small plastic dimebag, taking a tiny white pill from it that he placed under his tongue.

“You got it?” Bayer teased. Briel glared at him. Bayer was infamously flippant about this work, which was infuriating, as it was about as dangerous as opening a vein in the ocean and hoping there were no sharks.

“I won’t if you interrupt me.” Briel picked another wipe from the container and cleaned the lodestone, periodically looking back to the map. He pulled each ring up an inch on his fingers, the skin beneath them pale and hardened like the inside of a shell. He pulled out one of his earrings and used the back to make tiny pinpricks on the scarred skin before carefully wrapping his hands around the rock. He reached for the dowsing rod next. 

“Remember that you’re Brielly good at this,” Bayer said through a mouth full of sandwich, his brown eyes crinkling with contained laughter. Briel flipped him off before closing his hands. He shut his eyes and leaned back, looking for the calm that Bayer had stolen. He felt the car turn on as Bayer put it in gear, and he focused on the low hum of the engine.  

Briel slipped between planes without realizing, with the same ease that came with falling asleep after a long day– as simple as closing his eyes and as dangerous as stepping off a cliff.

The world around him was draped in shadows– darker than the lonely highway he had just left behind. He could barely make out the shapes of the surrounding landscape, which glowed with an ethereal spectrum of red and deep purples. It always took him a few moments to orient when he left his body, especially once the MDMA kicked in. He was essentially a ghost in this world, with no connection to his limbs or nervous system. 

Even with his blunted senses, he could discern the general idea of where he was- so to speak. It was the desert, or at least this world’s version of it. This plane was like a photo negative of the world he had left, interspersed with new details that were hard for his mind to comprehend, even so many years after he had started Practicing in his teens. 

It didn’t help that this work wasn’t sanctioned, or to put it better, was strictly forbidden. Briel and Bayer were part of only a handful of people that could– and would– do this kind of bilocated searching. The dangers were twofold– one being that it was inherently dangerous blood magic and the other being that minutes in this plane were hours in the world where he had left his body. Briel was intimately familiar with this fact and kept his time here as limited as possible, keeping his head down and focused no matter what strange things crossed his path. It was what made him so good at this.

Briel felt the pull he was looking for, a hooking sensation that drew him to a carefully stacked cairn. He wondered idly who had made it and how they had done it. 

Suddenly, with a feeling like freefalling on a roller coaster, Briel was back in his body. It had felt even quicker than usual. He flexed his hands and was surprised they still half-held the scrying tools. The radio showed it was just after 5:00am, hours before his shift should have ended. 

Briel turned to the driver’s side, and found that what he assumed was the usual alarm, was actually the sound of the door stuck in the open position while the car was on.

Bayer was gone. And where he had last sat, there were shallow pools of red of what looked like blood. 

His phone glowed and buzzed in the cupholder. Eric had texted him another question mark, emphasizing his earlier question. He dropped the stone, stretched his fingers, and picked up his phone, simultaneously surveying the damage to the driver’s side door- jagged gouges arched out from the handle, so deep that Briel could see the other side of the highway. He sighed and texted Eric back.

well what are your halloween plans ?