amaranthh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenling) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2015-05-14 01:39 am
greenling) wrote in rainbowfic2015-05-14 01:39 am
Rose #2, Sherry #12
Name: Greenling
Story: All Great Things/Standalone
Colors: Rose #2. (A relationship is like a rose, How long it lasts, no one knows.), Sherry #12 (This is the hardest Miracle)
Supplies and Styles: Novelty Beads ("Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force." - Brenda Ueland)
Word Count: 4,194
Rating: PG
Warnings: Trauma and bad memories.
Summary: Kara and Sophie make do with what they've found and begin to deal with each other and the situation they've found themselves in.
I have been working on this since... *checks* December. Yep. I'm not really satisfied with the emotion or how Kara's characterization is going along but I rewrote the first bit about six times soOoO screw this and let's move on! Last bit is here. Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
Sophie had been gone for a while by the time Kara got into the shower. There was a clock on the wall of the motel room, a cheap little black analog thing that looked like it'd been picked up at a dollar store somewhere and clashed with the mesa-orange wallpaper. It read about 5pm when she left, and Kara made herself spend one whole hour sitting by the phone waiting for her Dad to call back before giving in to the itchy stink. Under the bathroom sink were a few towels and one bathrobe, as well as a double-handful of tiny bottles. The bathroom itself was tobacco-yellowed but clean. She just about pulled apart a washcloth trying to scrub every spot on her back, then spent a long time just standing there with the hot water off, raking shampoo and conditioner through her tangled hair. She left the door cracked though the phone never rang, and by the time she got out the AC chill was making her stomach all queasy from the temperature change and the tiny hairs on her arms were standing at attention.
It was so relaxing that at least for a while, she managed not to think too hard about Sophie, or where the other girl was getting more clothes. As far as Kara was aware, they were the only people in the motel, and she hadn't exactly seen a thrift store on the way. Or much money. Wondering about it seemed thoroughly unhelpful at the moment, though. She quietly hoped Sophie had meant to find clothes for both of them, and she could feel normal or at least comfortable again. Funk emanated from the pile of her clothes sitting on the back of the toilet, even over the shower fog. Only her jacket and shoes were still relatively okay, though the shoes were debatable, and her underwear on the other hand probably qualified as an active biohazard. She dried off, wrapped herself up thoroughly in the bathrobe, and went to sit on the bed and wait some more.
Ichi was still fast asleep on the bed where he'd been left, curled up nose-under-tail in a big orange ball. Kara smiled a little and tried not to disturb him too much when she sat down. After a few minutes it was apparent that there wasn't much to do in the hotel room outside of the obsessing thing. She refused to look at the clock, or think about the man with the shotgun, but as soon as it occurred to her her heart started beating hard without her consent. She squeezed the bedcovers tight in her fists and forced herself to take even, deep breaths. That was what Ms. Montoya had said before, and it had helped, and that train of thought wasn't helpful either.
Gingerly, she reached out and started petting Ichi. The dog was huge and healthy-looking, as far as she knew about dogs, though his fur was a little mussed and dusty and he smelled, well, like a dog. He had been reasonably friendly, but not really outgoing with Kara, and she wasn't completely sure if he'd be okay with her petting him without Sophie there. He also seemed reasonably well-fed, maybe moreso than Sophie did. Sophie was bony-tiny, though she always looked like she'd just got ready to go out somewhere, her hair looked recently bleached, and she only smelled if you got way too close. Neither her or Ichi looked like they'd been suffering from heat and lack of food as much as Kara thought she did. Maybe they were just more used to it.
Petting the sleeping dog was briefly distracting, but she really needed something to do. Kara got up and started sorting through the drawers of the nightstand and the cabinet under the TV. There was nothing in any of them except a bag of nitrile gloves; not even a Gideon Bible. She didn't know what she'd expected. There was a closet, but it didn't even have a door, much less anything in it. The TV was a bluescreen no matter what she fiddled with. Looking around, she saw her backpack shoved under the bed and remembered the homework she'd brought in case she'd gotten really, really bored. Homework would be something normal to do. She dragged it out, opened it up, and grimaced at far too many days' worth of vending machine wrappers. Those went into the trash. There were water bottles, too, one of them half-full; she hesitated.
She was going home. Her Dad would find the place and come get her tonight or tomorrow morning- maybe they'd forgotten to call because someone else was already tracing their tracks. Worst-case scenario, nobody would be able to arrange anything for a couple of days, and her Dad would find money to put on her card to stay in the motel, eat, and do whatever was needed until then. They knew where she was. Nobody was going to leave her out in the desert.
Feeling ridiculous either way, she decided to ignore the bottles and take her books back to the bed. Maybe she could make the bottles into something crafty and commemorative later, a memento of That One Time I Slept In An Abandoned Truck Stop Overnight. That seemed like the sort of thing you did with things like that.
History was out. Even the textbook made her think too much about what had happened (was school even still going with a whole class missing? was anyone else left behind somewhere, trying to get home?), and though she'd sworn she'd brought her English book, it wasn't there now. That left chemistry, which was somewhere left of Hell so far as getting any work done, but hopefully that would make for an even better distraction. A distraction would be great. Jessica. That was the name of the girl sitting near the front.
She flipped through the section on molar equations a few times back and forth. Kara barely knew her. She was blonde, sort of generically pretty, and she could have been a cheerleader if she'd been a little richer and a little smaller. The chem section of her notebook was largely still in there, though most of the page was covered in little flower doodles and avocados. Jessica and her friends were sitting up at the front, laughing and talking with each other, when the bus had suddenly lurched. There was something scribbled in the margins of the book with pencil, though she couldn't read it or the much older scribbles she'd tried to erase earlier in the semester in a fit of hubris. Even the teacher had admitted that section was badly-written and needed revision. Everyone had slid towards the front left tire, some out of their seats, most of them laughing and whooping at the pothole. Jessica wasn't in the front seat exactly, but she must have had her window open or something, and she'd fallen backwards against the window, and pushed herself away- then it had happened again.
Kara tried to focus, tried to read the same line over and over again. Ms. Montoya had offered to sit with Jessica during the night, but her friends had wanted her to stay with them. Ms. Montoya had been the one to take charge, to order everyone into their seats and holding on, to take Jessica and yell at the bus driver to gun it until they were through it. When Kara saw the other girl next, half of her face was black with asphalt. Black and red. Kara was sitting by a window on the other side, and she'd shoved her things messily into her pockets and put her head down, clinging to the seat in front of her.
No longer having to think about dying of thirst in the desert, knowing the entire world hadn't been consumed in some inchoate armageddon- that was all that had stopped her. She'd gone all fuzzy again. She was going fuzzy now. Had Jessica made it through the night? What were her parents thinking? She refused to think about the tears running down her cheecks. Ichi snorted in surprise as the books all fell into the floor, then hopped off the bed as Kara shoved herself under the covers and curled up.
She stayed there a while, only thinking not to sleep in case someone called, maybe to get her out of there.
At some point, Ichi stood up and went towards the door. It should have been a relief to hear him panting and thumping his huge curly tail, but at that point she was mostly gone, and it was background noise to her thoughts. The door opened and closed, and there were more dog noises and maybe other ones. Soon afterwards the shower started up.
Time passed.
*
She didn't fall asleep, or at least she was pretty sure she didn't, but her consciousness wasn't there for a while. At some point Ichi had climbed back up on the bed and was laying by her feet again, tail flipping back and forth. The warm presence helped. It occurred to her that Sophie had come back, and had probably gone ahead and used the shower. Kara's clothes were still in there, being nasty... and she'd been crying her eyes out. Quietly, she hoped, but it didn't matter. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment, which was almost as bad as her nose being runny. Right out of the shower and she felt gross all over again.
She pulled the covers down a little to let some fresh air into her liitle blanket cavern and spent a minute cooling back down. Awareness of her surroundings came back piece by piece, popping into her head like puzzle pieces into a larger whole. The images were still dancing around in the back of her mind, but for the moment, they seemed to have lost their power, or at least burnt her out enough that it didn't matter. She hadn't heard the phone ring. She hadn't heard Sophie get out of the bathroom, though the water wasn't running anymore. Really, she hadn't heard much of anything. There wasn't any way to avoid Sophie, and it might not matter if she did; more immediately, she needed to blow her nose and get something to drink. Maybe even some food.
Kara slid up onto her elbows and wiped her eyes as best she could on the robe. She looked up and was startled to see Sophie sitting in the floor on the other side of the bed. Sophie immediately averted her eyes, standing up nonchalantly from the floor at the side of the bed. Her red sundress had been replaced by a couple of layered long-sleeve shirts and a fluttery little navy skirt. She had clearly found something.
"Are you hungry?" Sophie asked in a calm voice, looking at the wall.
Kara decided she didn't really want to talk about it anyway. She quickly tied the robe a little tighter, facing away from Sophie, then slipped out of bed and ducked off towards the bathroom. She took a minute to try to clean up, blowing her nose in some toilet paper and splashing cold water on her face to soothe the sting of embarrassment.
"There's a pizza place that delivers here," Sophie continued after the noises had died down.
Kara took a deep, cleansing breath, held it, and let it back out again. It took a few seconds, but it helped. It was a little humid still in the bathroom, but it had cleared out enough that Sophie had to have gotten out a little while ago. Why Kara's brain decided to devote power to putting that together just to make her feel worse, she had no idea. Her clothes were still in a funkpile on the back of the toilet, and even slightly damp now. Well, there was nothing she could do about it.
"Uhm. Pizza sounds great," she said a little too loud. "Do you think we can get one with the money we have?"
"There were coupons in the motel office. Will you eat cheeseless?"
"I guess. Sure." She took another breath and forced herself into the moment. If she was going to be embarrassed, she might as well use it. "Did you maybe happen to find clothes enough that I could borrow something?"
"There's a mess of it in the laundry room, but it's mostly ugly truckers' things. Someone must have left very quickly. If you can find something, it's none of my business."
Kara tensed, deciding not to go down that line of thought again, at least not that night. She decided instead to take a long drink of water out of the sink and untangle her hair a little with her fingers. It wasn't going to go back right without a comb, but she didn't have a comb.
"They had an all-meat pizza," Sophie mused when Kara came back out. "Or there's pepperoni. Or whatever." She had taken Kara's place on the bed next to Ichi, who was definitely wide awake now; she looked up at Kara and half-smirked, then looked away again. That expression was getting really familiar. Her calm was a little eerie, but it was something she could work with. It meant she wasn't going to be mean, at least, and it was something to think about other than home.
"I don't care. Do you want to get the coupons and call? I don't exactly want to go outside like this."
Sophie shrugged and slipped off the bed towards the phone. "Already got them."
Kara busied herself cleaning up the mess of books in the floor while Sophie called. Her notebook was splattered face-down with a couple of torn pages, but oh well; and then under her backpack was her English book.
She glanced up at Sophie, who wasn't paying attention. She was pretty sure she hadn't taken anything else out of her backpack, but if it wasn't there when Sophie left... the other girl wasn't carrying anything she could keep the book in, so that didn't make any sense either. That aside from the fact that borrowing someone's school textbooks was both a little weird, and not the sort of thing most people would hide if they were bored enough to do it. Kara shook her head; she'd probably just missed it while she was freaking out, and it didn't matter either way.
Sophie put the phone receiver down. "Thirty minutes. Did you see where the laundry room was when we came in?" Kara shook her head. "It's around the corner on the right, down the little alley. There's a sign that says "ice"..." She trailed off. "Do I need to show you?"
Kara pulled her robe tighter around her and tried not to be too obvious with her relief. "You don't need to, but uhm, I would appreciate it?"
"Fine. I'm bored. So long as I don't have to watch you changing."
That made her snerk. "I wasn't planning on that."
Outside, the world was blessedly empty. Kara's feet sizzled on the rocky asphalt of the parking lot, but the heat of midday had begun to dissipate and the shadows were cool enough. The alley between the two small motel buildings was covered in the same murals as the front, but dustier and more faded. The ice sign seemed to be a piece of thick paperboard or plastic sticking out beside the door, while the door itself was more correctional-institution metal. A deep electrical hum came out of the vents and got louder when they went inside, and the murals gave way to beige walls, cheap white tile, and flickering flourescent lights. There was something aggressively indifferent about the laundry corridor; it was the sort of place Kara could imagine most of her classmates making serial killer jokes about.
The actual room way down at the end was nicer, mostly because there was sunlight coming in through the little rectangular windows and there were two laundry baskets' worth of clothes strewn everywhere. Kara walked over to a pile set out over the counter and picked at something at random. It turned out to be a stained men's t-shirt with an abstract beach-looking print, halfway inside out and tangled with a pair of briefs. She grimaced.
Sophie crossed her arms, looking amused. "Good luck."
Kara sighed to herself and started sorting. Most of it was way too big, though that might just make it breezier, if she could keep it on. Meanwhile, Sophie was hovering by the door like she was about to leave. Which made sense.
"Thank you," Kara said softly.
Sophie shrugged one shoulder in response and turned away.
"N- I mean, thank you. For everything," Kara repeated. "I don't remember if I said that yet."
"It's not a big deal."
"It was to me."
The quiet was awkward, even filled with the background electric hum.
"The world is a ball of crap. I guess I didn't want you to die."
Kara started folding the clothes and stacking them by type. It was something to do, and maybe it'd make things easier. "Can I ask you a slightly personal question?"
Sophie's eyes narrowed immediately; Kara noticed even out of the corner of her eyes. "Why?"
"Because... I'm not trying to pry," Kara said awkwardly. "It just would be nice to, y'know, talk, and we don't know each other enough for me to even know how to start a conversation. I don't know what you like, or, what I shouldn't ask, but we've been hanging out for like three days now, so I feel like I should try."
Sophie seemed calmer; at least, she stopped glaring quite as hard. "Then why don't you just start talking? I don't know anything about you either."
"Okay. Uhm." She thought for a moment. "I'm a junior- in high school obviously- and I'm from Colorado. I don't really have any friends in school, so I spend way too much time on the computer either talking to my friends there or doing other stuff. I sort of like photography and making graphics and stuff but I'm not very good at it, I'm just... less good at anything else I've tried. I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life, presuming the world is still here by the time I graduate, and uhm..."
"What's Colorado like?"
"It's... empty. Really flat until it's really not. Sort of like around here, but, less dry and more evergreens? I guess it's nice if you like ranches and national parks."
"I like trees." Sophie was looking in her direction again. "Do you live on a ranch?"
"Oh, no. I just live in a normal house, with my Dad." Kara paused; she wasn't sure what else to say. "It's kind of small but... well he normally works evenings anyway. Plus we're like 45 minutes outside of Colorado Springs, which is pretty big. There are some farmers and stuff in the city limits, and a guy who owns a riding stables. Stuff like that."
She'd folded most of the pile by that point. There were a couple of pairs of loose shorts with drawstrings she might be able to get small enough to fit, as well as a pair of dark blue sweatpants which would definitely fit, but she wasn't sure if she was willing to wear something that hot even temporarily. T-shirts were t-shirts, and there was a chance- a small chance- that going without a bra would be less obnoxious than trying to handwash her things.
"What were you going to ask before?" Sophie said suddenly.
"Huh? Oh. Uh, how old you are."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
Sophie smirked again. "Then I'm not much older than you."
Kara held up a long pair of green shorts. "Fair enough. Do you think I could make this fit?"
"Hmm..." Sophie took a half-step closer and put a finger beside her lips. "Maybe. Try it on and see?"
Kara smiled. "Okay. I'll tell you when it's safe."
"Good." Sophie turned with a flourish and left the room.
*
Sputtering, Kara woke into cold water. Clothes were shoved into her hands.
"Get up, clothes on, no questions."
She bristled, though her first response stayed in her head as she wiped off her face. She hesitated, trying to think through the grogginess, but Sophie's voice was rough and heavy with something that might have been panic, and that seemed more important; she couldn't see the clock on the wall, but there was a little moonlight coming in through the blinds. Kara's stomach twisted with fear and anger as she slid out of bed and towards the bathroom. Sophie already seemed to be dressed, shoving the pizza and sodas into Kara's backpack.
Kara left the door cracked in the darkness, tossed the robe she'd slept in into the floor, and found her way into clothes. The sun had been just under the horizon when they'd divided up the bed and gone to sleep, not long after they'd finished the pizza. Even Sophie had been yawning despite herself. Whatever had woken her up... visions of shotgun guy, or worse, were vivid in Kara's mind.
"Are we leaving?" she decided to ask anyway.
"Yes," Sophie snapped.
She hurried up with the rest of it, grabbing her dirty clothes off the back of the toilet before heading back out to put on her jacket and shoes. If they were getting the pizza, there was time to shove her dirty clothes in there too. When she came out, Sophie was standing by the door and staring out past the blinds with narrowed eyes. Ichi sat vigilantly beside her.
"Are you done?"
Kara yanked her shoelaces tied and stood up, grabbing her backpack. "Yes. Where are we going?"
Sophie already had the door unlatched and open. "Open ground," was what Kara thought she heard before the other girl bolted, dog right behind.
She wound up maybe ten, fifteen feet behind Sophie. The girl could run, and Kara was still waking up- if she was awake. She was beginning to doubt that. Sophie's hair fluttered in the moonlight like a lighthouse beacon as they rounded the motel's main building and headed out towards the land beyond. They stayed at a dead run for a few minutes, heading blindly up a rough little scrub-hill directly behind the motel.
Sophie turned as she got to the top and almost slipped in the loose, sandy soil; she scrambled upright, kicking some dirt into the air and clapping her hands over her mouth to muffle a scream. It still echoed in the quiet night, and Kara turned to look despite herself. There was nothing out there. She walked backwards up the hill, trying not to knock into Sophie or anything else. Then she saw movement back on the road.
There were two of them, and at first she thought they were dogs or coyotes, but as they loped towards the motel she realized they were much too big for that. The crescent moon was just enough to show the rough shapes of them, something hairy and powerfully-built, with maybe four and maybe six legs. Her blood ran to ice water; whatever they were, they sure as hell weren't coyotes.
Sophie stopped hyperventilating, and before Kara could think she grabbed Sophie's arm. She was already mid-run; she shrieked in terror and tugged, and they both nearly tumbled backwards.
"Let me go!" she snapped, dropping her voice to a hiss. Ichi took one step forward, growling low, and Kara was reminded just what a big dog he was.
"They're over there-" came out of her mouth, surprisingly coherent- "we can't just run around in the dark, what if there are more out there? Or- sinkholes or something?"
Sophie twisted and yanked her arm out of Kara's grip, taking a step back. Ichi stepped closer to the other girl, his growl a little softer. "They spawn around people, so we're leaving."
"I've heard that theory too-"
"It's not a theory," Sophie spat. Her shoulders were up and she was clenched into herself like she thought Kara might hit her. "The safest place is alone. Last chance."
"W- what if we found a car and got completely out of here, fast?"
Sophie hesitated. "You. And where would you find a car? And keys?"
"There, are lots of empty houses, and some people left cars and trucks and things." Her mind raced through the different reasons why on Earth someone would do that, most of which meant this was a bad plan. Her mouth kept moving anyway. "I saw them earlier. Some of them are old, and uhm, you can make an old car run without keys... I've never done it before, but I've read about it and I think I can remember."
Kara could barely see Sophie's expression in the shadow. "Fine. If you can find something we can use to get out of here, we will, but if those things see us I'm not going to wait up for you."
Kara nodded, looking out over the city and taking a moment to breathe.
Story: All Great Things/Standalone
Colors: Rose #2. (A relationship is like a rose, How long it lasts, no one knows.), Sherry #12 (This is the hardest Miracle)
Supplies and Styles: Novelty Beads ("Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force." - Brenda Ueland)
Word Count: 4,194
Rating: PG
Warnings: Trauma and bad memories.
Summary: Kara and Sophie make do with what they've found and begin to deal with each other and the situation they've found themselves in.
I have been working on this since... *checks* December. Yep. I'm not really satisfied with the emotion or how Kara's characterization is going along but I rewrote the first bit about six times soOoO screw this and let's move on! Last bit is here. Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
Sophie had been gone for a while by the time Kara got into the shower. There was a clock on the wall of the motel room, a cheap little black analog thing that looked like it'd been picked up at a dollar store somewhere and clashed with the mesa-orange wallpaper. It read about 5pm when she left, and Kara made herself spend one whole hour sitting by the phone waiting for her Dad to call back before giving in to the itchy stink. Under the bathroom sink were a few towels and one bathrobe, as well as a double-handful of tiny bottles. The bathroom itself was tobacco-yellowed but clean. She just about pulled apart a washcloth trying to scrub every spot on her back, then spent a long time just standing there with the hot water off, raking shampoo and conditioner through her tangled hair. She left the door cracked though the phone never rang, and by the time she got out the AC chill was making her stomach all queasy from the temperature change and the tiny hairs on her arms were standing at attention.
It was so relaxing that at least for a while, she managed not to think too hard about Sophie, or where the other girl was getting more clothes. As far as Kara was aware, they were the only people in the motel, and she hadn't exactly seen a thrift store on the way. Or much money. Wondering about it seemed thoroughly unhelpful at the moment, though. She quietly hoped Sophie had meant to find clothes for both of them, and she could feel normal or at least comfortable again. Funk emanated from the pile of her clothes sitting on the back of the toilet, even over the shower fog. Only her jacket and shoes were still relatively okay, though the shoes were debatable, and her underwear on the other hand probably qualified as an active biohazard. She dried off, wrapped herself up thoroughly in the bathrobe, and went to sit on the bed and wait some more.
Ichi was still fast asleep on the bed where he'd been left, curled up nose-under-tail in a big orange ball. Kara smiled a little and tried not to disturb him too much when she sat down. After a few minutes it was apparent that there wasn't much to do in the hotel room outside of the obsessing thing. She refused to look at the clock, or think about the man with the shotgun, but as soon as it occurred to her her heart started beating hard without her consent. She squeezed the bedcovers tight in her fists and forced herself to take even, deep breaths. That was what Ms. Montoya had said before, and it had helped, and that train of thought wasn't helpful either.
Gingerly, she reached out and started petting Ichi. The dog was huge and healthy-looking, as far as she knew about dogs, though his fur was a little mussed and dusty and he smelled, well, like a dog. He had been reasonably friendly, but not really outgoing with Kara, and she wasn't completely sure if he'd be okay with her petting him without Sophie there. He also seemed reasonably well-fed, maybe moreso than Sophie did. Sophie was bony-tiny, though she always looked like she'd just got ready to go out somewhere, her hair looked recently bleached, and she only smelled if you got way too close. Neither her or Ichi looked like they'd been suffering from heat and lack of food as much as Kara thought she did. Maybe they were just more used to it.
Petting the sleeping dog was briefly distracting, but she really needed something to do. Kara got up and started sorting through the drawers of the nightstand and the cabinet under the TV. There was nothing in any of them except a bag of nitrile gloves; not even a Gideon Bible. She didn't know what she'd expected. There was a closet, but it didn't even have a door, much less anything in it. The TV was a bluescreen no matter what she fiddled with. Looking around, she saw her backpack shoved under the bed and remembered the homework she'd brought in case she'd gotten really, really bored. Homework would be something normal to do. She dragged it out, opened it up, and grimaced at far too many days' worth of vending machine wrappers. Those went into the trash. There were water bottles, too, one of them half-full; she hesitated.
She was going home. Her Dad would find the place and come get her tonight or tomorrow morning- maybe they'd forgotten to call because someone else was already tracing their tracks. Worst-case scenario, nobody would be able to arrange anything for a couple of days, and her Dad would find money to put on her card to stay in the motel, eat, and do whatever was needed until then. They knew where she was. Nobody was going to leave her out in the desert.
Feeling ridiculous either way, she decided to ignore the bottles and take her books back to the bed. Maybe she could make the bottles into something crafty and commemorative later, a memento of That One Time I Slept In An Abandoned Truck Stop Overnight. That seemed like the sort of thing you did with things like that.
History was out. Even the textbook made her think too much about what had happened (was school even still going with a whole class missing? was anyone else left behind somewhere, trying to get home?), and though she'd sworn she'd brought her English book, it wasn't there now. That left chemistry, which was somewhere left of Hell so far as getting any work done, but hopefully that would make for an even better distraction. A distraction would be great. Jessica. That was the name of the girl sitting near the front.
She flipped through the section on molar equations a few times back and forth. Kara barely knew her. She was blonde, sort of generically pretty, and she could have been a cheerleader if she'd been a little richer and a little smaller. The chem section of her notebook was largely still in there, though most of the page was covered in little flower doodles and avocados. Jessica and her friends were sitting up at the front, laughing and talking with each other, when the bus had suddenly lurched. There was something scribbled in the margins of the book with pencil, though she couldn't read it or the much older scribbles she'd tried to erase earlier in the semester in a fit of hubris. Even the teacher had admitted that section was badly-written and needed revision. Everyone had slid towards the front left tire, some out of their seats, most of them laughing and whooping at the pothole. Jessica wasn't in the front seat exactly, but she must have had her window open or something, and she'd fallen backwards against the window, and pushed herself away- then it had happened again.
Kara tried to focus, tried to read the same line over and over again. Ms. Montoya had offered to sit with Jessica during the night, but her friends had wanted her to stay with them. Ms. Montoya had been the one to take charge, to order everyone into their seats and holding on, to take Jessica and yell at the bus driver to gun it until they were through it. When Kara saw the other girl next, half of her face was black with asphalt. Black and red. Kara was sitting by a window on the other side, and she'd shoved her things messily into her pockets and put her head down, clinging to the seat in front of her.
No longer having to think about dying of thirst in the desert, knowing the entire world hadn't been consumed in some inchoate armageddon- that was all that had stopped her. She'd gone all fuzzy again. She was going fuzzy now. Had Jessica made it through the night? What were her parents thinking? She refused to think about the tears running down her cheecks. Ichi snorted in surprise as the books all fell into the floor, then hopped off the bed as Kara shoved herself under the covers and curled up.
She stayed there a while, only thinking not to sleep in case someone called, maybe to get her out of there.
At some point, Ichi stood up and went towards the door. It should have been a relief to hear him panting and thumping his huge curly tail, but at that point she was mostly gone, and it was background noise to her thoughts. The door opened and closed, and there were more dog noises and maybe other ones. Soon afterwards the shower started up.
Time passed.
*
She didn't fall asleep, or at least she was pretty sure she didn't, but her consciousness wasn't there for a while. At some point Ichi had climbed back up on the bed and was laying by her feet again, tail flipping back and forth. The warm presence helped. It occurred to her that Sophie had come back, and had probably gone ahead and used the shower. Kara's clothes were still in there, being nasty... and she'd been crying her eyes out. Quietly, she hoped, but it didn't matter. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment, which was almost as bad as her nose being runny. Right out of the shower and she felt gross all over again.
She pulled the covers down a little to let some fresh air into her liitle blanket cavern and spent a minute cooling back down. Awareness of her surroundings came back piece by piece, popping into her head like puzzle pieces into a larger whole. The images were still dancing around in the back of her mind, but for the moment, they seemed to have lost their power, or at least burnt her out enough that it didn't matter. She hadn't heard the phone ring. She hadn't heard Sophie get out of the bathroom, though the water wasn't running anymore. Really, she hadn't heard much of anything. There wasn't any way to avoid Sophie, and it might not matter if she did; more immediately, she needed to blow her nose and get something to drink. Maybe even some food.
Kara slid up onto her elbows and wiped her eyes as best she could on the robe. She looked up and was startled to see Sophie sitting in the floor on the other side of the bed. Sophie immediately averted her eyes, standing up nonchalantly from the floor at the side of the bed. Her red sundress had been replaced by a couple of layered long-sleeve shirts and a fluttery little navy skirt. She had clearly found something.
"Are you hungry?" Sophie asked in a calm voice, looking at the wall.
Kara decided she didn't really want to talk about it anyway. She quickly tied the robe a little tighter, facing away from Sophie, then slipped out of bed and ducked off towards the bathroom. She took a minute to try to clean up, blowing her nose in some toilet paper and splashing cold water on her face to soothe the sting of embarrassment.
"There's a pizza place that delivers here," Sophie continued after the noises had died down.
Kara took a deep, cleansing breath, held it, and let it back out again. It took a few seconds, but it helped. It was a little humid still in the bathroom, but it had cleared out enough that Sophie had to have gotten out a little while ago. Why Kara's brain decided to devote power to putting that together just to make her feel worse, she had no idea. Her clothes were still in a funkpile on the back of the toilet, and even slightly damp now. Well, there was nothing she could do about it.
"Uhm. Pizza sounds great," she said a little too loud. "Do you think we can get one with the money we have?"
"There were coupons in the motel office. Will you eat cheeseless?"
"I guess. Sure." She took another breath and forced herself into the moment. If she was going to be embarrassed, she might as well use it. "Did you maybe happen to find clothes enough that I could borrow something?"
"There's a mess of it in the laundry room, but it's mostly ugly truckers' things. Someone must have left very quickly. If you can find something, it's none of my business."
Kara tensed, deciding not to go down that line of thought again, at least not that night. She decided instead to take a long drink of water out of the sink and untangle her hair a little with her fingers. It wasn't going to go back right without a comb, but she didn't have a comb.
"They had an all-meat pizza," Sophie mused when Kara came back out. "Or there's pepperoni. Or whatever." She had taken Kara's place on the bed next to Ichi, who was definitely wide awake now; she looked up at Kara and half-smirked, then looked away again. That expression was getting really familiar. Her calm was a little eerie, but it was something she could work with. It meant she wasn't going to be mean, at least, and it was something to think about other than home.
"I don't care. Do you want to get the coupons and call? I don't exactly want to go outside like this."
Sophie shrugged and slipped off the bed towards the phone. "Already got them."
Kara busied herself cleaning up the mess of books in the floor while Sophie called. Her notebook was splattered face-down with a couple of torn pages, but oh well; and then under her backpack was her English book.
She glanced up at Sophie, who wasn't paying attention. She was pretty sure she hadn't taken anything else out of her backpack, but if it wasn't there when Sophie left... the other girl wasn't carrying anything she could keep the book in, so that didn't make any sense either. That aside from the fact that borrowing someone's school textbooks was both a little weird, and not the sort of thing most people would hide if they were bored enough to do it. Kara shook her head; she'd probably just missed it while she was freaking out, and it didn't matter either way.
Sophie put the phone receiver down. "Thirty minutes. Did you see where the laundry room was when we came in?" Kara shook her head. "It's around the corner on the right, down the little alley. There's a sign that says "ice"..." She trailed off. "Do I need to show you?"
Kara pulled her robe tighter around her and tried not to be too obvious with her relief. "You don't need to, but uhm, I would appreciate it?"
"Fine. I'm bored. So long as I don't have to watch you changing."
That made her snerk. "I wasn't planning on that."
Outside, the world was blessedly empty. Kara's feet sizzled on the rocky asphalt of the parking lot, but the heat of midday had begun to dissipate and the shadows were cool enough. The alley between the two small motel buildings was covered in the same murals as the front, but dustier and more faded. The ice sign seemed to be a piece of thick paperboard or plastic sticking out beside the door, while the door itself was more correctional-institution metal. A deep electrical hum came out of the vents and got louder when they went inside, and the murals gave way to beige walls, cheap white tile, and flickering flourescent lights. There was something aggressively indifferent about the laundry corridor; it was the sort of place Kara could imagine most of her classmates making serial killer jokes about.
The actual room way down at the end was nicer, mostly because there was sunlight coming in through the little rectangular windows and there were two laundry baskets' worth of clothes strewn everywhere. Kara walked over to a pile set out over the counter and picked at something at random. It turned out to be a stained men's t-shirt with an abstract beach-looking print, halfway inside out and tangled with a pair of briefs. She grimaced.
Sophie crossed her arms, looking amused. "Good luck."
Kara sighed to herself and started sorting. Most of it was way too big, though that might just make it breezier, if she could keep it on. Meanwhile, Sophie was hovering by the door like she was about to leave. Which made sense.
"Thank you," Kara said softly.
Sophie shrugged one shoulder in response and turned away.
"N- I mean, thank you. For everything," Kara repeated. "I don't remember if I said that yet."
"It's not a big deal."
"It was to me."
The quiet was awkward, even filled with the background electric hum.
"The world is a ball of crap. I guess I didn't want you to die."
Kara started folding the clothes and stacking them by type. It was something to do, and maybe it'd make things easier. "Can I ask you a slightly personal question?"
Sophie's eyes narrowed immediately; Kara noticed even out of the corner of her eyes. "Why?"
"Because... I'm not trying to pry," Kara said awkwardly. "It just would be nice to, y'know, talk, and we don't know each other enough for me to even know how to start a conversation. I don't know what you like, or, what I shouldn't ask, but we've been hanging out for like three days now, so I feel like I should try."
Sophie seemed calmer; at least, she stopped glaring quite as hard. "Then why don't you just start talking? I don't know anything about you either."
"Okay. Uhm." She thought for a moment. "I'm a junior- in high school obviously- and I'm from Colorado. I don't really have any friends in school, so I spend way too much time on the computer either talking to my friends there or doing other stuff. I sort of like photography and making graphics and stuff but I'm not very good at it, I'm just... less good at anything else I've tried. I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life, presuming the world is still here by the time I graduate, and uhm..."
"What's Colorado like?"
"It's... empty. Really flat until it's really not. Sort of like around here, but, less dry and more evergreens? I guess it's nice if you like ranches and national parks."
"I like trees." Sophie was looking in her direction again. "Do you live on a ranch?"
"Oh, no. I just live in a normal house, with my Dad." Kara paused; she wasn't sure what else to say. "It's kind of small but... well he normally works evenings anyway. Plus we're like 45 minutes outside of Colorado Springs, which is pretty big. There are some farmers and stuff in the city limits, and a guy who owns a riding stables. Stuff like that."
She'd folded most of the pile by that point. There were a couple of pairs of loose shorts with drawstrings she might be able to get small enough to fit, as well as a pair of dark blue sweatpants which would definitely fit, but she wasn't sure if she was willing to wear something that hot even temporarily. T-shirts were t-shirts, and there was a chance- a small chance- that going without a bra would be less obnoxious than trying to handwash her things.
"What were you going to ask before?" Sophie said suddenly.
"Huh? Oh. Uh, how old you are."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
Sophie smirked again. "Then I'm not much older than you."
Kara held up a long pair of green shorts. "Fair enough. Do you think I could make this fit?"
"Hmm..." Sophie took a half-step closer and put a finger beside her lips. "Maybe. Try it on and see?"
Kara smiled. "Okay. I'll tell you when it's safe."
"Good." Sophie turned with a flourish and left the room.
*
Sputtering, Kara woke into cold water. Clothes were shoved into her hands.
"Get up, clothes on, no questions."
She bristled, though her first response stayed in her head as she wiped off her face. She hesitated, trying to think through the grogginess, but Sophie's voice was rough and heavy with something that might have been panic, and that seemed more important; she couldn't see the clock on the wall, but there was a little moonlight coming in through the blinds. Kara's stomach twisted with fear and anger as she slid out of bed and towards the bathroom. Sophie already seemed to be dressed, shoving the pizza and sodas into Kara's backpack.
Kara left the door cracked in the darkness, tossed the robe she'd slept in into the floor, and found her way into clothes. The sun had been just under the horizon when they'd divided up the bed and gone to sleep, not long after they'd finished the pizza. Even Sophie had been yawning despite herself. Whatever had woken her up... visions of shotgun guy, or worse, were vivid in Kara's mind.
"Are we leaving?" she decided to ask anyway.
"Yes," Sophie snapped.
She hurried up with the rest of it, grabbing her dirty clothes off the back of the toilet before heading back out to put on her jacket and shoes. If they were getting the pizza, there was time to shove her dirty clothes in there too. When she came out, Sophie was standing by the door and staring out past the blinds with narrowed eyes. Ichi sat vigilantly beside her.
"Are you done?"
Kara yanked her shoelaces tied and stood up, grabbing her backpack. "Yes. Where are we going?"
Sophie already had the door unlatched and open. "Open ground," was what Kara thought she heard before the other girl bolted, dog right behind.
She wound up maybe ten, fifteen feet behind Sophie. The girl could run, and Kara was still waking up- if she was awake. She was beginning to doubt that. Sophie's hair fluttered in the moonlight like a lighthouse beacon as they rounded the motel's main building and headed out towards the land beyond. They stayed at a dead run for a few minutes, heading blindly up a rough little scrub-hill directly behind the motel.
Sophie turned as she got to the top and almost slipped in the loose, sandy soil; she scrambled upright, kicking some dirt into the air and clapping her hands over her mouth to muffle a scream. It still echoed in the quiet night, and Kara turned to look despite herself. There was nothing out there. She walked backwards up the hill, trying not to knock into Sophie or anything else. Then she saw movement back on the road.
There were two of them, and at first she thought they were dogs or coyotes, but as they loped towards the motel she realized they were much too big for that. The crescent moon was just enough to show the rough shapes of them, something hairy and powerfully-built, with maybe four and maybe six legs. Her blood ran to ice water; whatever they were, they sure as hell weren't coyotes.
Sophie stopped hyperventilating, and before Kara could think she grabbed Sophie's arm. She was already mid-run; she shrieked in terror and tugged, and they both nearly tumbled backwards.
"Let me go!" she snapped, dropping her voice to a hiss. Ichi took one step forward, growling low, and Kara was reminded just what a big dog he was.
"They're over there-" came out of her mouth, surprisingly coherent- "we can't just run around in the dark, what if there are more out there? Or- sinkholes or something?"
Sophie twisted and yanked her arm out of Kara's grip, taking a step back. Ichi stepped closer to the other girl, his growl a little softer. "They spawn around people, so we're leaving."
"I've heard that theory too-"
"It's not a theory," Sophie spat. Her shoulders were up and she was clenched into herself like she thought Kara might hit her. "The safest place is alone. Last chance."
"W- what if we found a car and got completely out of here, fast?"
Sophie hesitated. "You. And where would you find a car? And keys?"
"There, are lots of empty houses, and some people left cars and trucks and things." Her mind raced through the different reasons why on Earth someone would do that, most of which meant this was a bad plan. Her mouth kept moving anyway. "I saw them earlier. Some of them are old, and uhm, you can make an old car run without keys... I've never done it before, but I've read about it and I think I can remember."
Kara could barely see Sophie's expression in the shadow. "Fine. If you can find something we can use to get out of here, we will, but if those things see us I'm not going to wait up for you."
Kara nodded, looking out over the city and taking a moment to breathe.
no subject
I remember there was an earlier piece about a whole class of kids disappearing? Is this a continuation of that?
no subject
Thanks for reading!
no subject
no subject
no subject
Thank you so much for posting. I'm really excited for more.
no subject
Thank you for reading. I'm amazed the plot keeps going on this given it was supposed to be a one-shot.
no subject
no subject
Thanks for reading.