The Bar at the End of the World

by Tom Abrahams

  “How long is the tunnel?” he asked above the mechanical whoosh of wind and engine noise.

  “I don’t know. Never measured it.”

  Zeke gripped the wheel tighter. He focused on the yellow beams of light illuminating the Superbird’s path, and rubbed his sore arm. She sure could punch.

  “You don’t ever answer my questions. You either respond with a question of your own or you deflect,” he said. “Come to think of it, none of you do. What the hell was I thinking going with you all?”

  Really, what was I thinking? He’d seen people play both sides before, and he didn’t know them. In his world, there was no shortage of cheats and liars. Everyone was out for number one. A world with limited resources did that. An oppressive government did that. A black market run by the modern version of the mob did that.

  Uriel rolled up her window, cranking it one heavy revolution at a time. The mechanism creaked like it needed grease.

  “Maybe it’s not my answers that are the problem,” she said. “Maybe you don’t ask the right questions.”

  Zeke felt the road vibrate through his body. It was a comforting sensation, the rumble that shook him. It was like white noise at bedtime or the warmth of bathwater.

  “Tell me about Pedro,” he said. “Who is he? How’d you all meet him? I want to know his story.”

  “How about you tell me yours?” she countered. “Then I’ll tell you ours.”

  Zeke sighed. Another deflection. He drove for a few seconds without responding. The darkness was like a blanket around them. There was no light beyond the headlamps in front of them and, behind them, only the faint red glow of the taillights.

  “How about we swap stories?” he suggested. “I’ll tell you something about myself; then you tell me something about all of you.”

  “All of us?”

  “Yeah,” said Zeke. “Pedro, you, Raf, Barach, Phil, Gabe.”

  Uriel sat in her cocoon for a moment without answering. The warbling rumble of the racing tires on the highway filled the silence.

  “All right,” she said, a hint of resignation in her voice. “You start. But it’d better be good. None of this ‘my mama didn’t love me’ sappy crap, got it?”

  “Okay,” said Zeke. “But she didn’t.”

  Uriel groaned. He could imagine her eye roll in the dark. “Of course not.”

  “It’s true. I mean, sorta. She probably loved me in her own way, but she was never around. Neither was my dad. I don’t remember him at all. She used to call him the sperm donor.”

  “Poor Zekie,” she said.

  His muscles tensed and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  Zeke wasn’t one to open up, thinking it a sign of weakness. While Uriel’s derision was cause enough for him to end the game right then and there, he wanted to know about the people who were sacrificing themselves for his, or someone else’s, benefit. He had to understand why. So he let the tsunami of anger wash over him, taking several deep breaths.

  “I don’t want your pity,” he said. “I’m just telling you who I am and where I came from. To understand how I ended up in this endless tunnel, in the dark, with you and the putrid stink of your piss staining the seat of my car, I have to start at the beginning. But if you don’t want to hear it—”

  “No,” she said, cutting him off. “I do. Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Your turn,” he said.

  “I never lived in the city,” said Uriel.

  Zeke glanced at her. He could make out her figure in the dark. The faint glow from the dashboard was lost in the black of her clothing and the deep colors of her tattooed skin.

  “Which city?” asked Zeke, assuming this was her first revelation.

  “Any of them. Your turn.”

  “The first person who gave me any attention was a bootlegger for the Tic,” he said. “I was a lookout.”

  “That’s how you got involved?”

  “That was the start of it. I was a lookout for a few years. The bootlegger taught me how to drive. Then he gave me a car.”

  She reached out and rubbed the dashboard. “This one?”

  “Yes. Your turn.”

  “I showed up on Pedro’s doorstep like you did. He took me in, and I’ve been there ever since.”

  “How long ago was that?” asked Zeke.

  “Don’t remember. It feels like a lifetime ago. I don’t even think I’m the same person now that I was back then.”

  “How so?”

  She ran her hand across her pompadour. Zeke could only see the outline of movements. He couldn’t tell her brow was furrowed, her eyes glossy. But when she spoke, her shaky voice gave away the rush of emotion she was trying to deny.

  “I was,” she said. “I was less of an ass back then. I’ll leave it at that.”

  Zeke chuckled, trying to lighten the weight of the conversation. He stole a glance at her. “Less? Wow. I can only imagine.”

  “Ha ha,” she said. “Your turn.”

  “I never planned on being a bad guy. It just happened.”

  “Nobody ever plans on it,” Uriel said, sounding as though she spoke from experience.

  “I mean to say, I didn’t feel like I fit in. I wasn’t running goods because I was against the Overseers or because I liked the money.”

  “But you liked the money?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “I liked the money. But I did it because the Tic accepted me. They treated me like family. They gave me purpose. So what was I going to do? Turn my back on the only people who ever invested in me? Nope.”

  “Then how did you end up here on their most wanted list?”

  “Nope, your turn,” he said. “Who were you running from when you ended up at the bar at the end of the world?”

  “That’s funny,” she said without laughing. “I’d never thought of Pedro’s like that, but it’s a dead-on description.”

  “Thanks. Who were you running from?”

  “Myself. My life wasn’t good. I had trouble coping.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What for?” she asked. “You had nothing to do with it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Your turn.”

  “I’m giving you more than you’re giving me,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “I was a dealer.”

  “Of what?”

  “Drugs. Mid-level. All synthetics.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Uriel took off the harness and leaned toward the window. “That’s judgey.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Sounds like you’re putting your own issues on me,” said Zeke. “I am…I was a bootlegger for a violent cartel that takes advantage of people’s needs for the most important resource on our planet after the rivers dried up. Who am I to judge anyone?”

  “You’re not.”

  “Which is why I’m not judging.”

  “Yeah, well…your turn,” she grumbled.

  An involuntary shudder ran along his spine. He realized he was cold. His fingers were icy. He reached for the heater and cranked it on.

  His stomach tightened. There was an elephant in the car they hadn’t addressed properly.

  “Tell me about Raf,” he said.

  “He’s a healer. Superb at first aid. He’s the one who fixed you up. Anybody shows up at Pedro’s in bad shape, Raf is the one to handle it.”

  “Was the one,” corrected Zeke. “There’s no way he and Barach are getting out of that. No way.”

  “I prefer to be an optimist,” she said. “We don’t know what happened back there. They could have made it.”

  “If you think that, we should have gone back like I tried to.”

  “We couldn’t go back,” she said, leaving no room for debate. “We have to keep moving. Your mission is the important thing here.”

  Zeke slammed his hand on the wheel. “You’re acting like two men I thought were your friends didn’t just sacrifice themselves for us back t
here. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me, Zeke,” she said. “Like I said, I prefer to think that when I walk into the cantina again, both of them will be there waiting for me.”

  Zeke didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t keep arguing with her. It wouldn’t do any good. She was obviously hardened to violence in a way he couldn’t conceive, despite his own rough upbringing.

  After letting the silence between them grow comfortable, he swallowed hard and glanced at her. He shrugged when he spoke. “Where’d he come from?”

  “Who?”

  “Raf.”

  “Same as anybody, I guess.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Elsewhere.”

  “He had a scar on his face,” he said. “How’d he get it?”

  “Helping someone. A mission like this. Crossed the divide and into the tunnel. Came out the other side and tried to right wrongs. I don’t know which time. There are too many to count.”

  “The divide?” he asked. “What’s the divide?”

  “It is what it is,” Uriel replied. “It’s the space between where we came from and where we’re headed.”

  “You mean the Badlands,” he said.

  His hands were getting sweaty now. He reached over and turned down the heat, leaving it on but dampening the force of the air.

  Uriel shook her head. “I mean the divide. It’s not the Badlands. It’s not anywhere. It’s nowhere.”

  Zeke sighed, exasperated. “You should have been an Overseer.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re awesome at doublespeak. You say stuff without saying anything.”

  “Your turn,” she said.

  Zeke wanted to explode. He wanted to tell her he’d had it with the vague responses and nonanswers, but he reasoned, in that same moment of frustration, that there would be no point to it. The answers would come eventually, and fighting with his only ally wouldn’t serve him well.

  If there was one thing Zeke had always managed to do well other than drive, and until the point he screwed himself with the Tic, it was knowing when he should fight a battle and when he should let it march by without raising arms.

  “Tell me about Pedro,” he said. “Then it’s my turn.”

  “He’s Pedro. He runs a bar and boardinghouse. He provides shelter from the storm.”

  “Okay,” he said, “but who is he? What is he?”

  “Pedro is the guardian at the gate,” she said. “He watches over all of us, over everyone who wanders into his place. He keeps the peace. He pours the drinks. He answers the questions and…”

  “He didn’t answer my questions,” said Zeke.

  She shrugged. “Like I said, it could be that you keep asking the wrong questions. Or the questions you ask don’t have answers. At least not yet.”

  “See,” said Zeke, ”that’s the vague sort of crap that makes me not trust any of you.”

  “That sounds like a you problem,” she said. “Like you’re putting your issues on me.”

  He didn’t have anything to say to that. The car was warm now. He lowered the heat.

  “Your turn,” she said. “How did you end up on the Tic’s bad side?”

  “A woman,” Zeke said.

  “The woman? The one you later abandoned and are now hoping to find and rescue against all odds with the help of strangers?”

  “That one,” he said.

  “So what happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  Zeke shook his head. “No, we don’t,” he said and pointed beyond the dash. “We’re at the end of the tunnel.”

  The speck of white light grew larger until it was the shape of the tunnel’s walls and curved ceiling. It was virtually blinding by the time the tunnel spit the Plymouth from its mouth and the car zoomed ahead on the stretch of highway that led straight toward the shapes of a distant skyline. Two large buildings stood above the rest. They were framed against a low-hanging orange sun that appeared enormous against the edges of the horizon.

  “Are we heading west now?” he asked. “Or east? I’m all off about the time. I don’t know whether it’s sunrise or sunset.”

  “Beats me,” Uriel said. “I haven’t thought about time in…a long time. The days bleed together, you know?”

  “I guess.”

  His heartbeat pounded against his chest, his breathing shallow now. He was sweating and his neck was damp. So was his forehead. He turned off the heat.

  Up ahead in the distance was his city. In that city was the woman he loved. So were the people who wanted him dead. He was anxious and apprehensive at the same time. It was a nervous, adrenaline-fueled excitement he felt at the start of every water run. He knew there was risk and there was reward out there. He hoped one was worth the other.

  Uriel pointed to the side of the road. Up ahead was the F-150, parked and idling. Its brake lights were on and its tailpipe vibrated, coughing wisps of exhaust.

  “Pull over,” she directed.

  Zeke slowed the Plymouth, downshifted, and eased alongside the truck. Phil sat behind the wheel. Gabe leaned forward in the passenger’s seat, and Uriel cranked down her window.

  Phil pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “You saw what happened?” asked Uriel.

  Phil scratched his beard, raking his fingers through the wiry tangle of hair. Then he adjusted his gray bowler hat, took it from his head, and lowered his chin.

  “Yes,” said Phil, his voice shaky. “I saw. I’ll be buying the next round for them when I see them again.”

  Zeke studied Phil, then Uriel. It was like they shared a mutual denial of their friends’ likely fate. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, learned from living in the Badlands, where loss was rampant. They pushed it from their conscious minds so they could focus on the mission. Only later would they deal with what happened. That had to be it. It was too weird otherwise.

  “Puts us at a disadvantage,” said Phil.

  “It does,” said Uriel. “What’s the plan now?”

  Gabe leaned over and spoke over the low rumble of the idling engines. “We know there are guards at the gates.”

  “TMF,” said Zeke. “I know their posts. I’ve got ways around them.”

  “TMF?” Phil asked.

  “Tactical Marine Force.”

  “You know where they’re holding your woman?” asked Phil.

  “The woman,” Uriel corrected, a finger pointed at Phil. “Not his woman.”

  Phil smirked and winked at Uriel. “The woman. You know where to find her?”

  “I think so,” said Zeke. “The Tic has two places where they like to interrogate traitors or the occasional hostage.”

  “So we’re dealing with two entities here,” clarified Gabe. The veins in his neck strained against his skin. His ironlike jaw was mechanical in its formation of words.

  “Yes,” said Zeke. “The Overseers, which controls the TMF, and the Tic.”

  He realized they didn’t know who, or what, it was they were up against. How could they not know? In what world, under what rock, had they been living?

  Gabe motioned toward the road ahead. “All right. Lead the way, hero. You know where we’re going.”

  Uriel offered the men a sarcastic salute and rolled up her window.

  “Sheesh,” she said, grunting as she cranked up the glass. “I’m gonna get arms like Gabe if I have to keep doing this.”

  “Strap in,” Zeke told her and he put the car into gear.

  The car hit its cruising speed, and within minutes, Zeke was in familiar territory. He checked his side view and saw the F-150 right behind him. In the distance beyond was the flat plain of barren land to which he’d become accustomed when smuggling water between protectorates or to drop-off points in the Badlands. The bluff, which must have been more of a mountain range given the length of the tunnel, was gone. There was only the low-lying dusty scape that stretched as far as he saw, speckled with the silvery
outcroppings of dead trees, which stood as testaments to what was lost.

  Zeke pushed the oddity from his mind, compartmentalizing it as he had so many of the irregularities he’d cataloged since arriving at Pedro’s Cantina. He didn’t have time to contemplate what all of it meant or might mean. He had to reach Li.

  He momentarily took his eyes off the road and reached back to find his hat. He gripped the crown, his fingers grabbing the dents on either side, and set the Stetson on his head. He adjusted the brim with one hand, shifting it up and down a couple of times until it felt right, and put his hand back on the wheel.

  He pressed the toe of his boot and the Plymouth zipped forward.

  “You all good?” he asked Uriel, who squeezed her armrest.

  “Yep,” she said. She picked up the rifle from the floorboard and set it in her lap. “All good.”

  He eyed the weapon. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Pedro.”

  “They look a lot like the guns the TMF uses,” he said. “M27s, I think.”

  She shrugged. “All I know is they shoot bullets.”

  “You won’t need it. Not yet.”

  He sank back into his seat. A half mile ahead was a large iron gate. A wall stretched in both directions on either side of it. Beyond the gate and the wall was the city.

  The sun beamed in Zeke’s eyes. He couldn’t make out whether the TMF guards were at their posts. He assumed they were. He hit his turn signal, waited a beat, and then veered off the road. He checked his mirror and saw the F-150 following him onto the flat, dry terrain. The shocks absorbed most of the ruddy, packed clay underneath the tires, but the ride was rougher than it had been on the highway.

  “Won’t they see our dust cloud?” Uriel asked. “It’s not like we waited for the cover of night.”

  “They see us,” said Zeke.

  “Isn’t that a problem?”

  The Plymouth hit a rut and bounced. Zeke corrected course, easily handling the Superbird as it dusted across the expanse, now running parallel to the gates.

  “Not a problem,” he said. “They expect to see Tics out here, Badlanders. They’re watching, but they won’t do anything.”