Chapter One: Detroit

"If flesh could crawl
My skin would fall
From off my bones
And run away from here
As far from God
As heaven is wide
As far from God
As angels can fly…"

- from "As Heaven Is Wide" by Garbage

The world behind them was on fire. They had no choice but to go foreword, and foreword they went. On and on, for days and nights, they sped out of Salem's Lot like all hell was chasing them, and maybe it was...
Two or three hours out of the Lot, Mark Petrie found his weariness catching up with him. Days of fear and torment, hidden beneath his skin, finally came to the surface, and he found his eyes becoming as heavy as stage curtains.
He slept in the passenger seat beside Ben Mears, his friend and ally, for more time then he would know. When he finally came through again, the rising sun was burning red before his eyes.
Fields of tall yellow grass, all up their tips covered in powdery white snow, lined either side of the road ahead of him. The sky was a blanket of cotton gray clouds above their heads, and there were dark trees sprinkled with snow far, far a head of them.
"Ben?" Mark groaned, rolling his head to the side to look at the driver.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," he watched the orange light accentuate the stubble on the older man's face, his eyes rimmed with red and unblinking. "Where are we? This doesn't look like Saran Grove..."
Mark figured that, if they'd driven up into the morning, that's where they'd been in or around. He knew these parks of Maine like the back of his hand...
Ben shrugged. "You've been out for four days, Mark."
"Four days?" Ben nodded. "Fuck," Mark rubbed his forehead, shutting his eyes tight. "So what happened? Where are we going?"
"Detroit."
"Why?"
"Father Callahan. He survived..." Mark was sudden wide awake, giving Ben a look that said you can't be serious. Ben proceeded to explain that, a night or two ago, he'd stopped at a motel for a night, too tired to keep on driving. The desk man proceeded in idle chat, mention that a priest had stopped there the night before. When Ben had asked where he'd been heading, he'd told him the priest mentioned Detroit.
Mark sighed, laying his head to the other side. Fuck... he'd thought it was over! But he didn't protest, didn't say a word... he knew it had to be done. They had to finish it... they couldn't leave any possibility that it could happen again.
Even at his tender age, Mark was still willing to die if it meant killing every last one of them. They'd taken his family, his friends, everything... he would be all alone, if it weren't for Ben.
Later on in the day, when things had calmed down, Ben sat him down in a quiet and still area, after purchasing a cheap dinner for the two of them, trying to make the last few dollars he had on him last, at least until Detroit.
Ben found himself uncomfortably dancing around what he meant to say, confusing Mark... but before long, he began to catch on to what Ben was saying.
Ben was offering to take care of Mark.
Mark accepted the offer, graciously, and viewed Ben smile for the first time she's he'd been forced to drive a stake through Susan's heart. Ben vowed to legally adopt Mark, after they finished in Detroit, and could return to New York.
They knew of the possibility, but neither of them knew it for sure...
... Ben would never make it back to New York to adopt Mark.

A few days passed. Mark didn't know, or didn't care to count, just how many, before they found themselves approaching tall, silver buildings from twisting roller coasters of dead, gray roads. By evening, they were within this maze of metal, driving slowly through unfamiliar streets.
They watched the street lights become animated, watched empty faces pass hurriedly through the icy air, and other brightly colored automobiles passing all around them. Before long, they realized that they weren't just going to be guided to Father Callahan by some act of God. They needed to place to stay, as the gas meter was near the glowing E, but they were flat broke.
They parked in an abandoned lot that night, and slept in through in the car, nearly freezing to death without heat. The next morning, Mark woke with a sniffle and a cough.
Ben realized Mark wouldn't live long like this. He knew his immune system was already compromised by the great stress and trauma, even if the boy hid every sign of it. While Mark nibbled on Saltine crackers for breakfast in silent misery, Ben went for a "walk". He knew they'd passed a social services building while searching for a parking lot the night before, and he walked the three blocks back to it.
An hour later, he returned with an address and small map. He unfolded the map and laid it on the dashboard, starting the car without a word. After driving a few streets, Mark finally asked where they were going, and Ben explained that they were going a place where they could stay while there were here.
A few streets later, the car ran out of gas completely. Ben and Mark abandoned it, and walked the last five blocks to a long, two-story building made of white-painted bricks. There were windows lining the wall that faced the street, and within Mark saw mini-blinds and bed frames of metal bar.
Mark looked to Ben, knowing what kind of place this was. The writer remained unchanged, like a statue frozen in time. Swallowing his pride, which had actually been shattered long ago, Mark followed Ben up the large cement step to the glass double doors.
As different as they might have been before the travesty of Barlow, they were rather in the same rut now. Ben had been a wealthy writer living comfortably in the big city, Mark had been a young punk living comfortably in his small home town, and then one day all they'd ever had came crashing down around them in one frail swoop. Now they were lost and alone, putting off living only to ensure their enemy's dying.
Mark was bombarded by various sights, sounds, and smells from the moment he entered the door. He smelled sweat, dirt, and blood. He heard a baby crying, a woman weeping, men talking in hushed voices. He saw the ill, the old, and the abandoned; all united in their misery under one roof.
Ben talked to a woman in a white uniform while Mark allowed his sense to take in the forsaken. After a moment, the woman led them away to equipped them with clean blankets and pillows, and escort them to their koyts.
She informed them that lights out was at ten, and one was free to wake whenever one chooses, as well as come and go as one pleases, though one would have to notify the staff if one was to leave for good, so that they'd know the koyts were free, and be able to wash the sheets.
Then she left them alone, amongst the dozens of others, to collect themselves, and get themselves settled in... into the Detroit City Homeless Shelter.

That day went by so fast; Mark could remember little of it. They'd made their beds, which were right next to each other, and warmed their bones in the heated air of the large building. When they could feel their fingers again, they were masochistic enough to venture out.
They embarked on a task they would call scouting. It was their search for Father Callahan... although, for their first day, it seemed more an act of gathering information. They gathered the names and whereabouts of several churches, Salvation Armies, good wills; all places they thought of where one could find a priest.
They would have no time to actually find these places, and casually search them as if they really were just homeless bums searching for salvation, for food, for clothes or items, and not for a priest they meant to kill; being as, by the time they'd finished collecting the information they needed, the sun was already fast setting, the street lights turning on.
Ben insisted they rest tonight, and start scouting in the morning. Mark agreed, though he was still uneasy with the thought that one of Barlow's was still out there, and he still wanted to get it over with as soon as possible... prevent the disease from spreading, prevent it from happening again, to anyone else.

That night, Mark could hardly sleep. His mind kept going back, spiraling down, back to Salem's Lot... back to the days that had taken his life, flipped it upside-down, and then taken it away.
He lay in bed, stripped down to his boxers and shirt, curled up tightly in his warm blankets, his damaged mind only showing itself externally in his posture of the fetal position, he store out in to space, as if he could seen back in time that the events that had passed.
The only real tragedy that had ever befallen Mark before that in his life was when his dad walked out on him and his mother when he was a baby... the absence and being the man for his mother had taught him to be tough, but he still resented his dad for abandoning his family like that, as much as he tried not to complain.
It made people treat him differently; too... the small-minded townie folk were delicate with him, filled with pity. He didn't like that one bit. Luckily, one day, he committed his first act of trouble-making, and discovered that it clouded people's eyes from his parental misfortune! That's how he became a rebel, the full-blown trouble maker without fear or shame that he was now.
His best friend, whom he'd known since he was in diapers as their mothers were Bridge buddies, turned out to be the only one to match his thirst for a fuss, and a girl nonetheless! She'd moved away from Salem's Lot a year and a half before Barlow came, though... but she visited during summer, as the court had given her dad the rights to her for that time of the year; so it wasn't so bad.
Then, in the same winter that was laying frost upon the windows as he laid there, the strangers blew; Barlow and his man bitch. He hadn't though anything of it, even if they'd bought themselves into the Marsten house, at first... not until the Glick boys went missing, and certainly after Danny came to his window.
Now, Mark was never a superstitious boy, never liking to believe anything unless he'd seen it with his own eyes; but he had always been open for anything... and now he's seen it and he knew; vampires were real, and in his home town.
He'd stayed awake all night, as if he would have been able to sleep anyway, evaluating this information and what to do with it. It was plain to any eye in the Lot who knew what to look for that Barlow would have to be the origin, and according to legend if you kill the origin you kill them all. Mark knew no one would ever believe him, so he knew he'd have to go after Barlow and go alone.
As he'd approached the Marsten house the next day, he couldn't help but wonder if he'd lost his mind. He hadn't meant for Susan to be there, and certainly hadn't meant for her to get hurt... but she did, and he felt that it was his fault. Lucky he had such a cool head and was such a quick thinker, he went for Ben as soon as he'd escaped.
At the time, he was yet to have been introduced to the writer... but the Lot was a small town, and talk is like a cancer in a small town. It grows and spread until everyone hears it whether they wanted to or not. He knew that, according to word of mouth, the writer and Susan were becoming fast friends, if not more... and, by word of mouth, he also knew where Ben was staying.
As soon as Mark mentioned Susan's name, Ben hadn't given a flying fuck who he was or how credible he may have been. He trusted the boy instantly, having nothing more to go on, and was sucked into the devil's game, too.
From then on, Mark's life had been nothing but fighting, plotting, and death. He'd united with four older men to fight the vampires. One, his English teacher, Matt Burke, fell while the other three were out, by one of their own that had been corrupted... another, the local doctor, had died by a trap set by the foul creatures... but worst of all that Mark would see, he would witness his own mother's death. He and Father Donald Callahan had gone back to save her! But Barlow must have followed them... he'd fallen through the roof, and twisted his mother's neck around. A sickening snap, and it'd been the end... it would have been so much better if she'd just listen to them, but Mark couldn't really blame her. He blamed himself... for her death, and for the loss of the priest there that night.
Mark ran back to Burke's hospital room, just as Father Callahan had told him to. He had told them what had happened, as difficult as it may have been to do so, and then passed out in a chair... certainly not by the assistance of a sedative from Dr. Cody... okay, yes; by the assistance of a sedative from Dr. Cody.
From then on, it'd been just him and Ben, united against the whole dead and dying town. He knew Ben must have had to be feeling at least some of the same loss Mark was feeling, after Ben had been forced to stake Susan, whom he'd tried the hardest to save. He would find that they would both swallow their emotions, hiding them deep down in the pit of their guts, and get the job done.
They'd done what they'd had to do, finishing off Barlow and leaving the town burning down so the vampires would have no where to hide... they thought they'd finished it, and Mark was finally able to sleep for the first time, besides passing out from exhaustion, since Danny Glick had come to his window at the start of it.
Now they'd found that Father Callahan, who had been made Barlow's new man bitch, was still alive, and still carrying the essence of Barlow within him. Mark knew they both felt that it was starting again, or more over that it wasn't finished, and perhaps would never be finished, but they both felt this their duty... they wouldn't stop until it was down, not ever before it was completely finished, without a trace left to remember it by; not a thing besides their scars.

Yes, I know it's short, and it kinda sucks, but it's a start! Yay!

Next chapter; a friend from the past returns...