1.
He stopped walking so abruptly that she almost ran into him.
"What's the matter?" the dark-haired girl asked, and Harry thought he actually heard some tone of concern wafting through her hazy voice.
Harry listened closely for a moment, then shook his head. "Nothing. I thought I heard something."
"The fog makes things sound different," she offered helpfully, and fell into step behind him again. She had been following him ever since he'd left the cemetery, and the further they went without him turning around and attacking her, the bolder she became, inching closer until she was only a few steps behind him.
"Who are you looking for?" she asked eventually, after they'd wandered through the fog long enough that she had lost most of her fear and was walking beside him.
"Someone… someone very important to me," Harry told her.
"What's their name?"
"What's your name?" Harry countered; resigned to traveling with her, at least for the time being, he wanted something to call her.
"Angela," she answered promptly, surprising him a little. "I used to be looking for someone too," she shared, "but she wasn't here. I got lost instead."
Harry didn't answer, wasn't sure how to answer, and she seemed satisfied with that. She continued to trot along next to him, occasionally humming a little ripple of music that seemed desperately out of place in this fog-shrouded world.
"Are you a good person?" she asked abruptly, apropos of nothing.
"What?" He stopped walking (he had no idea where he was going, anyway) and turned to stare at her. She regarded him with eyes that had suddenly gone sharp and lucid, and he felt a stir of fear deep in his guts. He didn't like her this way; when she was confused, dreamy, she was a little annoying but otherwise harmless, but like this, awake and aware, hostility radiated off her, and he got the sense that if he made a sudden movement towards her, she would attack him like a wild animal.
She kept staring at him, her eyes narrow and feral, and he realized that they weren't going anywhere until she had an answer. "I try to be…" he answered slowly.
"Do you have any kids?" she demanded.
"Yes, a daughter."
She sprang forward so quickly that he didn't have time to react. In one swift movement she was holding the front of his jacket in a death-grip, pulling him towards her and onto the tips of his toes, and he felt something icy cold, metallic, press up against his neck.
"Did you ever hurt her?" she shrieked, her eyes rolling and insane, spittle pooling at the corners of her mouth. "Did you ever do anything to her, you sick bastard?"
Harry held very, very still, fighting gravity to keep his balance; he didn't think he would ever forget the feeling of a knife at his throat, no matter how old he got. He winced a little as she pressed the blade in closer, and felt something warm and wet running down the side of his neck in a thin trickle. "I never hurt my daughter," he said carefully, nonthreateningly. "I love her and would never, ever do anything to hurt her."
Angela glared at him for a moment more, and then stepped back, her hand letting go of his jacket and her knife-wielding arm going slack. "You promise?" she asked, the fury sliding out her voice, and for a moment, she looked so much like Heather that it made his head throb with pain. "Cross your heart and hope to die?" she added, her voice high-pitched and childish now.
Harry reached up and rubbed his forehead, ignoring the way her hand with the knife in it twitched at the movement. "Cross my heart," he promised with a sigh, suddenly exhausted beyond all belief. He wanted to go home more than he ever had in his life.
He frowned; for some strange reason, he couldn't picture where home was anymore. He wracked his brain, trying to focus, thinking so hard that he could feel the veins at his temples pound, but he just couldn't do it. He knew that he had a home, he could picture the house itself (was it a little blurry, a little indistinct at the edges, or was that just his imagination?), but he couldn't call up where it was or how to get back to it. It was like the old farmhouse existed somewhere in the middle of a vast, empty white plain, with no landmarks around it, nothing to help him find it now that it was lost.
Wait. Was it the house that was lost, or was he?
"The tree!" he said, and Angela looked at him curiously. "There's an oak tree in my front yard!" The house and all its beloved details came flooding back to him, filling his mind with their presence, with their reality, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He hated it, this forgetting, this tugging at the fabric of reality, and the sooner he got out of this godforsaken place the better.
"You're trying to go home," Angela informed him, the child-like voice gone and replaced by a flat, uninterested one.
He nodded. "Yes. I have to find someone here, and then I need to go home."
She shrugged and stared off into space. "If you remember the way."
"Why exactly are you following me anyway?" Harry demanded, suddenly frustrated and tired of her and her mood swings.
She glanced at him, her eyes wide with surprise. "Because they don't see you."
"Who doesn't?"
"The monsters," she explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
2.
The rock came out of nowhere.
I mean really, even here, in this awful place, who throws rocks at other people's heads? It wasn't big enough or thrown with enough strength to actually hurt, but it scared the hell out of me, and I nearly pissed my pants when it bounced harmlessly off my head.
"What the fuck?" I asked the emptiness, genuinely puzzled. The monsters I'd met so far had been more of the leap-out-and-try-to-tear-your-face-off variety, not the type of creatures that would waste their time throwing rocks, not to mention that most of them lacked the dexterity to even pick up small things, let alone throw them. "Is someone out there?"
I heard something shuffling around nearby, like some small thing was moving around behind a row of overflowing garbage cans. Holding one of J.D.'s wrenches out in front of me, I cautiously got closer to them. "Can you understand me?" I asked, not sure who (or what) I was talking to, but knowing it wasn't J.D. or Dad.
One of the garbage cans toppled over towards me, spewing trash out in an arc, and I leapt backwards to avoid being splattered. Behind the other cans, I saw a small, darting shape.
"Hey!" I yelled, starting to get pissed. "What the hell is your problem?" Whatever it was, it wasn't a monster; nothing here wasted time like this thing did, throwing rocks and pushing over trash cans like some amateur.
A small face poked out from behind the cans, and I was shocked to see a little girl glaring at me. At least, I think she was a little girl; she had wide blue eyes and blonde hair, and she looked like a typical kid, but no kid I've ever seen has had such a hateful expression, such rage and anguish in their eyes. I actually took a step away from her, not wanting to get scorched by those awful, burning eyes.
"I hate you!" the kid spat. "I know who you are, and I hate you!"
She took off running then, and, not really thinking it through, I chased after her. She was the only human-like thing I'd seen so far, and I wasn't going to let her get away until I'd had a chance to find out why she was here. And, I admitted to myself, knowing it was selfish, maybe she knew where Dad was, or maybe she'd seen J.D. and could point me in the right direction. I was really just wandering in circles at the moment.
I turned a corner to see her slipping into a narrow passageway between two buildings. "Oh, hell no!" I muttered, and squeezed in after her. It was a tight squeeze, especially with my pack, but I managed, and was pounding off after her as soon as I popped out on the other side.
Clearly, the fact that I got through the passageway surprised her, because she didn't start running again until I was nearly through. Her lapse in judgment was my advantage, and I managed to reach out and snag her wrist after only a few more paces.
Silently thanking whatever god watches over places like this that I had run track, I stopped short, nearly pulling the kid off her feet when she kept going and came to the end of my arm's length. Instead of acting scared, like a normal kid would after being chased and caught by a stranger, she turned around and started flailing at me with her free hand, trying her best to hit me anywhere she could reach.
"What is your problem?" I demanded, getting ahold of her other wrist and forcing her arms still.
She glared up into my face, her chest heaving for oxygen after our run. "I hate you!" she snarled, and struggled to break free.
"Yeah, I know, you told me!" For a little kid, she was strong, and putting up a pretty good fight. "How do you know me?"
"I hate you!"
"Why?"
I wasn't really expecting an answer, and when she did respond, I nearly dropped her hands in surprise. I'm sure she would have run away again if that had happened, and maybe it was only shock at her answer that made me hold on.
"Because your daddy comes to get you!"
"…what?" Maybe it was my softer tone, maybe it was my surprise. I don't know, but she calmed down a little and stopped fighting me. She was still shooting daggers at me with her eyes, but at least she wasn't trying to hit me anymore.
"Your daddy tries to find you," she spat, her eyes desolate holes in her face. "He looks for you and brings you home." She started struggling again, but it was half-hearted this time. "No one came to look for me, and you have two daddies looking for you, and it's not fair!"
"Two daddies? Wait a minute… have you seen them? Do you know where they are?" She had information, information I desperately wanted, and at that moment, I was willing to do anything to know what she knew. Somehow though, I knew that being aggressive wasn't going to get me anywhere.
One small foot lashed out and connected with my shin. Kid might be small, but she could kick like a damn horse. I pranced backwards a few steps, holding her away at arm's length. She actually lurched forward, trying to get close enough for another kick.
"Stop kicking me, please!" I begged. "What do you mean, two daddies? Do you know where they are?"
I think the brat recognized the longing in my voice; either that or she was wearing herself out, but in any case she stopped thrashing and stood still again. She was breathing really hard, much harder than she should have been, and for the first time I wondered if she was sick. She had a ghastly, white pallor to her skin, and she was scrawny, really way too thin.
"There's two daddies here right now," she told me, her voice still angry but beginning to calm down a little too. "Two daddies, and they're both looking for you."
"Have… have you seen them? Do you know where they are?"
She looked up at me with narrowed eyes, but I guess I must have looked this weird combination of hopeful, sad, and desperate, because her face softened, just a bit. "I saw the daddy with dark hair."
"Dad," I whispered, and even I could hear how lonely, how desperate, I sounded. I put my head down, unable to meet the little girl's eyes, and tried to not start crying. I wasn't successful.
Not thinking, I let go of the kid with one hand to wipe at my eyes. She didn't try to pull away; something about my tears had her captivated, and she waited patiently until I was under control again. I moved my hands up to her shoulders (her bony shoulders felt like daggers covered with a thin layer of skin and clothing) and looked her right in the eye.
"I'm looking for my dads," I told her. "I would really like it if you'd help me find them, but if you don't want to help me, I'd also really like it if you could tell me where you saw him." She nodded, now watching me with curiosity, which I greatly preferred to hostility. "If I let you go, will you run away again?"
She thought about that for a minute, then shook her head.
I took my hands off her shoulders. She trembled for a minute, like she was thinking about running again, but then changed her mind and decided to stay. "I… I saw the daddy with dark hair near the lake," she told me, her voice now almost shy. "He was walking there."
"Did you see the other one?" Not that J.D. was my first priority at this point, since he could take care of himself and I was also still mad at him, but it would be nice to know where he had been for future reference. I still owed him an ass-kicking.
"No," she told me, "but I know he's here. The air feels different, that's how I know."
"Okay." I thought for a few moments. "Do you want to come with me?" The kid was a giant brat, but I couldn't just leave her by herself in the fog.
She looked at me, her eyes wide with surprise. "You… you want me to come along?" she asked, like she had never considered such a thing in all her life.
"Yeah, sure. I mean," and I gestured widely out at the fog, "I can't just let the monsters get you, can I?"
Her brow creased in a frown, like she didn't understand what I'd just said. "Okay, I'll come," she decided, and slipped one of her small hands into one of mine. I started with surprise, not expecting that at all, but she looked up at me and actually gave me a little half-smile before she started tugging on my hand. "The lake is this way," she informed me, and I let myself be led away.
Her hand was like holding a glove filled with ice cubes.