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Derailment
He's not sure what wakes him. It could be any number of things. It could be the light on his face, the air moving over him, the shift of cloth against skin where before it had just been the cool of the sheets and the heat of two bodies. It could be the hard ground under his back, which would also explain the aches in him as consciousness drifts closer. He's gone soft, he thinks sometimes, fallen out of the habit of sleeping well on the ground, lost in the embrace of Tom's big bed. But he still roughs it sometimes, so at first the fact that he's clearly outside doesn't sound any alarms.
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
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There are no bodies. The only sign that anything happened up here at all, when we step up out of the stairwell, are the bullet holes, the scattered furniture and the splatters of blood on the floor and walls.
I don't wanna know how many it was. Honestly, I don't really care. Not about them, but...
"What 'bout the others. There were kids up here."
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If they were still here, a few days from now.
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The hallways are thick with smoke and heat and the distant crackling sounds of fire, distant but not as distant as he'd like. The rear of the theater hadn't been far from the fire, and he'd been expecting it to catch, sooner or later.
"Here," he says, turning left abruptly, stepping through the crack and, forgetting himself momentarily, reaching back to help Tom and Neil through.
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I wanna hold on to him, feel that he's real like I got to do with Tom, but it doesn't look like that's gonna be in the cards just yet.
"Does she remember us?" I ask, and what I really mean is, does she remember me.
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"She knows that something's wrong, though. Different." He glanced at Neil as he looped his arm under his shoulders. "I'm sorry."
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More and more, despite what Tom says, he's beginning to believe that this may be all they have left, now. When he looks at Neil again, he sees the congealing blood smeared over his right hand and he feels like crying. He should be happy. Neil is safe, they're getting out, they're going to be together again. But happy is about the furthest thing from him.
He turns again, looks back. The warehouse is half collapsed, the flames dying down, but the back of the theater has indeed caught and smoke is billowing out of several of its windows. Another building is also beginning to smoke. Even from here the heat feels like a physical force on his skin.
"Jesus," he whispers.
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"Don't be," I mutter to Tom, looking away. There's nothing to be sorry for. Not for that, anyway.
Mike's barely even looking at me, and there's something different in his eyes when he does. It's like having my heart ripped out of my chest. Everything was supposed to be okay now. Why does it still feel so wrong?
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He had to believe that, even now.
"We're not home yet."