Desolation

“I’m not sure that’s technically correct,” said Linda, still curled up in her sleeping bag.

“Hush, you,” said Kelly. “You’re still asleep.”

“Big Brain agrees with me,” said Warrick. “You tell her, Linda!”

“Two,” Kelly commanded, “sit on Linda’s head, there’s a good boy.”

Two just gazed at her, his tongue hanging out, and wagged his tail happily.

“Swear allegiance to the almighty van,” said Warrick.

“Not gonna happen.”

“Then swear allegiance to this troll,” he said, pulling an orange-haired little troll doll from his pocket and thrusting it towards her. “Look, he’s got the same colour hair as you.”

She frowned. “My hair is red. That’s orange.”

“It’s all the same.”

“It’s really not.”

“Swear. Allegiance. To our Troll Overlord.”

“Warrick, I swear to God, stop waving that thing in my face.”

He kept doing it and she sighed again, and crawled over the seat in front to sit beside Ronnie. “Pretty town,” she said.

Ronnie opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated.

She grinned. “You were going to say it, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You so were,” came Linda’s muffled voice. Then, “Two, get off me.”

Kelly grinned wider. “You were going to say appearances can be deceiving, weren’t you?”

“Nope,” said Ronnie, shaking his head. “I was going to say something completely different. I was going to say, ‘Yes, Kelly, it does look like a nice town.’”

“But …?”

“Nothing. No buts. That was the end of that sentence.”

“Warrick,” said Kelly, “what do you think? Do you think Ronnie is fibbing?”

“I’m not talking to you because you have refused to swear allegiance to either my van or my troll doll,” said Warrick, “but, on a totally separate note, I think our Fearless Leader is totally telling fibs and he was, in fact, about to utter those immortal words.”

“You’re all delusional,” said Ronnie. “Now someone please tell me where I’m supposed to go in the whitest town I’ve ever been to. Seriously, there is such a thing as being too Caucasian.”

“Take this left coming up,” Linda said.

“She’s a witch!” cried Warrick.

“It’s GPS.”

“Not a witch, then,” Warrick said. “False alarm, everybody. Linda is not a witch, she just has an internet connection. You know who was a witch, though?”

“Stefanianna North was not a witch,” Kelly said.

“You didn’t see her!” Warrick responded. “You don’t know!”

“Neither do you. You were unconscious the whole time.”

Warrick sniffed. “It wasn’t my fault I was drugged.”

“You weren’t drugged,” said Ronnie, “you were high. And that was your fault because it was your own weed you were smoking.”

“Aha,” said Warrick, leaning forward, “but why was I smoking it?”

“To get high.”

“No,” Warrick said triumphantly. “Well, yes, but also because of the socio-economic turmoil this world has been going through since before I was even born. My mother had anxiety issues when I was still in the womb, man. That affects a dude, forces him to seek out alternative methods of coping later in life.”

“So that’s what you were doing?” Kelly asked. “You were coping?”

“I was trying to,” Warrick said. “And that’s when Stefanianna came to kill me. I don’t remember much—”

“Because you were high.”

“—but I do remember her saying something like, ‘First I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill your friends.’ And I was all, like, hey, don’t you touch my friends, because I’m very protective of you guys, you know?”

Kelly nodded. “We bask in your protection.”

“But then Two woke up,” said Warrick, “and, as we all know, witches are terrified of dogs, especially pit bulls.”

“That’s not a thing,” said Linda.

“Well, maybe not particularly pit bulls, but we all know that witches are terrified of dogs, right?”

“That’s not a thing, either,” said Linda.

Warrick frowned. “So what are witches terrified of?”

“Fire,” said Ronnie.

“But then why did she run away? The moment she saw Two she screamed and ran.”

“That’s because Stefanianna is terrified of dogs,” Kelly said.