[That he won't. It's hard work, and messy too. All three end up soaking their pants as they work to haul the older boy loose, shoes muddied and palms slick with gritty canal water. As a thing both dead and waterlogged Yves gives them no quarter. They're sweating and panting by the time they haul him halfway, there's a hum of an engine in the distance.
The three decide that's close enough, and to depart for the day. Do they take their weapons with them? Maybe, maybe not. The mood is soured for certain.
Yves is found by a passing motorist not an hour after they leave him, and by 9pm the Derry grapevine all knows that another body has been found. It's not until two days later that the name is released, but that's a while aways yet.
All three of you make it home.
((Please respond to your respective top level below.))]
[Del, you arrive at your foster house. It's a squat and mean looking thing, even if it's two stories. Something about how the roof is built flatter than any other sloping peak on the block speaks to the stiff nature of the people taking care of you. It's as if they started taking on the personality of each other, house and household looping in one compact, narrow eyed inflexibility. Our way or the highway, and you know damn well you can't make it out there, don't you?
Rather that going through the front door and catching hell for making a mess, you've gathered small bits of gravel on your way. You slip around back, and pit the stones at the window of your shared bedroom until Bax pokes his head out. He helps shepherd you inside and fetches you a change of clothes and tucks your old ones into the laundry downstairs. Pray they don't hear the machine start, but they do have the Ed Sullivan show on top volume.
You wait, alone, in the second story bathroom, clad in boxers and an undershirt and wiping yourself clean with a towel. And suddenly there's a rustling sound. Something near the sink.]
[ god, he is so fucking relieved to see bax safe, but he can't let it show too much or else he'll have to explain exactly why he was so worried in the first place and there's no way in hell he can do that. his brother's the last person in the world he can get involved in this.
so he's playing it cool as much as he can, trying to keep the image of yves's mutilated face and the wet and heavy feeling of his body out of his mind until he's finally alone in that bathroom and he can stand over the open toilet and throw up a little bit in privacy. he's still shaky and struggling to steady his breath again as he gets back to cleaning himself up when he hears that sound and immediately turns in that direction, eyes wide.
...probably just the fan blowing the used tissues in the trash can, he reasons with himself; but he's still uneasy, and, swallowing down the sour taste in his mouth, he hesitantly steps a little closer to look. ]
[Well, the fan is on. It may be cooling off outside but the house retains heat like it may never know a sunny day again. It does very little to help the nausea.
There's another rustle, and this time something does fall out of the waste bin. It's a sheet of paper. Which is strange, because it's perfectly flat, not crumpled up like you'd expect from the trash. Moreover, it's lined, with a long, tightly looped handwritten script on it. Weird thing to throw away in a bathroom of all things.]
he drops the dirty towel down on the edge of the bathtub and goes over to pick up the paper and get a better look at it. what's written on here? does it look like any handwriting he's seen before? ]
[It doesn't, funnily enough. Not that you know your fosters like the back of your hand, but certainly enough to tell this isn't their pinched, illegible penmanship. You've had to fake enough permission slips to know.
And the paper makes you feel funny. There's a weird ache in your pinky finger suddenly. Like something's hooked around it.
It makes your head ache, too. Sharp, sudden, splitting like a migraine.
(Promise to try?)
You could almost call out for your brother, or shit, Dwight and Eunice even, anyone to run get you a painkiller. Then the sensation cuts out.
And there's a giggle from behind you.
Not even behind, exactly. Next to you maybe. Echoing, tinny, rattling and small. From the base of the sink.]
okay. there's no way the sink is talking to him, he tries to tell himself and wants very much to believe, so there's no reason not to look and just... confirm that. put this uneasy feeling to rest, reorient himself, splash some water in his face and get his shit together again before bax comes back.
[Maybe he is. It'd be easy to imagine something strange after a day like today.
Del can hitch up to peer into the sink. There's a wet sort of burble below. The sort of thing you hear when someone else kicks the plumbing up in another part of the house. That'd be the laundry, for sure.
Yet there it is again. Laughing, more than one voice. Far down and far away but rattling up the pipes and into Del's ears.]
Del, do you miss him?
[That's funny. It's a bit familiar. Grating, trouble-making...the name slips your mind.]
Don't worry Del, we've got him! We'll look after him all right!
[No, certainly you know that one. Waner went missing not four months ago. People thought she'd run away, because her mom's new boyfriend was a dillweed and the whole town knew it.]
Ah, Del....
[And this one. Male, sweet, a little older than you and always quick with a kind word.]
It's all right, Del, I haven't gone far. You can come too. Bring your brother! Oh, I'd hate to separate you two. You can both come with us, Del! We float down here!
[Yves sounds just the way he always does. Did. Crooning at you from twenty, thirty, fifty feet deep.
It's at that moment when something thick juts straight up from the sink. The metal grating pops off and thwaps you in the forehead with a speed and sound that would be almost comical, if this wet, fat tendril hadn't shot loose and curled around the back of your head.
You feel the pinch of suckers against your cheek, your ear, even fishing through the hair on your scalp, hunting for purchase as it pulls you closer, closer, down to that finite black hole.]
[ well. this is getting increasingly unnerving, and the clearer and more elaborate the dialogue gets the harder it is for him to reassure himself that he's just hearing things. and then—
he's never been the type to scream from fear, no matter the situation, and he doesn't do it now even when there's a fucking tentacle shooting out of his sink drain and grabbing his head. he just hisses in something almost like a stage whisper: ]
Fucking shit—!
[ he strains to hold himself back as it tries to pull his head toward the sink — even as one voice in the back of his head tells him that's stupid because he wouldn't be able to fit in the damn drain anyway, and another voice counters that a fucking octopus shouldn't be able to fit down there either, yet here they apparently are.
he blindly fumbles to try to find a hair brush or curling iron or something on the counter that he can try to beat this thing away with. ]
[Andy, you drag your heels to your Grandma Wynne's house. She and her husband Greg weren't thrilled to take you in, even just for a spell, but your parents had been at their limit. Misbehaviour and too many close calls have worn their nerves thin, and they were already too good at fraying each other's nerves to begin with. Better to sort that mess out without worrying about a second mess with a rebellious streak a mile wide. You try to sneak in around the back way, but Greg steps out the same time as you with today's trash in hand. He drops the bag and raises a hand, threatening to fetch you upside the head if you do NOT hose off your feet in the yard before entering your poor Grandma Wynne's good house, young man. And he may just decide to do it anyway, if the mood strikes.
You clean up, you change, you take a scolding of a lifetime, and you are sent to your foldout cot in the basement, tucked amid packages, knickknacks, disused furniture and old crates. All the stuff you put away to forget about. The guest bedroom on the first floor is for good company.
While you take a seething refuge on your cot, something thumps at the back of the room. A sort of wooden sound.]
[ he hates that bastard greg. he's a prison guard. wynne can be ... nice, but she never disagrees with him, never disagrees with his parents, never argues or causes a fuss or raises a finger. compassion, without cause. right now, the only thing he wants is to go home. to see his mom. he had said sorry for the fires (never very BIG), for the scuffles (he never WON), for the willful independence (he never went FAR) over and over and over, but they never seemed to believe him. his dad only ever looked more and more disappointed, more angry with him. but his mom had cried when they'd dropped him off. the last time he'd bolted, to try and make it back to his hometown, he hadn't made it very far. just to the bus station, where the driver wouldn't let him on because of the fact he was Obviously 11. greg had driven to pick him up and called him every invective on the way home. back to prison.
its difficult to sit still there and be scolded while the only thought that he can hold onto is yves' face, bloated from the water. his leg bounces up and down and he picks at his nails, glancing towards the doors and windows the entire time - as if he could make a break for it right now. maybe this time, he could hitchhike. someone might stop, take pity -- but he doesn't.
instead he slinks down to his cot, in the dark, alone, tripping over his own mess and collapsing into the cot. silently screaming into the pillow before he hears the thump. freezing, keeping his face in the pillow, listening for the sound again.
[It is a six-foot bipedal rat actually, with a flower at one ear and a framed picture of Viktor Arcane clutched to its chest.
No there is no rat. There's only a mountain of junk. Heaps down here, you'd lose a week trying to pin down anything in this mess.
Thump!
It's a little louder this time.
Something shifts. A cloud of dust whips off a lean-to heap at the back end of the basement, and there's the scrape of paper over a cement floor. Something's been knocked loose.]
[ he jumps, this time actually sitting up to look - still sitting stock-still frozen on the cot for a second but ... he can't see anything from here.
glancing up the basement steps to see if anyone else heard the noise, if he was going to get yelled at for making a mess, but when he doesn't hear anything moving around above he'll get up.
might as well put whatever it is back into the pile, so it can't be his fault. ]
[Thankfully, this time no one yells down the stairs. Greg the warden must be snoozing off today's batch of beans in front of the tv, farting up a storm into the upholstery and scratching his belly.
When you reach the fallen item, you realize it's a sheet of paper. Some handwritten thing, but not yellowed or browned at the edges like you'd expect of anything around here. There's not so much as a coffee stain. You don't recognize the writing, either. Maybe an old pal wrote to him sometime.
But picking it up makes your head hurt. Your vision blacks out at the edges. Feels oppressive, like something's trying to swallow you up.
(Take you back.)
Then there's another THUMP, so loud this time it might knock your teeth together. Several bits and bobs fall off the pile, roll or crash to the floor in a clatter that you're certain would wake old Greg up.
And still, nothing happens.
You see now there's a crate at the bottom of this pile. Large and long, nearly big enough to fit a man if he crouched you bet. Printed on the side in a shipper's stamp reads these instructions:
SHIP TO KIRKWALL UNIVERSITY VIA NATHANIEL HOWE
You don't believe you've heard of the place before.]
[ the thing about places like this - alone, cramped, in the dark, is you start to imagine things. it happens all the time. it must be what a prisoner in solitary feels like, turning shapes on the walls into friends and shadows in the corner into enemies, simply to have something to occupy a racing mind. that happens a lot. a mind racing, faster faster faster than he can catch it, so full of absolutely everything that it feels it might overtake his body, his skin, and burst forth onto the floor if he doesn't find a way to exorcise it. a mania, all-consuming. running. but the mania is easier than the other beast, at times.
that's what picking the paper up reminds him of. the other beast. he's young. it hasn't happened often. but he's felt the gentle touch of it at his mind already. a void, quiet and smothering, equally all-consuming, but this time it doesn't tell him to run. it whispers to lay down in the dark and never, ever get up again. a gnawing hunger. he drops the paper like it burns his hand. the thump again rattles his teeth in his jaw and makes him shake his head - no more thinking about that.
as for this box. curiosity killed the cat and all. is there some way to open it ... ? ]
[The paper flutters to the ground, but there's something sticking in the back of your mind. Funny, did you think it had writing on it before? The one on the cement now is completely blank.
Enough about that.
This crate looks to be nailed down, though not with the strongest stuff. You could grab something with a bit of leverage, wedge it beneath the lid. Just clear some of the junk off the top and you could spring it wide open, you wager.
And isn't there an old tire iron by the stairs? You've knocked it over more than once in your restless pacing. That'll do the trick quite nicely.]
[ maybe the whos, the whats and the whys also wanna know whats in this howe crate.
glancing over at the stairs again, but when he hears nothing, he'll start moving some junk off the top - tossing it to the side. who cares if he makes a mess. it's his space to make a mess in if he wants to. ]
[Jen, you step quickly and nervously to your Aunt's foreboding house. The thing has a nasty look about it — you've never liked the black-painted moulding around the doors and windows, and something about the chipping gray paint (formerly an eggshell white) reminds you of coffins. Like you're walking right into one every time you go through the front door. You trudge up and try the handle, only to find it's locked.
Suddenly, you remember the time. Your Aunt participates in a book club with about five or six other equally sour old hens, and she won't be back until around eight thirty. You're not wearing a watch, but you don't need to to know you've got at least an hour before then. You're not only late for curfew, you're locked out of the house. Quickly you clambor around the back — no dice. Locked too.
You could knock on a neighbour's door. You don't know them well because neither of you are well liked, but you could try.
There's a hum from somewhere up the road. It pricks at your ears, steals your attention.]
[well. that's not good. she trudges home from having to move a boy's body to the road, and then turns the knob and finds the door locked.
her aunt is going to blame her for this, certainly. if she'd come home right away, not followed bev and the others to play, maybe it would have been possible to get back inside before she left? her aunt encourages her to go to school and do her schoolwork, but it's exactly encouraging of her making friends with the other children around here. she's not certain, though. sometimes the rules in this place feel too arbitrary to predict. all she knows is that she did something wrong, and now she's trapped outside, on a night when she wants nothing more than to be inside and curl up in bed. even if nothing about the house is exactly comforting, it's better than this.
a neighbor... she considers it, briefly. they might be concerned, about a child being out, enough to let her wait there even if they don't think much of her family. it might be more of the sort of place she had, when she still lived with her parents - more of a child-oriented place, comforting, snacks, perhaps even a television. and that would be much nicer, and would take her mind off these worries for a little while, but...
viconia would want her doing that, she's certain of it.
she's accepting that she'll need to wait outside when she hears whatever is up the road.
[Nothing unusual actually. The hum grows stronger, and you feel a little like a dummy for worrying. It's a car.
But that's a good thing. Someone's coming home and someone ought to see you, and they would be concerned about a sodden and scared little girl outside after the curfew. They'd hop right out and ask for your name, where do you live honey, oh we should get you cleaned up right away.
It's not a car you recognize though. Much too nice, rather new. A red and white Plymouth Fury — if you were in the know, you'd realize it came out only this year and boasted a V8 engine under the hood. Nobody on this block had a motor vehicle this fine. Maybe nobody in Derry did, period, though some of the folks on Broadway had a pretty penny to their name.
It cruises around the corner at a crawl. The headlights are on, though it's not very late yet. A little like eyes, aren't they?
It carries on up the street, just-a-crawling. Kind of a waste of an engine like that.]
[she does feel that relief for a second - it won't change the reaction, but the fact that she won't have broken the rules, won't have done anything she was directly not supposed to do, just let something happen without protesting too hard, helps.
but then there isn't anyone to see her. it's odd enough to make her curious, especially since she has nothing else she's meant to be doing. she'll approach it.]
[She may step forward. The car pauses about three houses down from hers. Not a very long distance, as these houses are built more closely together and rather taller than they are wide. Sort of like witches hats, all pointed up in a row with flat brims of patchy grass and no shrubs or flowers. Each has an alley between it that leads to a stubby backyard where the next block immediately starts. Wide enough for three men to pass through, shoulder to shoulder, but any more than that and you'd knock up against someone's porch.
The car waits. The lights are harsh on your eyes, and it takes a second to blink enough to clear your vision.
well she's seen enough things today that shouldn't be happening. she doesn't want to get run over by a ghost car as well. fuck this shit.
she will start to back away, back into the yard of the house, and then start to run. maybe there's a house with lights on she can get to? she'll have to admit why she's out past curfew and afraid, why she's imagining things, but it's better than being here and staying in what feels very real and dangerous.]
The car's engine revs a second time. Fat plumes of noxious gas belch out the back end of it, three times thicker than the pollutant on a regular car.
There's a whole block full of houses. Maybe two have their lights on. It's not so dark yet, but it's also so much quieter than you expect the street to be at this hour. Where is everyone?
Jen can run for the first porch with the lights on she sees. It's the next door over, thankfully, and she can see the shadow of someone moving, crossing the entry to the kitchen no doubt.
The car revs a third time.
And it takes off, barrelling towards her as she makes a break for the safety of elevated decks and the only homebody awake right now.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
holyspirits) wrote2025-03-09 04:46 pm
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The three decide that's close enough, and to depart for the day. Do they take their weapons with them? Maybe, maybe not. The mood is soured for certain.
Yves is found by a passing motorist not an hour after they leave him, and by 9pm the Derry grapevine all knows that another body has been found. It's not until two days later that the name is released, but that's a while aways yet.
All three of you make it home.
((Please respond to your respective top level below.))]
Del
Rather that going through the front door and catching hell for making a mess, you've gathered small bits of gravel on your way. You slip around back, and pit the stones at the window of your shared bedroom until Bax pokes his head out. He helps shepherd you inside and fetches you a change of clothes and tucks your old ones into the laundry downstairs. Pray they don't hear the machine start, but they do have the Ed Sullivan show on top volume.
You wait, alone, in the second story bathroom, clad in boxers and an undershirt and wiping yourself clean with a towel. And suddenly there's a rustling sound. Something near the sink.]
cw: emeto
so he's playing it cool as much as he can, trying to keep the image of yves's mutilated face and the wet and heavy feeling of his body out of his mind until he's finally alone in that bathroom and he can stand over the open toilet and throw up a little bit in privacy. he's still shaky and struggling to steady his breath again as he gets back to cleaning himself up when he hears that sound and immediately turns in that direction, eyes wide.
...probably just the fan blowing the used tissues in the trash can, he reasons with himself; but he's still uneasy, and, swallowing down the sour taste in his mouth, he hesitantly steps a little closer to look. ]
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There's another rustle, and this time something does fall out of the waste bin. It's a sheet of paper. Which is strange, because it's perfectly flat, not crumpled up like you'd expect from the trash. Moreover, it's lined, with a long, tightly looped handwritten script on it. Weird thing to throw away in a bathroom of all things.]
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he drops the dirty towel down on the edge of the bathtub and goes over to pick up the paper and get a better look at it. what's written on here? does it look like any handwriting he's seen before? ]
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And the paper makes you feel funny. There's a weird ache in your pinky finger suddenly. Like something's hooked around it.
It makes your head ache, too. Sharp, sudden, splitting like a migraine.
(Promise to try?)
You could almost call out for your brother, or shit, Dwight and Eunice even, anyone to run get you a painkiller. Then the sensation cuts out.
And there's a giggle from behind you.
Not even behind, exactly. Next to you maybe. Echoing, tinny, rattling and small. From the base of the sink.]
Del...
[Something is whispering down there.]
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god, he's losing his fucking mind here.
okay. there's no way the sink is talking to him, he tries to tell himself and wants very much to believe, so there's no reason not to look and just... confirm that. put this uneasy feeling to rest, reorient himself, splash some water in his face and get his shit together again before bax comes back.
he looks down into the sink. ]
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Del can hitch up to peer into the sink. There's a wet sort of burble below. The sort of thing you hear when someone else kicks the plumbing up in another part of the house. That'd be the laundry, for sure.
Yet there it is again. Laughing, more than one voice. Far down and far away but rattling up the pipes and into Del's ears.]
Del, do you miss him?
[That's funny. It's a bit familiar. Grating, trouble-making...the name slips your mind.]
Don't worry Del, we've got him! We'll look after him all right!
[No, certainly you know that one. Waner went missing not four months ago. People thought she'd run away, because her mom's new boyfriend was a dillweed and the whole town knew it.]
Ah, Del....
[And this one. Male, sweet, a little older than you and always quick with a kind word.]
It's all right, Del, I haven't gone far. You can come too. Bring your brother! Oh, I'd hate to separate you two. You can both come with us, Del! We float down here!
[Yves sounds just the way he always does. Did. Crooning at you from twenty, thirty, fifty feet deep.
It's at that moment when something thick juts straight up from the sink. The metal grating pops off and thwaps you in the forehead with a speed and sound that would be almost comical, if this wet, fat tendril hadn't shot loose and curled around the back of your head.
You feel the pinch of suckers against your cheek, your ear, even fishing through the hair on your scalp, hunting for purchase as it pulls you closer, closer, down to that finite black hole.]
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he's never been the type to scream from fear, no matter the situation, and he doesn't do it now even when there's a fucking tentacle shooting out of his sink drain and grabbing his head. he just hisses in something almost like a stage whisper: ]
Fucking shit—!
[ he strains to hold himself back as it tries to pull his head toward the sink — even as one voice in the back of his head tells him that's stupid because he wouldn't be able to fit in the damn drain anyway, and another voice counters that a fucking octopus shouldn't be able to fit down there either, yet here they apparently are.
he blindly fumbles to try to find a hair brush or curling iron or something on the counter that he can try to beat this thing away with. ]
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Andy
You clean up, you change, you take a scolding of a lifetime, and you are sent to your foldout cot in the basement, tucked amid packages, knickknacks, disused furniture and old crates. All the stuff you put away to forget about. The guest bedroom on the first floor is for good company.
While you take a seething refuge on your cot, something thumps at the back of the room. A sort of wooden sound.]
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its difficult to sit still there and be scolded while the only thought that he can hold onto is yves' face, bloated from the water. his leg bounces up and down and he picks at his nails, glancing towards the doors and windows the entire time - as if he could make a break for it right now. maybe this time, he could hitchhike. someone might stop, take pity -- but he doesn't.
instead he slinks down to his cot, in the dark, alone, tripping over his own mess and collapsing into the cot. silently screaming into the pillow before he hears the thump. freezing, keeping his face in the pillow, listening for the sound again.
maybe it's just a rat? ]
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No there is no rat. There's only a mountain of junk. Heaps down here, you'd lose a week trying to pin down anything in this mess.
Thump!
It's a little louder this time.
Something shifts. A cloud of dust whips off a lean-to heap at the back end of the basement, and there's the scrape of paper over a cement floor. Something's been knocked loose.]
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glancing up the basement steps to see if anyone else heard the noise, if he was going to get yelled at for making a mess, but when he doesn't hear anything moving around above he'll get up.
might as well put whatever it is back into the pile, so it can't be his fault. ]
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When you reach the fallen item, you realize it's a sheet of paper. Some handwritten thing, but not yellowed or browned at the edges like you'd expect of anything around here. There's not so much as a coffee stain. You don't recognize the writing, either. Maybe an old pal wrote to him sometime.
But picking it up makes your head hurt. Your vision blacks out at the edges. Feels oppressive, like something's trying to swallow you up.
(Take you back.)
Then there's another THUMP, so loud this time it might knock your teeth together. Several bits and bobs fall off the pile, roll or crash to the floor in a clatter that you're certain would wake old Greg up.
And still, nothing happens.
You see now there's a crate at the bottom of this pile. Large and long, nearly big enough to fit a man if he crouched you bet. Printed on the side in a shipper's stamp reads these instructions:
VIA NATHANIEL HOWE
You don't believe you've heard of the place before.]
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that's what picking the paper up reminds him of. the other beast. he's young. it hasn't happened often. but he's felt the gentle touch of it at his mind already. a void, quiet and smothering, equally all-consuming, but this time it doesn't tell him to run. it whispers to lay down in the dark and never, ever get up again. a gnawing hunger. he drops the paper like it burns his hand. the thump again rattles his teeth in his jaw and makes him shake his head - no more thinking about that.
as for this box. curiosity killed the cat and all. is there some way to open it ... ? ]
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Enough about that.
This crate looks to be nailed down, though not with the strongest stuff. You could grab something with a bit of leverage, wedge it beneath the lid. Just clear some of the junk off the top and you could spring it wide open, you wager.
And isn't there an old tire iron by the stairs? You've knocked it over more than once in your restless pacing. That'll do the trick quite nicely.]
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glancing over at the stairs again, but when he hears nothing, he'll start moving some junk off the top - tossing it to the side. who cares if he makes a mess. it's his space to make a mess in if he wants to. ]
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Jen
Suddenly, you remember the time. Your Aunt participates in a book club with about five or six other equally sour old hens, and she won't be back until around eight thirty. You're not wearing a watch, but you don't need to to know you've got at least an hour before then. You're not only late for curfew, you're locked out of the house. Quickly you clambor around the back — no dice. Locked too.
You could knock on a neighbour's door. You don't know them well because neither of you are well liked, but you could try.
There's a hum from somewhere up the road. It pricks at your ears, steals your attention.]
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her aunt is going to blame her for this, certainly. if she'd come home right away, not followed bev and the others to play, maybe it would have been possible to get back inside before she left? her aunt encourages her to go to school and do her schoolwork, but it's exactly encouraging of her making friends with the other children around here. she's not certain, though. sometimes the rules in this place feel too arbitrary to predict. all she knows is that she did something wrong, and now she's trapped outside, on a night when she wants nothing more than to be inside and curl up in bed. even if nothing about the house is exactly comforting, it's better than this.
a neighbor... she considers it, briefly. they might be concerned, about a child being out, enough to let her wait there even if they don't think much of her family. it might be more of the sort of place she had, when she still lived with her parents - more of a child-oriented place, comforting, snacks, perhaps even a television. and that would be much nicer, and would take her mind off these worries for a little while, but...
viconia would want her doing that, she's certain of it.
she's accepting that she'll need to wait outside when she hears whatever is up the road.
what is it...?]
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But that's a good thing. Someone's coming home and someone ought to see you, and they would be concerned about a sodden and scared little girl outside after the curfew. They'd hop right out and ask for your name, where do you live honey, oh we should get you cleaned up right away.
It's not a car you recognize though. Much too nice, rather new. A red and white Plymouth Fury — if you were in the know, you'd realize it came out only this year and boasted a V8 engine under the hood. Nobody on this block had a motor vehicle this fine. Maybe nobody in Derry did, period, though some of the folks on Broadway had a pretty penny to their name.
It cruises around the corner at a crawl. The headlights are on, though it's not very late yet. A little like eyes, aren't they?
It carries on up the street, just-a-crawling. Kind of a waste of an engine like that.]
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but then there isn't anyone to see her. it's odd enough to make her curious, especially since she has nothing else she's meant to be doing. she'll approach it.]
Hello?
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The car waits. The lights are harsh on your eyes, and it takes a second to blink enough to clear your vision.
No one answers, because there is no one to answer. There's no one at the wheel, nor in the passenger seat. The windshield is as blank and calm as lake.
The engine thrums suddenly. Deafening.]
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well she's seen enough things today that shouldn't be happening. she doesn't want to get run over by a ghost car as well. fuck this shit.
she will start to back away, back into the yard of the house, and then start to run. maybe there's a house with lights on she can get to? she'll have to admit why she's out past curfew and afraid, why she's imagining things, but it's better than being here and staying in what feels very real and dangerous.]
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The car's engine revs a second time. Fat plumes of noxious gas belch out the back end of it, three times thicker than the pollutant on a regular car.
There's a whole block full of houses. Maybe two have their lights on. It's not so dark yet, but it's also so much quieter than you expect the street to be at this hour. Where is everyone?
Jen can run for the first porch with the lights on she sees. It's the next door over, thankfully, and she can see the shadow of someone moving, crossing the entry to the kitchen no doubt.
The car revs a third time.
And it takes off, barrelling towards her as she makes a break for the safety of elevated decks and the only homebody awake right now.]
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Help! Help me!
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