Status: Complete
Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back
Outlaws
Ray’s having a tough time focusing on the driving. The benefit is that he’s not driving into the rising sun, but his nerves are on edge with Bob’s groans from the back seat. He doesn’t sound too good.
“Mikey, you wanna keep some ice on him?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a rustling as Mikey pulls out the bag of ice they stocked up on before they left and presses it to Bob’s wound. Bob sighs a little, and maybe, just maybe, it’s one less thing Ray has to worry about.
He’s also a little distracted by Anette, who’s sitting up front with him. She keeps running her hands over her skin, like she’s nervous or something. Ray glances into the rearview mirror. Gerard and Frank are asleep in the back; Mikey has put his headphones back in; Bob is laying with his head in Mikey’s lap, eyes closed, probably in too much pain to pay attention.
So Ray asks her, “You okay, Annie?”
The bruises on her shoulders are purple, she has a new red mark on her neck, and she’s biting her lip slightly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You look like you got the crap beat out of you.” If Bob had seen her like this, Ray was pretty sure he would murder someone.
“I… oh goodness, do I?” She pulls down the visor to check her reflection. “Wow. I do, kinda. The dark circles don’t help much, do they?”
“Not really.” He can see her trying to fix her hair out of the corner of his eye. “Anette, what happened?”
She glances back at the others in the van before answering. “I uh… when I woke Gerard up last night, I think he was delusional. He… grabbed me. It’s fine, though,” she adds quickly when Ray shots her a look. “He’s fine now.”
“And, uh… your neck?”
Anette turns red and adverts her eyes to the hole in her jeans.
“Oh.” Ray knows what that means. He keeps his eyes on the road now, not wanting to embarrass her further. He knows how Gerard can be.
“Hey, do you want some music in?” she asks, trying to break their awkward silence.
“Yeah, actually, you wanna find this radio station for me?”
“What is it?”
“109 point… something, I don’t remember.”
“Okay.” Anette reaches over and starts turning the radio dial, looking for the station.
“Wait! That was it.”
She backs up the dial a few notches and the station comes through, the same voice Ray had listened to all last night.
“109 in the sky, but the pigs won’t quit. You’re here with me, Doctor Death-Defying—”
Anette giggles and Ray smiles.
“—your helicopter, pumping out the slaughtermatic sounds to keep you alive…”
-
Anette drives when Ray gets too tired. She’s the only one awake after their quick lunch stop to get water and some clean rags for Bob. She doesn’t have the heart to change the station, but she does turn it down a little so that maybe Frank doesn’t wake up. He had tried to stay awake for almost half an hour after they got on the road, probably to keep Anette entertained, but he’s drifted off now and Anette doesn’t see the point in waking him up again. They’ve all had sleep, but it’s been fitful and crappy and no one’s really well rested. Anette’s fighting the urge to sleep herself, but she’s the only one who’s anything close to awake.
She has alone time to think, at least. It’s hard for her not to panic herself. First she thinks about her and Bob’s house, and then Mikey and Gerard’s, wondering what the reaction to the dead bodies was. Then she is reliving the night in the alley in her mind, and for some reason starts imagining what would happen if they got caught. She was sure they’d fight, but she doesn’t think she could handle another case of being shot at. If Bob was in this much pain, what if… no. She couldn’t think like that. No one was going to die.
-
“We need to stop for the night. In a hotel.”
Anette has made up her mind. They need real beds tonight.
“Anette, are you crazy?” Mikey asks. “We can’t do that. They’re looking for us.”
“Look, we’re far enough away from the city. We’ve been driving for two days straight. I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen the boarder yet.” Anette pauses while they all look at her. No one looks thrilled about the idea. “And besides… we’re all so exhausted. And Bob needs actual rest. If we get a hotel room, we can all get cleaned up and get some real sleep.”
Anette can sense the guys don’t want to admit she’s right, but one look at Bob makes them agree with her. He isn’t quite as pale as this morning, but he still looks pretty terrible. Not to mention they all have dark circles under their eyes and have cramped muscles from being scrunched into the van for so long.
Ray is the one who sighs first. “Alright, we’ll… we’ll go another hour or so. I think there’s a town not too far ahead, and we’ll get something that we can pay for in cash. Anette, you and Bob can just get the room, ask for double queens or something…”
His voice drifts away and everyone else just nods. They’re either too tired or lost in thought to care. Probably a combination of both.
-
It’s Anette and Bob that walk into the motel’s front lobby to rent a room that night when they decide to stop at around nine. The sun is almost completely set, and they have literally no idea where they are, other than in California. All they know is that they’re far enough away from Battery City that their faces aren’t plastered all over the news stations.
The guy behind the counter is a grease ball, but Anette can use that to her advantage. He wouldn’t turn down a girl like her, even if she did look pretty raggedy.
“Can we get a room for the night? Double queen, please.”
“Got one. Smoking.”
“We’ll take it,” Anette says, pulling out her wallet. “How much?”
He is eyeing her up, and then stops at her face. Then his gaze slowly shifts to Bob, and he looks like he might recognize them. Damn. Anette isn’t sure what she’ll do if this guy recognizes them.
Finally, he gives his head a shake. “Eighty-nine even.”
Anette counts out the bills and hands them to him in exchange for the key. “Thank you.”
“Yeah. One thirteen on the other side.”
Bob ushers her out before anything else can be said. They hand the keys over to Mikey and Gerard before moving the van over. Anette notices a general store across the street. “Bob, I’m going over to the store. Be back in about twenty minutes.”
“I’ll go with you,” Gerard says, and he walks beside her as they make it to the light and cross the street. The town is dead for it being this relatively early in the evening. “You okay, Anette?”
Anette frowns as they make it to the doors. “Yeah, why?”
“I mean… you drove all day, and then… last night…” Gerard visibly gulps and his eyes flick down to the bruises on her shoulders.
“I’m okay, Gerard.” She takes his hand and gives it a brief squeeze before picking up a shopping basket. “I promise.”
“Ah-ah-ah-all right,” he yawns wildly, and she tugs him through the store. They get a little more food, some medical supplies for Bob, and then Anette grabs a bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. Gerard raises his eyebrows at the bottles.
“We all smell,” is all she says, and carries on. Gerard’s eyes dart all around as Anette finishes up the shopping, looking for signs of trouble. Granted, he’s so tired that he won’t put up much of a fight when compared to a Draculoid, but he likes to think that he could give Anette enough time to get away and warn the others if something happened…
Before he knows it, Anette is paying and they are each carrying two bags on the way back to the room. They walk very close together, shoulders bumping occasionally, but Gerard has to make sure that they get back safe. Not having a lazar gun on him makes him extra nervous.
“Let me get the door,” he says when they get to the room, and he swipes the card and shoulders the door open. Anette passes by him, brushing him just enough that his heart leaps into his throat for a moment, and then Gerard takes another look around before shutting the door and dead-bolting it behind him.
-
Gerard takes a shower last. He wasn’t originally going to take one, but Mikey glared at him when he tried to wriggle out of it, and so he gave in. But now, he’s happy he has showered, mostly because he feels like a human being again. He gets out of the hot shower and dresses in his last set of clean clothes.
Anette is folding some laundry on the bed closest to him. Neat little piles of everyone’s clothes cover the bed, and she sends him a small smile when he passes by. Gerard returns it, adverting his eyes before he stares too long and loses his train of thought. Bob is lying down in the other bed, and Ray is sitting next to him, absent-mindedly running his hands through Bob’s hair while himself, Frank, and Mikey watch the news. The lady on the TV is simply reporting about the weather tomorrow, which is a good thing. They don’t need to be watching anything else about how they’re armed and dangerous.
“Anything new?” Gerard asks, taking a seat on the floor next to Mikey.
“It’s gonna be hotter than hell tomorrow,” Frank replies, taking his eyes off the TV for a moment to look at Gerard. “And a couple of people were shot at around four trying to cross the boarder up north.”
“What about the explosion? Anything on that?”
“Just a follow up story saying they didn’t know who had caused it or where they had gone,” Ray says. “It wasn’t much.”
“Good.” Gerard doesn’t know how they would get anywhere if they were being hunted by more than Korse.
They’re silent for almost a half hour while they watch the news and Anette finishes packing everything up. When she’s done, she sits down on the bed behind Gerard and starts playing with his hair. Gerard closes his eyes and leans his head back, half-listening to the newscaster now. All he wants to feel in this moment are Anette’s hands in his hair, how she’s twirling strands of hair between her fingers and massaging his scalp gently.
Before he knows it, the news is over and they’re all shifting around trying to decide who’s going to sleep where.
“Bob needs a bed,” Ray says first, and no one argues, partially because Bob is already asleep and they don’t want to move him.
“Okay, so you get that bed. So… who’s sleeping on the floor… ?” Frank asks, looking at Mikey, Gerard and Anette meekly.
Mikey sighs. “I’ll take the floor if we get the comforters and extra pillows. That should be okay.”
“No, Mikey, I’ll—” Anette starts, but she gets cut off by him.
“Anette, you drove all day. You and Gerard take the other bed. We’ll be fine, we got a bed last night.”
Anette sighs, but she doesn’t argue any more. She goes off to the bathroom while Frank and Mikey make their bed in the space between the foot of the beds and the TV dresser stand. Ray kicks off his shoes and crawls in under the covers next to Bob. Frank and Mikey get settled in, and when Anette is done, it’s lights off and Gerard is holding Anette in his arms under the sheets of a crappy motel bed.
About an hour passes and Gerard can’t fall asleep. He can hear everyone else’s deep breathing and wishes he could just be out like they were. But then again, he did have issues sleeping, so this wasn’t that surprising.
Anette rolls over, but her eyes are open. “Gee,” she whispers so quietly Gerard leans in a little to hear her better. “Gee, I can’t sleep.”
Her voice sounds cracked, upset. “I can’t either.” He reaches out and touches her cheek. It’s wet. “What’s wrong?”
“I just… I keep thinking…” She sniffles. “What’s going to happen to us, Gerard?”
Gerard pauses before answering her. “We’re going to make it, Anette. That I promise you.”
“Yeah?” she asks.
“Yeah.” Gerard presses his lips to her forehead. “We’re going to be fine. We’ll all make it out, out of this fucking state, and we’ll be free.”
“Where will we live?”
“How does way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere sound?”
“Good,” she agrees.
“And you can sing for the radio and I’ll draw comics or some shit, and the guys can have a band like they want, and maybe Bob can be a pilot, too, just for kicks.”
Anette thinks that Bob would love that. She smiles a little and snuggles into Gerard more. “What else?”
“They will never, ever take us alive. I promise you,” Gerard whispers in her ear, and her scent tickles his nose in a way that just makes him melt all over.
Anette doesn’t respond verbally, but she does clench at his shirt a little, and they fall into a semi-easy sleep.
-
It’s the smashing of glass just outside their window that startles Frank awake. He lays there for a few moments, his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes taking a few seconds to adjust to the darkness of the hotel room.
“Mikey?” he whispers into the darkness. No one answers him. Frank squirms around so he can see the window above him. He can see a dark shadow there, trying to look in. His heart starts pounding even harder. “Mikey, wake up,” he now hisses, prodding the skinny man next to him with his finger.
“Mm, what?” Mikey mutters groggily, turning over so he’s facing Frank.
“There’s someone looking in the window.”
Mikey’s eyes snap open and he’s instantly alert. He too turns and sees the figure in the window, which is starting to move on. “Shit. I bet that’s a Draculoid,” he breathes.
“What do we do?” Frank asks, biting his lip.
“Get everyone up. Quietly. Keep the lights off,” Mikey instructs, slowly getting to his feet. He goes for Gerard, so Frank pulls himself up and starts nudging Ray.
“Ray, get up. We have to go now.” Ray doesn’t respond. “Ray!” Frank hisses in his ear. “Dammit Ray, get up.”
“Urgh, wha?” Ray’s eyes slowly open. “What’s up, Frank?”
“We have to go.”
By the time everyone is awake, they’re all on edge and talking in hushed voices. The footsteps in the hallway have set them on full alert, and Gerard and Ray are working on barricading the door while Frank keeps watch from the crack in the curtains.
“I see someone down by the van,” he reports. “But it looks like it’s just one. Maybe the others are inside looking for us.”
“So we can take him, yeah?” Mikey asks, trying to see out as well.
“I think so, if we can get out the window.”
Heavy, urgent footsteps approach their door. “Make a decision fast,” Gerard says, heaving the armchair onto the dresser.
Mikey pulls out his lazar gun. “Now or never.”
“Let’s do it then,” Anette agrees, and she secures the bag on her shoulder.
In a fluid motion, Mikey yanks open the window and aims his gun at the shadow by their van. He fires, takes him down, and makes a considerable hole in the screen. He rips through it and is the first to scramble out the window, followed closely by Frank. Mikey starts clearing the area while Bob and Anette throw bags out and then follow them, making for the van.
It only takes a few seconds before Ray and Gerard leave too, scrambling as fast as they can. “Shit, they’ve fucking found us, shit,” Gerard says as he runs for the van, the sound of several people crashing into the room they had left just moments before. They’re halfway to the van when the first Draculoid throws himself through the window, lazar gun drawn and ready for the kill.
“Gee, duck!” Mikey yells, and Gerard gets out of the way in time for Mikey to shoot down two Draculoids, killing one as he tries to get through the window and blocking that exit. “Let’s go!” he yells to Ray, who’s already behind the wheel. Gerard and Mikey throw themselves inside and Ray takes off, tires squealing as they tear out of the parking lot and onto the road. As they pass by the entrance, they see Korse standing there, flanked by Draculoids, and everyone in the van ducks as they open fire. One lazar bolt shatters the back window and melts the driver-side headrest, but no more land as the van pulls out of range and rushes down the highway.
-
“We’ve lost them again.”
Korse holds the walkie talkie in his hand, his white lazar gun in his other, waiting for a response. He sits on a ripped bed in the disorderly hotel room.
The talkie buzzes. “This is your last chance. Take them out, or leave yourself in the desert.”
Korse’s grip tightened on the gun. “Understood.” SCARECROW didn’t respond. Korse dropped the radio and shot the mirror in front of him, shattering it and scorching the wall.
This time, they wouldn’t get away.
-
“Three in the morning. Three in the fucking morning.”
They’ve been driving for a while now. Frank is still grumbling over being awoken in the wee hours of the morning by government mercenaries, Ray is still feeling the back of his head occasionally to make sure his hair is still there while he drives, Mikey and Bob are perched in the back, each with a lazar gun, and Gerard and Anette are in the middle, Anette snoozing and Gerard staring out the window, watching for the sun to start emerging. It was getting lighter, but it wasn’t quite sunrise yet.
“We’re alive though, and that’s all that really matters,” Ray says wearily, checking the gauges in the dash. “But we’re gonna need gas soon. Like, real soon.”
“Jesus, we just fueled up!” Frank exclaims.
“Yeah, well, this van gets shitty gas mileage,” Ray explains, starting to get irritated.
“Why the fuck haven’t we stolen something else then?”
“Because we wouldn’t fit in anything else, you dumbass.”
“Don’t call me a dumbass, you—”
“Guys, stop,” Gerard says sharply, and Ray and Frank both shut up. “We’re all stressed and freaked out, but we can’t be fighting like this. Yeah, the van kind of sucks, but it’s been fine so far. We’re okay on money, so we’ll be fine until we can find a more permanent solution.”
After that, there isn’t any more bickering. They all have a peanut butter sandwich, quietly listening to the radio. An almost electronic voice and softly upbeat melody wash over them like the rising sun paints the desert sand vivid coppers and golds as they drive on and on, hoping for a reprieve soon.
“Can I be the only hope for you? Because you’re the only hope for me. And if we can find where we belong…”
-
“We interrupt this program to bring you an urgent radio announcement.”
“Uh-oh.” Frank cranks the volume on the radio and everyone sits very still, listening to what the radio had to say.
“There are criminals reported to be roaming the western California desert. They are wanted by the state for terrorism and murder. They are five men and one woman, all between the ages of twenty and thirty, traveling in a grey van with the license plate XTC-347. If you see them, report to the police. Do not approach them. They are armed and dangerous.”
They all sit in a numb silence when Frank switches the radio off.
This was it.
There was no escaping now.
“Mikey, you wanna keep some ice on him?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a rustling as Mikey pulls out the bag of ice they stocked up on before they left and presses it to Bob’s wound. Bob sighs a little, and maybe, just maybe, it’s one less thing Ray has to worry about.
He’s also a little distracted by Anette, who’s sitting up front with him. She keeps running her hands over her skin, like she’s nervous or something. Ray glances into the rearview mirror. Gerard and Frank are asleep in the back; Mikey has put his headphones back in; Bob is laying with his head in Mikey’s lap, eyes closed, probably in too much pain to pay attention.
So Ray asks her, “You okay, Annie?”
The bruises on her shoulders are purple, she has a new red mark on her neck, and she’s biting her lip slightly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You look like you got the crap beat out of you.” If Bob had seen her like this, Ray was pretty sure he would murder someone.
“I… oh goodness, do I?” She pulls down the visor to check her reflection. “Wow. I do, kinda. The dark circles don’t help much, do they?”
“Not really.” He can see her trying to fix her hair out of the corner of his eye. “Anette, what happened?”
She glances back at the others in the van before answering. “I uh… when I woke Gerard up last night, I think he was delusional. He… grabbed me. It’s fine, though,” she adds quickly when Ray shots her a look. “He’s fine now.”
“And, uh… your neck?”
Anette turns red and adverts her eyes to the hole in her jeans.
“Oh.” Ray knows what that means. He keeps his eyes on the road now, not wanting to embarrass her further. He knows how Gerard can be.
“Hey, do you want some music in?” she asks, trying to break their awkward silence.
“Yeah, actually, you wanna find this radio station for me?”
“What is it?”
“109 point… something, I don’t remember.”
“Okay.” Anette reaches over and starts turning the radio dial, looking for the station.
“Wait! That was it.”
She backs up the dial a few notches and the station comes through, the same voice Ray had listened to all last night.
“109 in the sky, but the pigs won’t quit. You’re here with me, Doctor Death-Defying—”
Anette giggles and Ray smiles.
“—your helicopter, pumping out the slaughtermatic sounds to keep you alive…”
-
Anette drives when Ray gets too tired. She’s the only one awake after their quick lunch stop to get water and some clean rags for Bob. She doesn’t have the heart to change the station, but she does turn it down a little so that maybe Frank doesn’t wake up. He had tried to stay awake for almost half an hour after they got on the road, probably to keep Anette entertained, but he’s drifted off now and Anette doesn’t see the point in waking him up again. They’ve all had sleep, but it’s been fitful and crappy and no one’s really well rested. Anette’s fighting the urge to sleep herself, but she’s the only one who’s anything close to awake.
She has alone time to think, at least. It’s hard for her not to panic herself. First she thinks about her and Bob’s house, and then Mikey and Gerard’s, wondering what the reaction to the dead bodies was. Then she is reliving the night in the alley in her mind, and for some reason starts imagining what would happen if they got caught. She was sure they’d fight, but she doesn’t think she could handle another case of being shot at. If Bob was in this much pain, what if… no. She couldn’t think like that. No one was going to die.
-
“We need to stop for the night. In a hotel.”
Anette has made up her mind. They need real beds tonight.
“Anette, are you crazy?” Mikey asks. “We can’t do that. They’re looking for us.”
“Look, we’re far enough away from the city. We’ve been driving for two days straight. I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen the boarder yet.” Anette pauses while they all look at her. No one looks thrilled about the idea. “And besides… we’re all so exhausted. And Bob needs actual rest. If we get a hotel room, we can all get cleaned up and get some real sleep.”
Anette can sense the guys don’t want to admit she’s right, but one look at Bob makes them agree with her. He isn’t quite as pale as this morning, but he still looks pretty terrible. Not to mention they all have dark circles under their eyes and have cramped muscles from being scrunched into the van for so long.
Ray is the one who sighs first. “Alright, we’ll… we’ll go another hour or so. I think there’s a town not too far ahead, and we’ll get something that we can pay for in cash. Anette, you and Bob can just get the room, ask for double queens or something…”
His voice drifts away and everyone else just nods. They’re either too tired or lost in thought to care. Probably a combination of both.
-
It’s Anette and Bob that walk into the motel’s front lobby to rent a room that night when they decide to stop at around nine. The sun is almost completely set, and they have literally no idea where they are, other than in California. All they know is that they’re far enough away from Battery City that their faces aren’t plastered all over the news stations.
The guy behind the counter is a grease ball, but Anette can use that to her advantage. He wouldn’t turn down a girl like her, even if she did look pretty raggedy.
“Can we get a room for the night? Double queen, please.”
“Got one. Smoking.”
“We’ll take it,” Anette says, pulling out her wallet. “How much?”
He is eyeing her up, and then stops at her face. Then his gaze slowly shifts to Bob, and he looks like he might recognize them. Damn. Anette isn’t sure what she’ll do if this guy recognizes them.
Finally, he gives his head a shake. “Eighty-nine even.”
Anette counts out the bills and hands them to him in exchange for the key. “Thank you.”
“Yeah. One thirteen on the other side.”
Bob ushers her out before anything else can be said. They hand the keys over to Mikey and Gerard before moving the van over. Anette notices a general store across the street. “Bob, I’m going over to the store. Be back in about twenty minutes.”
“I’ll go with you,” Gerard says, and he walks beside her as they make it to the light and cross the street. The town is dead for it being this relatively early in the evening. “You okay, Anette?”
Anette frowns as they make it to the doors. “Yeah, why?”
“I mean… you drove all day, and then… last night…” Gerard visibly gulps and his eyes flick down to the bruises on her shoulders.
“I’m okay, Gerard.” She takes his hand and gives it a brief squeeze before picking up a shopping basket. “I promise.”
“Ah-ah-ah-all right,” he yawns wildly, and she tugs him through the store. They get a little more food, some medical supplies for Bob, and then Anette grabs a bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. Gerard raises his eyebrows at the bottles.
“We all smell,” is all she says, and carries on. Gerard’s eyes dart all around as Anette finishes up the shopping, looking for signs of trouble. Granted, he’s so tired that he won’t put up much of a fight when compared to a Draculoid, but he likes to think that he could give Anette enough time to get away and warn the others if something happened…
Before he knows it, Anette is paying and they are each carrying two bags on the way back to the room. They walk very close together, shoulders bumping occasionally, but Gerard has to make sure that they get back safe. Not having a lazar gun on him makes him extra nervous.
“Let me get the door,” he says when they get to the room, and he swipes the card and shoulders the door open. Anette passes by him, brushing him just enough that his heart leaps into his throat for a moment, and then Gerard takes another look around before shutting the door and dead-bolting it behind him.
-
Gerard takes a shower last. He wasn’t originally going to take one, but Mikey glared at him when he tried to wriggle out of it, and so he gave in. But now, he’s happy he has showered, mostly because he feels like a human being again. He gets out of the hot shower and dresses in his last set of clean clothes.
Anette is folding some laundry on the bed closest to him. Neat little piles of everyone’s clothes cover the bed, and she sends him a small smile when he passes by. Gerard returns it, adverting his eyes before he stares too long and loses his train of thought. Bob is lying down in the other bed, and Ray is sitting next to him, absent-mindedly running his hands through Bob’s hair while himself, Frank, and Mikey watch the news. The lady on the TV is simply reporting about the weather tomorrow, which is a good thing. They don’t need to be watching anything else about how they’re armed and dangerous.
“Anything new?” Gerard asks, taking a seat on the floor next to Mikey.
“It’s gonna be hotter than hell tomorrow,” Frank replies, taking his eyes off the TV for a moment to look at Gerard. “And a couple of people were shot at around four trying to cross the boarder up north.”
“What about the explosion? Anything on that?”
“Just a follow up story saying they didn’t know who had caused it or where they had gone,” Ray says. “It wasn’t much.”
“Good.” Gerard doesn’t know how they would get anywhere if they were being hunted by more than Korse.
They’re silent for almost a half hour while they watch the news and Anette finishes packing everything up. When she’s done, she sits down on the bed behind Gerard and starts playing with his hair. Gerard closes his eyes and leans his head back, half-listening to the newscaster now. All he wants to feel in this moment are Anette’s hands in his hair, how she’s twirling strands of hair between her fingers and massaging his scalp gently.
Before he knows it, the news is over and they’re all shifting around trying to decide who’s going to sleep where.
“Bob needs a bed,” Ray says first, and no one argues, partially because Bob is already asleep and they don’t want to move him.
“Okay, so you get that bed. So… who’s sleeping on the floor… ?” Frank asks, looking at Mikey, Gerard and Anette meekly.
Mikey sighs. “I’ll take the floor if we get the comforters and extra pillows. That should be okay.”
“No, Mikey, I’ll—” Anette starts, but she gets cut off by him.
“Anette, you drove all day. You and Gerard take the other bed. We’ll be fine, we got a bed last night.”
Anette sighs, but she doesn’t argue any more. She goes off to the bathroom while Frank and Mikey make their bed in the space between the foot of the beds and the TV dresser stand. Ray kicks off his shoes and crawls in under the covers next to Bob. Frank and Mikey get settled in, and when Anette is done, it’s lights off and Gerard is holding Anette in his arms under the sheets of a crappy motel bed.
About an hour passes and Gerard can’t fall asleep. He can hear everyone else’s deep breathing and wishes he could just be out like they were. But then again, he did have issues sleeping, so this wasn’t that surprising.
Anette rolls over, but her eyes are open. “Gee,” she whispers so quietly Gerard leans in a little to hear her better. “Gee, I can’t sleep.”
Her voice sounds cracked, upset. “I can’t either.” He reaches out and touches her cheek. It’s wet. “What’s wrong?”
“I just… I keep thinking…” She sniffles. “What’s going to happen to us, Gerard?”
Gerard pauses before answering her. “We’re going to make it, Anette. That I promise you.”
“Yeah?” she asks.
“Yeah.” Gerard presses his lips to her forehead. “We’re going to be fine. We’ll all make it out, out of this fucking state, and we’ll be free.”
“Where will we live?”
“How does way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere sound?”
“Good,” she agrees.
“And you can sing for the radio and I’ll draw comics or some shit, and the guys can have a band like they want, and maybe Bob can be a pilot, too, just for kicks.”
Anette thinks that Bob would love that. She smiles a little and snuggles into Gerard more. “What else?”
“They will never, ever take us alive. I promise you,” Gerard whispers in her ear, and her scent tickles his nose in a way that just makes him melt all over.
Anette doesn’t respond verbally, but she does clench at his shirt a little, and they fall into a semi-easy sleep.
-
It’s the smashing of glass just outside their window that startles Frank awake. He lays there for a few moments, his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes taking a few seconds to adjust to the darkness of the hotel room.
“Mikey?” he whispers into the darkness. No one answers him. Frank squirms around so he can see the window above him. He can see a dark shadow there, trying to look in. His heart starts pounding even harder. “Mikey, wake up,” he now hisses, prodding the skinny man next to him with his finger.
“Mm, what?” Mikey mutters groggily, turning over so he’s facing Frank.
“There’s someone looking in the window.”
Mikey’s eyes snap open and he’s instantly alert. He too turns and sees the figure in the window, which is starting to move on. “Shit. I bet that’s a Draculoid,” he breathes.
“What do we do?” Frank asks, biting his lip.
“Get everyone up. Quietly. Keep the lights off,” Mikey instructs, slowly getting to his feet. He goes for Gerard, so Frank pulls himself up and starts nudging Ray.
“Ray, get up. We have to go now.” Ray doesn’t respond. “Ray!” Frank hisses in his ear. “Dammit Ray, get up.”
“Urgh, wha?” Ray’s eyes slowly open. “What’s up, Frank?”
“We have to go.”
By the time everyone is awake, they’re all on edge and talking in hushed voices. The footsteps in the hallway have set them on full alert, and Gerard and Ray are working on barricading the door while Frank keeps watch from the crack in the curtains.
“I see someone down by the van,” he reports. “But it looks like it’s just one. Maybe the others are inside looking for us.”
“So we can take him, yeah?” Mikey asks, trying to see out as well.
“I think so, if we can get out the window.”
Heavy, urgent footsteps approach their door. “Make a decision fast,” Gerard says, heaving the armchair onto the dresser.
Mikey pulls out his lazar gun. “Now or never.”
“Let’s do it then,” Anette agrees, and she secures the bag on her shoulder.
In a fluid motion, Mikey yanks open the window and aims his gun at the shadow by their van. He fires, takes him down, and makes a considerable hole in the screen. He rips through it and is the first to scramble out the window, followed closely by Frank. Mikey starts clearing the area while Bob and Anette throw bags out and then follow them, making for the van.
It only takes a few seconds before Ray and Gerard leave too, scrambling as fast as they can. “Shit, they’ve fucking found us, shit,” Gerard says as he runs for the van, the sound of several people crashing into the room they had left just moments before. They’re halfway to the van when the first Draculoid throws himself through the window, lazar gun drawn and ready for the kill.
“Gee, duck!” Mikey yells, and Gerard gets out of the way in time for Mikey to shoot down two Draculoids, killing one as he tries to get through the window and blocking that exit. “Let’s go!” he yells to Ray, who’s already behind the wheel. Gerard and Mikey throw themselves inside and Ray takes off, tires squealing as they tear out of the parking lot and onto the road. As they pass by the entrance, they see Korse standing there, flanked by Draculoids, and everyone in the van ducks as they open fire. One lazar bolt shatters the back window and melts the driver-side headrest, but no more land as the van pulls out of range and rushes down the highway.
-
“We’ve lost them again.”
Korse holds the walkie talkie in his hand, his white lazar gun in his other, waiting for a response. He sits on a ripped bed in the disorderly hotel room.
The talkie buzzes. “This is your last chance. Take them out, or leave yourself in the desert.”
Korse’s grip tightened on the gun. “Understood.” SCARECROW didn’t respond. Korse dropped the radio and shot the mirror in front of him, shattering it and scorching the wall.
This time, they wouldn’t get away.
-
“Three in the morning. Three in the fucking morning.”
They’ve been driving for a while now. Frank is still grumbling over being awoken in the wee hours of the morning by government mercenaries, Ray is still feeling the back of his head occasionally to make sure his hair is still there while he drives, Mikey and Bob are perched in the back, each with a lazar gun, and Gerard and Anette are in the middle, Anette snoozing and Gerard staring out the window, watching for the sun to start emerging. It was getting lighter, but it wasn’t quite sunrise yet.
“We’re alive though, and that’s all that really matters,” Ray says wearily, checking the gauges in the dash. “But we’re gonna need gas soon. Like, real soon.”
“Jesus, we just fueled up!” Frank exclaims.
“Yeah, well, this van gets shitty gas mileage,” Ray explains, starting to get irritated.
“Why the fuck haven’t we stolen something else then?”
“Because we wouldn’t fit in anything else, you dumbass.”
“Don’t call me a dumbass, you—”
“Guys, stop,” Gerard says sharply, and Ray and Frank both shut up. “We’re all stressed and freaked out, but we can’t be fighting like this. Yeah, the van kind of sucks, but it’s been fine so far. We’re okay on money, so we’ll be fine until we can find a more permanent solution.”
After that, there isn’t any more bickering. They all have a peanut butter sandwich, quietly listening to the radio. An almost electronic voice and softly upbeat melody wash over them like the rising sun paints the desert sand vivid coppers and golds as they drive on and on, hoping for a reprieve soon.
“Can I be the only hope for you? Because you’re the only hope for me. And if we can find where we belong…”
-
“We interrupt this program to bring you an urgent radio announcement.”
“Uh-oh.” Frank cranks the volume on the radio and everyone sits very still, listening to what the radio had to say.
“There are criminals reported to be roaming the western California desert. They are wanted by the state for terrorism and murder. They are five men and one woman, all between the ages of twenty and thirty, traveling in a grey van with the license plate XTC-347. If you see them, report to the police. Do not approach them. They are armed and dangerous.”
They all sit in a numb silence when Frank switches the radio off.
This was it.
There was no escaping now.