Give me Fuel, Give me Fire: Chapter I
Give me Fuel, Give me Fire
Chapter I: Onyx
The lyrics "Give me Fuel, Give me Fire" from the song "Fuel" is copywrited to Metallica and its members.
Jackie and Sasha are copywrited to me.
The trip across the desert was grueling. Jackie had never really put much thought into how hot the desert could really get. Coming from Maine, it was to be expected. From sweater weather to sweltering weather, Jackie was making his trip across the US one step at a time.
Jackie always seemed to have the worst luck. First, his flight from Maine had been grounded due to snow. So he had to take a train. Then a cab to a bus station. Then a bus to another bus station. Then a bus to the middle of nowhere. Then by foot to...wherever the hell this was.
It sucked. It just plain sucked. Buses rarely ever take this route, which is why he was the only passenger aboard. When the bus broke down, the driver didn't know how to fix it. The driver walked off to go get some help and didn't come back. So here was Jackie, hiking to Las Vegas.
"S'awful," Jackie muttered to himself in his Maine accent. "It's just awful. God must really hate this state, or else he wouldn't have turned it into his personal sandbox." Thirsty and exhausted, he took a drink from the bottle of water he had bought at the bus station. Parched, cracked lips met with the last droplets of water in the bottle. "S'awful," he muttered, "now I'm out of water too!"
He threw the bottle aside angrily and kicked some of the sand on the shoulder of the road. It was one setback after another. He hoped there was a convenience store up the road, or something. He wouldn't last much longer without the proper hydration. The sun was beating down like an industrial heat lamp. Jackie felt like an ant, being punished by an adolescent that enjoyed torturing insects with a magnifying glass.
The sad little human trudged on despite it all. His belly was hungry and rumbled for food. His mouth was dry and wanted drink. His skin was already badly burnt and cried out for soothing. His legs felt woozy and wanted rest. His head felt heavy and vied for comfort. He would surely die if things went on like this.
Able to walk no further, he fell to his knees in defeat. His began to beat his fists on the pavement in anger. A tear drop formed in his eye. It was all just too much. He could already see the headlines: "Man found dead in desert! In other news, a recent study shows that cucumbers are the leading cause of..." Jackie sat on a dune and imagined if anyone would notice if he did die. He wasn't really important, just a guy going to Vegas to attend the hearing of his granddaddy's will. People would see his body on the front page and say "That's a shame. I wonder how the Dodgers played last night..."
A cool wind blew a temporary blessing from the grueling heat. He imagined himself back home. He had taken the day off to go to Hampton Beach in Massachusetts. The girls were all wearing their bikinis and the cool waves threw mist onto the coast. He had a nice cold beer in his hand and was listening the Red Sox game on a nearby radio. He could almost feel the sea breeze on his face and hear the crashing of the waves.
Then, he realized, he really could hear waves. Or something similar to waves. He looked around, ready to see an ocean just over the dune. But the thought was preposterous. This was the desert, there was no ocean. There wasn't even a pond. But the distant sound of waves could be heard, that was for sure.
And they were getting closer by the second. He looked down the road to see a cloud of dust in the distance. In between the wavy lines of hot air, Jackie thought he saw something black tearing down the road, kicking up a trail of dust like a jet. As it got closer and closer, Jackie could make it out. It was a car!
The sound of the engine and the wheels against the pavement must've been what he was hearing. Jackie realized that the driver might have water with him, or better yet, may be able to help Jackie get to Vegas. In a weak sprint, Jackie ran toward the oncoming vehicle, waving his arms in the air. He stood right in front of its path. Trying to flag it down from the shoulder of the road would've been safer, but it was less likely the driver would stop if he wasn't in the road.
The black jet of a car streaked towards him with an amazing speed. But it didn't look like it was slowing down. The driver must've seen him, right? But it just kept leaping forward without the slightest hint of deceleration. Jackie was almost tempted to run off the road, but he did not want to get left behind.
"Stop!" he cried, as if the driver could hear him. He waved his arms about and motioned for the driver to slow down, but it didn't seem to do any good. The black beast just kept streaking towards him like an obsidian bullet fired out of the world's largest gun. "Gonna get ya, gonna get ya," the car seemed to taunt silently.
"Please stop...please stop..." Jackie whispered to the air. The car was only a couple hundred feet away, but it kept moving like an unstoppable force. Jackie reached the realization that the car was going to hit him. Even if the driver decided to put on the breaks, it was going too fast to stop and not hit him.
The sound of the engine could be heard like the roar of an angry lion. The headlights seem to stare him down while the grille formed an evil smile. "Gonna get ya, gonna get ya." But at the last moment, the sound of brake calipers moving smoothly against woven steel filled that air. The vehicle seamlessly began to slow down, coasting up to meet Jackie. As the car crawled to a stop, the engine hissed like a viper preparing to strike. The machine purred like a jungle cat, ready to savor the snack that was laid before it.
Jackie trembled before the sleek car. The golden icon of a raging bull on the front told him that he was looking at a Lamborghini. Although Jackie wasn't exactly an automobile enthusiast, he could easily see that it was a Murciago. The car was completely black from fender to bumper. Even the license plate red in big block letters "BLACK" The paint job was black, the glass windows and the headlight glass were tinted black, and even the hubcaps were dark obsidian. To his surprise, a little hood ornament in the shape of a pouncing wolf (made of black onyx) perched itself on the hood.
The beastly car just sat there, as if it were challenging Jackie to a duel. Jackie half expected to see a tumbleweed roll by. But suddenly, the car lurched a little. It was like watching a dragon unfurl its wing as the passenger door opened vertically. Because of the tinted windshield, there was no way to see who was in the driver's seat, but Jackie decided that he already liked him.
Jackie hurried over to the door and unceremoniously plopped down into the interior as the door slid down. "Thanks for helping me out, man. I thought I was going to die out there." Jackie began to issue his gratitude a little too early. He looked at the figure in the driver seat to realize that it wasn't a man at all. It was a woman. To be more precise, a wolf-woman.
The human's heart jumped into his throat as he realized what the little hood ornament signified. The owner of this outrageous was a wolf chick?
"Well, howdy! Need a lift...man?" she spoke with a superior air, kidding him.
Jackie couldn't help but stare. She terrified him, as he had never met a wolf-morph before, but she did look absolutely stunning. Her fur was a black, bisected by a gray midriff that created a split from her chin down to her inner thighs. Her long hair was dyed black with thin red highlights scattered in between. If it wasn't for her gray midsection, she probably would've blended into the car's interior (also black).
She wore a black sports bra underneath a black denim jacket and she wore a black mini-skirt around her waist. To complete the attire, she sported some, surprise, high black boots and open-fingered gloves.
"Anybody home?" she said, obviously waiting for an answer. But she smirked because she knew he was taking in the sights. By the sights, she meant her tits.
"Yes, ma'am. I would really appreciate a ride, down the road, I mean." He stumbled over his words. It could've been the heatstroke talking, but he highly doubted that.
"Okay then. Buckle up."
Jackie did as he was told, not because it was for his own good, but because the wolf-lady had demanded it. He was afraid to flinch without her telling him to do so first. He tried reaching for the seatbelt, but found that it wasn't the conventional kind. It was a parachute strap, the kind they put in racing cars. Judging by how fast the car had been going earlier, Jackie would probably need the extra security. The seat seemed like it had been sculpted just for him. It was one of those special racing seats. He came to the conclusion that the seats were obviously made for another fur, as there was a small hole near the base of the back where a tail could be threaded through. Surprisingly, that didn't make the seat any less comfortable.
The woman lightly touched the accelerator with her toe and the car howled like...well, a wolf. The car lurched forward again, picking up speed fast. The g-forces took effect, throwing his weight back into the seat. But with the seatbelt and the streamlined chair, he was comfortably cushioned.
It was then that Jackie decided to take in the car's features. The air conditioner soothed him with cool breeze, slowly relieving him of the unbearable desert heat. There was a cup-holder drilled into his armrest. A very expensive-looking stereo sat on the dashboard, churning out heavy tunes from a (you guessed it, black) Ipod. If that weren't enough, the stereo speakers where implanted into the seat. Jackie nearly expected to turn around and see a Flux Capacitor in the back.
Time-travel devices aside, Jackie's attention turned back to the lovely obsidian wolfess who was sitting at the wheel. Scary though she was, she seemed nice enough. Not very talkative, but nice. But that was when Jackie noticed that there was a Desert Eagle sitting at her hip.
His heart did a somersault again. He recoiled a little, trying to get himself as far away from the wolf as possible, even though he knew he was well confined within the Italian precision machine. When she noticed him trying to press himself into the upholstery, she gave him a sideways look.
"Something wrong?"
She had a very sexy voice, but it was strong. Whenever she spoke, Jackie knew she meant business. Although on the verge of a heart-attack, Jackie managed to mumble.
"You've g-got a g-gun," he stammered.
She chortled. "Oh, this old thing? Don't worry, it's just a safeguard. A girl's got a right to defend herself, wouldn't ya say?"
Jackie nodded. Although she could probably scare the badguys away by just staring at them, she was within her rights to carry a firearm. Still he was shaking.
"Relax, I'm not going to shoot you. I only shoot people I don't like. And so far, you seem pretty respectable," she said in that sexy voice. As menacing as she seemed, she sounded like she was telling the truth. Jackie eased up a little.
"How about some music, eh? You like Metallica?"
Jackie nodded solemnly. Within seconds of him doing so, the speakers behind his head blared with heavy drums and guitar riffs. Somehow, the loud music seemed to calm him down. The calm was short-lived, as the wolfess spoke up again.
"You got a name? This'll get a lot less weird if I know what to call you."
Jackie gulped. "Jack, nice to meet you."
The wolfess cracked another on of those sexy grins. "It's nice to meet you too, Jack. I'm Sasha. And this," said she as she took hold of the gear shift, and as if she were introducing a horse, continued, "is Tammy."
"You named your car?" asked Jackie, a little shocked at his bravery.
Sasha smiled. "Is it as crazy as trying to walk through the desert?"
Jackie didn't need to answer that question. He must've looked pretty stupid for this woman to take some pity on him and decided to let him bum a ride. His vision dropped to the floor, thinking of what an idiot he'd made of himself.
"Don't look so down, kid. It's not the end the end of the world. But if you don't mind my asking, what were you doing out there, anyway?" the wolfess spoke in such a hypnotic tone that he found himself willing to answer.
"I was taking a bus to Vegas, but it broke down. The driver said that he would walk back to the station and get help. I waited ten hours and he didn't show. So, I started walking. I think I hiked about fifty or so miles before you showed up. Good thing, too, or else I'd probably be dying of exposure right about now."
The wolfess seemed surprised, "Wow! That's a hike! And you're going to Vegas? Good, cuz that's where I'm headed. I'm doing some modeling there. What's your story?"
"My granddad passed away a few days ago, I'm going to Vegas to hear his lawyer read the will." Jack said that in a solemn way, he'd been close to his grandfather, despite living so far away from him.
Sasha sympathized, "I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you can stick with me until we get to Vegas, I guess, seeing as how you probably don't trust buses anymore."
Jack laughed, Sasha was actually a lot nicer than he expected...for a wolf-morph that is.
"You said you were a model?" Jack was again stunned to find himself asking questions like that.
The wolf-girl smiled, "Yup. I model for a lingerie company. It just so happens that the staff wants to do a shoot at Caesar's Palace. They wanted to buy me a plane ticket, but I thought I'd take a road trip instead."
Whoa. Suddenly the situation had gotten a whole lot more interesting. Now that she'd mentioned it, Sasha did have that supermodel look. She had the sleekest legs he had ever seen before, a tight tummy, chesty and with a head of hair that someone could lose a ring in.
She noticed him ogling, "Like something ya see?"
Jack bit his lip, she'd caught him. "I'm sorry, I'm not really familiar with..."
"What, wolf-morphs? Don't sweat it; I get looks like that a lot. And guys check me out all the time when I'm modeling, so I'm use to it. Say, you look thirsty, want some soda?"
Jack could have given the wolf lady a big hug. He nodded enthusiastically, parched from his walk.
Sasha opened the console between the seats to reveal a small minibar that was packed with soda cans. He selected a flavor that he liked and popped it open, enjoying the crisp sounds of aluminum being pierced and carbonated gases escaping. He practically inhaled the sugary concoction, relieved to finally have something in his stomach.
"Take it easy, you'll get a stomach ache!" warned the wolfess playfully. "Then again, it looks like it's been awhile since you last ate."
"About a day, I think," said Jackie, confirming her guess. "I had a bag of peanuts when I left Atlanta, that's all I can remember."
"Atlanta!" cried the wolfess "where are you from, anyway?"
If she thought going from Atlanta to Nevada was crazy, she wasn't going to believe what he had to say next.
"I'm from Maine," he said bashfully.
"MAINE? Holy shit! What are you, Forest Gump?"
"'Stupid is as stupid does, ma'am'" said Jackie, trying to be amusing.
They both laughed, which surprised Jackie. A few minutes ago, he was absolutely terrified of this woman, now they were hitting it off like they were best friends.
"Alright, Jack, just hang on. We're a few hours from the nearest town. Once we get there, we can find something to eat and find a place to stay for the night. I know you're in a hurry to get to Vegas, but I've been driving all day. I need some rest. By the look on your face, you do too. It'll be awhile till we get there, so just make yourself comfortable. I'll wake you when we get there."
Wow. Jackie was really shocked at how kind the wolfess was. He would have to be more open minded about furs in the future. Exhausted, Jackie decided to put his head back and take a little nap. But his dreams were full of howling, from beasts and of machines, of wolves and of maidens. If one thing was for sure, this was going to be an interesting trip.