AN: Thank you all for your lovely reviews. I hope you're all enjoying the story.
A Warning
Joe felt much better in the dry t-shirt, the thick pullover and the pair of sweatpants he now had on. He hadn't even realised that his shoes had become filled with water and mud, and he was grateful for the dry pair of thick socks and shoes he found along with the rest. The heat was cranked up high inside the van as Frank drove, and the freezing cold he could feel in his bones was dissipating slowly. The soft patter of the rain on the windshield was a soothing sensation on his frayed nerves, lulling him to sleep.
What stopped him from surrendering to the slumber that was already making him heavy-lidded were the still-fresh images of his nightmares and strange memories, persistently tumbling around in his mind in utterly meaningless circles.
He had only managed to doze off in the early hours of the morning and hadn't been able to drift back to sleep after Frank's departure. He had been feeling restless, and unsettled, and for some reason, he had been drawn to Iola's grave. Only he hadn't expected to lose track of time for hours so badly as he had done, lost somewhere deep in his own mind, trying to process everything that had been happening to him.
The thing was, what he told Frank back at the cemetery was not the entire story.
Sure, what he told about the nightmare of his late girlfriend's distorted and terrifying appearance and her agonising screams was all true, and so was the way he seemed to experience her emotions in an intensely bizarre cycle of pain, fear and rage. It happened every damn night, and as devastated as he was by her untimely death, he was getting tired of reliving what felt like her last moments and other things in his sleep.
It was those other things he had avoided mentioning to his older brother.
Every time Iola would be there, next to what he was sure was the small creek that flowed at the boundary of Morton's farm. It used to be one of their picnic spots for dates and he supposed that it made sense that he would dream of her there, in a place that was safe, familiar and they both loved spending time at. Only, whenever he saw her, the dream Iola was different from the pretty brunette full of joy and laughter Joe knew. One moment she would be howling in fury, letting out excruciatingly painful wails that drove a thousand knives through his eardrums straight to his brains and she would be a sobbing, crying and whimpering mess the next, breaking his heart all over again at his inability to reach her and comfort her. And all those times, her face would never be clear enough to see her features. There would only be her long black hair, a faint smell of her favourite perfume and a strong inner sense telling him that it was her. He would always be on the opposite side of the creek, frozen on spot and held firm by an unseen force, unable to close the distance, forced to only watch as she suffered miserably alone.
Then there was another presence; never lingering long enough for Joe to catch any impression of who or what it was. It would only ripple through the dream, and lurk just out of perception - unwanted and uninvited - but always so persistently there nevertheless. It would always bring along a thick, suffocating sense of malevolence with it whenever it appeared in his dreams, instantly turning it all into a nightmarish thing that lost all coherence, reducing his entire world into a whirlwind of pure unadulterated rage, despair and destruction.
As Joe struggled to break out of the malicious and evil jumble of emotions that drowned him in his sleep every day, he would always hear another voice. The strange, almost otherworldly voice would flow around him, never getting lost in the malignant storm that raged around him, trying to drag him under. The musical voice would always whisper things to him, things he could hear so clearly in his mind above the chaos surrounding him. It was a whisper so powerful, pure and potent, Joe would hang onto it with all his might, every time, using it to anchor himself from getting lost in the raging vortex.
Wake up, little one, The whisper would always say to him. You have a job to do.
It was the only thing that was capable of guiding him back into the waking world.
Joe didn't want to imagine what would happen to him if it wasn't for the mysterious whisper. He had a sinking feeling that he might not be able to wake up at all if it wasn't for those words he would hear ringing in his mind for hours even after he woke up.
Wake up, little one. You have a job to do.
Even though he couldn't really recall the exact details, he had a vague memory from his early childhood, a very hazy and incomplete memory of a Halloween night. It always brought up strong emotions of fear and desperation whenever he thought about it, making him shy away from the memory without really delving into it too much. He recalled only a very few things from that day all those years ago; death, blood and a lady with a kind smile who had whispered the same words to him in the same beautiful whisper.
And, he instinctively knew that this was something he could not tell Frank just yet, for some reason. It just wasn't.
"Are you hungry?" Frank broke the silence softly, startling him back to the present. The question was answered by a loud, telling rumble from his stomach before he could reply.
"Guess you are," his brother chuckled. "Wanna grab a pizza?"
"Brother, when have I ever said no to pizza?"
Frank took the rhetorical question for the agreement it was and made the turn into the main road that would take them to Tony's place in about ten minutes. The rain seemed to have stopped for the moment and Joe looked forward to the food and a hot chocolate to chase away the last remnants of the cold he could still feel.
Only about halfway to their destination, a sudden, intense feeling of utter dread hit him out of nowhere, causing his entire body to jerk against the seatbelt, as he let out a surprised shout. His unexpected shout triggered Frank to swerve the van in the lane in pure reflex. He immediately turned on the hazards and pulled over before turning to face Joe.
"Joe! What was that?" Frank exclaimed, half angry and half alarmed.
Joe immediately felt guilty for scaring Frank like that. He had absolutely no idea what just happened. All he knew was that there was a dreadful feeling in his gut and a powerful sense of impending doom, centred around Morton's farm.
"Uh, Frank," he gulped. "We need to go see Chet."
Frank's forehead creased in confusion. "What?"
"We really need to go see Chet, right now!" Joe stressed, trying and failing to tamp down the uneasy feeling that urged him to reach their friend's farm before the time ran out.
"Joe, you're not making any sense," Frank said patiently. "Did you tell him you were gonna visit?"
Joe swallowed, thinking hard about how to get Frank to get them moving. He had no idea how to describe what just happened or why he was suddenly feeling the way he did. "No, uh–no," he shook his head, deciding to tell the truth the best he could. "But we have to go now. I just have a bad feeling."
"Joe–"
"Please, Frank…"
"Fine," Frank let out a sigh and turned back to grab the wheel. Joe could see his brother was conflicted, confused and a bit hurt by Joe's less-than-forthcoming explanations and pleas. But to his immense relief, he made a swift and slightly illegal u-turn to get them oriented towards the new destination.
"We'll go," he said, still frowning as he drove. "But you better tell me what's going on sooner rather than later, kid."
That was Frank's serious tone. Joe knew he was going to have to come clean to his brother. He also knew that he needed to sort things out in his own mind before he could do that.
"Okay," he agreed meekly and stared ahead at the mostly empty road, hoping that they'd get there before they were too late. To prevent what exactly, he had no clue.
"Why don't you try calling him?" Frank said after a moment, picking up on Joe's unusual silence.
Joe tried a few times and huffed in frustration when the calls went to voicemail after a few rings. "No answer."
"Yeah, I figured," Frank muttered and increased his speed, responding to Joe's sense of agitation on instinct. "It's that kinda day today–"
"Sorry, Frank."
"It's okay, Joe," his brother sighed. "After we deal with whatever has you on edge at Chet's, we'll find a way to deal with what's happening to you too," he spared a quick glance towards Joe before turning back to concentrate on the road and Joe saw the flash of determination in his eyes, the same flash that always managed to calm him down at the most treacherous of times. "We always do."
