Jack met Cassie at the door, home from work, wide-eyed and frightened. "We gotta go." He said simply. No explanation. All their stuff packed into three trash bags sitting in the middle of the living room.

"Go?" Cassie asked dumbly. It had been a long night at the bar serving all the drunk assholes of the world but she wasn't that out of it. Jack wasn't making any sense. She looked at the ugly black trash bags again and felt fleeting sadness that between the two of them that was all they owned. "Go where? What're you talking about, babe?"

"Pilot. He's in trouble." Jack chewed on his lip and continued to stare through her. His eyes so far away she wondered what he was remembering.

Pilot. His best friend in all the world. He had left them over three months ago, took off in the Monty to go back to his girlfriend in Las Vegas. They hadn't heard from him since and although it had worried Jack a bit he hadn't been drop everything worried. 'Pilot can take care of himself. Do you think he's mad at me? Do you think he's mad I wanted to stay?' The words here with you didn't make it to his lips but they didn't need too. Jack loved her and she knew that but he loved Pilot too.

"We gotta go find him." Jack took her by the arm and she immediately pulled him in close, her voice slow and calming as her nose nuzzled his neck.

"What happened, Jack? Did he call you?" She was almost dead on her feet but Jack was half out of his head and needed to be comforted. If they were gonna be skipping town soon too, she wanted a little more information.

"Yeah, from a payphone. He's stuck in this fucked up nowhere town called Regan. The Monty broke down and someone jacked all his shit. He was cryin and sayin a lot of shit that didn't make any sense. He was probably tripping cause half the stuff he said sounded just… fucked."

Cassie nodded apologetically. "Okay babe. Well, find him. Pilots' smart he'll be okay til we get there." She didn't exactly believe that but it felt better to say so and that's what Jack needed to hear anyway. She traced her thumbs down his cheeks and kissed him and then smiled reassuringly.

---

Jack drove through the darkness his mind moving sporadically from one thing to the next. Johnny The Fox had lent the two of them a car and wished he could join them but had some business to take care of first. Jack promised to call him after a couple days to check in.

Cassie was completely passed out beside him, exhausted from another night of work. Her mouth was all the way open and she even had a little bit of drool on her chin. Under different circumstances that would have made him laughingly smile to himself, his beautiful drooling girlfriend.

But not right now. Pilot needed him. It consumed his mind and the phone call from him kept playing over and over in his head. Pilot hadn't sounded like himself at all. He'd sounded like a kid having a nightmare. His voice alone had made all the hairs stand up on the back of Jack's neck.

"Help me dude."

"Who is this?"

"Jack? Please be you. I need you bro. I need you to come back."

"Pi? Holy shit Pilot! Is that you?"

"I'm totally bent. I got lost. They stole everything. The Monty is dead. Fucking black death on my soul man. This town, I'm stuck in Regan Idaho. They won't let me leave. I need you to come back bro."

Then he'd started crying, his voice hitching and falling like a little kid who couldn't catch their breath. Jack remembered a couple times before he'd heard Pilot cry like that and it always made his arms itch. Made him wish Pilot was there so he could wrap his arms around him and just wait it out.

He's suddenly awake for no reason and doesn't understand why until he hears the tapping again. It's outside his trailer window. Someone is standing out there. He feels his heart crawl up into his throat as he curls his fingers around the baseball bat propped against his bed. He moves slow and stealthily to the window stopping in his tracks completely as the light shifts across Pilot's face. It's his friend but not. His eyes look haunting, huge dark sunken shadows, like he's a walking skull. The skull stares at him as dirty knuckles rap against his window again. Jack shakes himself out of it and goes to the window and opens it wide.

"My mom's got this guy over. Can I stay here?"

"Yeah hold on. I'll unlock the door for you."

It had happened more times then either of them could count but that night had been different. Pilot had looked like the walking dead. Something had happened and he wouldn't talk about it but Jack hadn't hesitated to hold him as soon as he'd started sobbing.

Cassie mumbled something in her sleep and her head lolled off the headrest into the window. Jack glanced at her for a second to see if she'd wake up. Once assured that she was still asleep he reached across her and locked the car door.

---