Don't Mess with Texas

There's something quite remarkable about the things that people can achieve when they're working together. Even when they don't actually know what they're doing. I'm huddled behind the corner of a local gas station, camera focused on the group of people on the parking lot of the pancake restaurant across the street. It's all roadside businesses this far out from where any actual people live. Since the cataclysm, every place comes with its own set of rules, and most times one of those rules is that you don't talk about the rules. It's a good way to keep people out who aren't supposed to be there. Really terrible for travellers though, of which I'm unfortunate enough to find myself among. Part of it are the rules that have emerged in the place I lived before the cataclysm. Something about sacrificing hands giant worm-piles didn't appeal to me. So I left, both hands still attached. I feel someone tug at my jacket.

"You're telling me no-one has spotted you doing this ever?"

I've had a couple of travelling companions in my time, but this one is probably the noisiest. I shush her. In fact, nobody has ever spotted me doing recon, and a large part of it was that I wasn't talking doing it.

"Seriously though, with that big-ass camera?"

I retreat back into full cover "I'll explain it later. Please wait in the car."

"I'll shut up." she sits next to me.

"Good. Look that way." I point toward the street hugging the gas station "Tell me when something's coming."

I lean back into my position and refocus the camera lens on the people. They've moved on to some other step in their routine. They're sweeping a spot on the parking lot with thin branches. I can see it blow up some dust to about knee-height. The street lights reflect a deep yellow off the particles in the dust clouds. Or at least I think that's what I see at first, until I check my viewfinder. Digital technologies are a good tool in these times, not because of the things they can pick up, but much rather because of the things that they can't. It's why I don't use a reflex camera, but a cheap off-brand digital one I got in exchange for about four days worth of white bread. In the viewfinder the dust is still visible, but it's decidedly more of a greyish white, no matter what setting I cycle through it. I've seen enough. There's no way to know when the absolute last moment is before the entities appear, but often if you can see it, it's already seen you. I retreat into cover and grab my companion by the sleeve of the hoodie "We need to leave. Back to the car, now" she passes by me immediately after, an arrangement we've had an argument with on the last stop. When I need to leave, I want us to get into the car at roughly the same time, make it as difficult for anyone listening to know how many we are, and after the first door slams shut, I want to be able to peel out of wherever we've parked the car. She has the longer way around the car, she goes first. I pull the door open and we scramble into our seats at about the same time.

"Watch that window" I point at the rear window, which is facing away from where the entity is just about to appear. I myself have my eyes locked onto the sliver of road directly beyond the edge of the grill. I put the car in reverse, perhaps a little more aggressively than necessary. It's a manual, with some rickety old diesel engine some enthusiast kept alive by Frankensteining parts onto it until it took up more space than it should. I didn't choose the car when we left the last town. I'd never have gone for a truck if I'd have any other choice. I like cars where equipment can be stored inside, not out in the open air, waiting to be nicked by a hungry seagull or odd bandit raider. I didn't have much of a choice at the time, and this traveling companion of mine seemed smitten with the idea of us driving the Texas wasteland all the way to Houston in this thing that I didn't really have a choice. I certainly wasn't going to argue in the middle of a chase. I wrench the steering wheel around and break hard. The truck spins around its front wheels, misaligns itself with everything that even just resembles a road, and I floor the gas pedal.

We come to a stop in a dusty patch of nothing. I kill the engine and let myself slowly sink back into the backrest of the driver's seat.

"Learn anything useful?" my companion asks after we've let the silence sink in. I check my camera. These rites might not always tell an observer things about the way people interact in daily life, but by it might give an indication as to what things are important in the area. It'll be imagery of local traditions, the object that the rite requires to use, or destroys. There's no place that doesn't have its weirdos. Our best bet, when all we want is to pass through, is to be one of those weirdos for a bit. I watch the way the figures move and sway. It's almost rhythmic, out slightly out of time. The motions are similar, but not the same. It reminds me of square-dances, albeit to a significantly slower beat. The way they swept the floor doesn't make me think it actually clears the ground. That's likely symbolic. It's unfortunate that I don't have a clear view of the floor. Sometimes there's some objects arranged there, or a chalk drawing. I just have to assume that there wasn't, mainly because I never saw someone duck or crouch for a sufficiently long amount of time. The dust could be an indicator of an entity connected to the wind, or desert, or something more distinctly creature-y. I haven't watched enough rites to completion to make an educated guess, though I suspect I wouldn't be able to tell from this even if I had.

"Looks folktale-adjacent to me" I mutter "The brooms made from branches, I mean. You know anything about that?"

She tilts her head slightly, visibly thinking. I agreed to take her along, because she supposedly knows this area. She said she knew it from before the cataclysm. That kind of knowledge could prove invaluable. She shrugs "Doesn't feel familiar."

Figures. I don't have the best luck with travelling companions. If things go sideways, I hope I run faster than her.

"What now?"

"We look for another gas station." I find a map of the area in one of my pockets. It's good practice to keep a map on you, because bags get lost and cars get abandoned "We might have to skip Houston."

"And what? Drive around it?"

"We don't know what they've seen. There could be a hungry entity looking for those unwelcome onlookers."

"Do entities usually respect city borders?"

"Depends" I think back at all the oddities I've seen at the past, my own dalliances with entities beyond my understanding "Usually if whoever summoned them thinks they're important."

"I think there's a gas station on this end of the highway." my companion relents. I've made a decent case, I believe "It was a Buc-ee's, if I remember correctly, so maybe it survived."

I eyeball the distance. It might be a twenty minute drive, thirty, if we stick to quieter streets and come at the station from off-road. It feels like the correct option, considering.

"Great." Maybe they have some non-perishables left as well. Not that I had the cash for it, but usually I can figure something out. Traveling with companions usually has poor consequences for my food stashes. We're barely in the car when I hear something in the distance. It sounds like wind rushing toward us, many small objects, impacting and rolling across the dusty ground. I push my companion out of her seat "Behind the car" I struggle with my seatbelt for a moment, then drop into cover behind the car myself. My companion comes kneeling next to me, just before something shatters the windows on the car's passenger's side. Loose screws, plastic wrappers, scrap wood and empty cans rush past us and into the distance.

"Oh my god!" my companion facepalms. She's surprisingly calm, considering. I grab the umbrella from the back seat and open it above us. The many small objects tear at the fabric that I've stitched many times over. Then she starts laughing and I think she's lost it for a moment. Wouldn't be the first time that happened to someone I travelled with. I consider whether I need to abandon her here, before she stabs me in my sleep, but then she elaborates "Brooms! They're not witches, dufus."

"Can you go faster, so I can do something about this whole thing?" I swat away a candy wrapper that's stuck to my face.

"Don't Mess with Texas!" she shouts "You know, the ad campaign turned Texas pride slogan?"

It seems very obvious in hindsight. She keeps talking while I think of how to appease the thing that's bearing down on us.

"It's really just a campaign against littering"

I start fishing for things in my pocket. Entities need to be appeased - or distracted. I can't clean this area by myself with trash about to give me concussions, but I can probably make it mad in a different direction. I produce a single paper tissue and throw it into the wind. The trash rushes past us, tears the umbrella out of my grip and follows the tissue into the wild. We stay crouched for a moment, waiting for the sound of wind to fade in the distance. I check the inside of the car. It's unnaturally clean, considering it's just had its windows broken. There's some shallow cuts in the upholstery.

"Okay, so we're not going to leave any trash anywhere." I say, dusting off my trousers.

"I wouldn't have either way."