Chapter Text
Under an ink-black sky Kobra paced the diner roof, the smoke from the cigarette half-forgotten in his hand hanging around him like a fog. When it was this quiet, you had to keep moving. The silence tonight was unsettling. No screaming so far. Weird, the things you came to expect. What you got used to.
He stood still and let his eyes close briefly.
Insomnia was bad, but the nightmares were worse.
How much longer? An hour? Two?
It was good to get outside. The rainy season was always welcome to begin with – the dance parties, the mudfights, the blessed feeling of the dust that permeated everything washing away as that first storm soaked you to the skin. The flooding was not so welcome. Neither was the miserable, damp huddle the celebrations always degenerated into after the first week. No one could really go anywhere. Sometimes roads washed out and even lightning strikes weren’t unheard of, but mostly it was just wet, and the diner was the only dry place they had to wait it out.
They might have finally seen the last of the rains. The surface of the ground was already dry even though the clouds only cleared yesterday.
He remembered his cigarette (how many had he gone through? Ghoul was gonna murder him if there weren’t any left) and took another drag.
Some nights, the stars were beautiful enough to distract him.
Or sometimes Cherri would be broadcasting, wherever he was. Kobra almost always checked the radio, turning the volume down low so he wouldn’t disturb the others, hoping to hear that husky soft voice rambling away. Cherri would talk about anything – read poetry from a book he scavenged or Bible passages or funny listings in old newspaper classifieds or muse over whatever philosophical nonsense came into his head. Cherri knew what it was like. He would go on for hours and hours, til dawn broke. In case anyone out there needed a voice to coax them through the night.
Tonight, it was just static.
Time crawled. His cigarette stub winked out.
There was quiet, and there was too quiet. It made the night all around him go thick and muted and weird. Like running through water. Like running in a nightmare.
Keep running. It was the only thing anybody ever said out here.
No one ever told you what to do when you were forced to stop.
The onslaught of throbbing lights, the screaming crowds, the roar of motors and gunshots and explosions – it drowned out everything. He was grateful for that. Pathetically grateful. Until he couldn’t take the flood of sensation and emotions anymore. He stayed as long as he could, even then, until it finally sent him retreating into the silence, into the dark. But what was waiting for him there sent him running back to the noise and the lights before the loud, helpless feeling ever really stopped, so he wouldn’t fall into it and not be able to climb back out.
It was catching up to him now. The weight in his chest was getting worse, the familiar dread creeping into his lungs. He wracked his brain. There was nothing he could do, no attacking his punching bags or blasting music or anything to block it out. Nothing loud. The others got little enough rest as it was. He needed a distraction – anything to keep it at bay. Just for a few more hours.
A crash from below made him start involuntarily. Shuffling noises. A door slammed.
Kobra frowned. No one had come out of the diner. He listened. Nothing.
If it was the Girl…
Kobra climbed down from the roof and ducked inside.
All was dark. He scanned the common area, even glancing under the tables. No one.
Faint light was spilling from the crack under the mop closet door at the end of the hall. Weird. He’d forgotten there even was a door there. It was always locked, and none of them had bothered trying to get inside. Where’d she find the key?
He went over and eased the door open.
“Kobra!” Party jerked around violently, flinging red everywhere. “What the –“
“Holy –” Kobra lowered his instinctively raised fists. Blood. There was blood on everything. “Party…”
His brother stood frozen, panting, wild-eyed.
There was a brush in his hand.
Paint. A choked noise of relief escaped Kobra. “Dude, you scared the living…”
A chill ran down his spine. The canvas. He barely had time to register it – the sprawled figure, neck at a horrible angle, yellow and more red, red everywhe –
Party lunged at him. “Don’t!”
Kobra stumbled back. He couldn’t breathe. “What. In the name of – ”
There were more of them, all over the walls.
“Kobra, it’s – ”
Head reeling, Kobra made blindly for the nearest exit and ran smack into Jet as he emerged from the other room, roused by the commotion.
“Whoa, K, where are you –”
Kobra shouldered past him, snatched up his keys, and stormed out.
“Helmet!” Jet yelled after him. Kobra didn’t stop.