Interstate Blues

Chapter Twenty: From the Dust Returned

December 26th, 2019
Purplecrest, Oregon

"Wow..." Marley gasped, her nose pressed to the window of the Blazer as they drove through the spread out town of Purplecrest, Oregon. "It's so beautiful here." The entire place was practically a postcard. It was a small town in the middle of the Cascade mountains, with a drive-in theater that was doing one last showing of A Christmas Story, as they passed.

"What will be even more beautiful," Charley grumbled, "is if they have a diner full of greasy terrible food that will fill my stomach." As Ash turned the corner onto 3rd Street a building caught the woman's gaze. "Yep. Now it's beautiful," she said with a grin as they parked in a lot overlooking a rushing river that separated Purplecrest from the next town over.

Piper giggled. "Charley, not everything always has to revolve around food or monster-killing." She slid out of the Blazer after her older cousin.

"It can and does," Charley disagreed wholeheartedly, skipping into the diner and leading the way toward the back booth, while a waitress grinned at them cheerfully.

"Hey, folks! How're ya'll doing today?" The older woman's eyes were bright and her voice dripped with enthusiasm.

"Great!" Jack said back, grinning at her with almost as much perk as he could muster. "Can we get started with waters and a huge plate of blueberry pancakes for each of us?" He looked around at everyone for confirmation. They all nodded along, eager for the waitress to put in their order so they could begin their discussion on how to find Interstate Blues before they struck again.

"Sure thing, I'll be right out with that, Hun." She whirled away before they could say another word to her.

"So... I think we should each take a bar," Piper spoke up as soon as the woman was a safe distance away.

"How many are in this town? There can't be more than a few," Charley pointed out, while they all leaned in to whisper to each other.

"I looked it up already. There are two bars, a restaurant with a stage, and little concert venue."

Ash nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, Marley and Jack can take the restaurant since they can't drink anyway. Piper and Will can take one bar, Charley, you take the other. And I'll take the music venue," he decided right as the waitress came back with their waters.

When she took off again to help other customers, Jack smirked over at him from across the table. "You just wanna go to cross it off your weird list of things you do in every new town," he teased, earning a sharp look and a well-aimed kick to the shin. "Ow! Damn. Your directions really are fucking good." He reached down to rub the sore spot, while Charley laughed so hard water went squirting out her nose.

"Just do what you're told," Ash groaned, but Jack suspected that he was having a better time than he tried to lead them to believe.

"Aye, aye!" He saluted, rolling his eyes.

"What do we do if we find the band?" Will asked, checking his phone for notifications from Haru. They'd been in fairly constant contact since they met, trading codes, programs, and other nerdy technology-related things.

"We'll all have our phones with us," Piper suggested, wincing before she even said it out loud. "We could start a group text. That way if one of us finds it, we'll all know at once."

Charley groaned. "If any of you abuse the privileges of the group text, I'll shank you in a soft fleshy part of your body, and not even feel bad about it."

"Dully noted," Ash grunted in return. Before anyone could say anything else, their waitress arrived with plates full of stacks of pancakes. After she'd set down the food in front of the family, they each ordered a savory plate to go along with it.