A Twink & a Trucker Survive the Was

A Twink & a Trucker Survive the Wasteland - Chapter 5

*****

The next day, the crew were full steam ahead, barrelling through the wasteland, making some good progress across the wide expanse of the open plains.

As he drove, Trucker was hoping for a drama-free rest of the journey, heck even just today without any bandits, beasts or blazing trains would be a blessing.

For the most part, the day's drive was quiet. The moon brothers didn't report anything back from their recon up front, the equipment was up to snuff from Mech's repairs and cross-checks, and Twink views from the lookout tower above were all clear.

It made Trucker slightly nervous. The journey so far hadn't exactly been without its events or situations. But he kept his trepidation to himself - no news was good news. So on they drove, from the morning into the afternoon.

The plain desert passed them by, going from the sandy landscape to slightly more rocky. There were boulders and rocky outcrops that rose up to meet them as they passed - scatterings of bushes and trees here and there.

It seemed like they had entered into a different region of the Wasteland, but still barren and appearing to lack any civilisation or outposts.

At least it gave some variety, Trucker thought. The endless expanse of desert played tricks on the eyes. It made you see things that weren't there, or worse, caused you to nod off at the wheel.

He was thankful he had something to focus on now as the road drove past rock formations, patterned ground and small cliffs.

'Think we're entering Pink Canyon,' Red said into the radio line.

'Such a nice place to go through,' Blue added over the line.

'Why is it called "Pink Canyon"?' Twink said, walking up behind Trucker to sit in the seat beside him as he drove.

'Oh you'll see,' Trucker smirked.

Soon the young man had his answer, for all around them, the rocky landscape changed from the orange and browns they were used to to magnificent pastel colours of pink, rose and coral.

The rocky outcrops, cliffs, ground and sand were all shades of pink - it was like they had landed on another planet.

As Twink stared out the window, mouth agape, he could see the layers of rock with many shades of vibrant colours they passed. He never knew something natural could have such a wonderful colour.

'Why does it look like that?' he asked, wide-eyed.

And, like a lightbulb flickering on, Mech, the resident genius, popped up with the answer. 'It has to do with minerals and chemicals in the rock and how it interacts with the air and the landscape around it...'

Mech continued with his long-winded explanation, but Twink was too absorbed in watching the outside world to pay attention.

It was so different from the concrete, urban world he'd come from. As he watched the landscape go by, he took in every sight. He wished he could hop outside and take a big pink rock with him as a souvenir.

'Dangerous though,' Trucker chipped in, snapping Twink out of his reverie. 'It may be pretty, but that's how they lure you in.'

'Who?' Twink asked.

'Scavangers. Looters. The like. It's like sirens in the ocean, they draw you in with beauty and then when you're not looking...' Trucker ended his sentence be drawing his thumb across his neck in a swift motion.

Twink gulped.

'Is that what happened with you and Twink?' Red joked over the radio line.

'Haha. Did Twink fool you with his beauty, Boss?' Blue added in.

At this the crew burst out laughing, even Twink chuckled to himself noticing the large lumbering man beside him grow red with embarrassment.

'Oh, he has you there,' Mech noted.

'Yes, thank you for pointing that out, Mech,' Trucker gritted his teeth, hot-headed, but at the same time enjoying the banter.

'What I was TRYING to say is, let's just be careful, we don't know what's out there,' Trucker tried to regain some composure.

'That's only an old wives tale,' Blue dismissed Trucker's concerns. 'There's nothing out here, but pink rocks and sand,' he rolled his eyes.

In all their merriment, the crew hadn't spotted the sky darkening in the distance.

'Huh? It's only the afternoon. Too early for the sunset,' Mech furrowed his brow.

'Twink, let's get a visual,' Trucker said.

Twink leapt off his seat and ascended the lookout tower.

The crew waited with baited breath.

'Twink?' Trucker asked.

'It looks like ... a storm.'

There was a beat of silence from the crew.

'Are you sure?' Trucker asked.

'Yep, it's big. And it's rolling in fast, heading in our direction.'

With that the crew stopped accelerating, slowing to a stop, the sand crunching beneath the wheels of their vehicles.

As the truck stopped, Trucker pulled out his binoculars. But even without them, they could see the storm emerging over the horizon now in the far distance. The atmosphere around them was eerily still, readying itself for the storm to come.

There was a twister now blowing its way towards them, and it was wide, darkening the sky as it hurtled towards them.

'What to we do Boss?' Mech asked, snapping him to attention.

'Just give me a second to think,' Trucker pulled out maps and surveyed the horizon, looking straight ahead and then to the left and right.

'Can we avoid it? Is there a chance it will miss us?' Trucker asked.

'It's looking quite wide Boss,' Blue peered through his binoculars. I don't think there's any way of going around it.

'Shit,' Trucker cursed. 'We're in open territory here, we're essentially sitting ducks. No cover if we head back the way we came, and it's just open plains in those directions,' Trucker looked left and right.

Trucker pondered the options.

'So what's the plan, Boss,' Blue asked, anxious as the growing storm gathered pace and strength as it moved towards them.

'We head towards deep in the canyon. Find some shelter and hope it passes over us,' Trucker decided.

'So, which way?' Red asked.

Trucker gulped. 'Straight towards the storm.'

*

The crew were speeding now along the road, in what seemed counterintuitively towards the very thing they were trying to avoid, but it was the quickest way to get to deep in the canyon and to somewhere with shelter.

They still had a ways to go, and the wind was already picking up, throwing their vehicles from side to side and throwing up loose debris.

When Red was nearly thrown off his bike, Trucker gave the command for them to drive their vehicles into the truck's storage and come inside. He lowered the storage door and they both drove their bikes in. Shortly after, the brothers joined them inside the truck, looking at the blustering scene developing around them.

The sky had darkened as the massive storm grew. It was a beautifully terrifying sight - pink sand blustering up into a funnel of wind, creating a wide twister of shades of pink and greys.

Gusts threw the truck from side to side as they hurtled onwards to their doom.

'Better strap in, ladies, this is going to be rough,' Trucker announced as they entered the outer layer of the massive storm.

Outside, the afternoon light darkened, becoming more like dusk as the heavy winds blew up sand into the sky in a twister.

The crew sat themselves down, grabbing for anything that they could brace themselves with as the truck rocked.

'Mech, defense mechanisms in place,' Trucker told him.

'Right on, Boss,' Mech replied as he pressed some buttons along his work station. An added protective layer surrounding the truck began its activation as the mechanism moved into place. As it was doing so, an alert surrounded and a red light flashed.

'Shit, there's something jamming the mechanism on the left side. It must've been some debris blown up by the wind,' Mech reported.

'We need that defense, otherwise we could be pierced by debris,' Trucker warned. Already they could hear rocks and large material being flung off the exterior of the truck, denting the metal.

'We'll need to manually remove whatever's jamming it,' Mech said.

The crew looked at one another - the silence amid the storm outside was pervasive.

'I'll go,' Twink announced.

'No,' the others refused, but the young man persisted.

'I stole my way on board, last man on, first one off,' he explained.

'That's not how it should be,' Red shook his head.

'You don't need to do this,' Blue said.

'You're delivering something meaningful that will help people. You're the crew, I'm just a blow in, pardon the pun.'

But none of the others laughed, concern filling their expressions.

'Twink ...' Trucker looked to the young man sitting beside him, but as soon as he saw the determined look on his face, he knew there was no stopping him.

'Let me do this for you guys,' Twink looked Trucker in the eyes, unblinking.

Trucker shook his head. 'God damn it, tie a rope to him, open the left door and whatever you do, don't let go,' he commanded.

With that the crew set into motion, preparing Twink with a protective outfit, some rope secured to him and a helmet with a headpiece so he could talk to them about directions of where he needed to go.

The brothers slid open the left door, creating a gap to squeeze out of.

The wind pummeled past, roaring the storm in on them. They could barely see out of it with all the sand flying about.

The brothers held onto the rope as Twink crawled out. When the wind hit him, it was like being struck by a tsunami wave. The protective gear and goggles made sure the sand didn't cut or blind him, but it was still incredibly difficult to maneuver on the side of a moving truck amid a storm.

Twink looked around him - it was all blustering sand and wind. Looking up, he could see the massive twister swirling around them, miles wide. Ahead of them were smaller inner twisters moving about, with far greater speeds.

Trucker was doing his best to avoid those areas, but the wind made it hard to turn.

'Alright, you wanna move left towards the front of the truck,' Mech said over the radio line.

Twink could just about hear him in his ear. 'Ok,' he yelled, moving along the side of the truck. He stepped along the side, holding with dear life as the gusts tried to blow him away.

'Keep going until you get to the front wheel,' Mech said in his ear.

Twink did so, moving slowly along, fighting against the pressure of the gusts.

'Here,' he yelled.

'There should be some debris blocking the mechanism in front of the wheel,' Mech explained.

Twink strained his eyes. The light was so little amid the storm that he had to see where he was supposed to look. Then he spotted it - a large rock wedged in the way of the defense mechanism from lowering. 'I see it!'

He moved along as far as he could along the side, but when he came to the wheel, there was no longer a ledge to walk along. He need to get up on the protective skirt of the wheel.

He tried climbing up, but the wind pushed him back against the side of the truck.

He needed to wait until there was a lull. He tried again when there was a gap in the hurling wind and managed to climb up on the skirting, laying on top of the slippery material.

Then he reached down and tried to jiggle the rock, but it wouldn't budge.

'Come on!' he yelled as he hit it with his gloved fist again and again.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, followed by a loud crashing sound.

He looked up - lightning was skewering the sky and it started hailing. As if there hadn't been enough pressure already.

He could feel the pinch of the hail on his gear as it hit off him.

Inside the truck, the crew watched the scene develop outside - the blustering wind, the forks of terrifying lightning crashing to the ground below and the hail which staring to grow in size, raining down on the truck, denting the metal and threatening to crack the glass.

'We need that defensive layer now,' Trucker thought, but he didn't want to pressure the young man.

'How you doing, Twink?' Trucker yelled so he could hear him. The panic in his voice apparent as he tried to keep the truck headed towards the canyon and out of the way of the dangerous twisters.

'It won't budge,' Twink yelled, pulling and pushing as best he could.

He struggled as around him on and on the wind blew, the hail hitting off him and the lightning crashed, lighting up the atmosphere around them.

He looked up, gazing up at the inner twister which was almost on top of them now. He stared at its beauty - captivated by the sheer horror and magnificence of the scene.

The young man had never been so up close to something of this nature before. It was like looking upon the divine, in all its glory. He could be struck down any minute now, but as he looked, a calmness came over him, as if he didn't care what happened to him. It was a stillness that was grounding.

'Twink? Twink?' Trucker yelled as the man didn't respond. But he was cut off when a bolt of lightning hit the truck, shaking the vehicle and making them spin out.

Trucker tried to keep them steady, slowing down until they were back on track. But at this stage, with all the wind and sand and hail, they were driving blind. He just drove onwards, straight, hoping it would bring them out of the storm.

'Twink?' Mech yelled, but the audio feed was now dead. Twink wasn't just silent, they had lost the feed.

'Boss!' Red yelled, pulling in the rope. The end of it, which should've had Twink attached was burned, looking like it had been hit by lightning.

The crew looked at once another sombre, all silent and shocked with grief.

They were about to give up, when all of a sudden they heard the defense mechanism activate, the green light appearing. The debris had been removed.

The two brothers ran to the side door and there clambering to the ledge was Twink, without his helmet, eyes and mouth scrunched closed to avoid the sand.

'There he is!' Blue yelled as they reached to grab him and pull him in.

Once they heaved him inside, they shut the door, locking out the sound of the wind and storm.

'You did it!' Red yelled, shaking him.

Twink lay on the ground, coughing up sand and trying to breathe.

'Give him space,' Mech said, patting him on the back and brushing sand from him.

'Well done, Twink,' Trucker felt a wave of relief pass over him.

The defensive layer clicked into place, giving them some protection from the storm, but he knew they weren't out of it yet.

On they journeyed, the storm making visibility poor until finally Trucker spotted the path in front lowering down to lower ground. The canyon rose up around them as they descended, providing some protection.

He had no idea where they were headed, but at least it was away from the vulnerable position they had been in.

Trucker followed the route the path was bringing them, winding in and out of rocky cliffs and descending lower to the canyon floor.

Mech tended to Twink and the brothers peered outside the windows, trying to spot any place where they could hide from the storm.

It still blustered around them, throwing down rocks on top of them.

'There,' Blue pointed ahead. A large cliff face appeared in front of them. In the centre was a gap, providing a cave big enough for the huge truck to drive into. It was well hidden so Blue's sharp eye had done wonders to find it.

'That'll do,' Trucker decided, turning and driving the truck out of the storm. As soon as they had passed the threshold of the cave, they felt the winds subside, the rocks and hail stopped raining down on them.

Trucker brought the truck to a stop, heaving a sigh of relief as he threw his head back. 'Uhhh, much better.'

But the others didn't join him in his comfort.

'Eh, Boss,' Red said, nudging him.

Trucker sat up, looking at Red, who was staring forward, straight out the windshield.

He followed Red's line of sight and in front of the truck were a group of figures in masks and hooded cloaks, carrying torches that lit up the cave around them.

And in the flickering light of the fire, Trucker could see that they were also holding guns. Pointed right at them.

'Well, shit,' Trucker muttered.

*

Damn! Will the crew ever catch a break? Check back next time!