Page 3 of Lawless
"Hello," the girl of about sixteen greeted me first while the two adults watched me with suspicious eyes.
"Hi," I said. "Um, I'm a nur—a medic. Are you in need of medical services at this station?"Please say yes.
Even after three years of being strictly forbidden to call myself a nurse, it was still a habit.
The man, balding with curly grey hair, wiped his hands on his apron, still looking at me warily.
"You got supplies?" he asked.
I nodded sharply. "Pain medication, a wide range of antibiotics and antivirals, sterile tools for minor surgeries, general first aid gear. I also have some pregnancy tests and different forms of birth control."
His eyebrows shot up at that. In a place full of prostitutes and limited amounts of food, no one wanted extra mouths to feed.
"What'll ya have in return?" he asked.
Since the US Dollar became essentially worthless during the Collapse, bartering became the main currency. Some factions tried establishing their own but they then ran into the problem of no other territory accepting that currency.
"Room and board for roughly two weeks," I said. "And food." My eyes fell to their cutting boards, where potatoes, onions, and carrots sat waiting to finish being chopped.
The older woman spoke up next, her bun unable to contain her wild, frizzy grey hair.
"Can you cook and serve up some food to guests?”Or are you too good for that?I heard the hidden question in her voice loud and clear.
"I can do basic cooking and yes, I'll do whatever other tasks you would like. Cleaning and such, too."But I won't sell my body.
The couple exchanged a look and a quick nod before the man addressed me.
"We have a deal. But you stay no more than two weeks."
"That's fine," I nodded eagerly, ready for even a dirty, bug-infested bed over sleeping on rest stop benches.
"Gretchen will show you to your room, where you can drop your things." The man picked up his knife and resumed his potato chopping. "Then you come straight back here and help us prepare for tonight."
"What's tonight?" I asked, suddenly aware of the piles and piles of food strewn across the steel counter. It looked as though a large group of people were about to eat like kings.
"The Steel Demons MC will be riding through and staying,” the man answered, steadfast in his chopping. "They have massive appetites, and not just for food."
* * *
The teenage girl,Gretchen, informed me all about the Steel Demons while we chopped through an endless sea of potatoes, carrots, and celery.
"They ride through here twice a month," she told me. "Reaper, their president, worked out some kind of deal with the owners, Tom and Liza. The whole club stops here on the way to their destination and on the way back. Their club house is way up in Old Flagstaff somewhere. The Doomsdayers say that place is the mouth of Hell itself. Nothing but sin and violence."
I absorbed her words as my stainless blade wentchop-chop-chopthrough the vegetables.
"Why is their president called Reaper?" I asked.
"Because," Gretchen lowered her voice, despite the two of us being the only ones in the kitchen, "seeing his club is a death omen. The minute you hear their bikes in the distance, someone's time is up."
"So the rumors are true." I heard whispers of the notorious biker gang all the way in East Texas. One of my patients, a guy hopped up on painkillers from a broken arm, swore they were actual demons, complete with a pack of hellhounds running alongside their bikes.
Gretchen nodded. "The Steel Demons control the southwestern desert from the San Diego Gulf to the Sandia Mountains, and they didn't do that by asking nicely. Wherever they go, hell follows."
She put on a bright smile, her demeanor changing from spooky story teller back to bubbly sixteen-year-old. "They're not so bad when they stop here, though. We're one of the few service centers that still have cured meat and cheese, and they pay well for it."
"They've never hurt you?" I was genuinely surprised. "Or your parents?"
"Oh, Tom and Liza aren't my parents. They just took me in after I was dumped here on their doorstep. And no. The club pretty much eats our food, drinks our ale, stays a few nights to rest, and then they leave. Sure, they're messy and sometimes they fight and break stuff, which is annoying. And it sounds like they're rough with the service girls sometimes, but no one has died since I've been here."
