He was confused, his world was spinning, he had no idea where he was. The room was dark, it was cold, wet, drafty. It wasn't possible for him to speak, because something was in his mouth. Cloth! It made him gag, his hands were tied above his head. His feet were tied, too, but only his toes reached down to the floor. There was pain in his shoulders, arms legs, ribs, head and his wrists. He had a hard time to stay awake, but was afraid that unconsciousness would add to the weight on his wrists and his shoulders.
The door opened and bright light shined into his eyes. The light burned his eyes. He was sure that there was one man with him. He couldn't see who it was, but assumed that it was his father. It had been his father who took him out of his room and into his trunk. It had been his father that let Emily sedate him again. He had been sedated again a while after he was brought to this house. He wasn't sure, but thought it was his fathers place. He felt as if he was run over by a bus.
The man freed one of his hands. Evan saw the needle and tried to pull his arm away, but a second hand held him by his wrist and he was still too weak from the earlier sedatives to fight. The needle touched his skin and not long after the liquid ran through his veins.
When he was pulled from the wall, he felt that more hands were touching him, probably two men. They laid him down on something soft. Whatever it was smelled musty and was moistly. Suddenly he was alone again and the room was dark. He was pretty sure it was a mattress he was lying on, most likely one that had been lying there for a long time. He couldn't move away, even if he wanted to. Wouldn't have made any difference anyway, because the floor was dirty and wet.
He felt hands grabbing his ankles and his wrists, but nobody was with him. Still he saw someone crawling up on him, it was a skeleton. Okay, that couldn't be and he realized that what he was given this time, wasn't a sedative. More some kind of drug.
He was scared and wished he could call Hank, just to hear him say that all would be fine. Hank? Was he looking for him? Did he find his diaries? Hank, his loving brother and best friend.
He tried to scream, but couldn't voice it with the big cloth in his mouth. Tears ran down his face, when the skeleton grabbed him everywhere and it teeth hit for his neck. That was just the first harmless hallucination of many Evan would go through in the next hours.
Hank drove as fast as he could, he wanted to reach his fathers place as soon as possible. His mind was full of thoughts about his little brother. He reacted to the traffic, but wasn't really focused on it. For the first time in his life he was scared for his brother. Well, he had been worried about him, but he was never this close to lose the one person he cared more for than for himself. Don't think like that, Henry. You will find him and he'll be okay.
He hoped to find him, but wasn't sure that he could really expect Evan to be okay, not after what had been done to him. He didn't even know, when all of it had started. Had Eddie met Evan in New York? Was that why his brother didn't know what happened there? Had they drugged him there for the first time? It wouldn't be a surprise considering what he had read in the diary. He had so many questions and no answers and it scared him to death. As long as he's alive. If things worked his way he would reach New York City in two hours and then twenty minutes to his fathers house.
He tried to think back, find out what had happened to his brother and when symptoms had been obvious for the first time. Why didn't he see the problems earlier? He knew it wouldn't help anyone, if he started to blame himself, but he couldn't help it.
Evan was his younger brother and he had to take care of him, always had since their mother had died and he often thought that it had started much sooner. When he had been old enough to realize that Evan hadn't been happy, but Evan had started to take care of his older brother, when he had been three. He had made him smile and laugh, had always tried to lighten up Hanks days. God, Evan takes more care of you than you ever do for him. I let you down, kiddo. I'm sorry, just hang in there. I'm gonna get you and make things alright again.
He turned the radio on, but it didn't help to distract him. Emily was in the trunk and he couldn't believe how she got there, how he got her there. He felt like a criminal and he knew he'd be in trouble, if the police would stop him and find her, but he didn't care. It was hard to believe that he had shared the bed with her, while she played dirty games with his brother. He was glad that he didn't fall enough for her to be in love. It would have been nice to think that he knew anything was wrong with her and that's why he didn't fall in love, but he knew that wasn't the reason. He didn't notice anything wrong, when he was with her. Damn! I'm such an idiot! Looking back, he wasn't even able to remember why he had been attracted by her at all.
Ninety minutes away from Hank was Evan fighting against dead people that weren't there. Breathing was very hard for him, because the panic made him forget to breathe through his nose. "Hello Evan, say hi to your mum." He opened his eyes and saw his death mother next to him, blood running down her toothless mouth. He tried to move away from her, but his wrists and ankles were still tied and he was in too much pain to move at all. The several sedatives he had received during the day took most of his strength away. They had probably given him far too much.
His mother came closer to his face. He could see little bugs, flies and maggots where her eyes were supposed to be. The blood running down her chin to drop on his face. She licked his forehead and he opened his eyes wide, terror taking over. "Give your mummy a kiss!" He was a prisoner of this hallucination, too far gone to realize that she wasn't there and that his mouth was blocked by a cloth. She kissed him and her body fluids ran in his mouth. He had to swallow them, because he couldn't breathe anymore.
The horror was too much for his anyway unstable mind and his broken soul. He just laid there, motionless, staring at his mother that wasn't there and feeling her blood, her saliva in his throat. His mind shut down, but the hallucination followed him in the deepest parts of his mind and didn't let go off him. The only sounds in the room where his painful and terrified whimpers. His sanity was gone and he didn't feel the warm liquid that wet his pants.
Hank didn't know what his brother went through, while he was getting closer to his goal. It was still little more than an hour to go and his body was exhausted. It had been a long day, but his mind was awake. Thousand thoughts ran through his mind, some of them made sense, some weren't even finished. No matter how hard he tried, looking back he couldn't see why he hadn't noticed anything. Everything was so clear. Maybe not what they had done to his brother, but that he hadn't been okay for weeks and Emily had been bitchy right from the start, he had just been too blind to see.
He thought back to the time, when his mother had died. Their father had left them before and didn't even show up at her funeral. She had always loved him so much and it was sad that she had never got anything in return. His father had tried to explain to him that he had just couldn't bare to see her like this, but he had never wasted one thought on his sons and how they had felt to see their mother dying. Since the day Eddie had gone it was his responsibility to take care of his baby brother and even when it had been hard at times, he hadn't complained once. Well, yes he had, but he hadn't ever meant it.
It wasn't even an hour anymore, but still fifty-three minutes too far. He was becoming more and more impatient. It was like time was running through his fingers and his brother would drift further away from him with every passing second. There was this aching pain in his chest, caused by his emotional troubles.
He reached down and found his bottle. He opened it with his teeth and drank most of his water. His stomach asked for food, but he hadn't the time to stop and eat something. No, he had more important things to do than eat. When did Evan eat the last time and kept it down? Or when did he drink water without throwing up? This thought felt like someone stabbing him from the back. He remembered how much weight Evan had lost in the last weeks and how pale he had looked. Anger came back to him and his foot floored the gas pedal. The determination and tension in his face and body was unmistakeably. He would find his brother and do whatever was needed to free him and make things better again. Whatever it would take.
Thank you so much for all your reviews. I'm glad my change in the plot went well. I had it on my mind all the time (before I started the story), but I wasn't sure how you would react. Hank has still to find his brother and to rescue him. We'll have to see what it takes to do so. We will have some fun left till the story ends and I hope you don't mind that Evan has to go through a lot more before Hank, who will have his small share of hurt, can finally bring him home, back to where he belongs. Will he bring him home? Let's wait and see.