Chapter 55: Departure, Texas

Chapter 55: Chapter 55: Departure, Texas

Chapter 55: Departure, Texas

Early the next morning, Axel Vance arrived outside Paquita Sanchez’s grocery store and found Dr. Seth Brundle and Lionel Cosgrove already waiting. Seth had somehow acquired a white box truck with the logo of a generic cleaning company painted across the side, making it look like an ordinary commercial delivery vehicle. He was humming to himself while enthusiastically loading equipment cases and scientific instruments into the back.

A few feet away, Lionel and Paquita were busy saying goodbye. Paquita held both of his hands and looked into his eyes. "I’ll be waiting for you, so come back as soon as everything is settled."

Lionel nodded solemnly. "Once Seth helps clear up the rest of this mess and nobody thinks I caused the outbreak, I’ll come straight back." Paquita smiled, rose onto her toes, and leaned toward him for a kiss.

Lionel gently stopped her with one hand.

Paquita blinked.

Lionel scratched his cheek awkwardly. "I ate so much smoked ham yesterday that if you kiss me right now, that’s probably all you’re going to taste." Paquita stared at him for a second before bursting into laughter and punching him lightly in the chest.

The grocery-store door opened behind them, and Paquita’s grandmother stepped outside carrying a thick handmade book. Its cover was uneven, the pages were packed with handwritten notes and crooked diagrams, and Axel immediately recognized it as an expanded version of the material she had been teaching them. She walked straight over and pushed the heavy volume into his hands.

"Everything I still remember is written in there," she said. "Bindings, charms, protective rites, and the other little techniques I learned when I was young." The old woman looked at Axel seriously and added, "Hopefully you won’t need any of it where you’re going."

Axel weighed the book in his hands and smiled. "This is more valuable than anything else I’m carrying." Her expression softened slightly when she noticed the small protective effigy made from Jason Voorhees’s purified bones hanging at Axel’s waist.

"I wanted this knowledge to survive," she said. "That was one reason I taught Vera in the first place, and we both know how badly that turned out." Her gaze returned to Axel. "Use what I taught you better than she did."

Axel nodded seriously.

The grandmother immediately turned toward Lionel, and every trace of warmth vanished from her face. "And you, stop standing there making puppy eyes at my granddaughter and help load the truck."

Lionel opened his mouth.

She pointed toward the store.

"Now."

Paquita tried not to laugh as she followed her grandmother inside. A moment later, the two women returned carrying a large picnic cooler between them, then set it down with enough force to make Lionel visibly nervous.

The grandmother flipped open the lid. Inside were bacon, cheese, dried sausage, dense bread, and enough other food to keep an ordinary man fed for days. "Eat properly and don’t burn through everything in your body again," she warned. "If you collapse halfway across the country, I’m not driving out there to reassemble you."

Lionel looked into the cooler and sighed. "More food."

"You need it."

"I know."

"That means stop complaining."

Lionel obediently grabbed the cooler.

Axel began loading his own supplies into Seth’s truck. Several cases contained ordinary bottled Holy Water, but the strongest batches were stored inside ornate glass bottles prepared with Vain Holy Water. Under the morning sunlight, those bottles gave off a faint golden shimmer and looked more like expensive religious artifacts than emergency weapons.

Seth noticed them immediately.

His eyes widened.

"Mr. Vance, are those the special Holy Water bottles you mentioned?" He carefully leaned closer without touching anything and lowered his voice. "They look incredibly expensive."

Axel kept a perfectly straight face. "Of course they are. These are premium reserves I spent years accumulating." Technically, those "years" amounted to one sleepless night and a stolen-looking wine bottle, but Seth did not need that detail.

Seth looked genuinely moved. "You brought your best supplies just for my mission?" Axel nodded with the solemn expression of a man sacrificing his family fortune.

"I practically emptied my collection."

Seth immediately grabbed Axel’s hand. "Once my telepods work, I’m getting you a prototype even if I have to fight the entire accounting department for the budget." Axel patted his shoulder and said, "That’s generous enough. Don’t get yourself arrested trying to thank me."

Everything was finally ready.

Axel, Seth, and Lionel climbed into the disguised box truck while Paquita and her grandmother remained outside the store. Lionel waved through the window until Paquita disappeared behind them, and the vehicle gradually left the town behind.

Crystal Lake’s surrounding community was still busier than it had probably been in decades. Federal investigators, university researchers, private scientists, and various government personnel continued arguing over samples and contamination zones. Very few of them noticed that three important witnesses to the supernatural side of the disaster had quietly left town.

Seth drove while talking almost nonstop.

He enthusiastically repeated every rumor he had heard about the abandoned testing facility, sounding less like a frightened scientist and more like a kid going on the strangest field trip imaginable. One story involved missing investigators, another mentioned strange lights, and a third claimed people occasionally heard voices coming from buildings that had been abandoned for decades.

Lionel listened while continuously eating from the cooler. After nearly collapsing while creating one simple charm, he had apparently decided he would rather overeat than discover the limits of his supernatural metabolism again. Every few minutes he reached for another piece of bread, cheese, or bacon.

Axel was considerably more relaxed.

He turned on the truck’s stereo, and AC/DC’s "Highway to Hell" began playing through the speakers. Then he leaned back in the passenger seat, opened the handmade Spirit Binding manual, and quietly read while tapping one finger against the cover in time with the music.

This mission felt different.

Usually, horror came looking for Axel first.

Michael Myers, Freddy, Jason, the cult, and the infected outbreak had all forced him to react after danger had already appeared. This time, Axel was voluntarily driving toward whatever waited at the end of the road.

He liked the change.

The truck continued west through the day and well into the night. Florida’s humid greenery gradually disappeared behind them, replaced by flatter country and increasingly dry stretches of highway. Their final destination remained the old federal testing region in New Mexico, but the route carried them deep through Texas first.

By the following day, the scenery outside the windows had become broad stretches of open country broken by occasional small towns and isolated gas stations. Seth had just started another long explanation about the theoretical limitations of teleporting living tissue when flashing lights appeared behind them. A Texas state trooper cruiser signaled for them to pull over.

Seth’s expression changed instantly.

"What did I do?"

Axel looked at the speedometer.

"For once, probably nothing."

Seth pulled the truck onto the shoulder.

Two Texas state troopers stepped out of the cruiser and approached. The older trooper walked toward the driver’s window while his younger partner moved along the passenger side and looked over the commercial truck.

The older officer tapped the glass. "Routine check. License and registration."

Seth immediately handed over his documents.

The younger trooper moved toward the cargo area and opened the side access door. Inside, Lionel was stretched across part of the seat asleep with his mouth slightly open, while Axel sat nearby calmly reading the grandmother’s battered handmade book.

The trooper’s eyes moved past them.

Then he noticed the bottles.

Dozens of containers were secured inside protective crates, and several ornate glass bottles gleamed faintly whenever sunlight reached them. The entire arrangement looked far too elaborate for an ordinary cleaning service.

"What’s in those?" the trooper asked.

Seth leaned over from the driver’s seat.

"Cleaning chemicals."

The officer looked toward him.

Then back at the ornate bottles.

"Cleaning chemicals?"

"Specialty cleaning chemicals," Seth corrected quickly. "High-end private service."

The trooper picked up one eyebrow.

Seth continued before anyone could stop him. "Our company is going after premium clients, so presentation matters. You wouldn’t put an expensive specialty product in some ugly plastic jug."

Axel slowly lowered his book.

He looked at Seth.

Seth refused to look back.

The younger trooper examined one particularly elaborate bottle and clearly did not believe a word he was hearing. He eventually shut the door and returned to his partner.

"Three weird guys, fancy bottles, fake-looking cleaning-company setup," he muttered quietly. "Could be smugglers."

The older trooper glanced toward Seth’s anxious face through the windshield.

Then he looked at Axel reading inside.

Finally, he noticed Lionel still asleep.

He shook his head.

"Smugglers usually try harder than that."

The older trooper returned Seth’s license and handed it through the window. "Everything checks out. You’re free to go."

Seth exhaled quietly.

Before walking away, however, the trooper leaned slightly closer. "One warning. The next town along this highway has been hurting economically for a long time, and some of the locals aren’t especially friendly toward outsiders."

His expression became more serious.

"Keep your eyes open and don’t go looking for trouble."

Seth nodded quickly. "Understood. Thanks, officer."

The troopers returned to their cruiser.

Seth rolled up the window and immediately accelerated away.

Only after the police car disappeared behind them did he release a huge breath. "Jesus. That was the first time I’ve ever had to explain this stuff during a traffic stop."

Axel turned another page of the manual. "Your lie was terrible."

Seth looked offended.

"What was wrong with it?"

"Luxury cleaning chemicals?"

"It made sense!"

Axel finally looked toward him. "You’re driving an unmarked box truck through rural Texas with bottles that look like they belong in a cathedral."

Seth gripped the wheel defensively. "The cleaning-company logo explains the truck, and the luxury branding explains the bottles. There are no logical holes."

Axel returned to his book.

"Sure. Next time tell them we sell encyclopedias."

Seth paused.

"That’s actually not bad."

Axel slowly looked up again.

"You were being sarcastic?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

From the back, Lionel suddenly sat up after being awakened by the conversation. He rubbed his eyes, looked around in confusion, and asked, "What’s this about encyclopedias? Did we change jobs while I was sleeping?"

Neither man answered him.

The truck continued west.

By late evening, the sky had darkened and the highway finally carried them into another small Texas town along the route toward New Mexico. The contrast with Crystal Lake was immediate.

Crystal Lake had been old-fashioned but alive.

This place looked exhausted.

Half the storefronts appeared abandoned, paint peeled from wooden buildings, and rusted signs creaked above nearly empty sidewalks. Even the few people they passed watched the unfamiliar truck with expressions that made the state trooper’s warning suddenly seem much more relevant.

Axel closed the Spirit Binding manual.

He looked through the windshield at the decaying town ahead.

Their next problem might have found them before they even reached New Mexico.

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