Highway of Blood 01: The Devil's Backbone

### Players

Dan Wheeler as Quincey J. Lafitte, Dominic Allen as Edward "Ed" Mooney, Joseph Chance as Beverly "Jack" Carstairs

### Podcast Link

https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-g4cyx-142f292

## Synopsis (Spoiler Warning)

It's morning and the characters have been driving westwards from Austin for the last few hours: they stop briefly in Marathon and head towards the nearby uranium mine and stone ridge (nicknamed The Devil's Backbone). Whilst they do, Beverly asks Quincey about peculiar insects; moths in particular come up and Ed inquires about a moth-like creature he encountered years ago in a mine shaft. As they proceed, the fuel diminishes and they notice an old sign with a cowboy intimating that they're "almost there": Abattoir is only three miles away. The intro plays.

The radio settles on a program featuring Coyote Mike, who welcomes listeners to "the seventh circle of hell" and selects the next song as the characters cross an old bridge and arrive in Abattoir hoping to get some food and fuel. The local gas station is examined, and two men are sitting outside it gazing at the characters as they exit the van; Ed approaches them. The silent one, Steve, has several naval tattoos, while the more talkative one, Nate, is a truck diver and he chats with Ed as the proprietor, Russ Williams, walks out and proposes to fill up the van's tank and "fix it up". Beverly is confused by this, and as it turns out, two of the wheels are flat: one spare is in the van itself, but Russ assures them he'll be able to find another in his scrap yard. While the mysterious voice of Coyote Mike echoes from a radio within the garage, Beverly finds a rusty nail in each of the tires, and Ed gets a "violent desire to do a crossword": he asks about newspapers and Nate suggests he go find one at The Last Stop, a local motel-bar, but Russ doesn't seem so keen on the idea since the locals don't like strangers much.

The characters elect to ignore this sentiment and walk over to The Last Stop, noticing an empty kid's playground and several stores on the way. Some local men sit outside the bar and frown at the characters, who enter the bar and see that the walls are covered in old farming equipment, photographs (from the 40s onward, with a distinct lack of children), and quite a few license plates. The bartender, Robert Taylor, welcomes the trio in and yells out to Carlos, who's seemingly in the kitchen, then he picks up each character's food order and as he and Ed speak about Russ, Quincey fumbles a listen roll and injures his ear in an effort to listen out for bugs under the floorboards.

## Important NPCs

* Coyote Mike
* Nate & Steve
* Russ Williams
* Robert Taylor

## Places

* Abattoir's gas station
* The Last Stop

## Quotes

* "I don't know if any of you have Spanish?" (Danann) "Points left over for languages?! You've gotta be kidding me, right?" (Joseph)
* "Isn't there a Troy in Texas?" (Joseph as Beverly) "I think I've met a lot of people called Troy." (Dom as Ed)
* "For listeners, Dan is going cross-eyed and it's utterly horrific." (Danann)
* "It's very *Texas Chainsaw Massacre* all of a sudden. [...] Is there anyone going around with a bag on their head and a chainsaw?" (Dom) "Not that you've noticed." (Danann)
* "You see me walk in and I immediately go round and start looking at all the black and white photographs, not because I'm naive but because you get the impression that I'm completely insane." (Dom) "What *is* your sanity?" (Dan) "Low. In fact, I'm talking to some of the photographs!" (Dom)

## Trivia

1. ↑ In Dante's *Divine Comedy*, the seventh circle of hell is dedicated to those who have committed sins related to violence.