Between the arrival of the newcomers and the conclusion of his fight with what had turned out to be an Eeqidi, a name that meant absolutely nothing to him, Lazar had taken the time for a quick stop inside the gas station's convenience store.
Apparently, the place was running an exceptional promotion : zero dollars on every item.
Or at least, that was the conclusion he had drawn from the sight of the headless store clerk peacefully napping beside the frozen foods aisle.
Under different circumstances, Lazar might have questioned the long-term viability of such a business model.
As things stood, he had simply taken what he needed and moved on.
His shopping list included two bottles of water and six ten-liter (three gallons) jerrycans, which he intended to fill with gas so he would not have to worry about running out anytime soon and could make the most of the promotion, which seemed to cover fuel as well.
His initial intention had been to load them into the trunk to keep Garry company.
Unfortunately, they weren't alone anymore, and Lazar would prefer that Garry didn't make an appearance.
So Lazar decided to put them on the back seats instead.
He had just finished loading the jerrycans when the three nuisances reached a distance where pretending not to notice them was no longer much of an option.
Lazar looked them over more carefully then and noted first that they had at least been prudent enough to bring their weapons with them.
His gaze moved from one to the next.
There was a common pattern : green eyes, hair somewhere between ginger and blond, and facial features close enough to further betray a family resemblance.
Brothers and sister, most likely.
More importantly, their weapons were clean.
No blood, no flesh, not even a suspicious splatter.
And since they were approaching with a certain lack of tension, Lazar concluded that they had not come here intending to fight and that they did not think he would be hostile toward them either.
At least, that was true for now.
"What do you want?" Lazar asked without bothering to soften his tone.
The three exchanged a brief glance, as though deciding which one of them would speak.
It was the sister who stepped forward.
"My name's Judith, and they are my brothers, Ewan and Josh, we..." She started introducing her family, and Lazar was instantly struck by a bad feeling.
Not because she seemed hostile, on the contrary, and that was exactly the problem.
When strangers take the trouble to introduce themselves, it's rarely because they intend to exchange two sentences and then go their separate ways.
It usually means they are expecting an interaction long enough to make it worth everyone's while to know who is who.
In other words, already longer than Lazar felt like tolerating.
"Get to the point." He cut her off.
The words were not especially aggressive, but they carried enough dryness to achieve the desired effect.
Judith stopped cold, while her two brothers stiffened slightly.
A slight rise in tension passed across their faces, subtle but clear enough for Lazar to notice.
At first, he did not understand the cause.
He failed to see what was so unnerving about asking people not to waste his time.
Then his eyes moved beyond them, toward their car.
The right front tire was ruined.
Lazar remained silent for a moment.
"Ah." Now he understood.
They were not speaking to him merely because he was the only person still alive in sight.
They had approached him because their car was done for, his still worked, and in their eyes the logical next step probably involved traveling with him.
Unfortunately for them, that prospect inspired nothing in him but deep weariness.
Barely a few seconds in their company, and they were already starting to look like a problem.
Lazar looked back at them.
"You have a flat tire." He pointed out in a flat tone, cutting off any attempt to circle around the issue.
The three froze, long enough to confirm to Lazar that he had put his finger exactly where it needed to go.
Judith let out a deep sigh, abandoning the polite approach now that it had become useless.
It was time to lay things out plainly.
"Okay. I will be honest." She said. "We were on our way to find our parents. Then... weapons just appeared in our hands out of nowhere."
To her right, Ewan briefly lowered his eyes, as if hearing the words aloud was enough to make the story sound absurd, even though he knew it was true.
Judith went on anyway, "Then there was this sort of bell. Not a real bell, I think. I mean... I don't know. It rang like someone was striking directly inside my skull."
This time, it was Josh who stiffened slightly.
Lazar had no difficulty understanding what was going through their minds.
They were afraid that, if she kept talking, their sister would start sounding insane.
She probably feared the same herself, and yet she continued, visibly determined to see it through now that she had started.
"On the road, we saw a pillar of fire. After it disappeared, it left this huge crater behind, and some kind of... monsters came out of it."
She hesitated over the word 'monsters', not because it felt inaccurate, but because it felt inadequate.
"I mean, they looked kind of like people, but not really. Though..."
Lazar raised a hand.
The gesture was enough to make her stop.
"No need to keep going. I believe you." He said.
Judith blinked, caught off guard. "You... believe me?"
Her surprise was almost comical.
It was as if she had come prepared to justify every word, only for the entire struggle to crumble before it had even formed.
She kept staring at him for another second, then asked again, with even plainer disbelief this time, "Really?"
"Yes." Lazar said, with a simplicity that made the answer almost blunt, "I have seen something similar, so I believe you."
The silence that followed was not of the same nature as the ones before it.
There was now an unspoken understanding between everyone, and for Judith and her brothers, it was a real relief to have someone confirm that what they had gone through had truly happened.
Lazar, however, took no special satisfaction from that.
Their story was credible, yes, but that did not make their presence any less inconvenient or their expectations any less unrealistic.
Judith drew a small breath, visibly encouraged by the fact that he had not taken them for lunatics.
"In that case..." She started, sounding a little more assured now, "We're trying to reach Coatesville. It's a small town around..."
"Not happening." Lazar cut her off again.
Whatever little momentum she had regained died against those words.
She stood frozen for a second, seemingly waiting for him to elaborate, while Ewan already looked dangerously close to taking the answer as an insult.
Lazar, however, had no desire to let the conversation open into negotiation.
"You won't be traveling with me." He said, to make himself absolutely clear, "That isn't where I need to go, and it isn't on my way."
In reality, going to Coatesville was not the core issue.
Maybe it really was on his way, he had no idea.
The real problem was them.
If he let them into the car, he would have to trust them, and Lazar had no intention of making the mistake of becoming physically vulnerable around three armed strangers, stressed out and desperate enough to put their lives in the hands of the first person they came across.
If, for a reason or another, they discovered Garry's corpse in the trunk, things would turn awkward at once.
And even if they didn't, if the deal was to get them closer to their destination, nothing guaranteed that they would not decide on a whim that anything other than taking them all the way wasn't enough and that the simplest solution for them was to threaten him with their weapons, throw him out of the car, and drive off wherever Coatesville was.
Lazar had never made a habit of trusting even people he knew with his safety, let alone strangers.
And he was not about to start today.
Judith took the answer in silence, yet the disappointment on her face was unmistakable.
"We're not asking you to drop us off right in front of our house." She said, still making an effort to stay calm, "Just to get us closer. Even a little. We can..."
"No." Lazar replied.
The word was dry enough to kill the rest of her sentence before it had the chance to live.
The problem was that his refusal had consequences : irritation flared across Josh's face, while Ewan was gripping his weapon a little too tightly.
That was precisely the kind of reaction that reminded Lazar why refusing them was the right call.