Ignoring his suddenly intense desire to run, to go back to Keisha and Dante, to huddle up in a tiny cabin far away from this madhouse, Newt forced himself to walk the perimeter. Tried to hide his limp as much as possible. He liked to think he was brave, but he felt the fear of so much unpredictability, swirling all around him like the waters of a raging ocean, sharp rocks hidden beneath the dark, white-capped surface.
The former businesses he walked past had a variety of functions, a few only needing a quick glance to know he should just move right along. Drug dens and the like. A lot of the others had become informal eateries, usually a couple of those Launcher-bearing guards keeping watch on the inside to make sure things didn’t get out of hand—it was an unstable trifecta, indeed: Cranks, food, hunger.
Newt stepped into the next foodie place he came across because it was mostly empty on the inside. A man stood behind a grill—like something you’d find at a real neighborhood cookout, Newt supposed—seemingly not caring that only about half the smoke from the meat he cooked escaped through the open windows in the front. The rest hovered like a mini-weather system along the ceiling of the establishment. Newt coughed a couple of times, then asked a guard standing nearby how much it cost to eat there.
The man was either chewing on some of the goods himself or smacking on gum. He had a Launcher strung over his shoulder and looked as bored out of his mind as one can be.
“Huh?” he asked, trying to make that single word sound as rude as possible.
“I just got here,” Newt responded, smart enough to avoid any kind of arrogant display. “How does… money work around here? How can I earn some to buy food?”
The man swallowed—Newt could actually hear the gulp of it. “Officially? There ain’t no money. This place is welfare, man, didn’t you get the post in your hotel room?” He laughed at that but stopped when Newt didn’t join in. “Old Leroy here will give you a bite or two. He’s one of the best around, cooks like his grandmammy taught him, no doubt. But sniff around the Palace a bit and you’ll, uh, how do I wanna say it, you know… Improve your circumstances . Yeah, there ya go. There ain’t no money but you can definitely be poor. Know what I mean, big guy?”
Newt just shook his head and said, “No.”
“Well, ain’t you a lot of fun. Get some food before I decide to kick your ratty blond-haired ass out of here. Get on, now. I ain’t in the mood to talk to no Cranks, anyhow.”
Newt understood survival. He understood it more than most.
He happily accepted a plate of food and chowed it down, even though he’d eaten just an hour or two earlier. It was beef again. Chicken again. Apparently the Crank Palace had no idea what a fruit or vegetable was. As Newt took his last couple of bites and wiped his mouth with a scrawny, half-wet napkin, he had an amusing but very apt question pop into his mind.
Where in the hell were they getting all these cows and chickens?
* * *
Something had switched in his mind and he was ready to leave. He hated the sinking feeling of uncertainty that consumed him—could he go back to that shack and live unhappily ever after with Keisha, Dante, Terry, and a crazy woman with burns all over her hands and knees? Really. What was he going to do here? What was the plan? He’d staved it off for a while, but those hated fingers of despair were clutching at his heart. But in the immediate future of the next 30 minutes, an hour, the rest of the day… He just wanted to be with familiar people again, no matter how slight the familiar part of the equation might be.
Walking quickly, now, he hurried to finish his circular sojourn around the Central Zone.
A few more eateries. A gym for boxers—an idea that shone supreme if they could just get the brawlers off the paved clearing and into the makeshift ring they’d set up inside. A market with crafts and odds and ends. A library—a place so crammed with books and ratty but cushioned chairs that it seemed the very definition of cozy; Newt swore to come back there soon. Keisha would love it; he had no doubt. Another location was packed wall to wall with bodies; at first Newt recoiled, thinking it a morgue or mortuary, but he soon saw the bodies… moving . They were clothed in odd apparel, writhing on the floor to bizarre music. Dance club? A cult? He hightailed it out of there.
And then there was the bowling alley. He couldn’t believe it. Earlier he’d made a joke in his mind about such a thing being in the Crank Palace, but there it was—although there hadn’t been a whole lot of bowling going on for a very long time. A joke, after all. Newt had no memory whatsoever of holding a bowling ball, much less playing the game. And yet he understood what it was in concept, had images in his mind of the activity in full swing. But here, the wooden lanes used for such play had been torn up, stacks of them scattered toward the far sides, where people manned actual fires in the niches where bowling pins once stood. They’d probably burned those, too. Sleeping bags, blankets, people lay everywhere. Maybe it was that long line of makeshift fireplaces, but the gloomy place had a cozy warmth similar to the library that made him want to come back. And no one was fighting, at least at the moment.
Newt left through the open door—based on the rusted, dangling hinges, the actual door had been tossed in some distant past—and headed toward the big arch, the exit. Along the way, he was jostled, bumped, hugged, pushed, fell down twice, was helped up once. He caught sight of immunes glaring at him, their Launchers held rigid in their arms, whispering to other Munies, sharing secrets. He couldn’t understand what value WICKED saw in making sure that people knew who he was, what he’d been through, and that he’d arrived at the hottest club in town for Cranks. He had to get out of that place. He needed sleep.
Finally he made it to the arch, went under the bright-colored letters of its sign, half-running and fully relieved to be on the relative quiet of the path that lead to the outer rings of the Palace. He slowed himself to a brisk walk, realized he was completely covered in sweat and that his face felt like it’d been roasted by the sun for hours. Yes, he definitely needed sleep. Maybe a solid 24 hours of it.
He stopped.
Three raggedy-looking Cranks stood in his way, each one holding a steel pipe, as if they’d just robbed the same plumbing store for makeshift weapons. Newt thought he must really be losing his mind because the sight of them made him laugh. It was stupid. Comical. Like something from a 10-year-old’s vision of the baddest people on Earth. One of the Cranks even had a bandana tied around his head and affected an evil grin that made him look like he had something wrong with his lips.
“I’m not in the mood,” Newt said. He knew with absolute certainty that he could pass a lie detector test right there on the spot, declaring to the officiator that he’d be perfectly okay with these idiots putting him out of his misery.
But fate decided not to call his bluff, at least not yet.
One of the thugs—a man with long, greasy black hair and muscles bulging out of the rips in his shirt—walked up to Newt and stopped about three feet in front of him. Every instinct and internal alarm told Newt to run like hell, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The ever-expanding crazy part of his brain urged him to lash out and punch the guy in the nose, get the brawl started and hope for the best. Instead, he waited.
“We know who you are,” the man said, finally. For such a tough-looking fellow, he sure had a soft voice. The word velvety came to Newt’s mind and he had an absurd urge to laugh.
“Out with it, then,” Newt muttered. “Who am I?”
Surprisingly, the man took on a somewhat humbled air. “We know the things they did to you. To the ones taken. We know the utter shite you’ve been through. At no choice of your own, trying to find a cure for the likes of us. We’re here to tell you that it’s… appreciated. That people like us honor you.”
Newt swallowed, rendered speechless. This man didn’t appear to have any intent of beating the tar out of him, after all. That, or this was all a ruse to… what? Catch him off guard? Nonsense. These blokes could take him down without breaking a sweat.
“Sorry,” the man said. “A tad on the cheesy side. We’re just…” He straightened his back, lifted his chin a little. “Hell, man. We just wanted you to know that a lot of us are on your side. No one will mess with you. Not until they get through us, first, anyway. I don’t know what else to say. I kinda feel like an ass.”
Newt nodded, a little thrown off balance but honestly thrilled at the prospect that he might have his own personal security detail.
“Thank you,” he replied, worried anything more elaborate might shatter the whole deal.
The man nodded back, then looked around awkwardly as if he hadn’t thought this far ahead when he’d imagined the scenario. He stepped to the side of the path, gestured for his two partners to do the same. They did.
“My name is Jonesy,” he said. “Well, that’s what they call me anyway. Just give a holler if you need us for anything. We’ll always be right around the bend.”
“Okay,” Newt replied, knowing he could never fully trust a few Cranks holding pipes. But he didn’t want them as enemies, either. That was for sure. “Thanks, again. Seriously. Thanks.”
Neither the man nor his friends responded, so Newt set off for the outskirts of the Palace again, feeling their eyes on his back as he walked. We’ll always be right around the bend , the stranger known as Jonesy had said.
Maybe that was the best news yet for Newt since arriving at the Crank Palace.
Or maybe it was the worst. One of those two, for certain.
He walked a little faster.
