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Kobra Kid wiped the sweat off his forehead as he followed Party Poison to the gas station. The air was parched with dry heat. Sweat rolled down his sides and made his binder stick to his chest. During the drive, the Trans Am had been hot and stuffy like the inside of a microwave, steam rising from the blacktop as they went. A crust of sand and dust seemed to have sucked all the moisture out of the old gas station in front of them.
The top pane of the door was splintered with cracks. Poison peered through the hole in the glass as if he were looking through a keyhole.
“Are there any beds?” Kobra said. “Any sleeping bags or anything?”
“Nope,” Poison said. “It’s empty. Looks like it’s been dead for a few months.”
He tugged on the door. Sand and dust shook from the doorframe, but it wouldn’t budge. Poison reached through the hole and unlocked the door from the inside, then swung it open. The brothers raised their guns and crept inside. A rectangle of light shone across the floor.
The shades were drawn tightly over the windows, blocking the sunlight. A dusty fan hung motionless from the ceiling. Kobra held his breath as if someone would jump out any second, but nothing moved in the hot, stale air. A layer of sand and dust crunched under their feet. Kobra spotted a spider spinning its web in a corner of the ceiling.
“You think someone’s in the back room?” Kobra said, nodding to a door behind the counter.
Poison stepped back and scanned the dusty floor. “I don’t see any footprints,” he said. He walked up to the door and rapped on it with his knuckles, then waited. He shook his head as if to say Nothing. While he started scanning the shelves behind the counter, Kobra headed over to a glass case beside the tables. The cracked case was empty except for a spray of sand and three rocks.
“There’s a few rocks over here,” Kobra said.
“What kind?” Poison said.
“Quartz.”
“Maybe they were selling them,” Poison said. “Chow Mein used to sell quartz.”
“Yeah,” Kobra said. “Maybe.”
Kobra’s eyes lingered on the rocks for a moment. Then he walked slowly around the room, checking the shelves, the tables, the hot dog rack, the ice cream cooler. Everything was empty and silent. He pulled a single magazine from the rack, but it was too hard and warped from water damage to crack open.
“Hey!” Poison said suddenly. Kobra turned to see him unearth a fuel can from the trash. Poison unscrewed the cap and tried to tip a few drops of oil into his hand. Nothing came out. He peered inside, then sighed and dumped it back in the trash can.
“I think it’s been cleared out, man,” Kobra said. “The villagers probably grabbed everything and left.”
Poison sighed to himself as he surveyed the room. Then he spotted something behind the counter. Before Kobra could react, he was already hurrying over to the back room.
“Wait,” Kobra said. “No, hang on. Someone’s probably broken in already.”
“You don’t know that, kid.”
“Yeah, I do,” Kobra said. “That’s where they keep the supplies. People go straight for the back room.”
But Poison was already wriggling a bobby pin inside the padlock. Kobra folded his arms and waited beside the door. He imagined empty rows of dust-covered shelves, rot seeping into the wood. The lock clicked open and Poison jumped to his feet. He pulled out the chain and swung open the door like a game show host revealing a prize.
Suddenly he stopped. His face went pale. Kobra blinked, then looked inside. When he saw what waited inside, he stepped back. A chill swept over his body.
The inside of the closet had been painted black. The Evil Eye was painted in bright red, with a pile of shiny black rocks clustered on the floor. Kobra broke out in a cold sweat. He suddenly felt sickly and sticky, like he had been sucking on hard candy on a hot day.
“Shit,” Poison said, his voice shaky. “Oh, shit.”
Kobra slammed the door shut. The noise echoed loudly in the silence. Poison’s hands shook as he threaded the chain and locked the padlock again. Then they turned and scurried out the door like startled mice, the door slamming shut behind them.
When they jumped back inside the car, Poison hesitated before grabbing the steering wheel, as if he would contaminate the car. Then he pulled off his gloves and turned on the engine. As they backed away from the station, Kobra’s thoughts were fixed on the black room, like a black hole in the center of the universe. A sickly feeling seemed to cling to his skin. When they hit the road, Poison mashed the gas pedal as if they had run into a nest of Draculoids.
“Call Jet,” Poison said in a rush. “Tell him to get some water ready.”
Kobra grabbed his transmitter from his belt. He shakily turned to the right frequency, the desert flashing past the windows in a brown-and-blue blur.
“Jet!” he said. “Yeah. Jet. We need your help, man.”
—
An hour later, Kobra stripped off his shirt and binder, then sank into the washtub. He sighed to himself as the water hit his skin. With the shades drawn and the door locked, the diner was dark and cool. He scrubbed his skin with a hunk of soap, scratching off the sand and caked-on dirt spattered on his legs. He thought of something a spiritualist had once said: Evil spirits can enter the womb. A shudder crawled down his body, and he scrubbed harder.
When his body was scraped clean, Kobra climbed out of the tub and changed into a set of fresh clothes. The old clothes were heaped on one of the tables. After washing them, he would hang them outside over a fire to smoke out the evil spirits. He was lifting up the washtub to dump out the water, swirling with dirt and strings of soap, when someone knocked on the door.
Kobra jumped, then relaxed when he saw Cherri Cola standing outside. He smiled at him and set the washtub down. When he opened the door, the air felt surprisingly cool against his wet skin.
“Hey!” Cherri said. “How are you guys doing?”
“We’re doing okay,” Kobra said. “Poison and I just scrubbed off.”
“Oh yeah?” Cherri said. “Good. Ghoul said you guys were scared shitless when you came in.”
Kobra laughed. “Yeah, we were. Poison’s got his clothes over the fire right now.”
“Yeah, he showed me.” Cherri pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to him. “I found this in one of the back rooms. Tom ended up with a bunch of them after a trade.”
Kobra took the object and turned it around in his hands. It was a blue glass circle with a simple eye painted in the center. A string dangled from a hole punched in the top.
“It’s supposed to keep the evil spirits away,” Cherri said. “A lot of people in Zone Three hang them in their front windows.”
“Oh yeah?” Kobra said. “I think I’ve seen them.”
He pulled up the shades and hung the talisman from the window. The light shone through the glass and cast a blue circle on the tabletop. Kobra smiled as he turned the glass back and forth, casting a flickering blue light around the room.
“It’s nice,” he said.
“Yeah, it is,” Cherri said. “I’ve always liked them.”
Kobra released the talisman, then folded his arms and stepped back. The eye gazed out at the desert outside the window, staring down any evil spirits that might have followed them from the gas station.