[GGH] Dark Drive, Eve of Emergency

[David Young Henning]

Time: Day 2, Late Evening
Weather: Raining, plus wind
Warnings: An injured woman, driving in rain, nightmare fuel.
Characters: Charlotte Jacobs, David Young Henning, others
Notes: This thread starts out as a car ride that will eventually (if all goes well) turn into an arrival at the hospital. Continued from this thread.

As was his habit, Henning had memorized a map of Greenvale before arriving in town, but the rain and darkness made it difficult to tell how well he was adhering to the Hospital route. Things flashed by outside the windows as he drove, jagged black cutouts like something from a nightmare pop-up book. Some of them looked like houses and trees, which was probably what they were, but still others resembled nothing natural, and loomed over the road like ancient behemoths only to dissolve into a fine spray when he drove through them. The sheer amount of water pouring from the sky was making a bathysphere of the car; the wipers slid ineffectually across the rainslick glass until Henning turned them off in disgust.

Beside him, Charlotte slumped in the passenger seat, her dark wounds visible even in the indiscreet light. He wanted to touch her shoulder, hold her hand, do something to let her know he was still there; but the road was treacherous enough that he didn't dare have less than two hands on the wheel. Gaze held steadily to the truncated patch of road visible in his headlights, as if that too would disappear if he didn't keep an eye on it, he used his voice again instead:

"Charlotte, are you still with me? You don't have to give me a speech, just... respond, somehow. Stay with me, okay? Don't drift off..."

He risked a glance sideways. The watery illumination filtering through the windshield made her look drowned... A tangle of hair over marble eyes... Lips slightly parted and blue... Someone's bare arm floated before his face... He tried to push it away, but the cold had claimed his strength... He heard someone saying, from high above, 'Don't let them drift off... Don't drift... Don't-'

Henning inhaled sharply, and the voice and the vision dissipated. He shook his head and tried to concentrate. That funny smell was back. Charlotte wasn't responding. The hospital suddenly seemed very far away...

[Charlotte Jacobs]

Charlotte felt herself drifting, as though she’d become un-tethered, slowly losing the battle to stay conscious. I have to stay awake she thought blurrily. David... She had to stay awake for him. She wanted to reach out to him, reassure him that she was all right, still there... but she couldn’t. She felt herself slowly detaching, drifting away from him...

Her eyes fluttered closed and she sank into the twilight of almost-sleep.

A soft chuckle echoed in her ear. ”There are other places you should be...”

With a soft cry she jerked back, twisting her body up and slamming against the door of the car, scrabbling desperately to get away. Her head thudded against the window, but she didn’t notice. It took her several seconds to remember where she was. Charlotte focused on the sight of David, eyes focused on the road though the rain streaming down the windshield, hands gripping the wheel. She was possessed with an almost fierce need to touch him. Make sure he was real...

[Shadows]

What WAS very real was a can of smoked salmon that hadn't been present before, sitting innocuously in the back seat of Henning's car.

A can of smoked salmon with a slight dent in one side, a sticky red smudge across the tin where it had connected with something.

[David Young Henning]

At the sudden flurry of motion and sound from the passenger seat, Henning very nearly slammed on the brakes, his shock due more to Charlotte's cry than the broken puppet spasms that had abruptly taken hold of her body. For one very long second he could actually feel the tires of the car hydroplaning across the frictionless road before the rubber took hold once more, and then they had straightened out, fishtailing slightly but still moving forward.

In the midst of wresting control back from the car, he thought he heard something clatter and fall from the backseat; but there were more pressing matters to attend to. His breath sounded loud and harsh in his ears as he turned towards Charlotte, who was huddled against the door, staring at him, through him. Unconsciously, his previous concern abandoned, he reached out with one hand to grip her shoulder. But he dared not stop the car, now that he was no longer certain that Charlotte's injuries were merely physical...

"Charlotte!" he said, eyes darting back and forth from the road to her wide, staring eyes. "Can you say my name? Where are we going? Please, answer me!"

The smell had moved from his nose to the back of his throat. It tasted like rust...

[Charlotte Jacobs]

A hand on her shoulder brought Charlotte back to the here and now. He was here, he was real... And worried... He also probably thinks I’m crazy...she realized with dismay, gathering the tattered threads of her thought processes and trying to drag her mind closer to firing on something resembling all cylinders. The possibility that he thought she was crazy... bothered her more than she would have expected. I’m not, she thought fiercely. Polly SAW the camera. If I was crazy it wouldn’t have looked any different to her. She wouldn’t have asked if I smoked.

It came to her attention that David was asking her a concerned series of questions. Fuck... So much for not worrying him anymore than I already am.

“David. We’re going to the hospital and I should REALLY not be falling asleep...” she told him, holding her voice remarkably steady, save for the slightest waver. “I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to worry you,” she added, offering him a small, lopsided smile. This is getting to be a habit she realised, as she covered his hand with her own. What she wanted to do instead, more than anything, was unhook her seatbelt and curl up against him. It didn’t make sense, it certainly wasn’t rational...

[Emily Wyatt]

Emily's Tough Chap swerved into the Greenvale Hospital parking lot light blazing. Her tires began to hydroplane on the wet asphalt and she quickly took her foot off the gas. The adrenaline of almost losing control only added further to the growing knots in her stomach.

Breathe Emily, your emotions were already high due to the Thorne bullshit this evening. You need to focus on the present!

What happened to poor Charlotte? Who would hurt her new friend? To think everything seemed just fine just last night and now this...situation.

The fact that Agent David Henning was with Charlotte was a small comfort at least. Emily doubted anything could hurt Charlotte any further with the FBI agent at her side.

She slammed the gear into park and bolted through the downpour of rain into the bright Hospital lobby.

The combination of her high speed dash and the water on her boots sent Emily flying over the lobby linoleum and luckily the reception desk stopping her momentum. The nurses behind this desk jumped and stared at Emily as she tried to control her breathing. Most likely wondering where the fire was.

"Er..did an Agent Henning arrive with an injured red head?"

The nurses looked puzzled and shook their heads. They had no idea what she was referring to. What Agent?

Emily was terribly confused. Henning and Charlotte should have made it here by now! The Hotel is less then 10 minutes from the hospital!

Where are they!?

The knots in Emily's stomach continued to tighten.

[David Young Henning]

The funny thing about water, Henning realized, was that it obliterated one's perception of time. Whether you were immersed in it, driving through it, or even just watching it move in all its endless permutations, you tended to lose your sense of temporality. Your sense of self. And losing himself was Henning's secret fear; the fear that whatever it was that formed the core of his identity might be washed away, leaving him adrift. Drifting... without a center, an anchor to hold him down.

And what was rain but water imposing itself on humanity, commando style? It wasn't the rain that bothered Henning so much as what happened when there was too much of it. Dams broke. Basements flooded. Rivers overflowed with reddish water that tasted like liquid rust on his tongue, in his lungs... Henning coughed involuntarily, but his throat was dry.

"I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to worry you,” Charlotte was saying from what seemed like a very far distance away. Her hand was on his and it felt like ice. And what was ice but frozen water? He tried to will some heat into the both of them, but it was too late; he'd already been reminded that they were soaking wet from running through the downpour in the parking lot, and the heater in his car didn't seem to be functioning. He gripped her arm tighter as if she might float away... "The undertow," he heard the voice warble above his head. "Get him out of there before it takes him, too..."

"You don't worry me. I worry me," Henning said, hoping the desperation that was creeping up on him wasn't apparent from his tone. It was unlike him to deal with situations like this, but for some reason he felt a lighter approach might work to comfort Charlotte. Still, it wasn't long before his levity started turning into something else altogether, something darker, deeper:

"You, young lady, are going to be fine. So why should I worry about you? No, I'm the one having... strange thoughts, all of a sudden... About the rain. You like the rain, don't you, Charlotte?"

Henning squeezed her cold hand and kept driving, eyes wide. "When we met on the road this morning, you didn't want my umbrella... Because you weren't afraid. And right now, I could use someone who's not afraid, to tell me... Just what it is you love about this wonderful weather we're having..."

[Charlotte Jacobs]

Charlotte sat up straighter... all her pain and fear forgotten for the moment. He’d gripped her arm tighter (like he was scared she'd disappear). She was filled with a sudden, intense worry for the man seated beside her. Her heart sort of... clenched (instinctively she squeezed his hand in response), and she was fumbling for the seatbelt without a second thought as to the safety of such an action. She could hear the hint of desperation creeping into his voice, and it concerned her. She slid across the front seat until she was next to him. She gently touched his face, cupping his cheek.

“I don’t know if I’m not afraid anymore...” she told him gently. “Right now... I’m kind of terrified.” More than you could possibly know. “I like the rain, yes... But I’m not sure I care for the rain in Greenvale... What I love about this weather right now... is that it has to end sometime.” Needs to end she almost added, but remained quiet.

He feels like ice... Then again, she wasn’t much better, they were both soaked head to toe... But she carefully, so as to not disturb his driving, gave in to her earlier need and curled against him... her other arm curling around his waist. She found herself willing him to take some of her heat, as silly as that was.


Everything feels so... off-kilter, she thought uneasily, resting her head on his chest and gazing out through the rain.

[David Young Henning]

When she put her head on his chest, Henning felt something held tight inside that part of him release its hold, slowly letting go as her warmth overtook it... He put his arm around her shoulders, wanting to keep it out for good, to preserve this sense of peace, listening to her voice undercut the harsh spray of rainwater off the hood of the car. Drawing her closer, he felt a swarm of contradictory emotions invading the empty hollow where the knot had been: What was he doing? She was clearly upset, injured... Possibly suffering from a concussion... Did she know what she was doing? She wasn't wearing her seatbelt and he was driving in the rain with one hand... Safety violations during an emergency, the worst kind...

At the same time, despite the haunted surreality of the evening and the words flitting meaninglessly through his mind, he couldn't account for the strange sense of relief he was feeling now. As if things were falling into place, beyond his control. Never in his life had he felt comfortable, being so out of control, heading inexorably to a place he knew lay ahead in the darkness, where time had finally relinquished itself to the rain... He lowered his head until his chin was resting against Charlotte's hair, the only warm color in sight; he breathed her in, trying to fight the urge to close his eyes...

Almost as soon as he'd done so, Henning frowned. His right hand, lying across Charlotte's shoulder, tingled slightly; he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, felt something gritty slide across his fingertips. Some kind of powder? He raised his head, took a slightly deeper breath. Smoke... In Charlotte's hair, on her clothes...

"Charlotte, where were-" He stopped when he saw the headlights blazing suddenly in his rearview mirror. Another driver on the road, headed in the same direction as they were. Probably just another of the townsfolk, trapped in the rain and trying to make their way back home... Despite this very reasonable assumption, the sense of dread was creeping back, starting with his fingtertips. Coated with ash.

[Charlotte Jacobs]

Sitting there like that, her head against his chest and his arm around her shoulders, Charlotte felt safer than she had all day. And when he rested his chin against her hair... for the barest moment there was a feeling of... rightness, of something falling into place that, despite the terror and weirdness of the day, warmed her to her toes.

She heard him start to ask her something, only to cut himself off as headlights suddenly blazed to life through the rear windshield. In that instant, apprehension tightened her chest, and dread washed over her. The car behind them sped up, bearing down upon them in mere seconds. It swerved to go around them, and as it did she sat up a little, twisting herself so she could better see out of the window on David’s side of the car. Instead of going around them and continuing, as any normal person would... the car held its position alongside the Crown Victoria.

In the darkness Charlotte saw something flare alight in the other car; the glowing ember of a cigarette, as a trail of smoke streamed almost... deliberately out the passenger seat window. Oddly enough (though perhaps not so oddly when in conjunction with the peculiar actions of the smoke)... that lit cigarette didn’t illuminate the face of the driver at all. NO. Panic, desperate and raw, coursed through her. Unconsciously her hand fisted into David’s shirt, grabbing a handful of the white fabric in a white knuckled grip. She knew who it was. She could feel him watching them.

“We have to get away from that car,” she told him in a shaky voice, blue eyes wide and scared. The knot in her stomach twisted and knotted tighter. Please don’t ask questions. Just trust me. Please trust me.

[David Young Henning]

The rumble of another engine grew louder as the headlights swerved from the rear-view mirror and reappeared in his side-view, a soft, hazy light washing down the left hand side of the car. Is he trying to pass? Henning thought with alarm. He was driving fast enough as it was already, and neither speeding up nor slowing down seemed like agreeable options at this point. But the other vehicle was accelerating to match them, until it was prowling right alongside them on the other side of the road.

Henning glanced over, but could see nothing in the dark interior of the other car. A lone streetlamp briefly illuminated a mottled paint job the color of dried blood, but that was the only detail he was able to make out. Were his eyes playing tricks? For a rust bucket, its engine sounded incongruously powerful. It practically snarled as it paced them, so close not even the curtain of water between them could obscure its dark, bulky form.

The presence of the car seemed to trigger something in Charlotte. He felt her head rise from his chest, face craned towards the driver's side window. He couldn't see her eyes from this vantage point, but her voice was trembling as she said, simply:

"We have to get away from this car."

Nothing else, no other instructions or explanation. His fears about her state of mind grew, like a red flower blooming insidiously in the rain. He tightened his arm around her and said, "It's fine. He just wants to pass us, that's all. Probably in a rush to see his family. I'll let him by and that'll be that..."

Reluctantly, his foot eased off the accelerator, and he could feel their momentum leaking away by degrees. But instead of speeding up to go around them, the other car slowed too, the two vehicles drifting side by side against the howling wind. Spurred on by a sudden, irrational burst of anxiety, Henning accelerated the Crown Vic back up to full speed, and saw in his peripheral vision the other car do the same.

"What the hell? This isn't any time to be playing games... Someone's going to come down the other lane and swipe him off the road," Henning muttered. He said to Charlotte, "You should put your seat belt back on," but his right arm- still tingling with the discovery he'd made of the ashen substance off her clothes- contradicted him, did nothing to loosen its protective circle around her shoulders...

[Atlas]

Atlas sat back in the hospital bed, doped up on painkillers and his shoulder bandaged up. He didn't imagine his night ending like this. He was hoping to spend it with drinks and Emily at the SWERY 65. Instead, it ended with a gunshot wound and a trip to the hospital.

When he entered before, the hospital staff were surprised, and asked what happened. Atlas told him that he was in Greenvale Forest Park looking at trees and flowers for his office and a hunter had shot him by accident. Although they question the fact that someone would be hunting in the rain, he told them that the person might have been from out of time. Nonetheless, they agreed to help him, though they also notified the authorities.

There was nothing to keep him entertained save for a TV with no channels and his own thoughts. "Ok, let's go over what happened today. First, I found this weird bone near the Tree of Anna, then a giant dog attacked me, then limbo zombies started to attack me and one shot me. Is this even real? Is this a dream." he thought.

Nope, it was reality though, and Atlas was stuck in a hospital bed for the time being. He though about earlier today, about Tamika getting attacked. She said something about the nightlife of Greenvale. "I wonder if whatever attacked her also attacked me." he thought. Compared to the city, there was few things to be afraid of in the dark around Greenvale. Maybe the next time he saw her, he could ask.

Until then, it was sit in the hospital bed and wait for the doctors to do their thing.

((Just announcing that Atlas is indeed in the hospital during all of this.))

[Charlotte Jacobs]

David didn’t believe her... The one time Charlotte really needed someone to just trust what she was saying... and he didn’t. The realization both saddened and frustrated her. It’s understandable, though. I didn’t exactly give him a reason.

What could she have said?

She couldn’t very well say “We need to get away from this car, because I’m fairly certain it’s driven by the Smoking Man who stalked me through the lumbermill”, now, could she. She’d sound certifiable. And she wasn’t. She had already determined that she wasn’t. That didn't change the fact that the truth sounded crazy.

His arm tightened around her... the car alongside the Crown Victoria wasn’t passing them. To the contrary, it was matching them move for move. She heard David mutter something, then warn her to put her seatbelt back on... though his arm remained tightly around her shoulders as he spoke, contradicting his words. Nor did she make any effort to move away from him.

She wrenched her eyes away from the window, and focused on David’s face instead. She was still clinging to him, arm wrapped tightly around his waist and hand fisted in his shirt. She had no desire to remove herself from his side. In fact... she was hard-pressed not to slide closer. Especially with... HIM driving the car keeping pace with them.

“I know you think I’m crazy, or that my head injury has knocked me for a loop, and maybe it has,” Charlotte told him, hurt and frustration bleeding into her voice a little, “I just... have a very bad feeling about this car. They haven’t passed us, have they. No. They’re mirroring us. Please... Just trust me. I really need you to trust me.”

[Emily Wyatt]

((Emily is freaking out ahhhh))

Emily bit her lip and stared at her cell. Should she call? They really were late and she couldn't leave to look for them, there was a chance they would arrive soon after she left.

She's been in the lobby a full 15 minutes and they still haven't shown. It was impossible for her to shake the feeling that something was very, very, very wrong.

She sighed and dialed George's cell. She really hated to do this, especially since George was still in such a foul mood! Obviously still peeved over her tardiness and for not completing those Milk Barn report stupid Todd...but what choice did she have?

She braced herself as the other end rang and rang. When she got his voice mail she was surprised by just how relieved she was not to have to talk to him.

She took a breath and recounted the situation as fast as she could and asked for further instructions. Hopefully she'll hear back soon...

[George Woodman]

George had received a voicemail on his cell when he checked it. Although it looked like another evening spent at the Galaxy of Terror, he still had some police work to do. He sighed. After having to deal with Emily's late report and Todd's usual shenanigans, he just wanted a quiet evening with a beer and Carol's music flowing through his left ear. Alas, there's no rest for the Sheriff of Greenvale

Very well, George had thought. It would give him an opportunity to show himself to the young woman who is the protector of Greenvale as well as prove how a real Sheriff does things.

He gave some instructions to Emily. Then he paid the tab for his beer and left the bar.

He got into his police truck and strapped in. He didn't know what he was looking for yet, but few cars roamed Greenvale during the rain, especially at night. He turned on the sirens and sped out of the parking lot. This was going to be a long night.