There was no moon tonight.
It wasn't a big deal, really. Travis just liked being able to see the moon as he drove. His headlights were bright enough though, and Travis was experienced and made sure not to go too fast anyway, but seeing the moon was almost like seeing a friendly face.
On the other hand, he was the only one on the road, the rain was making soothing sounds as it fell, and he was making good time, so he should be able to take a short break once he reached Brahms. He'd get some coffee, or maybe snatch a quick nap in his cab by the side of the road…it was a good night.
What made it better was that he'd finally managed to get off the radio. He liked Dan, which was one of the main reasons why the other man was his oldest friend. But the fact that Dan was the oldest of six kids meant that he had an overprotective streak a mile wide, and the fact that he was a cop didn't help any. It was just how he showed he cared, but Travis was a grown man-
Travis realized that he was drumming one finger against the steering wheel and made himself stop.
The nice thing about old friends was that they already knew your deep dark secrets. The bad thing about old friends was they knew about your deep dark secrets and the demons that went with them, and if they were like Dan, worried that they were hiding under your bed and were just waiting for you to stick your foot out so they could grab your foot and drag you under.
Travis slowed, peering ahead into the darkness to make sure it was safe before turning onto the next road. He'd never taken this route before- the guy who normally took it had gotten sick. It was a nice night, but Travis didn't feel like getting lost and getting his pay docked because the shipment was late.
Actually, now that he thought about it, this latest idea from Dan seemed more like a Laura idea than a Dan idea.
Dan's wife was almost as much of a mother hen as he was- although she wasn't an oldest child, but her mother had died when she was very young, and she'd spent a lot of time helping her father until he'd died. More to the point, she'd also taken some psychology classes and she was worried that Travis didn't have enough of a social life.
He had a fine amount of social life. He had a number of friends, and he spent almost as much time at Dan and Laura's as he did at his own place-
"You're gone a lot and you work too much- and have you changed anything about that house since your grandparents died?"
Travis snorted. Of course he'd changed things- it was a house, not a shrine. He'd packed away his baby book and various pictures of him and hid them up in the attic. He'd gone through their papers and thrown everything that wasn't important anymore, which was most of it. He'd even taken some of their things- like that one pig statue that his grandma had owned that he'd always secretly hated- and packed them away in the attic too. So what if it was true that he hadn't given the house a major overhaul? For the most part, he'd liked the way his grandparents had set it up.
"I know they're the ones who raised you, but that doesn't mean that it's disloyal for you to change things."
"I know that Laura." he'd told her then. "it's just that I like things the way they are. Besides, isn't arranging things in the house a female thing anyway?"
He'd heard Dan laughing, and he could almost hear Laura rolling her eyes as she told him not to say that to anyone else- some people would take that the wrong way. Travis had retorted that some people took anything and everything the wrong way, and after going back and forth about that for a little bit, he'd signed off.
Travis loved his friends, he really did, but they needed to stop worrying about him. Which was one of the reasons he tried to avoid talking his dreams with them.
The rain was beginning to drop off- probably a good thing. While the soothing sound was nice, having the roads dry would make driving easier.
There was a sign coming up by the side of the road. Happy to get away from thoughts that were going in circles, Travis focused on the sign instead.
"Welcome to Silent Hill."
Silent Hill? Oh yeah, that small town close to Brahms- he'd seen it on the map he'd studied before he'd left. He must be close then-
-Falling back as the door opened and something rushed out-
-Screaming as the hooded figure approached him and pulling at the straps that bound him-
-Hiding under a table as pairs of feet passed, some not willingly, unsettling noises-
-the door, but covered with police tape, opening the door to the room, all dark and in the middle, something swayed-
Travis shuddered and shook himself.
What was that? He hadn't dosed off, had he?
Movement by the side of the road and a girl, cloaked, stumbled out of the trees and the bushes and collapsed in the middle of the street.
Travis slammed on the breaks.
Tires screeched and the truck shook, but skidded to a stop and didn't fall over.
It came to a stop a short distance from the girl.
Travis breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe. He'd survived.
But what was she doing, running in the middle of the road like that?
Travis opened his door and stepped out and then forward so he could see in front of his truck.
No girl.
Travis jerked his head around, searching. What-where-she couldn't have just disappeared!
He took another couple of steps forward-when a chorus of voice crashed into his ears.
"When's Alessa coming back?"
"He's probably going to fail anyways, but-
"You're not going to be there when I wake up."
"Hey, Travis-"
"-over here."
A girl stepped out from in front of his truck.
That must be the girl from earlier. Funny, she looked taller with the cloak on. Where did it go anyway? And how did she-
She was looking up at him, big wide eyes that weren't scared, but close.
"Are you okay?" Travis asked, holding out a hand and keeping his voice quiet, trying not to scare her.
She gave him one last long look before running away.
"Hey wait!" he chased her without thinking about it. A child wandering alone, after dark… It was just the right thing to do. At the very least, he needed to make sure that she got home safely.
There was a lot of fog on the road tonight- Travis had no idea where it had come from, but that wasn't the main thing on his mind right now- he lost sight of the girl pretty quickly in it but ran on, guided by worry and the fact that if he listened, he could hear her footsteps. She had to be just out of sight, right?
And then he began to smell it. And then he saw it, a big house, covered in flames.
"That's not fog, that's smoke!"
Motion caught his eye, at the side of the house, figures running to the back. Two children, too far away to see any details.
One of them was must be the girl though. He took a step closer, but-
"It's a beautiful fire, isn't it?"
Travis spun around to see a woman standing behind him- past shoulder length stringy hair and a strange smile and a strange, half familiar smell. She raised her arms up to the sky. "Such a beautiful fire. The only truly beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Travis decided that leaving and getting the cops was a good idea.
And then the woman lowered her arms and looked at him. And she looked…almost smug. Something seemed to shift, beneath his feet, in front of his eyes, but it passed and the woman kept talking. "She's still in there, you know."
A scream from somewhere inside the house. Travis spun to look at it, trying to figure out which part it'd come from.
"Are you going to rescue her, Travis?" the woman asked from behind him. "She's been waiting for you."
Another cry.
Travis kept his back to the woman, ignoring her and just ran into the house.
Someone needed help.
When he came through the door, a burst of voice assaulted his ears, so many, so fast, he couldn't make them out. He shook it off and looked around.
A soft sobbing noise, barely heard above the crackling flames. Travis followed it upstairs, moving quickly. Almost like his feet were following a path laid out already for him.
The stairs collapsed as he climbed them, but he made it to the top safely.
And then, he found her.
Just a kid, burned all over, not a patch of untouched skin-she looked up at him.
"Just let me burn." she said, quiet and resigned.
"Sorry, you're coming with me." Travis answered as he bent over and picked her up carefully. He started to carry her back to the stairs, but stopped as he remembered that they were broken.
The floor gave way beneath them but somehow, he managed to land on his feet and keep hold of the girl.
He ran for the door, through at least three rooms that blurred together in his head- he was just focusing on getting out, focusing on the small hand clutching at him, wrapped in his shirt.
He burst through the door and continued running, narrowly avoiding some burning debris as they fell.
The crazy woman was nowhere to be seen- neither were the two running kids.
He got to the edge of the yard-that should be far enough-things were getting kinda blurry-he coughed-too much smoke-he started to set her down gently.
"There. Safe now."
But she hadn't let go yet, and she was looking up at him.
"You came for me. Travis, you really came for me."
He smiled. "Yeah, I did."
And then he heard sirens coming. That's good, they can help her-what's she saying? Can't hear you-
The sirens were ringing in his ears, he couldn't think and topping backwards but still holding her-he managed to land with her on top of him-
And then Travis blacked out.
OoOoOoOo
Multiple traffic jams and lots of freight trains meant that things weren't going as planned.
Cheryl smothered a yawn as best she could. At least they were out of Portland now- the trees and hills around them, while certainly not exciting, were at least pleasant to look at. The fall leaves were as colorful as a picture, even though they were still clinging tightly to the trees for the most part.
"I thought you said you weren't going to stay up late last night?" her dad enquired teasingly from behind the steering wheel.
"I wasn't." Cheryl said, grinning, "except then my favorite author wanted me to go over his newest manuscript before he sent it in to his publisher." Even if he wasn't exactly well known, his books sold steadily and some of her classmates at school- the ones who liked reading and had better taste than the others- enjoyed reading her dad's books. In fact, Ann frequently raved over the latest one and had on more than one occasion declared that his sentence structure was sexy. While Cheryl very much enjoyed her father's books, she wasn't sure how that worked and wasn't even sure she wanted to know how. Sometimes Ann was just weird.
At least he refused to put photos on his book covers so that they didn't have a face to comment on- although one time her other friends had become to tease Ann about what "Owen West" might actually look like. Her sanity really could have done without her friends describing how sexy her father may or may not look. She had eyes, she knew that he wasn't bad looking and that women his age- and some not his age- were aware of it, but while he was friendly and enjoyed friendships of both genders, for the most part he seemed utterly uninterested in any romantic relationships. Which Cheryl felt guilty happy about, most of the time. She wanted him to be happy, of course, she was just happy that he wasn't interested. Her mother have have died a long time ago, but Cheryl still remembered her enough that imagining her dad with anyone else felt wrong. Not to mention the fact that her dad was the only family she had.
"He was too worried about whether his newest book is any good." she added out loud, trying to distract herself from that train of thought. "Even though that's silly, since all of his other books have been great."
Most of the time though, listening to her friends talk about her dad's books was amusing, and sometimes she even told her dad about them later. Cheryl would've enjoyed teasing them about the fact she got to read his books before they were even out, but that would've meant spoiling her dad's identity, which was the whole reason he wrote under a penname. So Cheryl resigned herself to just smirking when the others talked about him- and once in a while correcting them when they got the wrong idea.
"Well, while your favorite author appreciates that, he could've waited for you to get back and read it then."
"Yeah, but after everything you said about it, I was curious. Besides, even though I am slightly biased in your favor, I do think you're the best writer out there."
"Thanks honey, and you're the best first reader a writer could wish for. And with that said, you can go ahead and get some rest if you want. I'll just go ahead and think of ideas for my next novel-"
Cheryl mock scowled before leaned over and pretended to hit him. "No way! You're on vacation, remember?"
"Okay." her dad laughed as the train finally ended and began to pull away. "I guess I'll just listen to the radio then."
"Good luck getting that to work." Cheryl said, leaning back in her seat with a smile- writing wasn't the wealthiest job, not unless you were Steven King or J.K. Rowling, and there was a reason their faded blue car was affectionately referred to as "the Rustbucket", even if it wasn't quite that bad- and turning towards the window, figuring she might as well take her dad up on his offer-
Only sit back up suddenly, staring out the window and pressing one hand against the glass like that would help her see better-
"What is it?"
She heard her dad ask the question from behind her, but a moment she kept staring out the window. "I thought… I thought I saw something… but I can't see anything now… I guess it was just my imagination." she turned away from the window and smiled at him. "I guess I need sleep more than I thought." she said, trying to make a joke out of it, but his smile didn't seem all that amused.
"You sure?"
"Yeah- I mean, there's nothing there now." Cheryl said, for a moment surprised by the question, but then she smiled. "I don't think there's a sniper in a gilly suit up in the hills waiting for us, Dad."
He chuckled, but not as enthusiastically as he usually would. "Yeah, I'm sure you're right Cheryl. Go ahead and take that nap- I'll wake you when we get there, okay?"
"Okay Dad." Cheryl said, suppressing another yawn, and shutting her eyes before she could see anything else weird.
OoOoOoOo
Yeah, that part with Travis is pretty familiar isn't it? Nothing else in this is going to be quite that familiar.
Oh, and on pairings- nothing major. There's crushes, and hints of a crush mixed with friendly affection that could be developing into something more, but it's not all that blatant and you can ignore it if you want. Well, you can't ignore the crush, but you can ignore the hints that it might develop into something more in the future after this ends.
And I have commented that someone's sentence structure in real life is sexy. I also love his similes and metaphors and (swoons). I also like his appearance. ^^
Also, anyone who knows who used "Owen West" as a pen name for a while gets free imaginary cookies. Incidentally, he's not the same guy as the one I was just talking about.