Chapter Text
The locker room couch was lumpy and stank of sweat, the dust caught in his nose every time he shifted and made him want to sneeze. Neil held his breath and rubbed his hand back and forth on his nose, trying to get rid of the sensation. He was fairly certain that the exy coach, Hernandez, was still in his office.
Neil had only been in Millport for about a month, not even enough time to enrol himself in the school, but it was easier to blend in with the other students if he hung out near the school. Breaking into the locker rooms was maybe not his smartest move, but Neil needed the comfort. If he pressed his back into the couch, maybe he can pretend his mother is still sleeping behind him. If he laid here quietly enough, maybe he can pretend that she is only gone for a little while and not forever. His chest clenched, grief keeping its tight hold on him.
It’s been two months since he burnt his mother’s body and then buried her bones on a random beach in California, but every night he felt like it had only been hours. Nightmares were mixing with his grief and kept him up at night. He wriggled back harder against the fabric and squeezed his eyes shut. Only within the past week had he stopped looking over his shoulder for his mother, finally realising that he was all alone.
He wondered how long he would survive.
PING!
Neil stilled, scarcely breathing. It sounded like an elevator, or maybe like an alert in a hospital. Like a notification chime. Neil kept his body tensed, ready for whatever made that noise.
‘Error initialising.’
He’s gone insane. The little sleep he’s managed and his grief have converged and melted his brain, because there’s no other explanation for Neil to be seeing words in front of his face right now. “What the fuck?” Neil breathed quietly. The more he looked, the more his chest twisted in a growing panic.
Two months - two months and he’s gone insane without his mother’s harsh guidance. He needs to move, he needs to get out of here - away from the message that floats in his eyes, he’s gotta go right now - hand on his duffle and feet slamming down on the floor, Neil darted towards the door. A new town, a new name, he can follow the rules and get this message to go away, he’s not insane, no more comforts, no more couches, he can listen to his mother. He will go to the next town and get some hair dye and keep moving and nothing is wrong - everything is fine and he is fine.
The message disappeared and Neil sucked in a breath - okay so maybe he was doing the right thing, maybe he’s insane. The message went away when he had decided on a plan though, so insane or not, Neil would take it. He had just turned the corner when a body crashed into him.
“Woah! Kid - what are you doing here?” It was Hernandez, but Neil doesn't have the time to talk to him. Doesn’t matter, he’s leaving, he’s probably going insane and he doesn’t need an adult worrying about an insane homeless kid. Neil ignored him and kept going. “Kid! Slow down!”He broke out into a sprint and burst through the doors leading outside, gasping in great breaths of air and took off down the road. He will go to the next town over, tonight. Screw everything else.
His feet thud in steady rhythm as he ran down the street, his duffle bumped against his hip in time with his sprint. It was only a minute later that Neil saw the little flashing red light in the corner of his vision. His eyes flew wide and as he turned his head, the flashing red stayed in the same spot in the corner. Neil tripped.
The sidewalk was not forgiving against Neil’s skin, tearing it up on his hands, elbows and knees. He rolled to a stop and panted at the darkening sky. His elbow throbbed in pain and his chest rose and fell rapidly. He focused on the flashing red light and the same words from before popped up in his vision. Neil flinched backwards and smacked his head further into the ground.
“Error initialising?” Neil asked out loud before quickly looking around to make sure no one had overheard. If he was going crazy, he didn’t want anyone else to know. Typical of a crazy person, Neil thought hysterically. The wide smile that slashed across his face was his father’s, he knew, and he used his hand to try and pry it off. His bloodied fingers pressed into his lips, and Neil tasted a mix of bile and blood. “What the fuck is wrong with me, mum?” His normal accent slipped through in his terror. His eyes welled with tears, something that hasn’t happened in years.
Grief felt like a cold grip on his heart, weighing him down. He knew he wouldn’t be able to survive without her, but he didn’t realise just how quick he would succumb. He thought his father would catch up and kill him, not that his own mind would betray him and he would hallucinate words in his vision. There were no drugs in his system, hell, there was hardly any food in his system either. He was running on spite and a fraying will.
How long would he survive now that he was hallucinating? Would he be able to keep ahead of his father? Neil didn’t think so. He would have to isolate himself even further in case someone finds out about the insane teenager walking around - that would certainly draw his father’s attention if he heard.
Neil got up, hardly feeling his muscles protest and the stinging burn of scraps on his skin. Blood dripped to his fingertip as he started his walk out of town, now that his panic had lessened its grip on him.
He had lost his mind, there was nothing he could do about that. He couldn’t run from himself. The red light flashed gently in the corner of his vision but he steadfastly ignored it, and refused to think about how he was focused so hard on ignoring it that he was actually entirely focused on it.
The night grew cooler and darkness settled around him, his footsteps near silent as he walked. The red light did not disappear, and Neil thought that this hallucination was lackluster - if he was going crazy, he ought to think up something better than a little red light.
The next hour was spent mocking the little light in his head, but his footsteps did not stop as he walked and walked, drawing closer to the next town over.
A car zoomed past him, the driver swerving erratically over the road. Neil frowned. It was a small town and everyone here were law abiding citizens for the most part - stuck in the mundanity of living each day the exact same as the one previous, only working to live a simple life and grow old. Millport was a dying town for people who faded into nothing. Seeing someone driving like they were being chased was unusual. Neil walked further off the road in the ditch, hoping to stay out of sight in case anyone was actually chasing the car.
An hour later, he could hear another car coming. Neil had lived many years on the run, and the years before that were filled with threats and violence that taught him when danger was nearing. Something about this car screamed danger and made the hairs on the back of his neck raise. He huddled further down in the ditch, stopping his walk and hiding from the headlights. Quickly, Neil pulled his gun from his duffle, making sure it was loaded and safety was off. The hairs on his neck were standing on end and a chill raced down his spine.
Neil knew danger intimately, and this was no different.
The car slowed down and Neil made sure to keep himself low and out of sight. He kept his breathing steady and quiet.
“I could have sworn I saw someone!” A voice said, male, around 30 years old if Neil had to guess. The car slowed even further until it was almost stopped, only crawling along closer to where Neil was crouched in the dirt and knee high weeds.
“It was probably just a deer or some shit, Roger. Let’s keep going before we lose more time.” Another man, this one a bit younger. Neil tightened his hand on his duffle, keeping his other hand comfortable around the gun.
“Nah, I’m serious. There was a person walking along here before. I’ve been hunting before, and this was no deer.”
Neil tensed at the mention of hunting. What were they doing? This behaviour was extremely weird for Millport. He couldn’t help how he grit his teeth at the thought that maybe his father had recruited them to search for him. Hunting for him. He held still, very much like a deer in the headlights.
The car grew closer still, and Neil knew that they would spot him no matter what he did - there was no more cover and the driver was searching the ditch with focus as the car rolled forward.
Neil took a deep breath and focused on his mother’s teachings - these were shaping up to be his father’s little helpers, so why should he care if they died tonight? He raised the gun slowly and took aim at the man driving first, refusing to focus on his features. He didn’t miss that the driver had a gun in his hand though, the other hand held tight on the steering wheel.
The shot went straight through his head, splattering blood, brain matter and bone in a spray. Neil could see the shocked and horrified expression on the younger man’s face that sat in the passenger seat.
“Fuck!” He screamed, eyes wide as he scrambled to get out of the car. Neil didn’t hesitate and put a bullet through that man’s neck before he stood up, knees cracking. The man stood for a moment with blood pouring out his neck, spurts pulsing onto the door of the car. He stared at Neil with shock and horror before the light from his eyes faded and his body crumpled to the ground, one leg still in the car and upper body splayed on the ground. Neil moved quickly, dragging him out and into the ditch on the side of the road. The driver was a larger set man, and Neil wrapped the man’s remains of his head with a loose jacket before he struggled to wrangle his body out of the car and into the ditch beside his friend. Dripping more blood onto the road would alert someone that something more than roadkill had happened here. There was nothing to be done about what was already there though, so Neil quickly searched their pockets and stole anything of value.
Usually he would dispose of the bodies, but no one knew he was running along this road in the dark, except for the crazy car swerving along earlier, but they didn’t slow down enough to get a look at his face so Neil determined that he was safe to leave the bodies there. He couldn’t leave the car though, so he got in the driver seat and searched for a rag to wipe the blood from the windscreen.
The sight of multiple guns and food, water, backpacks of clothes and first aid supplies made Neil pause. These guys really were hunting, or going on the run. Neil shrugged and opened up a protein bar before he used a shirt from one of the backpacks to wipe the windshield. The bullet hole created a spiderweb of cracks out from it, but Neil ignored it and adjusted the seat. Damn tall people.
As he drove, he thought about where he should go to dump the car - he hadn’t researched the next town over and didn’t know what was there. With the car, it didn’t take long to arrive and he drove past the welcome signs without truly seeing them. He skirted around the edge of town until he found what looked to be an abandoned house that was set further apart from the others. The windows were boarded up and the front yard overgrown with weeds. Good enough, he didn’t have enough time before the sun rose. He couldn’t keep driving around in a shot up, bloodied car.
He got out and quickly opened the garage, finding it empty. Neil almost wanted to laugh at his bout of good luck, but thought better. The universe would see fit to spite him if it knew he was having some good luck.
He drove in and lowered the garage door again, keeping his gun in his hand. Neil realised then that he hadn’t let go of it the entire drive. His shoulders were tense and his breathing was purposely controlled. He had no time to panic.
A quick but thorough search of the house proved his theory that it was abandoned, and he made his way back to the car to search properly for what the dead hunters had. He opened the car door and turned the small ceiling light on to get a better look.
Clothes, the younger man’s would be baggy but fit him well enough, and Neil eyed the boots in the bottom of the bag. Big stompy boots. Neil looked down at his scuffed sneakers and the hole in the side, how the heel was starting to peel from the shoe. Stompy boots for him then. Neil thought that if he had gone insane, he couldn’t exactly play by his mother’s rules anymore, could he? Those rules were for a quiet, unassuming teenage boy. Neil laughed, a sharp biting sound and he knew his father’s smile was splitting his face. He didn’t think he could keep up that ruse if he was actively losing his mind. The little red light flashed mockingly from the corner of his vision. He sneered at it before he continued to inspect the rest of the clothes. Being covered in blood was not fun, and he wanted to clean up. Unfortunately, there was no water in the house, so he used a bottle and a too big shirt to wipe himself down.
Fresh clothes did wonders for his tired mind, and he felt his shoulders loosen now that he couldn’t feel the flaky dried blood on his skin. The new-to-him pants were of good quality, with pockets down both sides. Neil found a baggy dark grey shirt and slipped it on, covering his scars once again.
The guns were unexpected but not unwelcome, and Neil shuddered to think what those guys would have done had he not been prepared. He rearranged his duffle to store some of the guns and ammo, and upended the larger backpack to repack. It would look strange that Neil had two bags with him, but maybe he could pass off his duffle as a sports related bag and his backpack as a school bag. He was just a simple student getting ready for school. The red light flashed in what Neil thought was condescension.
“Fuck you,” Neil muttered. He wasn’t sure entirely who the words were for - himself, the red light, the hunters, his mother, his father, everyone who pissed him off, the universe. It was a tired but still burning hot tone. Spiteful and trudging forwards anyway.
Once he had repacked both bags with equal guns, ammo, clothes, food, water and money, Neil tried them on and readjusted the straps a little, jumping in place to test the stability. He couldn’t stay here, and took one last look over the car. His eyes landed on the trunk and he pursed his lips.
Opening it was a mistake that Neil immediately regretted. He had thought that the stench of blood was from the mess in the front of the car, not from the back. As he stared, one hand holding his gun and the other lowering from opening the trunk, the body inside stared back.
It seems this poor fucker was not prepared like Neil had been.
He was naked, body contorted to fit in the space, skin pale and eyes wide. That’s when Neil noticed it - a slow rise of breath, shaky and with a quiet death rattle. A bullet wound to the chest was to blame, and Neil was shocked that the man was still alive. Brown eyes stared back at him with a desperation that Neil was not prepared for. The naked man opened his mouth and tried to speak, but only a trickle of blood and a gurgle came out. Even if Neil was a normal person and called for an ambulance right now, there wouldn’t be enough time to save him. He thought about whether he should just shut the trunk and leave, but something twisted in his chest at the idea. Insane or not, he wasn’t a monster. Neil raised the gun, and something like relief passed through the man’s eyes. The naked man gave a small nod, and Neil knew that they both knew that this was the end of the road for him.
“I’m sorry it had to be like this,” Neil said. Brown eyes stared back at him with deep melancholy. Neil closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
Neil started his walk into town in search of a hot meal. He kept to the shadows despite the rising sun.
PING!
Neil jumped just about 10 feet into the air at the sound, scanning the area around him. No one else was out, but he pulled his hood up and walked faster. He just needed a good meal, that was it. Everything was fine. He was fine.
The blinking red light pulsed brighter for a moment and Neil’s lip curled in annoyance. He purposely kept his eyes off of it and kept walking. Nothing he could do about it.
—
The diner had only just opened, but Neil needed a place to rest. Each minute he spent without a task was instead spent snarking back to the red light that he refused to look at or focus on, even if it continued to blink in the corner of his vision.
A small table in the corner was his ideal spot to sit, away from the majority of the tables and with lines of sight to the exits. A tired waitress walked up and pulled free a notepad and pen. Neil quietly ordered a black coffee and an english breakfast. He needed proper food after spending the entire night busy.
“No problem, hun,” the waitress drawled before she turned away. Another worker, an older woman in her 50’s, was flicking the lightswitch and frowning at the ceiling when nothing happened.
“Damn electricity. Lucky it’s bright enough that we can see by, but this is stupid. I’ll have to make some calls,” the woman grumbled to the waitress who passed her. She turned to the small television in the corner of the store and tried to turn that on next. “Fucking bullshit,” she swore quietly under he breath. Neil prepared himself to leave if they couldn’t get his food, wondering where else he could go for a decent hot meal. “Don’t worry, sonny. The kitchen runs on gas, so we can get your breakfast!” She called out in his direction. He nodded and looked back out the window.
As he was leaving, the diner still hadn’t sorted out their electricity problem, and Neil was fine to pay with cash considering that their card reader was still offline. The woman had warned the scarce customers that entered that it was cash only for the day until they could sort the issue, and walked with Neil to the front door with a ‘CASH ONLY’ handwritten sign in hand.
“Have a good day, sonny.” Neil nodded at her, the most polite he could be with exhaustion dogging his steps. The bell above the door dinged merrily, and Neil started his trek to find a new car to steal. The flashing red light blinked brighter now, and Neil scowled.
“Fuck off, Red,” he snarled. It was taunting him, he was sure of it. Neil scoffed, of course his own hallucination would mock him. His whole life was a shitshow, so even his mind had to make fun of him. It blinked again, but Neil refused to focus his full attention on it. He wouldn’t feed into his own delusions, as long as he didn’t look at it, he could ignore it.
A grey sedan was parked a few streets away from the diner, and Neil saw that the keys were still in the ignition as he walked closer. Well, aint that nice - Neil refused to speak out loud in case the universe decided to punish him for another bout of good luck. He got into the driver seat and put his duffle in his lap, keeping his backpack on also. It meant he had to lever the seat back a bit but he made it work.
The aircon worked well and he turned off the radio to focus on getting out of town. His mother never allowed him to listen to the radio, something about being distracted by the music and not paying enough attention to his surroundings. Now it was normal for him to drive in silence. He almost expected to turn to the passenger seat and see his mother but refrained. He was still ignoring the stupid red light, he could ignore the ghostly presence of his mother beside him.
The road spread out before him and Neil drove with no destination in mind. He would have to switch cars again soon, someone would surely report this one missing soon, considering it was waiting on the street for its owner to return.
The sun’s rays beat down mercilessly, the simmering rays waving up from the road in front of him. There seemed to be few extra cars on the road, but Neil put that out of his mind. Probably a holiday he forgot about or something. He drove for hours, watching the fuel gauge slowly run dry. There was no destination in mind, other than away from Millport. He couldn’t be found if he didn’t even know where he was. The blinking red light continued to mock him from the corner. His mother’s phantom presence seemed to fill the car, and Neil decided that the next town he would ditch the car.
He wasn’t sure how far along the highway he was, or how much further it was until the next town, but he saw a car parked on the side of the road with its hood up. Neil had no intentions of stopping - poor fuckers can wait for someone else. There was a man and woman standing by the car, stepping towards the road and waving for help. Neil swerved onto the other side of the road a little to give them some room. A shiver ran down his spine and intuition screamed a warning, and he yanked the wheel again, this time towards the people. He saw the man pull out a gun from the back of his pants, the glint in the sun drawing his eye, and the woman was reaching into the car for something. The side mirror on his car disappeared as the gun went off, and Neil put his foot to the floor.
Neil had never run someone over, so watching as the man folded over the bonnet and smacked his face into the metal before he disappeared underneath the tyre was a novel experience. Blood splattered in large droplets and there was a sizable dent in the front of the car. Neil used his rearview to spot the woman, mouth open in shock, as he stepped out of the car and took aim. She had pulled another gun from the car, fury crossed her features as she raised her arm towards Neil. Too bad he was already aiming.
A fine mist of blood sprayed out from her chest as the bullet connected, followed closely by a second to her heart. She dropped before she realised that she had died, and Neil walked up to the man who was groaning on the road. There was a dent in his head. That was the first thing Neil saw - how this man was still alive was astounding. He mouthed at nothing and stared into the middle distance, so Neil thought that he definitely did some long term damage - not that the man would live long enough to find out. Neil didn’t bother with a mercy killing this time - the man tried to kill him. Instead, he dragged the man to the car that still had its hood open and rolled him inside.
Neil looked up and down the highway and moved faster - there were no cars yet but someone would come along soon, despite being in the middle of nowhere. He went back and picked the woman up, dropping her into the passenger seat. He saw the ammo and the other guns and shrugged - why not? He shoved them into his duffle and quickly dropped his bags to the side. He crawled under the car to find the fuel line, cutting it with his switchblade and pulling it out a little to let the fuel dribble onto the ground. Neil moved quickly and collected his bag, putting the car in neutral and rolling it forward slowly for about 20 metres. Then he shut the door and walked back to the start of the line of petrol, squatting down to use his mother’s lighter.
While it was unlikely that it would explode like he had seen in a movie once, it would go up in flames quickly. The heat of it combined with the heat of the sun and Neil used the back of his arm to wipe his forehead as he walked back to his car. It was still running and the door was open, so he slid into the seat and headed off again. He swallowed bile at the thought of his mother’s body burning like those two now were.
PING!
Neil whipped his head back and forth, searching for the source of the noise before he realised it was the same sound as he heard back at Millport, as well as after dumping the previous car.
“Red! Stop it. I can’t listen to you right now,” Neil said. The little red light blinked in amusement. “I’m busy, so shut it.”
Neil stared straight ahead and focused on searching for any turn off that would take him off the highway. He did not want to be on the same highway as a burning vehicle that had two dead bodies in it. He didn’t see another car and thankfully found a turn off towards what looked like another town.
“Red, what are we doing?” Neil mumbled. The blinking light pulsed for a moment before returning to its normal rhythm. He didn’t want to talk to his mother’s phantom sitting beside him, tired of the silence but not having anything else to talk to. The blinking red light seemed like it was there to stay, unlike his mother.
Although, Neil could swear he could see his mother’s knee in the corner of his vision - clothed in dark pants. He got the impression that if he turned his head, she would vanish. So he didn’t, she can sit there and be ignored like she ignored him. Petty, but he knew she was dead. There was nothing there, but maybe he really was insane because he kept stealing glances to that knee pressed to the centre console, without moving his head. His mother always wanted him to be silent, and Neil decided that that rule was stupid. She was dead, she couldn’t enforce the rules any more.
“Where am I, Red?” Neil asked. The blinking Red light pulsed for a moment, and Neil nodded like that meant something. “Sure, okay. Thanks, Red.”
The minutes passed silently after that. Neil eventually got to a town and pulled up around the back of a service station. There was a motel across the road, and he needed a rest. There was hardly any fuel left in the car, definitely not enough to make it to the next town, and he didn’t want to drive a car that still had blood splattered on its bonnet. It was easy enough to pass it off as hitting an animal, which was technically correct, but Neil didn’t want to be identified by that. He threw the keys into a bush and walked across the road.
“Afternoon, room for one?” The young man at the desk asked in a bored tone. Neil nodded and handed over some cash for a night. He would steal a car in the morning and keep going. Where he was going, he wasn’t sure, but he would keep moving if it kept Red quiet.
The room was musty and outdated. Neil puffed the pillow to make sure the dust was gone and then peeled away the top blanket to reveal the cleanest bed he had laid eyes on in about 7 months. That was the last time he had slept in a motel with his mother, and thinking about her brought another clench of grief to his heart.
“God fucking damn it,” Neil said to the silence. “I fucking hate you, mum.” His old accent slipped back through and he sat on the bed with his head in his hands. Out the corner of his eye, he could see a dark pant leg. On the other side he could see Red blinking away. He focused on neither of them, only taking in a few deep breaths.
The shower was lukewarm but relaxed his muscles anyway. He was just running shampoo through his hair when he heard it again.
PING!
Neil’s eyes shot open and he stilled.
“Red, cut it o-”
He was interrupted by more words in front of his face.
‘Error initiated. Good luck.’
Error initiated? Good luck? Good luck?
Neil was furious.
“Red! What the fuck?” He angrily shouted and started to wash the rest of the shampoo from his hair. “This hallucination is bullshit. I thought crazy people think up monsters and shit, not words in their face,” Neil rambled to the blinking light. Red pulsed a few times and went back to normal. “I know, it’s stupid. But ‘good luck’? What the fuck is up with that?!” He grabbed the thin, scratchy towel provided and vigorously dried himself and quickly swiped it over his hair a few times. He had already taken out his contacts to give his itchy eyes a break, so he didn’t check the mirror for any regrowth at his roots, not wanting to see his eyes in the reflection. Red pulsed once more. “Don’t mock me, Red. I’m fine.”
Neil threw himself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. He could hear sirens going off in the distance, more than he expected, which made his muscles tense right back up.
“The fuck is happening out there, Red?” Neil wondered. He thought he saw his mother’s phantom settle into the chair across the room, so he turned his attention away from her. He looked at the door and pursed his lips at the shitty lock - it wouldn’t hold anyone back for long. Bracing himself, he turned towards the chair, expecting to see his mother’s apparition. Instead, he just saw a dark clothed figure, face obscured and looking like they were already half faded out of existence. If he squinted, the figure might look like his mother, but this phantom had no face. Strangely, Neil wasn’t scared of it. He knew it wasn’t real.
“Weird.” He stood and shooed the ghostly visage away, waving his hand through it as he picked up the chair. Securing it under the door, he wedged it hard and double checked the lock was shut too. Sleeping without his mother to protect him had been difficult, and he usually slept in a locked car or recently he had stayed at Millport’s locker room, as he knew that Hernandez locked up once he left.
Laying back down, he sighed and closed his eyes. He thought he felt a presence beside him, one that reminded him of his mother, but he knew it was just the grief fucking with him. Being back in a run down motel in the middle of nowhere was a good way to bring back memories he thought he had locked away.
“Damn it, mum. What am I going to do?” He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one other than what sounded like a breeze in his ear. Funnily enough, he thought he could hear her voice whispering to ‘keep going, Abram.’ It was nicer than what his mother had been like in the flesh, and he smiled, turning his head to the strange dark figure that was laying on the bed beside him. “Yeah, yeah, you know I will,” he laughed quietly.
He went to sleep to the sounds of sirens, faint screams and gunshots in the distance - not his circus, not his monkeys.
When he woke, the room was dark and he could sense that his mother’s phantom was still laying on the bed beside him. Many people would think it very strange to share a bed with their mother’s weird ghost, and Neil would agree, but he didn’t particularly care either. It brought him some strange relief at the same time of his grief, because he knew that she wasn’t actually there. His mind was truly falling apart without her, and he wondered if he should be entertaining this particular hallucination or not. That was an issue for another time, and Neil quietly got out of bed and looked out the window.
“Mum, you should be helping me scope the area,” he joked. If he had spoken like that to his actual mother, she would have beaten him, but this ghostly version of her only nodded and disappeared into smoke before completely dispersing. Neil blinked. “Well, okay.” His chest twisted at the thought that she would be gone for good now, and he grit his teeth. “Stop being stupid, she wasn’t here anyways.” Neil started back towards his bags and began the task of rechecking everything was in place, snacking on a protein bar and drinking a bottle of water.
‘Area clear,’ his mother’s voice whispered like a breeze. Neil froze.
“W-what?” He stuttered, turning his head towards where his mother’s apparition now stood in the centre of the room.
‘Area clear,’ she repeated. Her voice was faint but Neil heard her loud and clear. He nodded and slowly turned back to his bags.
“Sure, okay. Red, did you hear that? The area is clear, we can go.” Neil felt a hysterical chuckle bubble up his throat. Red pulsed in placation to the side, and Neil thought he heard a low rumble. “Okay, when I said last night that I thought my hallucinations were stupid, I did not mean for them to… increase… intensify… whatever. You know what I mean, Red.” Another low rumble that sounded like a laugh. Neil wasn’t sure how he knew, just that he did. He nodded again to himself. “Right, keep going, Abram.”
The early morning light was still grey, and Neil quickly scoped out the area for a car. He walked for a few minutes until he found a row of houses and another nondescript sedan parked in a driveway. That will have to do.
Neil drove for five hours with the radio off, munching away on a granola bar and drinking another bottle of water. His two bags made for an uncomfortable drive, but Neil didn’t dare take them off. The two tricksters from yesterday were still fresh on his mind. For that reason he held his gun in his lap as he drove, one hand on the steering wheel and the window down.
In the distance, he saw a ginormous plume of dark smoke rising high, big enough that Neil could only assume that multiple buildings were on fire. It was coming from the town, and Neil pushed away the memory of his mother burning. He didn’t dare to glance at the dark figure beside him, not knowing how his grief would transform her visage right at that moment. He avoided going into that town, seeing a patrol car with its sirens turn onto the road that led that direction. He thought he heard a couple gunshots in the distance, and he frowned. Definitely not that town then.
He didn’t think that the dying towns would be so intense - all places he had lived in over the years were shit but people still generally followed the law, aside from his father’s men. Neil shivered and looked in the rearview, seeing a car behind him. How long has it been following him? He glanced to the side and saw his mother’s see-through figure sitting beside him.
“You could have warned me,” he grumbled. The figure turned its head.
‘Noted.’
Neil flicked another glance in the rearview and saw the car speeding up. Another shiver ran down his spine and a blaring warning screamed in his mind. He put his foot down and kept ahead of the car. He wasn’t sure what was up with all the batshit crazy people lately, but he wanted nothing to do with them. It seems the universe decided that his good luck had run out.
The car behind him sped up again, pulling closer to the back of his car. He could see a man behind the steering wheel, and it didn’t look like anyone else was in there with him. Red pulsed in the corner of his vision and Neil thought he heard another rumble. He ignored Red for now and glanced again at his mother.
“Well, mum, if you can disappear into smoke like before, do you think you could do that again and get this man to fuck off?” Neil asked with raised eyebrows. He almost swallowed his tongue when she did actually dissipate into nothing, and he quickly checked the rearview.
Black smoke filled the car behind him, and for a moment he saw the man’s confused face and a hand wave through the air. Neil saw the glint of a blade that slit the man’s throat open, blood pulsing in spurts down his front and some of it reaching down his arms and onto the windscreen. Neil stared wide eyed as the car drifted to the side and hit the dip beside the road. At the speed the car was still travelling, it easily started to flip and Neil watched it roll a few times before stopping on its side. His mother reappeared beside him, back to her usual see-through form. He blinked. Red pulsed in laughter.
PING!
The car wobbled but Neil was quick to bring it back straight. He tightened his hands around the wheel and took a deep breath.
“Alright… Thanks, mum… Suppose you did as I asked.” Neil stared ahead and heard a low rumble from Red as he pulsed again and laughed. “Everything is fine. I’m fine,” Neil mumbled to himself.
Maybe he shouldn’t entertain his delusions. Was that man in the car even real? How would his hallucination affect him otherwise? He wondered if his mind had started to imagine people where there weren't any. Upgrading from a strange red light and dead mothers to actual people that he wouldn’t be able to differentiate from reality. Neil furrowed his brows and kept his eyes on the road.
The rest of the ride, Neil kept quiet.
—
The next diner he pulled up to was staffed by people who looked on edge. There was a ‘CASH ONLY’ sign on this door too, and Neil headed for a seat in the corner. He felt uneasy about how tense everyone looked, but he couldn’t figure out what the issue was. Leaving now would draw too much attention on him, and he wanted another coffee. Maybe some bacon. He almost salivated.
An older man stepped up to his table and only nodded at him with a pencil and notepad ready. He ordered some bacon and eggs with a coffee, and the man left again without saying a word. Weird. Neil shrugged - he wouldn’t talk to people if he didn’t have to either. People were cruel. Red and his mother’s ghost didn’t seem to be though. His mother sat in the seat opposite him, blank face like a mannequin’s. There was a subtle shadowing that if Neil squinted, he might be able to see her face in a blur. He didn’t try, worried that if he did, he would see what she looked like when she died. He knew no one else could see her because no one pointed fingers or gasped in shock at the ghostly phenomenon across from him. He sighed.
As he waited for his meal, he overheard a pair of men and a woman talking a few tables over. They weren’t speaking loudly, their conversation hushed as they huddled their heads together. Neil studied them to make sure they weren’t here for him. Red pulsed and let out a low rumble.
“I’m serious, I heard from Denise that there are people admitting themselves into psychiatric care, some are committing suicide and others are going insane! You saw how Jack acted yesterday! He shot someone, George!” The woman was saying, her voice shaky and quiet. Neil frowned, his hearing had improved if he could hear their conversation from here. He kept his focus on the group even if he moved his stare out the window. One of the men turned his head to the side to look around them, and Neil saw him pause as he looked at Neil.
“It’s the fucking rapture. Humanity has fucked up and God is striking us down.” Neil almost rolled his eyes. Yes, the world was fucked. That was nothing new. The waiter brought along his meal and Neil nodded in thanks. The man that had been watching him looked away. Neil thought he better eat fast and get out of here. Red pulsed and rumbled in agreement.
“George, it’s not the damn rapture. There must be a mass delusion going on. Maybe it's something in the food,” one of the men said, glaring down at his half eaten meal. The woman pushed her meal away and pressed her hands to her eyes. Neil glanced down at his own food. A mass delusion brought on by tainted food? He scoffed, and Red pulsed beside him. The man was crazy or stupid, Neil wasn’t sure which.
“I don’t know guys, the world is just fucked. What are we going to do?” The woman whined. “I can’t believe Jack said those things - how could he decide to hunt down other people? The afflicted need help, not to be killed.” Neil tried not to flinch. He kept his movements as smooth as he could, trying not to tense up his muscles. He shoved the last bite of his meal in his mouth and quickly chewed and swallowed before downing the last of his coffee. He left a few notes on the table and headed out the door, the man’s eyes following him out. A faint shudder ran down his spine in warning, but when he turned, the man looked away and the warning sensation disappeared. Neil kept his face blank as he walked down the street.
Neil thought about where he could find a place to rest - “it would need to be away from other people and secure, considering that apparently there is a person running around shooting people with afflictions.” Red rumbled a laugh.
“I know, be quiet or be helpful,” Neil chastised. Red pulsed and Neil changed his trajectory. He walked, following Red’s directions until he stood in front of a random house. His mother stood beside him, wisps of smoke shimmering in the breeze. “This it?” Red rumbled again and his light pulsed. “Mum, can you search it and make sure no one is home?” His mother vanished and Neil squatted, pretending to tie his shoe as he waited. These new stompy boots are doing him well. They are certainly more comfortable than his scuffed runners.
‘Area clear,’ his mother’s voice whispered to him. He nodded and glanced surreptitiously around to make sure no one was watching before he headed to the back of the house.
Getting inside was easy, and Neil was quick to scope it out. There was furniture, but it was all covered in sheets. There was no dust so it was recently vacated, and Neil was quick to scope out the house for exits. He found a room he liked best, a large window that opened up to a garden and a big comfy bed. Neil took the sheet off and laid down on his side, his duffle sliding to his front and his backpack still on his back.
His mother’s silhouette stood by the window, facing out. Red rumbled quietly. Neil closed his eyes.
Hours later, Neil’s eyes snapped back open. He laid perfectly still and waited for whatever woke him. A chill raced down his spine and a silent warning knell started in his head.
‘Three men nearby,’ his mother whispered like wind through leaves. Neil blinked. Right, okay. Red pulsed in comfort beside him. Sure.
Neil quietly sat up and moved to the edge of the room, out of immediate sight of the door. He strained his hearing and heard three different gaits walk through the downstairs living room. Squatting down, Neil carefully pulled out his gun, checking that he had reloaded it earlier and flicked the safety off. The men were now walking upstairs, and Neil heard their whispers.
“Are you sure he’s here?”
“I’m sure. I put a mark on him when I saw him at the diner, Jack. When I identified him, it only came up with question marks - I’m not sure what he is, but he’s dangerous. Otherwise I would have come here myself.”
Neil’s brows furrowed as his shoulders tensed. Someone had identified him? The memory of the man assessing him at the diner flashed in his mind, the warning tingle of being watched that had followed him out the door. Neil scolded himself for not keeping on the road - he could have gotten further away.
Too late now, the men were walking down the hall and slowly opening each door. Neil could hear them clear as day, even if they were treading lightly and speaking quieter than a whisper.
“Maybe he’s already leveled up - it said that people can choose classes and new skills when they reach level 10, maybe he’s already there. I think he has a skill that hides his status.”
Neil watched as the door to the room he was hiding in slowly swung open, and he lifted the gun in his hands to aim roughly where he thought the man’s head would be. He would ruminate on the weird conversation later.
Before he could get a shot off though, Red rumbled. This time it was more substantial and threatening. Before he had only rumbled in Neil’s mind, but now Red sounded like a mountain lion ready to tear someone’s throat out. Neil couldn’t help but tense up and darted a quick glance to the side. It was stupid, and if his mother was alive she would beat him for taking his eyes off the very real threat in front of him. He knew that Red was a hallucination - just because he had suddenly gained some substance should not warrant a distraction. The men in front of him were real and Neil needed to be prepared. He couldn’t help it though - his head snapped to the side and he laid eyes on a beast. Red had certainly changed.
Gone was the small flashing light in the corner of his vision that he refused to focus on, and now stood a huge animal with four paws, sharp teeth and glinting eyes. Neil wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking at, but his hallucinations had definitely turned towards the ‘monster’ side.
Neil turned his gaze back to the door and saw as the three men paused in the doorway. He got one shot off before Red leapt forward, body rippling with muscular power. His tail flicked like a snake and his paws flexed to reveal long claws. Neil aimed at the other man that was backing up and raising a baseball bat that had nails in it. His gun kicked back in his hand and the man flinched back against the wall - Neil shot again and watched as the man’s eye disappeared in a dark red and grey splatter up the wall.
The only sound that Neil could hear was Red’s rumbling purr, and a distant siren.
PING!
Neil flinched. It seemed that auditory hallucination was here to stay.
‘Neighbours are calling the police,’ a whispered voice reached him. Neil stared wide eyed at the beast in front of him though. He wasn’t afraid, but he was weirded out. He lowered his gun and watched as Red shrunk to a large dark red cat. Fluffy tail and long fur, dark eyes that looked almost black. He looked almost regal, with huge paws and tufts of fur on the tops of his ears. Neil blinked. He definitely needed a good night’s rest and maybe another meal if his hallucinations transformed in front of him like that. Is it better to hallucinate a monstrous beast or a simple cat? Are any hallucinations okay, or is it a definite no to all of them?
Red rumbled, and Neil knew he was laughing at his stupor. Neil stepped forward and looked at the bodies on the floor - no point ruminating on his new cat hallucination.
The three bodies stared lifelessly, and Neil saw large gashes on two of them. Neil hadn’t attacked with a blade though, so where did they come from? And really, he had only shot two of the men, how did the third die? Did he get hit in cross-fire? Neil looked at the gun in his hand. Real. He looked at the bullet hole in the wall, surrounded by blood and brain matter, a chunk of hair plastered amongst the goop. Neil stepped over the dead body and touched the hole. Real. His gun is real, this hole in the wall is real, because he made it.
Neil turned to the dead bodies and squatted by the one that he knew he had shot, the man from the diner who was now missing an eye. He felt the still-warm body beneath his fingertips. Real. He felt that the body was real.
Turning to the body that he never even shot, he looked over the various gashes in the man’s flesh. He wasn’t sure if this one was Jack or the other man, but Neil didn’t care as he reached out and touched his skin. Warmth met his hand, blood slick as it coated his fingers. Real? Neil looked toward Red, watching as the cat licked its leg and paw. Not real.
Neil put his blood slick hand out towards Red.
Red looked at him and rumbled another laugh before he stepped forward and licked Neil’s bloodied fingers. A warm scratchy tongue lapped at his hand and Neil almost fell over. Real? Once his fingers were mostly cleaned up, Red allowed him to run his fingers through his fur, smooth strands like silk under his calloused palm. Red can’t be real - he came out of nowhere and transformed from a beast to a cat. He isn’t real, as much as Neil thought he could feel warmth and a living being under his hand. Red is not real.
He turned back to the three dead bodies - he had shot two of them. The third one is not real, despite how real he felt. His hallucination killed another hallucination. Fantastic.
Neil giggled.
He stepped over them again and started walking down the stairs, not bothering to be careful. His face was stretched into a wide grin and anyone who looked at him at that moment would be able to see the mania in his eyes. Neil knew he had gone insane, but he hadn’t expected his small hallucinations to expand into full on delusions in such a small amount of time.
He walked down the street with blood peppered on his shirt and face, a manic grin on his face. He didn’t bother putting away his gun as he strolled along. He passed a bar that still had some people drinking their worries away at the early hour of the morning. Neil spotted a motorbike, clearly a well loved vintage. There was a bag secured to the side of it, and Neil opened it up to find a helmet. Wonderful.
It had been a long time since he had hotwired a motorbike, but Mary had taught him well.
Red jumped up and sat on top of his duffle that was nestled between his legs. Neil put his gun in the side pocket of his duffle for easy access - he was aiming to travel far and not stop. Maybe he should look for a farm or something, live out his delusions on his own, living off of the land. He could grow a veggie garden, can’t be that hard. Neil’s grin hurt his face, but he couldn’t make it go away. He didn’t have time to try and pry it off either, so he used his legs to walk the bike to the edge of the road and started on the wires.
The bike was definitely well looked after, and it rumbled to life underneath him. He giggled again.
“Nice, hey Red,” he said. Red rumbled a laugh. He wasn’t sure where his mother was, but he wasn’t waiting around. He turned the throttle and took off down the road, hearing the bar door slam open and angry shouts behind him.
It wasn’t long before he was on the highway again, wind making his clothes ripple and press against his chest. He thought about the conversation the men had been having, about leveling up and reaching level 10. It sounded like a game, and Neil couldn’t help the laugh that came out. He had never had the chance to play games, those men were lucky. At least his hallucinations were of his dead mother’s ghost and a transforming cat - they thought that he was a part of some game? Stupid.
“I’m fine. Everything is fine,” Neil chuckled. Red laughed at him.