1. Proceed to friend's house."Let's head to your dad's friend's house. He should have some medical supplies there, right?"
Jesse shrugs as she straps on her seat belt. "I dunno. Maybe."
"Well, if you see a pharmacy, stop," you say, groaning a bit as you settle into your seat and adjust your wounded arm so it doesn't hurt so much.
Jesse nods. "Alright. I think there might be a Walgreens on the way, actually."
From the back of the cab, Max sticks his nose forward and licks the back of your ear. You laugh a little and ward him off with your good arm. "Well, we'll take a look at it if we pass it. Don't go out of your way, though."
Jesse throws the panel truck in gear and turns right onto the road.
"Can you handle reloading this?" Jesse asks, putting the shotgun into your lap.
"I think so," you say, struggling. You find the loading slot and grab the box of shells. Doing all of this with one arm is time consuming, but you manage to load five more rounds into the weapon. After, you carefully count the shells left in the box.
"Five loaded, twelve left in reserve," you announce. Max sticks his nose in the box and sniffs at the small pile of shells left, whining.
"We're gonna need more ammo soon if we keep getting into situations like that," Jesse notes.
"Yeah," you say, your eyelids dropping. You are suddenly very tired.
"What was the deal with those rats, anyway? It was so creepy how they all swarmed and then turned into those things."
"He... he did it. He sent them against us. Not just them. They were just the first to arrive."
Jesse turns and looks at you. "He? What do you mean?"
"I... I felt his thoughts. I... no. That's wrong. For a moment... it felt like..."
Jesse swerves around a car parked in the middle of the street, and then turns right again down a short connecting street, then left back onto main.
"What?"
You shake your head. Thinking about it gives you a headache, and adds to your sense of drowsiness. "I... all I can say is I can hear him. But that's not quite right."
"Him? Him who?"
Max curls up in the back and snorts as his nose encounters something interesting.
"That thing in the dumpster.
Him."
You're out of the center of town, now. Main street is more open, fields on either side in front of houses, the occasional store or mini-strip mall. Everything looks deserted or looted. You pass a few turn offs, you're not able to read the street signs.
"Was this another one of his 'gifts'?"
"Something like that," you say. "He could feel us killing his 'family'. Wasn't too pleased about it."
Jesse is silent for a moment. A billboard up ahead catches your eye, but all it says is about an Indian Casino somewhere fifty miles or more from here.
"And he sent the rats?"
"He... reached out to them. Told them where we were," you say slowly. Something compels you to look in the side mirror at the back of the billboard.
you're not out yetYou blink, and the message vanishes. You rub your eyes with your good arm. Christ, your leg hurts. It feels like you have a band of heated iron around your thigh, sending flame up and down your leg. Your arm feels similar.
"How can you... you said you can 'feel' other infected? Is this how you were able to know what dumpster boy was up to?"
"Maybe," you say. "Ever since I first made contact with him, it's like... it's like I can feel them. Those near me. And even... some, farther away. But it's vague, odd. It pulses in and out."
Jesse looks worriedly at you then stares back at the road. A small crater has ruined the right lane, the left is partially blocked by a van which has apparently crashed headlong into it. Jesse drives the truck off the road a bit, scraping against a fence, to get around it and back onto the road.
"Drink some booze," she says.
"Not a bad idea," you reply, opening a bottle. The liquid is hot and horrible tasting as usual, but you find you don't mind it in comparison to the pain in your limbs.
A single Faceless stands motionless in the road ahead. Jesse pushes down the accelerator and rams it, sending it flying off into the dirt, bent over at an awkward angle.
"My first attempt to run over a Faceless didn't go so well," you say, taking another swallow.
You pass a mobile home park. The sign out front reads:
Shady Oaks Mobile Home Park
See Spot run. Run, Spot run.
You raise your eyebrows.
"Walgreens should be just ahead," Jesse says. "It's right on the edge of town, dad's friend lives in the outskirts past it, up in the hills."
"Odd place to put such a large store," you say.
"It's pretty new. Built about two years ago."
"Ah."
Jesse turns her head slightly to look at you in the rear view mirror. Her green eye is reflected in perfect clarity. The hole where her other eye used to be is covered by several strands of hair that have escaped from her ponytail.
"Can you... can you feel me?"
You're silent for a moment. "Yes," you say.
Jesse continues to watch you.
"But it's different, with you. I think it might be the fact you're fighting them off with alcohol. They don't like it. I could feel them dying, sort of, when we were shooting them. Not really at the time. It's so weird. Like, now, I can remember being there, and feeling them, looking at it, reaching for us behind the barricades. Feel them hurting, dying, as we killed them. Even the crawlers."
You shift in your seat, turning your neck to crack it. "But never at the moment. It's only a memory. Like there's a delay, or something. Some sort of lag. Like right now, at this moment, I can't feel you. I can't feel anything. But ever since we met up with that ...
thing, I have these memories of feeling infected around me. But nothing reliable. And it still ebbs and flows erratically, even in my memory."
The road takes a slight curve to the right, the land on either side of you begins to rise. The fog is as thick as ever. Houses and trees cut dark slashes of shadow, swiftly passing by.
"Is this lag present for when you could sense that thing's thoughts?" Jesse asks.
"No, actually," you reply. "That was much more immediate. The first time, it was painful, and I lost my sense of self. I guess I fell to my knees, I don't know anything until I switched back. But the second time, in the Liquor store, it was almost like... I was two people. Still myself, but also... in this thing. Part of it."
"That sounds really fucked up," Jesse says.
"Yeah," you answer.
"You know the
really fucked up part about you, though, is me," says Benny from behind you.
You glance back at your now long dead friend, who is sitting in the backseat, next to Max, with his feet up, sticking them into the front. He appears to be picking his teeth with a toothpick.
You grimace and turn away.
"Not looking so good, chum," Benny says. "Looks like our little small furry friends really took a bite out of you."
You stare out the window.
"Where you going, anyhow?" Benny says, pulling out one of his teeth and tossing it at your head. You feel it bounce off the back of your skull. Benny takes his feet down, leans forward, and spits a bloody mess on the front seat in between you and Jesse.
"There it is," Jesse says. "Walgreens. Want me to stop, check it out? Or just keep going?"
Benny finishes rooting around in his mouth and leans even closer, speaking now directly into your ear. You can feel his warm breath on the nape of you neck.
"I wouldn't recommend it, bro," he says softly. "Really, take it from me. You don't want to go in there."
Max, who has so far been oblivious to everything, laying in the back, suddenly stands. He turns toward Benny, sniffs for a moment, then bares his teeth, and growls.
Benny leans back and giggles. "Heya, pooch," he says, addressing the dog. "Sorry 'bout the smell, really. Not my fault, though, you know, being dead and all. Your new master is the one you should be blaming for the odor."
"Hey," Jesse says. "You hear me? Max, shush."
"Now, this is interesting," Benny says, smiling at you with a bloody mouth. The color of the blood is almost black. "What do you think it means, that your new pet can see me?"
Then he throws his head back, and laughs, spraying speckles of black all over you.
****************************
1. Ask Benny about Walgreens.
2. Ask Benny about the Thing in the Dumpster.
3. Ignore Benny, instruct Jesse to continue past Walgreens without stopping.
4. Ignore Benny, instruct Jesse to pull into the parking lot to check it out from the outside.
****************************
Poll
4 (66.7%)
Author
Topic: The Ends (Read 59142 times)