Chapter Text
It took about twenty minutes to finally leave the various rows of houses, each street a mirror copy of the next. You were keeping Jack up to speed on everything you were seeing, too—the civilian homes being replaced by restaurants, stores, and empty plots of land.
There was a minor urge to pull over at the sight of a familiar take-out place you frequented often, but just below the LED lights that, surprisingly, were still on, was a shattered pane of glass. That urge fizzled quickly, your eyes snapping back to the road. You just hoped whoever, or whatever, broke into that shop was no longer around.
There were more places you recognized, even in the dark. The small corner store, a Starbucks that just got a remodel a week ago, and even that one store you always wanted to enter but never had because they were never open.
Even though it was fun to point out the familiar buildings in your mind, you shared your attention to the road, which was much busier than the suburbs. Not in the way that the roads were being used, they were in the past, it's just that there were a bunch of cars lining the lanes in certain areas. You were a bit uneasy at the thought of having to ditch the car and travel on foot.
And, just your luck, it looked like that thought was about to make it to reality. You spotted the junction in the road just a minute crawl ahead. Though what was really concerning was the fact that the cars were totaled, a truck tipped over near a crosswalk, a van was T-boned by a smaller car, and at least two more vehicles had their fronts crushed into each other.
"Jack," you were slowly easing on the break now, looking right and left down both roads, "the road's blocked. Should we find a detour or...go on foot?" You did not want to go on foot.
In the back of your head, there was a whisper, it's quiet...too quiet, and you resisted the urge to bring it to the forefront of your mind.
In the corner of your eye, you could see Jack's knee bouncing. Yours would too if you weren't so focused on keeping the car at a steady pace, but that steady pace was gone now that you stopped and kept your foot on the brake. While Jack made a plan in silence, you returned your attention to the road around you.
Four ways, well, three if you counted the one you were on. The traffic lights that hung from the sturdy poles were blinking red, some of the only light that you could see, if you didn't count the Strobe that flickered down on your far right.
Yes, a Strobe, you made sure it was one by not staring at it, only keeping it in your peripheral vision. You didn't want a repeat of that burning feeling in your eyes. Surprisingly, you weren't freaking out like you usually would at the sight of those things. Maybe you were becoming desensitized to it? Or maybe you weren't as bothered because it was further away, but even so, you made sure to tell Jack.
"Is it not possible to drive around the blockage?" Jack said, either completely brushing aside the fact of the Strobe being nearby, or just silently storing this knowledge away.
You turned your attention back to the road, looking to the left and the right of the crash site.
"Well... I mean, yes...but..." You trailed off, brows furrowing. It would make noise, and you hadn't really thought of a plan like that because your morals surrounding driving still remained intact, unaffected by the scenario happening in the world.
To hell with the laws in this economy, right? There was nothing stopping you now from jumping the curb and driving around this mess.
Though it would make a lot of noise, and there was a high possibility that Strobe would hear the noise.
Could the Strobes hear? They could definitely see things, so the possibility of being able to hear you wasn't completely off the table.
"Alright, I... I guess I can try." You gave in to Jack's suggestion, pulling the gear in reverse. You weren't able to see much out of the review mirror and didn't trust yourself driving backwards while looking over your shoulder, so you instead relied on your memory of the empty road.
The instinctive urge to flick on the headlights to see where the curb lined the road was strong, but you resisted, thank god. You switched the gear back to drive and spun the wheel.
"Hold onto something," you warned, pressing on the gas a bit harder than in the past twenty minutes of driving. You could hear the muffled roar of the engine, which wasn't exactly a roar either, just the rise of its humming.
The vehicle jostled, swaying your body in the car seat for a moment as you drove over the curb and onto the sidewalk, then onto a small section of a parking lot. Your heart leaped and jumped with the car, feeling adrenaline pumping in your system from the measly act of defiance against roadway laws. And yet, nobody saw a thing. Not even Jack.
You leaned close to the front windshield, squeezing the wheel tightly as you tracked the area in front of you while examining the roadway to your left. The red, flickering light from the traffic light didn't help the atmosphere, and you could only hope that the Strobe, which nearly looked and felt much closer than before, didn't notice a thing.
The car jumped up slightly as the front wheels hit the next curb that separated you and the open road of the right section that would lead down to the very thing you were trying to avoid. You kept your attention forward though, tapping the gas so you could ride over it again with the back wheels, then up the slope of the section of parking lot on the other side, thankfully not over another small jump.
You were getting the hang of this.
Twisting the wheel left, you curved the car so it faced toward the road you needed to drive on. Only the back-end of the red light helped illuminate one end of a car that didn't block your path, but did before. Again, you leaned forward, peering through the tinted glass, trying to make out the shape of cars or anything else on the road.
THUNK.
Something rough hit the back, right corner of the car, the sound rattling the car but not moving it. It made your blood run cold for a moment, but you tried to rationalize it.
This car could have issues, or maybe I kicked up a rock?
You heard your name, just barely, spoken in a hushed voice by Jack, "there's footsteps outside-"
THU-THUNK!
Noise again, louder, as a figure near the back, right passenger window dragged itself across the glass. You froze, wide-eyed, nearly easing your foot on the brake in your stunned state, but you managed to keep firm even if your heart was doing backflips in your stomach. You were about to tell Jack what was going on exactly until the figure disappeared from the back window, out of sight.
"Someone's..." You trailed off, unsure of where this someone had gone. It was like a spider you were focused on killing vanished from sight, but you knew it was alive, just somewhere you couldn't see, which made the situation so much worse.
You knew Jack knew too, because he was alert, yet his head did not turn or move, just stared straight ahead. Knowing something you didn't, you also turned your attention forward, nearly shrieking at the sight of the figure standing directly in front of the car.
"They're in front of us, they-" Your eyes flicked to the review mirror, almost like an instinct. It was the flash of light that grabbed your attention, and you couldn't help but swallow the lump that had gathered in your throat.
The Strobe.
Whether it had heard the sounds of the figure throwing themselves against the car, or the sound of you driving over the curb, it didn't matter, because it was here.
"Jack, the... A Strobe is behind us," you whispered, eyes darting away from the mirror, afraid that if you looked into it long enough, the heat from before would return, "but the person, they're in front of us."
Your hands gripped the steering wheel impossibly tighter.
On one hand, you wanted to floor it, get away from the thing that could cause you the most harm right now. It caused you literal pain to try and remember that feeling you had gotten when you first looked at the Strobe for too long, that searing pain that would cause you to see nothing, feel nothing, until you were nothing. But, in doing so, you'd hit the person in front of you who stood practically seven feet away from the hood of the car.
Or you could open a door, allow this person inside. Did they need help? Maybe they hit the side of the car because they had seen you drive, but they weren't capable of speaking? And you kept branching that thought more and more, which just made the original thought more flimsy and impossible.
Wasn't this person's actions just like Samuel's?
"Hit the gas," Jack instructed finally, head snapping to you, "do it!"
You did so without hesitation.
The car jerked forward, the engine roaring in your ears louder than ever before. You let out a small, strangled gasp at the force of something hitting the front of the car, sliding down and under the front of it, then the bump of the tires hitting the section of cement that parted the lot from the roadway, as well as something else you couldn't describe.
Your whole body felt stiff, finding it impossible to ease your foot on the gas as you drove down the road. It was still hard to see, but there were no cars on the road.
The light that you were so afraid of was no longer in the review mirror, and it didn't look like it was anywhere around you now, only the cold darkness.
And for what felt like forever, you just drove without the agonizing fear of being spotted by a Strobe. Maybe you should've slowed down because you were long gone from the point of danger, but the adrenaline was just now coming down, and your heart was slowing.
Finally, finally, you eased up on the gas, your foot coming off of it entirely.
You didn't remember what the buildings closest to you were, and there was no light to help either. The car was rolling slowly along the road now, and only when you eased on the brakes did it stop, allowing you to put it in park.
The car was darker than it had ever been before. You leaned back slowly in the driver's seat, the leather seat squealing slightly at the shift, your sigh joining the noise in the empty air.
"...I'm a murderer," you uttered, these words not thought through, but part of you knew it.
You had killed a person.
The scene, the sounds, and the dim visuals burned your mind, replaying the same instance over and over in your head. The dark figure, blending with the shadow of the road, standing and practically launching themselves onto the hood of the car just as you hit the gas to get away from the Strobe, then, their body slipped easily underneath the front, the bump after the curb was their body being crushed under the wheels of the car.
Jack froze next to you. He let the silence swallow the inside of the car for a moment longer before you finally heard something from him.
"You're not a murderer."
His voice, in the short time you've known him, never sounded this firm. Sure, he was stiff to talk to when you first met him, and his commands while the two of you were scouting ahead were, well, commanding.
You turned your head slightly, blinking slowly at him.
"I...but I killed..." You couldn't bring yourself to mention the truth.
It wasn't like you did it on purpose, right? You didn't want to kill a person. They were in front of you, too, but...
"A-at the very least...it's manslaughter. They were-it was just-"
"It wasn't a person," Jack cut you off quickly, voice just as firm as before, just as resolved.
Wasn't a person? Sure, it was dark, but it wasn't hard to make out the head, the torso, and the general shape of a body. Unless you were mistaken. Unless you didn't see it right.
But Jack couldn't see, how could he know?
It was a person.
Jack spoke your name, as if he was capable of hearing your thoughts, "it wasn't a person," could non-human cannibals also have some supernatural, mind-reading power?
You knew it though, you knew it was. The unmistakable likeness of their movement, similar to Samuel's, not in their right mind, but still human, regardless.
"An animal, a beast," his voice sounded so sure, so, so sure, "but not a person."
You turned your head back forward, furrowing your brows.
It wasn't a person. You thought once, then again, and again, and again, forcing yourself to accept the fabricated reality Jack was trying to help you see. It wasn't a person; it was an animal attracted to the noise of the car.
Your silence was an uncertain acceptance of sorts to Jack. Even though he was quiet now, you were certain if you made another, "but..." comment, he'd go right to denying it once again.
Though even with the memory now fuzzy and warped, the heaviness that came after felt exhausting. You leaned forward again, eyes peering hard at the dark sky, trying to make out the large buildings of the city in the distance. It was hard, since the sky was a blanket of black; there were no stars like you wished, because stars could at least be blocked out by those very same buildings.
You didn't need stars to see the red light that came from the tip of a tower on top of one of the large, industrial buildings within the city though. Despite the building itself losing power, the slim, metal rod at least carried enough self-sustaining power to light itself up.
Your thoughts lingered one more time to the beast, then to the task at hand, "we're almost there," you murmured to Jack, staring blankly forward, "ten, fifteen more minutes."
You didn't want to drive right now. You wanted to go back home and throw yourself on your bed, or even the neighbor's bed, and sleep. Sleep sounded so good right now, and with the fake night sky paired with the relaxing hum of the car, it was hard not to close your eyes then and there.
How long ago did you leave? What time was it? You could check your phone, but it was in your bag. And your bag was in the back seat by courtesy of Jack.
So, you drove slowly just like before, the monotonous action eating away at your patience like flies to rot.