damned_lounge | Oktoberfest '09: Everything Will be Okay (by Allie)

Title: Everything Will be Okay
Author: Allie
Beta: No tiiiiiiime
Word Count:10,500 (whyyyyyy)
Rating: R for gore
Character(s): NPCs from Doyleton
Pairing(s): (if applicable) Nope.
Summary: As the institute's patients wake up in their usual beds, wounds neatly bandaged, the residents of Doyletown revert to their human states but their injuries remain. The roads are filled with bodies, and the buildings smashed and scorched. After the survivors gather in a clinic and try to understand what happened, three leave in search of help.
Notes: The long-dead zombies that pushed up from the ground and such have disappeared like NS monsters. Only the residents who were alive when the zombie event happened remain. I tried to stick to continuity when it came to how certain zombies 'died' or the injuries they sustained, but there were a lot of continuity troubles, so please bear with me. I also owe apologies to the .hack group, because I forgot Leon's age and the store clerk should have had a completely different reaction...but we can we handwave it or pretend the same thing happened in some different manner? Also, Kes, I'm sorry if I butchered your NPC. D:

ETA: I finished my corrections and formatted for LJ. Though, still, a pox on thee, DST!!

Two of the seven screens of Megahits Movie Rental’s televisions flickered black and white, lacking any source of input beyond blank electricity. They threw an eerie light over the room, causing the shadows of shelves to overlap and turning the bars of game magazine racks into something far more ominous, and although Jason was sure he’d left the overhead lights on when he’d yanked down the metal grate outside, that flickering bluish-grey was now the only thing illuminating the game store.

He’d seen something like this in a movie before. Something pretty damn cheesy. A television with a bunch of static that killed you if you watched it or…or something like that. Really, he wasn’t qualified to work in a video rental store. At least he knew the game section.

Carolyn, his younger sister, once said that the reason a person couldn’t move or feel for a while after they woke on these kinds of mornings was because a person’s soul moved faster than their body, and if the two broke apart, the body needed a few minutes to catch up. Jason didn’t buy it, but whatever. Seven year old kids could believe whatever crap they wanted, and he wasn’t going to argue with her. He needed his energy to argue with everyone else.

So, he didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. He recognized the store, skewed at the angle he’d fallen, but it didn’t look right: the air smelled like mold and dust and of the five televisions that weren’t working, one had broken free of the ceiling and smashed into the wooden floor, one dangled from fraying cords, and the last three were simply black. Merchandise from the front counter was scattered across the floor, including valuable figurines, but Jason firmly decided that the damage sure as hell wasn’t his problem. Most people in the town had come to accept or ignore the narcolepsy, and those who didn’t had moved away—no postcards, no phone calls, no nothing. As if they’d moved out of the world entirely. But there had never been any damage to the buildings, never any change aside from consciousness. Someone was going to have to foot the bill for this, and if the manager tried to pin it on him, well…

…well, as satisfying (and pixellated) as the violent fantasy was, he was sure that insurance would cover it. Besides, maybe he’d be able to add the DS that blue-haired bitch had thrown against the wall onto the list.

Movement returned slowly, though the prickling numbness remained. He’d have to call the manager, if the phone lines were up, and he figured he ought to see if the rest of the town was in a similar state, though he just wanted to get back home. Maybe take on that stupid boss again, if Carolyn would lend him her DS. He didn’t care much about the damage, as long as he wasn’t blamed for it, and if the rest of the town was in a similar state, well, it could hardly be his fault, right?

He climbed to his feet slowly, not in any particular rush, but at that point his body caught up pretty damn quickly when a hot pain tightened around his knee. Jason immediately shifted his weight to his other leg, then turned to lean against the door as he slid back to the ground. He reached for the hem of his baggy pants to see what he was dealing with, and it wasn’t until his fingers touched the denim that he realized Carolyn might be right about the extent to which the soul outran the body.

There was blood. A lot of it, all over his hands, some dry but most still wet, and although he didn’t feel anything aside from terror as he examined the damage in the flickering television light, terror was more than enough. Whole fingerprints scraped off, pieces of skin simply missing or dangling from thin strings, and fingernails torn or broken at the base of the cuticle. Three fingers bent at unnatural angles and he turned one hand over, palm side up, to find raw whiteness in ragged red muscle between the first and second joint of his middle finger. The hands still felt numb, as if seen on a screen, but it was the exposed bone that caused him to make a sound that started as a frightened moan and soon progressed into a series of rough, panicked breaths.

Oh god. Oh god, there was bone, bone and blood and half of his fingers were broken and where the hell were his nails, and holy fuck he couldn’t breathe and even if he didn’t feel it yet the vision caused a type of terror he’d never imagined a real person could feel.

If he’d had a clearer mind, he might have considered how many times he’d seen these things in horror movies, far worse, entire limbs amputated and spurting blood. He didn’t, though, and when he finally felt it he sucked in his breath so sharply that he almost choked before he screamed.

Instinctively, he tried to clasp his hands against his chest but only succeeded in causing more pain as his fingers bent and left an uneven red smear over the faded Half-Life 2 logo on his shirt. Seconds later the screams came in sharp gasps but he didn’t consider the fact that he might be crying: all he could think of were missing nails and broken fingers and awful ivory-white bone.

Something had happened. Something horrible. Something so horrible that he couldn’t even remember it.

It took Jason several minutes to swallow the last of his gasps and he held his breath, waiting until he could exhale without any accompanying sound. He wiped his cheeks on his shoulder, sure as hell hoping there weren’t tears, then looked up to see broken wood, parts of the door in splinters and parts of it torn away like cardboard.

He looked down, ill, and saw the first joint of his middle finger, nail half-intact, on the wooden ground beside his thigh.

Jason tried not to vomit. He tried really, really hard not to vomit. His efforts were unsuccessful, but at least he didn’t get any on himself.

Why? Why hadn’t he stopped at the first scrape, or, more logically, simply used the doorknob? The ground in front of the counter was littered discount DVDs and foil packets for collectable card games, and as senseless as the events were, he began to understand at least part of what had happened.

The counter was two steps above the ground and its open exit only feet from the cash register and stool, close enough that he could have made it down in a couple long strides. Instead he’d climbed over the plexiglass counter, knocking off half of the inventory and justifying the unusually deep bruise on his knee. Then, for some reason, he’d clawed until his fingertips were naked, until there was nearly nothing left, despite the fact that the lanyard of keys still hung around his neck. It had been a mindless terror. Animal. Something had possessed him, something without rational thought. He couldn’t have done this on his own.

He remained in place for what felt like hours. After an undetermined amount of time he lowered his hands looked at them again. The sight still made his chest tighten, but he had to do something. There was no one else in the store, and he didn’t think there was anyone coming.

Back still against the door, Jason pushed himself up as gently as possible, using his palms for balance, but the wooden door gave way under heavier pressure, hinges tearing from the wall, and after he unsuccessfully tried to move back, the door continued through the rusted grate and dropped with a heavy thud onto the sidewalk.

Jason didn’t move, lying on his back and wondering how much pain he would be in when his body decided to heap some more onto the pile.

“Jason!” The voice was unexpected but welcome, not that he’d admit it, and Jason gathered his elbows under him to see its source. “Are you okay?” Darren asked, and his enthusiasm seemed like exactly the wrong thing to use with someone on the ground and half-covered with blood.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he said. The electronics store clerk took a small step back, uneasy, but Jason’s sigh gave implied permission to return. Even if Jason was pissed, and he sure as hell was, he wasn’t going to take it out on the teenager.

“I…you’re the first person I’ve seen who isn’t…” Darren’s voice was weak, bordering on tears, and even though Jason had been somewhat upset a few minutes before, part of him scoffed at the kid’s immaturity before he actually processed the words.

“Who isn’t what?” Jason asked.

“You know.”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking,” Jason said, with enough bite to his voice to cause Darren’s eyes to widen, but to his credit, this time, he didn’t take a step back. With considerable effort Jason managed to sit up, hands still protected by his arms and one leg mostly straight, then he turned from the store to the street. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

The streets were full of them. Bodies, skulls crushed and limbs torn away, some bent in unnatural positions while others groped forward, arms extended toward some invisible prize. Faces were smashed beyond recognition, and for the first time, Jason was glad that he’d spent most of his nights in his basement rather than befriending the locals.

“Yeah,” Darren whispered, his voice still unsteady. When Jason looked back to him, he was rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes.

“How long have you been out here?”

“I don’t know. It’s just this all over, this and crumbling buildings and all of these people…I thought there was no one left.”

“I’m left,” Jason said more casually than he needed to, shrugging.

He watched Darren scan him for signs of mortal injury, but despite the blood where he’d held his hands against his chest, Jason apparently passed the test. “Your fingers are bleeding,” Darren pointed out.

“Yeah, I figured that out,” Jason said.

“Are you okay?”

“Would you stop asking that already? I’m alive. What more do you want?”

Jason looked up to the meek teenager, and from the boy’s expression, it was clear that he did want more. There was a period of silence, though both of them knew what Darren was about to ask. “I can’t…” he started, then looked away and bit his lip. “Will you help me look?” he asked. Jason groaned and rolled his eyes.

“For what, survivors? Look at the buildings. They’re almost all broken, and half of them are burned up. There must have been some kind of explosion or something, maybe a bomb. You’re just lucky you were inside.”

“I wasn’t,” Darren said. “I mean, I don’t think…maybe. I was restocking something, batteries or something, and then…then I woke up in the field.”

Jason stared, and for the first time noticed a deep bruise spreading across the kid’s cheekbone, something that would swell badly by tomorrow. His fingertips were intact but one hand was tight against his upper arm, though the black hooded sweatshirt hid any injury. God only knew what else was wrong with him. From the way Darren was acting, Jason wouldn’t have expected him to get his shit together so quickly, but maybe he was different when he needed to be.

“Fine,” Jason said. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

Getting up was not as simple as it had been with something behind him, and after a couple seconds of embarrassing struggle, Darren grabbed his arm for leverage. The sound Jason made might have been interpreted as gratitude, but it could have just as easily been a frustrated grunt.

“Did you try the phone?”

“Only static.”

“The stores?” Jason asked.

“Not all of them. Just the…there were so many bodies. And the blood.” Darren’s voice was quiet once again.

“Get your shit together,” Jason said firmly. “You yelled for people, right? Checked the alleys and behind dumpsters and stuff?”

Darren nodded, but his expression indicated that he only vaguely understood what was being asked.

Inside the store, beyond the torn wood and the presumably bloody metal grate, the remaining black and white televisions turned blank white, then the screens divided into colored alert bars. Both clerks stepped closer to the doorway, watching.

“Do you think it’s-“

“Shh,” Jason snapped, waiting. We interrupt this broadcast? But what broadcast? This is an emergency, he wanted to hear. Please proceed to somewhere else.

Nothing, though. Not even the audio test, the irritating beep that lasted an instant too long. After fifteen seconds the televisions switched off, this time to black, and Jason leaned against the brick wall beside the store, eyes set on the cracked and potholed asphalt that had run smooth and black the day before. Powerless city.

“Let’s go,” he finally said, pushing away past Darren, who had been waiting patiently since the screens turned black. The bar to the left was completely demolished, little more than a pile of ash, so Jason led in the other direction.

There was no screaming. No stench of rot, nothing but dust and mildew and mold. It was as if time had staged some sort of attack, reclaimed the town for moving too fast or too slow…but why would Jason claw desperately against a metal grate to escape something as nebulous as time?

Occasionally, Darren gasped and turned away from a body, but Jason didn’t bother examining the already dead. He offered no words of comfort, and his expression seemed cool, detached. Once Darren actually stopped, moving toward the wall and crouching in a doorway, covering his face as his shoulders shook. Some of these were probably Darren’s classmates, Jason realized, with only the briefest glance to the street. He’d never paid much attention to people, and the only familiar faces were those of customers. He couldn’t care less what happened to them.

Part of him wished he still had his DS, so he didn’t have to deal with the muffled crying. The other half just wished he was alone, or better yet, not doing this at all. As he waited, cringing deeply as sensation had fully returned to his hands, he wondered what became of the people in their homes, far from town. Did this seek them out as well? Did they have to run to escape? A sickened feeling came over him, but he didn’t dwell on it, and unlike Darren, he focused on the physical pain and showed no sign of the thoughts cycling through his mind. Jason was good for anger and irritation, and sure, a few minutes ago he’d been embarrassingly good for screaming, but he wasn’t that great when it came to sentimentality and concern.

Most stores were crumbled or collapsing. The first stop was the Sheriff’s Office, but a quick glance inside revealed two bodies and far, far too much blood. A flippable sign declared Hearth and Home closed for the week, but from the outside, Mystic Spa seemed to be intact.

Again, maybe his sister was right about that sort of thing. Jason pushed open the door and called out, then moved behind the counter where he found two girls, one holding a blood-soaked towel to the other’s face. The first screamed and tried to back away without removing the cloth but this time Darren spoke up: “No, we’re here to help,” he said. Shards of bloody glass and needles littered the floor.

“You can’t help,” the one without the covered mouth said. “Go get a doctor. Hurry. She’s losing a lot of blood.”

Apparently, holistic healing could only do so much. The other girl’s eyes were closed and Jason didn’t want to see what was behind the towel. “The doctor’s probably dead,” he said, but again, Darren spoke up.

“We’ll find someone,” he said. Before that statement, Jason had never known that it was possible to sound frightened and confident at the same time. “Everything will be okay.”

“I can’t leave her,” the young woman said, and Darren nodded.

“Let’s move,” Jason said, and the bells on the door jingled ominously, almost Christmaslike, as it slammed shut behind them.

Outside, Jason again stopped. He felt lightheaded, presumably from missing blood, but it wasn’t like he could tear strips of anything to wrap around his hands. He watched Darren for an icy second, and Darren watched him back. It was a silent standoff, and Jason was the first to break it.

“What the hell was that?”

“They were hurt.”

“Yeah. And who the hell’s supposed to help them? You’re just going to revive a doctor and that’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Darren said. His voice was weaker now that Jason’s had raised. “They needed to hear it, so-“

“So nothing. Nothing is okay. Don’t lie to people about that stuff, no matter how much they you think they need to hear it. Got it?”

Darren stared, brown eyes expressionless though still rimmed with red from his earlier crying.

“Got it?” Jason would have grabbed Darren’s shirt, had he been able to use his hands, but instead, he had to settle for the most threatening tone he could manage. Although it was unlikely that Jason could fight in anything beyond Mortal Kombat, the voice was strong and Darren responded, shrinking.

“We still have to go to the doctor’s office, though,” he whispered.

Jason gave an angry exhale, though he knew the logic was sound. They needed medical supplies, for themselves if not others. “Fine,” he said, spinning away and not giving Darren another glance. His knee protested the movement, but he didn’t particularly care,

Luckily, the entrance to the doctor’s office across the street had already been kicked in. They moved up the rotting stairs carefully, and although Jason was the first to open the door, Darren was the first to gasp. The familiar head of the town doctor was impaled upon the arm of a coat rack, his grey hair streaked red as darkness twisted down the decoratively carved pole. Darren turned away with a quiet sound of fear, but Jason just stared at the still-open eyes, as blue in death as they’d been in life. If it hadn’t been for the thin lines of blood tracing from the inner edges of his eyes and the thicker trails from each nostril, he might have expected the doctor to smile, offer some consoling words, maybe pass off a lollipop like he did over a decade before.

“What did this?” he asked, voice blank, turning to Darren as if Darren had any answers aside from how long a person could sniffle before they suffocated in their own mucus. The other boy shook his head and for a long time there was silence, the type of silence that wants to be broken.

When it was, it wasn’t by either of them.

A quiet rustling came from somewhere deeper in the office, the sound of a drawer opening and closing. Jason held up a bloody hand and stepped toward the hallway, where multiple trails of red footprints preceded his own on the cracked linoleum floor. Nothing but half-open doorways, but the sound continued, louder, then a metallic slamming. Both of them tried not to flinch. Again, Jason nearly succeeded.

Jason saw nothing to use as a weapon, not that either could have effectively wielded one. Darren’s hand still hadn’t left his upper arm, and Jason doubted he could grip anything himself. Still, he moved against a wall and proceeded quietly.

It worked in most action movies, even if most action movies involved guns.

Before either could reach a doorway, though, one swung open and a kid no older than ten stumbled out, arms full of boxes and bags. When he saw the other two his eyes widened and he spun around, dropping everything in the process, and dashed off in the other direction. Darren followed immediately, almost keeping pace, and Jason started as well but soon left Darren to take care of it. He seemed good at that stuff. Instead, Jason crouched to see what the kid had been stealing.

Several large boxes of gauze, he found, along with smaller boxes labeled with the names of chemicals Jason didn’t recognize. It only took him a second to see the paper, edge stained with a thumbprint of blood and then significantly more blood when Jason picked it up. The handwriting was feminine and read like a grocery list of pharmaceuticals. Glancing back to the pile, Jason saw that most of the items matched.

“Hey, Darren,” he called.

No immediate reply, and then a second later, a quiet “Yeah?”

“Come check this out. Bring the kid.”

The two returned, the boy following behind Darren as if Darren would make any kind of shield. It wasn’t until they were feet away that the kid his name.

“Jason?”

It took Jason a second to place it, but the face was definitely familiar. Unruly red hair, an uneven mess of freckles that, if Jason had never seen before today, he would have mistaken for spattered blood. His confusion must have been visible, because the boy spoke again.

“You’re Carolyn’s brother,”

Right. That. He only distantly remembered the birthday party; that was the weekend Final Fantasy IV had been ported to the DS.

“I’m Chris, remember?”

Jason didn’t care about the name, but he nodded. “Who sent you to get all of this?”

“The woman from the empty store,” the boy said.

“What woman? What happened? Tell me everything you know.”

The kid fell silent and pulled back further behind Darren. A few lines in a smear of red on his cheek showed that he’d cried once, probably hours before, but now his eyes held no evidence of anything beyond anxiety about the questioning.

“I don’t know her name. There’s a bunch of people there, but they’re mostly too hurt to go get supplies. She’s in charge and she told me to come here because I was the least hurt.”

Jason looked him over, but when he saw no injury, Chris pulled up his sleeve to show stained white fabric tied a few inches below his elbow. “It’s just glass or something,” he said. “I have a few more like that one but most people…” His voice trailed off, much the way Darren’s had when first describing what he’d seen. Jason expected more silence, but after swallowing, Chris continued. “Their arms or legs are missing, or their bones are sticking out, or they’re not talking right and sometimes there’s a lot of blood from their nose or ears.”

“You’re what, seven? And they sent you to do this?” The sharpness in his own voice surprised Jason, and again Chris slid behind Darren. This time he grabbed Darren’s arm for protection, but it was immediately released after Darren gave a pained hiss.

“There wasn’t anyone else.”

“That’s no damn excuse. There had to be someone with just a broken arm or shoulder that could have used a bag. There must have been a few of them. Or at least someone to go along.”

“Jason,” Darren said quietly.

“What?” Jason snapped.

“It’s fine. We just startled him. That’s all.”

“It’s not fine. He saw all of that shit coming over here, completely alone. How the hell is that okay?”

This time, Chris spoke up. “It’s…I was okay.”

“He’s hiding behind you.”

“Because you’re yelling.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“Jason.”

Jason took a long, slow breath and closed his eyes. If he’d been able to use his fingers properly, he would have shoved them through his messy hair. When he exhaled it was slowly, and when he opened his eyes he focused on the floor between himself and Darren.

“Let’s just get as much as we can carry and go,” Jason said. Most of the calm authority had returned to his voice, and Chris emerged from behind Darren and moved toward the scattered supplies.

"There's a list," he said, and Jason passed it over.

“Can you read it?” Jason asked. This time, his voice was measured, so deliberately calm that it sounded like bad voice acting.

"No,” Chris said after a pause. “I was just supposed to match up the letters. She drew a picture on the back.”

Jason, whose experience with emergency first aid had been limited to white boxes that increased health bars, didn't know half of the words either. "Empty the trash cans in every room and turn the bags inside out," he said, and Chris ran off to do so. For a second, Darren watched Jason with an expression that was neither cool nor warm, and though he refused eye contact, Jason seemed quite annoyed by the blank floor. “What was that?” he finally asked. Jason gave no answer.

By the time the three made it down the front stairs of the office and into the dimming afternoon, Chris seemed to have forgotten all of his earlier fear of the two, and stuck close to both of them. He didn’t talk much, but one bag he held swung at his side, and another dangled over his shoulder. Jason managed a sizeable but light box of gauze under his arm and a smaller bag, this one filled with more sensitive contents: labeled glass vials, mostly clear and arranged in plastic trays, and a half-dozen boxes of syringes that he hadn’t bothered to open. He still hadn’t bothered to ask Darren what was wrong with his arm, but since that there was no blood and he seemed otherwise fine, it couldn’t be anything life-threatening. An awkward glance expressed that he couldn’t carry anything, but between Jason and Chris, the list’s requirements had been satisfied.

The map some anonymous woman had provided for Chris was simple but workable. The clinic had been set up in the empty store at the end of Main Street, across from the burned out husk of the bar beside his own store. Jason noted which stores were labeled and which were not: his own had a picture of a VHS tape behind it, where, past Weigal street, a western-style sheriff’s badge marked the local police office. Bohr street was a wide intersection, and the mapmaker’s arrow continued down to a store surrounded by pictures of food, and zig-zag meant to represent the stairwell. To make the map complete, she’d drawn the next block, this one including a picture of a toy for Lil’ Tyke’s, and a dark X was meant to warn Chris that he’d progressed too far.

Why had she marked the movie store, of all the others she’d ignored? Was it the simple communicability of the cassette symbol, or was the store supposed to mean something in the map of Chris’s mind? Jason never paid much attention to customers, unless they made trouble for him. He brought his handheld game system everywhere for a reason.

“This way,” he said. After a block, though, Darren stopped and Jason turned, Chris coming to a halt between them.

“We’re going to need a flashlight soon,” he said, indicating his own store with a nod of his head. “Maybe they will, too.”

Chris gave a small nod. “It’s a little dark in there,” he said.

“Let’s grab what we can carry,” Darren continued. “The batteries too.”

Jason looked over their group, wondering where else things could be held. Some of his fingers were broken but he should be able to use his wrist to carry a bag, and there should be room in the box of gauze for a few packages of batteries.

“I can carry more,” Chris said, answering the unspoken question. “My bag’s pretty light.”

Neither of Chris’s bags seemed light, but they were running out of options. Like Darren said, it was nearing nightfall; they couldn’t have more than an hour. Inside the store, it was already nearly black.

They moved in, using what little light the window provided, and Chris followed Darren’s instructions in choosing products. “We can come back tomorrow,” Darren said. “Just take what we’ll need for the night.”

Jason leaned against the doorframe, frowning. The pain in his hands was tolerable now, but because both were almost equally injured, he had no way to straighten the few bent fingers or use gauze to keep from ripping open the freshly scabbed fingerprints, and as silly as it sounded to lose any relevant amount of blood from cuts on one’s fingers, he was also self-aware enough to recognize the dizziness. He couldn’t risk becoming weaker, not now, but the feeling of uselessness rested hotly in the back of his head, causing his neck and shoulders to tense. Darren couldn’t help—whatever it was, Jason assumed it was bad—and a seven year old shouldn’t have to see these kinds of things. Again, he thought of Caroyln, the way she screamed at movies as tame as Jurassic Park. At the time he’d found it annoying, but now, in a nearly-dark store with aisles that may very well hide mutilated corpses, he regretted not changing the channel.

A light appeared a few feet away, a bright circle that caused Jason to blink a few times before it vanished. “They’re good,” Darren said, and the two returned with another bagful. Jason half-dropped, half-lowered the box of gauze, and Chris shoved plastic blister-packs of batteries between the sterile packages.

“Can you hold one more?” Darren asked, and Jason nodded, offering his wrist. Chris flinched at the blood but slid the bag over his hand, then helped him pick up the box and once again, they were off.

This time, nothing interrupted them. Jason stepped over corpses then turned around to see Darren more politely walking around them. He remembered an hour earlier, waiting for the young clerk to stop crying on the stoop of some anonymous storefront. Now Darren’s determination nearly hid any other emotion, though Jason noticed how he tried to stare ahead whenever possible.

In retrospect, he wasn’t sure if he liked the change.

“Keep him close by,” Jason called back, and Darren nodded. Chris’s expression was blank.

They heard the voices a few yards away, though the voices were closer to loud moans and incomprehensible pleas than actual words, and when Chris opened the door, the smell of blood hit all of them full-force with no wind to dispel it. A woman Jason felt that he recognized glanced up, but she didn’t seem to have time to smile. Her expression was harried and her hair, once in a tight ponytail beneath a starched nurses cap, was beginning to fall around her face.

At first, Jason didn’t think he or Darren had been noticed, but after the woman finished attending to her patient (a man, half-conscious and moaning, part of his face covered with a black shift) she stood up and moved over swiftly, navigating the bodies with the confidence of a captain who’d navigated dangerous waters hundreds of times before. “Great,” she said, taking the bags from Chris and then Jason before placing them on a table, one of the few pieces of furniture left in the abandoned store. “Two more?”

The question wasn’t directed at Chris but at Jason and Darren. Though the answer seemed obvious, Darren nodded. “Are you two injured?” The young woman turned her attention back to the boxes, pulling out the flashlights and batteries with a deep sigh of relief.

“Not badly,” Jason answered, then added, “I’m not,” with a glance to Darren, who had to give his own reply. Darren shook his head slightly, but Chris interrupted. “His arm’s hurt,” the boy said, then, looking at Jason, “and his fingers are all weird.”

The room was filled with about two dozen bodies, divided into a quick triage. The worst, as Chris has said, were missing body parts and bleeding profusely: entire arms and legs, exposed bone, some with parts of skin burned into blistering red or, in a few places, charred black. Most were unconscious or, possibly, dead.

“Can you drive?” the woman demanded, looking at Jason. He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.

“I can’t really-“

“Your fingers. Right.” Every aspect of the woman’s voice was rushed, and for a moment, she seemed so harried and exhausted that Jason forgot to be angry with her. “Sit down,” she ordered, moving a box of gauze to the floor and rooting through others for supplies. She whispered a few curses but apparently, most of what she needed she found. “You need to drive for help,” she said, grabbing his wrist, and Jason reflexively pulled back before permitting the grip.

“Drive where? I’ve never left Doyle-”

“Anywhere. The closest town or city. Find someone and tell them we need help—ambulances, helicopters, whatever they’ve got. Fast.” With impressive efficiency she taped a square of gauze around the finger that had first terrified him, severed at the first joint, though he now realized that seeing his own bone caused little emotional reaction. When she next straightened a bent finger, though, he sucked in his breath and looked away from both her and the other two, grimacing. He remained that way until she released his hand, a couple fingers taped together against a flat wooden stick and another just wrapped in white.

“You sent Chris out for supplies,” he said as she grabbed his other hand. This time he just gritted his teeth, knowing what level of pain to expect.

“He was the only one in any condition to carry things.”

“Alone. You could have sent someone with him. It’s like a damn battle zone out th-“ Jason’s voice cut off as he gasped, but after a second of recovery, he continued. “He’s seven.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but we have a shortage of people who can run around town right now.”

“He’s seven,” Jason repeated firmly, and this time he felt her fingers press harder than usual against his own as they forced the joint into place. White sparks swirled for a second, but with effort, he closed his eyes and dispelled them. Jason couldn’t tell whether she was angry at him or herself. “You can’t order a seven year old around like they’re some kind of soldier. Do you have any goddamn clue what—“

“You’re done,” she said, waving him up and toward the door. “Go to Hal’s Cars on fourth and grab a key from behind the counter. If the place is burned down, check pockets until you find something.”

Jason stood up, swallowing the rest of his words. As angry as he was, nothing could change the decision she’d made, and the longer these people went without clinical treatment, the greater the risk of death. Darren and Chris followed him to the door, and the woman’s voice cracked like a whip over the bodies. “You two. Stay here. You’re hurt,” she indicated Darren before switching to Chris with a swipe of her wrist, “and we might need you again.”

“I’m going with him,” Darren said.

“No. If it’s not bad, you can help here.”

“I can’t help here. I’ll just take up space.”

This time, Jason spoke in the calm but firm tone that Darren had used in the doctor’s office. “Darren. Listen to her.”

“No,” Darren snapped. The sharpness of his voice was unexpected, and even Jason took a step back. “If you’re going, I’m going. That’s it.”

“What about Chris? He’s staying here alone?” The dense mass of bodies could hardly be considered alone, but the two of them seemed the only ones concerned about his well-being rather than usefulness.

“He can come with us.”

“Darren. Please.” It wasn’t often that Jason made a request, certainly one that wasn’t sarcastic.

Darren shook his head and Jason felt a tug, something on his sleeve. He didn’t need to look down to identify Chris. “I’m going too,” Chris told the woman, and she exhaled sharply through her nose. Her expression was tight but her movements still controlled as she dug through one of the bags Jason had carried.

“Fine. Get over here and take off your shirt.”

Darren walked over to the chair.

Why was it so important to stick together? In a video game party, you could switch out members as necessary, and everything was built on efficiency. This was hardly an efficient team: a video game clerk who left his house so rarely he barely knew they town beyond the route to work, the meek cashier from an electronics store who, until now, backed down at the first hint of an argument, and a seven year old kid who’d probably have nightmares for the rest of his life. No healer, no magic caster, no one with any physical fortitude. Not even Carolyn would have built a party like that.

Frowning, Chris’s fingers still tight around the sleeve of his sweatshirt, Jason wondered if he would have made the same choice as Darren.

“I don’t think…” Darren started, the hesitation returning to his voice, but the nurse wasn’t interested in any protest he had to offer and grabbed the surgical scissors to cut away his sleeve.

Jason squatted next to Chris, but when his balance wavered, he dropped to his knees, facing the doorway and away from the nurse. As he’d hoped, Chris changed positions to sit beside him, legs crossed more neatly. “You’re in first grade, right?” he asked. Chris nodded. The paleness of his skin caused his freckles to stand out even more than usual. “Whose class are you in? Do you like it?”

“What’s happening?”

Jason exhaled. He looked down at his hands, now taped, gauze mostly white. “We’re trying to fix whatever went wrong,” he said.

“So what went wrong, then?”

“No one knows.”

“Really? Or are you lying to me because I’m a kid?”

Jason shook his head slowly. “No one knows,” he repeated. From behind them, Darren made the kind of muffled, sharply pained sound that a person makes when trying to repress it by covering their mouth with their hand. “Chris,” Jason said immediately, grasping for the boy’s attention. “What’s the last thing you remember? Where did you wake up?”

“I was in the toy store. Then lying in the street. What’s wrong with Darren?”

“Whatever happened made us more fragile for a while,” Jason explained, though he wasn’t completely sure. “My fingers are this way just from scratching a door.”

Chris nodded. “What happened to my parents?”

At that question, he froze. A long second passed, and it wasn’t until Darren made another sound that Jason spoke. “Where were your parents?”

“We were in the toy store.”

This, Jason thought, was where Darren would lie. ‘Everything will be okay,’ he’d say, or ‘don’t worry about it.’ Maybe even ‘I’m sure they’re fine.’ Jason didn’t have an answer, though, so he shook his head and looked to the floor, then to the ceiling, then to the open door. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

“You think they’re dead.”

A pause, a very long pause, and Jason nodded. There was no response from Chris. Jason wanted a response. For reasons he didn’t understand, the kid’s lack of response made his throat feel tight.

“What about your parents?” Chris asked.

Jason felt the boy’s eyes on him and looked over. “They’re probably dead too,” he said without much emotion.

“What about your sister?”

“I don’t want to talk about her.” Jason’s answer was immediate, and although he didn’t think it had sounded loud, Chris pulled back slightly with the expression he’d used when hiding behind Darren in the doctor’s office. “I’m sorry,” he said, as quietly and safely as he could manage, and then, for a long time, there was silence between them. Even the worst of Darren’s badly-hidden cries had vanished into periodic sharp inhales, and the only thing Jason could really hear were the moans and whimpers of those around them, dead and half-dead, making up their minds. It was like a soundtrack, he thought, like something played in some war movie, but here, there wasn’t an enemy.

“Hey,” Darren said, and Jason’s thoughts ended with an abruptness that was both jarring and relieving.

“Hey,” Jason said, climbing to his feet, and Chris rose beside him. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah. I guess I hit my shoulder on something,” he said, and a silent look between them made Jason even more uneasy than he’d been before. His own injuries could have been brainwashing or some kind of hypnosis…even an invisible gas. He’d tried to avoid directly looking at the bodies on the street, but the damage seemed like some kind of bomb, like something from a distant place. An accident. No one would do anything like that to Doyleton. “Or two things,” Darren added. “Doesn’t really matter right now.”

Jason pressed his lips together thoughtfully. For the first time he truly looked at the other patients, at their faces and bodies, the numerous impact injuries. Too many people to be thrown against things. Too few things to be thrown against.

“You were in the park, right?” Jason asked. Chris wouldn’t understand the true meaning, so he spoke at a normal volume to keep the conversation less suspicious.

“Magus Park, by the pond.”

With next to nothing to hit. An instant of silence as Jason tried to fit things
together, and he knew Darren was working as well. It was Chris’s voice that interrupted them.

“You’re both okay now though, right? Does it hurt?” He looked from one to the other, clearly expecting an answer from each.

Jason just smirked, having already proved through discussion that he was okay, and when Chris’s attention turned to Darren, Darren gave a genuine smile. “Sure,” he said, ruffling Chris’s hair now that a makeshift sling gave him a free hand, and Chris just scowled and pulled away before smiling back.

“Hurry up,” came a sharp voice, and Jason looked back to see the disheveled nurse already attending to another patient, this one’s shirt soaked with blood.

“Let’s go,” he said, proceeding through the open doorway, the two others only a step behind.

Hal’s Used Cars hadn’t changed much in the twenty-three years of Jason’s existence, and neither had the selection of cars. They cycled, of course, but remained a consistent decade behind, probably just a little older than Darren. The lot itself seemed somewhat intact, and when Chris opened the door to the dealership building, it seemed almost untouched by whatever had taken place. So selective, from place to place. Jason pressed his lips together. How far had the damage extended?

The walls were blank, but after Darren opened a few drawers, a wide one pulled out to reveal a panel of keys. “How do we…” he started, but Jason was already on it. “That one,” he said, pointing to an electronic keychain that had to belong to a newer model.

It took ten minutes of walking around the lot pressing the button until a car flashed its headlights to unlock, and once it did, Jason saw that it wasn’t a car at all. “Who the hell drives a pickup truck?” he asked rhetorically, but after Darren looked into the backseat, he provided an answer.

“Someone who likes fishing, I guess.”

It was irrelevant. Jason looked over the two for a moment, mentally arranging them, and Darren did likewise in reverse. Chris looked up, but it was unlikely that he was considering the same thing. “Would it be better to have your arm against the door?” Jason finally asked.

“Are you a good driver?”

Jason snorted and Darren reached for the passenger side handle. “Chris, over here,” Jason called, and Chris opened the driver’s side before climbing in, taking a place in the middle. The backseat, which might have once served as a small passenger seat, was now home to a half-dozen rods, a couple tackle boxes, a thick net, and a sign attached to the rear window that read “I’d rather be fishing.”

Unable to manage the precise movements, Jason passed the keys to Chris, who found the ignition and turned it. “Do you want me to do this too?” Chris asked, indicating the black gear knob, but Jason shook his head and Darren pulled his arm around Chris in something that was a protective gesture both in keeping the kid warm and keeping him away from the shifting knob. Jason backed the car out of its space between two other oversized vehicles, then turned towards the gate of the lot’s rusted metal fence.

The problem was immediately apparent. “Jason,” Darren said softly, and Jason nodded, understanding. He turned off the headlights, and leaving Doyleton bathed in the last bit of daylight. “What’s wrong?” Chris asked.

There was a difference between stepping over dead bodies and driving across them, both Jason and Darren understood. Even Jason felt uneasy at the thought, and there was no way Chris could be subjected to it. “We have to take a shortcut,” Jason said.

“What kind of shortcut?”

“It’s secret,” Darren explained. “But it’s a big secret. And it’s a little bumpy, but it’ll get us out of the town faster, especially with other cars around. Can you keep a secret?”

The sky was dimming, moonless. This area of town was devoid of bodies…devoid of anything, really. In the light of the gauges Darren gave Jason a concerned glance, and Jason nodded, although his expression did not broadcast certainty. He only used the roads of Doyleton to get to work and home, and most of the time, he simply rode with his parents. He didn’t know if he could do it in darkness.

“Yeah, I can keep a secret,” Chris said.

“Promise?” asked Darren.

“Promise.”

“Okay. So, never tell anyone else about this secret shortcut,” he continued in a tone that carried the utmost confidentiality.

“But everyone else is dead,” Chris said. Jason bit his lip and closed his eyes, waiting for Darren to continue. Darren’s breathing was even, so even that it clearly took conscious effort. The car’s cabin was quiet except for the sound of the running engine, and then, the gear shifting back into drive

Without electricity night fell quickly, and as agreed, Jason did not turn on the headlights. The car moved slowly down the deserted road and Jason narrowed his eyes, trying to see what little he could make out.

“Why are the-“ Chris started, but Darren whispered, “Because if anyone sees the lights, they might figure out the secret shortcut.”

He turned onto what should have been Weigal, and the car made its first quiet thump. “I want to see,” said Chris, but again, Darren took damage control.

“You said you could keep a secret,” he reminded. “It’s a little bumpier this way, but much shorter.”

A second bump, accompanied by a quiet crunch, and Jason reached for the radio dial. Chris understood and leaned forward, straining against the safety of Darren’s good arm, to find a suitable channel. Static everywhere. He turned off, but Jason reached for it again. “Leave it on in case we get near another town,” he said.

Now, only the thuds and bouncing not absorbed by the car’s shocks served as evidence to the two who understood what they meant. Down Weigal. Easy. Weigal, then right onto Ames. A heavier thump, probably obese, and Jason swallowed hard. He didn’t have to look over to imagine Darren’s face, eyes closed, most likely holding Chris a little more tightly than necessary. The sound of static was comforting, something familiar. Down Weigal. Down Weigal. Across Main, it was hard to tell what was body and what was road, and that continued for what felt like a block, judging by the frequency of thumps. Jason turned the wheel, and tire met something solid.

“What’s that?” Chris asked.

Jason threw the car into reverse. “Wrong turn. It’s a hard shortcut in the dark.” Darren looked worried, but Jason clenched his jaw and continued until, half a block later, he tried the same thing again.

“Jason, maybe I should—“

“I’ve got it!” Jason snapped. This time, when he reversed, they hit a thump and for an instant, he was sure he’d vomit. Since when had he become the weak one?

On the third and final turn, the road continued into road, and there were two audible sighs of relief. Ames. Finally. Ames.

Jason turned on the parking lights, and when nothing suspicious appeared, he turned on the headlights. Black road, like he was used to, trees and sky. He took a sudden left turn less than a block in, but didn’t glance over to read Darren’s expression. Nearly a half-mile passed before either spoke.

“Jason, isn’t this…”

“Huh?”

“This isn’t the way out.”

Jason looked genuinely confused. In the headlights, dark leaves fluttered from a few half-bare trees in what he assumed was a sudden breeze. “But I thought it—“

“This is the way the school bus goes,” Chris said helpfully.

Static. For at least ten seconds, static. Finally, Jason turned off the radio with a movement forceful enough to make him wince.

“Maybe we took the wrong shortcut,” Chris said.

Darren was quiet. Jason was aware that he was being watched, but didn’t have a ready reaction. He kept his eyes on the road and the surrounding houses, many of which were crumbling. How far did it go?

“We need to get help,” Darren reminded.

“We will. I took a wrong turn. We’ll turn around up ahead and it’ll be fine, okay?”

“Bullshit.”

Jason flinched at the tone.

“Your house is up here, isn’t it? You want to find out about your parents? There’s a whole clinic full of—“

“My parents were in town,” Jason said. For once, he couldn’t match the sharpness of Darren’s tone.

“Then why the hell are we—“

“I’m not talking about this.”

They passed the last house of the first residential district, and crossed the bridge to the second one. Jason’s house was at the end of the third residential block, less than a fifteen minute drive.

For three minutes, everyone shut up. The road began again, potholed where previously it had run smoothly, and each crack in the asphalt was evidence of the city's violent decay forcing itself into the places where people should have been safe. There was one more section, though. Halfway through this zone, Darren spoke again. “People are dying, Jason. Dozens. Whatever this trip is about, it’s—“

“It doesn’t concern you. Forget about it. We’re almost there anyway, and then we’ll be back on Ames.” They started the bridge to the third section, less than five minutes away. The trip was taking as long as the damn argument.

Chris drew in his breath and Jason tensed in anticipation, knowing what was coming. “Are you looking for Carolyn?” Although the boy’s voice was not accusatory, it wasn’t entirely innocent either. Chris, Jason realized, didn’t know which side to take.

“Who’s Carolyn?” Darren asked.

“No one.”

“Jason.” This time, the name was a demand.

“She’s—“ Chris started, but Jason again cut in.

“Just shut up, alright? Everyone shut the hell up.” He slammed on the brakes and the truck squealed to a stop. Jason took a long breath, but it wasn’t enough for the mess of mixed emotions to either untangle or dissipate.

“Jason, keep driving,” Darren quietly.

“I didn’t tell you to come on this damn trip. You could have stayed at the clinic with everyone else, so don’t—“

“Keep driving.”

Jason yanked the gear knob back and accelerated as quickly as the engine of a used pickup truck would allow. “She’s my sister,” he said, shifting forward again to compensate for the speed. “And this won’t take more than five minutes, so—“

Beneath the loud grind of the engine, Jason heard what Darren must have heard seconds before: a creaking, the sounds of things smaller and then larger hitting the water. “Open your windows,” he said, quiet with an edge of anxiety to his voice.

“What?” Darren asked.

“Open your windows. I saw it in a movie. Just…” Jason realized that Darren couldn’t lower his, so after turning the ancient knob of his own with a pained grunt, he reached to do the same to Darren’s. The angle made it impossible, so he ordered Chris to keep trying. He knew that he’d seen it in a movie. The windows had to be open or they’d never escape, or they’d suffocate at the bottom.

The bridge was sagging, metal and wood and stone breaking away, but the truck was more than half across it and in a few seconds, they'd be on solid ground. “Stay calm,” he said uselessly. None of them could remain calm. The edge of the decorative guard rail vanished into darkness, followed by a loud splash, and Jason threw the wheel sharply to the left, avoiding it. There was a sound, something like an explosion as the right tire blew, then the inertia of spinning, dozens of sounds, and a second later, weightlessness.

One of them screamed and Jason braced himself against the wheel with one hand then instinctively threw his arm across the other passengers, feeling a thump against his shoulder as Darren did the same thing.

He knew from the daily commute that the bridge couldn’t have been more than twenty five feet above the water at its highest point, and they’d been close to the end—so close that with enough speed or a different angle or a tire that hadn’t hit two curbs on the way to Ames street, they could have cleared the remaining space and landed on the gravel bank, but he didn’t think about that for longer than an instant.

There would be a collision with an abutment and an angled rebound, a full spin and brief skid over the water’s surface like a skipped stone before the truck came to a bobbing stop, but Jason would remember none of this. His boring life didn’t flash before his eyes, nor did he see any bright light beyond the headlights on the water.

What he did remember was a basement room, dim aside from the glow of a screen, smelling like dirty laundry and teenage boy. He remembered a light, blinding and unwelcome as a door creaked open despite the fact that he thought he’d locked it, then a small silhouette. He remembered hitting pause just in time, but he didn't remember what he was playing. Then a voice, small.

“Do you want to fly kites?" she asked.

Jason did not want to fly kites. He remembered his aversion to the idea, his aversion to leaving the basement, his aversion to leaving the game paused for more than a second too long.

“If you don't know how I can teach you,” she offered. He remembered her voice, soft and hopeful, but he also remembered thinking that she could fly a kite on her own, that all she wanted was to hold the string of a red and white diamond as the early spring wind tried to pull it away.

“Maybe later,” he’d said, or “not now,” with no intention of following through with it. The basement door closed softly and he hit pause again, resuming the game.

Why had he never flown a kite?

And then he remembered nothing. Icy water and screaming, some of it his own, and a tangle of bodies over seats and the headlights on water and sharp pain and then reason hit with an icy splash of water and he yelled something unintelligible, then yelled “everybody get out!”

Jason was against the the rear window, thrown during the spinning, and water poured over him as the truck sank rear-first. Darren was ahead of him, in the front passenger side where he’d begun, and somehow Chris had ended up in the driver’s seat, wide-eyed and screaming.

“Out!” Jason yelled again as he pushed himself up, then climbed into the front seat and pushed Chris away from the spilling water, toward what he knew would be the last air pocket. If they were separated, they could be lost. He grabbed Darren’s arm and Darren grabbed back, pulling himself upwards as the water continued to splash through the open window and there was a heavy thump as the truck hit the ground, knocking them both back. “Come on!” he yelled, pulling again, and again, Darren climbed forward, then abruptly stopped.

“I’m caught on something,” he said, and Jason pushed under as well, quickly finding the net that should have been in the backseat. The splints and tape around his fingers made movement difficult but Jason felt Darren’s hand too, and they both pulled until it tore into their fingers but wouldn’t tear into itself. The more he pulled the tighter it seemed to get, and Jason pushed up to breathe. The water was around his shoulders and Chris stood on the dashboard. “Take your shoes off!” Jason yelled when Darren’s head emerged, and Darren did but it didn’t help, the net’s grip was fast and getting faster and Jason pulled the tape from his fingers and that nothing either. Jason’s lungs burned and he suddenly realized that Darren’s hand was gone from beside his, no longer trying to untangle but instead wrapped fast around Jason’s forearm. Jason continued to pull but Darren kicked, panicked, and when a foot met his stomach it sent him up gasping for air. Inches left. Barely enough to breathe.

“Don’t go,” Darren begged, fingers digging deep into Jason’s wrist. Chris was still breathing, but coughing loudly and Jason said nothing, frozen, not registering the pain of nails on his arm and barely registering anything aside from Darren’s voice and the last inches of air. “I’ll die!” Darren said, screamed, voice shrill, the type of voice that memory never releases. Chris was kicking now, flailing, and Jason pulled him under and pressed his hand over the boy’s nose and mouth, preventing him from inhaling water, then pushed up but Darren’s hand didn’t loosen so he kicked again, then again, until he felt a blow land on Darren’s shoulder and the fingers slid off.

Immediately, Jason shoved Chris through the window and followed, swam up and up until the water ended and the air began. Jason gasped. Chris coughed and coughed, Jason treading water to hold him up. It took a long time to realize that Chris had stopped coughing and started sobbing instead.

Jason didn’t remember how he reached the shore. The surface of the water was black but glassy, reflecting stars like two universes, so smooth that it seemed it had already forgotten what it had done.

Nothing was real.

Chris tried to wrap his arms around Jason’s chest, desperate for warmth and comfort, but Jason only knew how to provide one. There was too much air, too much of it, pressing down with the weight of water, and though his body was perfectly still, Jason felt like he was drowning. Drowned.

He looked one arm, feeling only a vague edge of pain as, like Carolyn said, his body caught up with his soul. Mild swelling above and below his elbow, already hot. It must have happened at the first impact, when Chris’ body flew forward. He wondered if it had happened to Darren too. Jason’s other forearm was covered in blood, deep fingernail marks, enough to make his hands slick. Probably deep enough to scar.

“Are you okay?” Jason asked quietly. Chris just buried himself harder against Jason’s body.

They walked toward the road, away from the bridge. They walked and walked and the kid said something but Jason didn’t hear it right, and when he said it again, Jason turned.

“What about Darren?” he asked. Jason pushed his lips together. Everything will be okay, Darren would have said. Lied. It didn’t matter. Jason couldn’t think, couldn’t differentiate. With the hand of the arm that was sore but not bloody, he took Chris’s hand and continued walking.

Flag up, the red mailbox, waiting. One window shattered, two sets of footprints pressed into the mulch. A doormat that said welcome, and faded siding. On the second floor, two white window frames about to fall to the azaleas.

“She’s not here?” Chris asked, and Jason shook his head.

“She left with the babysitter,” he said, indicating the broken window. “They weren’t on the street, so they must have made it to town.” Jason considered the thumps on the road. He found it difficult to feel anything and Chris seemed to understand, tightening his grip around the palm of Jason’s hand, where it was least likely to hurt. Jason squeezed back, to prove that he was still at the other end. “I just needed to know,” he said quietly.

They walked to the detached garage and Jason used his other hand to find his own keychain, then struggled with the keys until Chris took them and experimented until selecting the right one, unlocking the driver’s side door. He then unlocked the passenger side and pushed the key into the ignition, turning it until the engine grumbled to life.

“I guess you don’t know the nearest town,” Jason asked. Chris shook his head. “Trenton. New York. Philadelphia. There’s a turnpike somewhere. I’ve never been on a turnpike.”

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Chris said, and Jason closed his eyes, resting his head on the steering wheel before shifting the car into reverse. When he left his driveway he turned the car away from the bridges, away from Doyleton.

Jason realized he’d forgotten to take Carolyn’s pink DS.

When the radio came on, Jason assumed it had been Chris’s doing; he’d been too intent on the drive, on himself. The voice felt familiar but it felt like the type of voice that everyone found familiar. Chris touched his sleeve, and after that, he listened. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the voice said. It wasn’t rehearsed and it was genuine, but something felt unreal, like it wasn’t meant to be understood. “We’ll have the main server up and running in a few minutes. We’re running a hard reset to solve the problem, but after that, we’ll return to keeping regular backups. Everything will be okay.”

Jason pulled over to the side of the road, and Chris looked at him with confusion. “What does that mean?” Chris asked, and Jason shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Everything will be okay.

“We can’t turn around,” Jason said. The bridge was gone, and he didn’t know where this road ended up. If this road ended up.

“So we should keep going, right?” Chris asked

“I guess we have to.” Still, Jason didn’t take his foot from the brake, and the headlights made the road in front of them seem barren, black foreverness. He didn’t want to pull back onto it, to watch a speedometer, to consider how much gas remained. He didn’t know what he wanted. This time, his body was moving faster than his soul.

“We can wait.”

“I know.”

Everything will be okay.

Oktoberfest '09: Everything Will be Okay (by Allie)

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