Disclaimer: Dude. Buddy. My man. Guys. This is the last chapter. If you still don't understand that Hetalia is owned by Hidekaz Himaruya, Alice Isn't Dead is owned by Joseph Fink, and that I do not own nor claim to own either of them, we have a very serious problem.
As the two of them sat in that truck, staring at the gate in front of them in apprehension, Feliciano and Alfred thought about very different things.
Feliciano thought about Italy. He wondered how his brother was doing, if he was happy with his boyfriend. Feliciano thought about all the art pieces left in the empty house, and wondered if anyone would ever notice that no one ever returned. Feliciano thought about the things he had brought with him to America, the ones left in the car back in the parking lot. He wondered if anyone ever found them, and if so, what happened to the car itself. Thoughts of Praxis Industries flashed through his mind, and he wondered if Caesar was able to leave the face of the earth peacefully, and if his coffin was still out there on the waves somewhere. Of course, Feliciano thought about Peter too. He hoped and prayed that Peter was safe- or, no, none of them were safe, Feliciano corrected himself. He hoped and prayed that Peter was alive.
Feliciano also thought about Alfred, obviously.
Alfred thought about Arthur. He wondered if Arthur's ghost was watching over him and Feliciano, wondered if he was screaming at them to turn back or if he was watching on in approving silence. Alfred thought about all the things that would still be in the same place if he ever got back to the house where he lived, and the Alfred briefly entertained the thought of not returning, even if he lived. Alfred took a few moments to think about Charlatan. The old man, was he still crossing the street? Was the mother still lovingly scolding her son as they exited room 204 of the Trade Winds Tiki Motel? Was that teenage girl still filling her white Ford with gas at the gas station? Alfred supposed that he would never really know. Alfred thought about that police station in Savannah, Georgia. He wondered if there were people searching for him and Feliciano at that very moment, ready to take them in and put them on trial and then into prison.
Alfred also thought about Feliciano, obviously.
And then they stopped thinking. Alfred's hands were shaking. Feliciano looked at the gate with its sign that said Tribulus. Around them was the vibration of the engine and the weight of the truck, all mass and potential energy.
Alfred touched his foot to the gas, not pushing down yet. He reached over into Feliciano's bag, passed Feliciano a bottle and kept one for himself, leaving one still in the bag. They did the one bit of preparation they had time to think about. A box of matches, the bottle, a bag, and a rubber sledgehammer, things that were hastily grabbed in the heat of the moment, lay at the bottom of the bag. Feliciano held onto the bag tightly. Both of them breathed a few times more. Felt the air go in and out, enjoying those moments in which it was still possible.
Their skin was damp now. Alfred thought of what he would do once they crashed through the gate, and his mind was a blank. They had no plan at all.
Feliciano took a deep breath. "Ti amo, Alfred."
Alfred nodded and swallowed. "Yeah. I love you too, Feliciano."
"March 24, 9:07 PM," the display read.
He hit the gas.
A sound like the yelp of an ancient creature, and the gate tore off and they rolled into town. There were so many of those men with their ill-fitting skin and yellow polo shirts. Hundreds, maybe. Alfred plowed through them, and they went flying, landing at horrible angles before Alfred had to brake to avoid crashing into the gas station. The explosion that would occur if he hadn't might have taken out a lot of them, but Alfred had to make sure he and Feliciano were alive to see this through, to make sure that none of the creatures were left when - or if - they left.
The mob surrounded the cab, sneering. One who had been hit limped towards Feliciano. The skin of his face had been torn off by the collision, and underneath was a mealy yellow fat, dripping down over his chin. There was no sign of bone.
Feliciano reached for Alfred's hand and gripped it tightly. He considered their next move. Alfred's entire body glistened. He couldn't smell the town, fortunately, but he could imagine a smell like tilled earth, like green things.
A whole glob of the yellow fat fell from the injured man's face and landed on the ground, where he slipped on it. He laughed. A choked, broken sound, similar to a drowning man.
All of the buildings in the town were covered in a thin film of oil, and the whole town looked sticky to the touch.
Feliciano let his eyes wander for the briefest of seconds, and he saw, tied to a streetlight near the gas station was one of them, like all the others. He leaned into the ropes that bound him.
"Get them!" he croaked. His whole body was covered in knife wounds, but his eyes were alive and focused. "Get them!"
He bled mildew and must and globs of yellow fat into the ropes.
The crowd parted, and him - the original Him - the Tribulus man, the Hungry Man, he walked stiffly up to the door of the cab.
"Oh, you can get out," he said. "None of us are going to hurt either of you right away. And you two aren't any safer in there."
He was right, Feliciano realized. Alfred opened the door. It took a couple tries because his hands were so slippery, but he made it, and he helped Feliciano out through the same door.
"Look at you two," the Tribulus man said, "sweating like two lost children exhausted from running around searching for their mothers."
"What a weird metaphor," Feliciano said.
"You're nervous," he commented.
"I'm always nervous," Alfred answered.
Feliciano wiped his forehead to keep his eyes clear.
"Welcome to my home," the Tribulus man said. "We didn't know you were coming, or we would have prepared better."
"What is the place?" Alfred asked. "Not that it matters. Not that it's anything but a wound that has to be sewn shut, but you know, the longer I keep talking, the longer before you attack us."
"That's a complicated story, and I'm not much for talking. Not like you. 'Hi, Feliciano! Oh, Arthur! It's me again, Feliciano!'"
His voice was like the accidental hollowing of the wind.
The other Tribulus men had backed up, formed a circle around them, leaving the group of three alone in the center. Alfred and Feliciano were his mess to handle, and he was ready to clean them up.
"You're serial killers," Alfred said. His voice shook, but his tone was firm.
"We're freedom," the Tribulus man said. "Freedom can be good or bad. There can be terrible freedom." He grinned. His teeth were faintly green. "We are the terrible freedom."
"You're murderers," Feliciano said. His voice shook too, but his tone was firm as well.
"America," the Tribulus Man said. "A country defined as much by distance as culture. America embraces its distances. Empty spaces and road trips, but there is always a price. We are that price. We are creatures of the road. We feed on distance, on road trips, on emptiness, bodies by the side of the highway."
There was a sound, like applause, but softer. The crowd of Tribulus men sucking in and out on their cheeks, creating a faint sound of flesh.
"Don't try to make poetry out of the blood on your hands," Feliciano said.
He took Feliciano's arm. Alfred didn't know how he got that close, how he got between them, but he was there, and he did not grab; he took, like a dance partner, gentle but insistent, and then he pushed Feliciano against the truck. His arm was against Feliciano's throat.
Fear branched through Alfred like lightning, starting from his gut and ending with the thunderclap in his head.
But Feliciano motioned him to stop. The Tribulus man couldn't do it. He couldn't push down, and he was wincing, his face wrinkling in disgust. He stepped back, wiping at his arm.
Feliciano grinned shakily, stepping forward from the truck and closer to Alfred. He gestured to his drenched face, neck, torso.
"Heather oil," he said. "Poured a bottle right over my head. Tip from a friend of ours."
The Tribulus man growled, and it sounded like a creature ten times his size. No human throat made that sound.
"You think that spell will protect you?" he said. "It will hurt me, but it will hurt you more." He slapped Feliciano. The world went white on one side, and his left ear rang.
Feliciano gasped, and Alfred didn't respond with words. Instead, he reached into Feliciano's bag and out at the Tribulus man before anyone could realize he was moving. Alfred grabbed his face, wrenched open his rotting, gummy mouth, and he shoved a huge fistful of dried heather into his mouth.
"Fuck you!" Alfred yelled.
The Tribulus man choked and heaved. His skin turned an unholy shade of purple, as though his whole body was bruising, and Alfred glared at him as Feliciano recovered from the slap.
The Tribulus man turned and ran.
The other monsters around them froze. They didn't seem to know what to do. The tied up one, with a thick glop oozing from the wounds all over his skin, just moved his mouth like a fish, a faint sound like "ffuh… ffuh… ffuh."
Feliciano did the only thing he could do. In the moment that the monsters were frozen, he grabbed Alfred's hand and took off after the Tribulus man. The only way out was through.
As soon as the two started moving, the others moved too. Feliciano broke through a gap in their circle with Alfred right next to him, but they could hear the off kilter rhythm of their running, and the thick moist gasps of exertion from all around them.
Feliciano just stayed with the Tribulus man, just followed the Tribulus man.
They chased him into a diner, the Burgers & More. The inside of the diner was full of rotting food. Milkshakes and hamburgers, covered in mold and maggots. Alfred was glad for the heather oil all over his face, but still the smell pursued him. Only the glasses of soda, watery with melted ice, still looked like what they were, unable to age, unable to rot.
The Tribulus man was already in the kitchen, headed for the back door, but Alfred saw an opportunity at the same time as Feliciano: the walk-in cooler.
Alfred put the last of his energy into a sprint, and crashed into him as he made for the back, sending both of them sprawling into the cooler. Feliciano ran in after them and slammed the door and pushed one of the low heavy shelves in front of it. The Tribulus man flopped around on the ground, spitting out heather, his skin still an angry purple.
After the heat of the night air outside, the walk in felt like constant pin pricks. It focused Alfred, like sobering up from a long night of drinking.
Alfred turned to check on Feliciano at the door, who was pressing his back against the shelf to keep the door shut, and when he turned back, the Tribulus man was on his feet.
"Well," he said. "Well, that bought you some time, didn't it? I wasn't expecting that. You got me to panic. Got me to run. But what now? What's next?"
His skin blotched back from purple to faint yellow. He stretched, and flexed, and Alfred could see his strength returning.
The walk-in was smaller than it had originally looked. Alfred could hear hands pawing on the outside of the door, and on the walls on both sides, and Feliciano's quiet swearing as he pushed back on the door.
"You got me to run, but then what? What weapon do you have to finish the job?" he said.
He spread his hands expectantly.
"Nothing," Alfred said honestly.
"Nothing?" he asked.
"I brought nothing. I brought myself, and Feliciano brought himself. I am going to kill you."
The Tribulus man laughed, the deep laugh at the end of a good joke.
"You're going to kill me? Hah!" He grinned. "Oh, Alfred. Let me explain death to you."
And then, he charged.
Alfred stood ready, ready to face him, but the Tribulus man went right to the left of him, and right towards Feliciano.
Alfred figured he'd never been more afraid. And that was saying a lot, after the year he'd had, after the things he'd seen. He felt terror in every part of him. It froze up his limbs, locked up his joints, made his thoughts both too slow for planning and too fast to follow. He wasn't a person anymore, just a container for his fear.
Alfred thought about Arthur, about when he found out he was dead.
He thought about Davie, dying alone as decent people ate waffles not ten feet away.
He thought about a father in a Target parking lot, calling the police under the belief that it would help.
He thought about a factory by the sea.
He thought about a line of names, a murderer's legacy on an ugly stretch of highway.
He thought about a young boy doing his best, and just how good his best was.
He thought about a bus pulling out of Victorville in the middle of the night.
He thought of home.
He thought of Peter.
He thought of Feliciano.
And through all of these thoughts, a buzzing anxiety. Anxiety like electricity. And he knew, in that moment, what Peter meant. Anxiety was just an energy. It was an uncontrollable near-infinite energy, surging within him. And for once, he stopped trying to contain it.
Feliciano saw the Tribulus man charging at him, and he felt his breath catch in his chest.
Alfred told his heart, beat faster, Feliciano told his panicked breath, become more difficult, and they told their fear to overtake them.
Make me more afraid. I am not afraid of feeling afraid. Make me more afraid!
All of that energy, they turned it outward. They pushed it into their arms, their legs, their teeth.
Fuck the Tribulus man!
When he hit Feliciano, he was stronger than Feliciano remembered. It was like being hit by a car. Mass without pity, just brutal physics, but Feliciano was moving too. He managed to procure the sledgehammer from his bag between the hits he suffered, and he hit back as hard as he could, pushed the Tribulus man as far back as he could, right to where Alfred was waiting.
Alfred staggered back, and the Tribulus man was heavier than he remembered. It was like having a concrete block drag him down into the ocean as he tried to swim to the surface. Weight without mercy, only cruel reality, but Alfred took it as an advantage. As the Tribulus man quickly recovered and started hitting, Alfred was fighting too. Pounding at his face, his chest, biting, throwing his entire weight down onto him. He could faintly hear Feliciano breathing heavily as the shelf began to move a bit.
Alfred didn't feel pain. He was so full of fear that there wasn't room for anything else. He fought using every wave of terror inside of him.
The Tribulus man laughed when Alfred hit him, and he kept punching Alfred, as thoughtless and inhuman as a rock slide on a highway. But Alfred kept hitting too, and the Tribulus man stopped laughing. Alfred clawed at his face, and his skin started to go, and that yellow fat oozed out.
Feliciano sweat profusely as he leaned all of his weight against the shelf. He could feel the rough wood dig into his skin, the edges cutting through and blood beginning to run down his arms. Feliciano could feel the bruises and welts forming from the Tribulus man's brief attack on him. More than anything else, Feliciano could feel the burning sensation in his muscles, the pure agony blazing through his body as his limbs shrieked in wretchedness. His blood pounded in his ears, and the force of the other creatures on the other side of the door only grew.
Through his hazy thoughts, he grabbed the sledgehammer again and fumbled for the matches, struggling to keep most of his weight on the shelf. He figured that if they broke through, and he survived being smashed against the wall like a bug, he would do his best to light the sledgehammer on fire and do what he could from there.
Behind him, the Tribulus man grunted, growled, flailed at Alfred. The Tribulus man was no longer toying with him, and he wanted to destroy Alfred.
But Alfred stayed on his feet. He tore at him with the last of himself, and finally, the Tribulus man was the one that fell, his teeth mashed into his cheek, shouting incoherently.
Alfred went knees-first into his chest. He hit, and he hit… And then he was dead.
The Tribulus man was crumpled at Alfred's feet, face reduced to a mess of thick fat, his fists curled unnaturally at his sides, and his skin stretching and sagging and torn. He was dead.
Adrenaline pounded through Alfred. He couldn't turn off the energy he had found in himself, and he was in pretty bad shape. Bruises, probably a broken rib, definitely broken and chipped teeth. But the Tribulus man laid there, his head a pile of fat and pulp that smelled like mushrooms and had no bone.
Alfred threw up. Half on the floor, and half on his body. It was horrible, but he felt victory like he hadn't in years. With his own hands, he had ended it. He had fucking won!
And then there was the sound of Feliciano letting out a quiet wail of anguish, and Alfred remembered that he had only killed one. They were surrounded by hundreds more.
"Let us in! Let us in!" a ragged voice sang, every note in discord with the note before it.
Alfred crawled from his place on the Tribulus man, covered in lumps of grease and his own vomit, to join Feliciano in holding the door closed as well as they could, injured and depleted of strength as they were.
A skittering on the ceiling, like an enormous spider. Then the lights went out. In the darkness, Feliciano could hear only his and Alfred's breath mingling in the air in front of him, accompanied by the hissing and scratching from the walls. A voice he recognized as that of the stabbed creature, sounding like it was in his ear.
"Ffuh! Ffuh! Ffuh!"
Then a new sound. Feliciano felt it in his stomach first. A bass tone that hadn't been there before. Gradually it slid from his stomach to his ears, becoming audible. An engine. Many engines. The sound became clear. Car engines, and then gunshots.
The whispering stopped, and with it, the weight on the door. There was scrambling on the walls, like a dog slipping on hardwood, then nothing. Nothing but Feliciano and Alfred and the darkness of the walk-in.
Feliciano slowly let his arms slip away from the shelf, and pushed himself off of it. When no sudden push came, he grabbed a hold of the sledge hammer, touched Alfred lightly on the shoulder, and took a deep breath.
He was exhausted, but he could do it. One last push, he told himself.
"Hold your breath," he told Alfred.
He took the matches and lit one, touching it to the head of the sledgehammer, which set ablaze immediately, filling the air with what Feliciano guessed was the smell of singed rubber - he was holding his breath, after all.
Alfred let go as well and grabbed Feliciano's bag. He counted quietly to three, and shoved the shelf out of the way, jumping to his feet as the door rammed open to reveal a single Tribulus man in front of them, on the ground, wounded and twitching. One of his arm was twisted behind his body at an unnatural angle, and only a gaping hole was where the other used to be, oozing fat.
He lifted his head, and grinned at Alfred, moving to bite his foot.
Feliciano wasted no time in bringing the sledgehammer down on its body as hard as possible, and the creature let out a strangled and demonic screech, stopping just a centimeter away from Alfred, who had jumped backwards in shock. Feliciano raised the flaming sledgehammer and brought it down again, over and over. The flames traced the air as it repeatedly slammed down over the half-dead Tribulus man's body, burning the skin it touched.
Alfred jumped into action, and rummaged through Feliciano's bag for half a moment to procure the last bottle of heather oil. He dumped it on top of the still-moving sack of fat and skin, and jumped back as Feliciano dropped the flaming sledgehammer on top and ran.
The two stumbled in their race for the door of the abandoned building, but made it just as the dying howls of the Tribulus man faded.
They slammed the door open, and a rectangle of light with a figure just a few feet away made itself known. Gradually, Feliciano understood the shape as a woman holding a rifle. He'd never seen this woman before.
She looked past them to the flaming corpse on the floor, and into the open walk-in freezer, where the original Tribulus man lay, dead.
"Holy shit!" she said.
She looked at Feliciano and Alfred again, closely, with something between awe and suspicion. She clicked on her radio. "You're not gonna believe this," she said, "but Vector H is down."
There was a general sound of disbelief and excitement from the radio, but she clicked it off before it could be understood as words.
"Come on out. Every last one of those things are being taken care of now." She gestured, but didn't touch Alfred or Feliciano. She seemed to want to give them distance.
Feliciano stepped out, and Alfred was right next to him. They reached for each others hands, and clasped them tightly, disregarding the vomit and fat and blood and other bodily fluids they were covered with.
The woman glanced again at the Tribulus man - the Hungry Man - and the flaming corpse. She gestured Alfred and Feliciano out of the rotting diner and out onto the streets. They were full of armored vehicles. Women and men in uniform sweeping the houses. Women and men in uniform shooting down the Tribulus men. Women and men in uniform guarding the gates and walls, making sure none of them escaped. Women and men burning the corpses.
But the uniforms did not look like any military Feliciano or Alfred knew. Navy blue jumpsuits, a white logo on the chest.
"Who are you all?" Feliciano asked the woman.
"You two did a very good thing today. A very good thing." She shook her head. "No, not a good thing. An amazing thing. An indescribably incredible thing. But," she offered Alfred and Feliciano a friendly smile. "Your work is done. You can go home now."
Alfred felt dizzy. "Who do you work for?" he asked.
"Who do you work for?" she said, and grinned. She was wearing one of the jumpsuits too. Alfred looked at the logo more closely.
A white penrose triangle. Bay & Creek Shipping. The same logo as the door of Alfred's cab, the same penrose triangle as the brooch on his shirt.
"What?" Alfred asked. It was the only thing he could think to say, so he said it again. "What?"
The woman laughed and led him and Feliciano towards a vehicle. Not a truck, a van. Navy blue with a white penrose on the door.
"You're lucky that you chose today to act," she said conversationally as she helped the two into the backseat. "March twenty-fourth. How'd you know?"
Feliciano looked at Alfred in confusion, and Alfred looked right back at him. "March twenty-fourth?"
"Yeah!" the woman said from the front seat. "I'm gonna drive you back to headquarters for now, but we've been planning this for almost years. Had our best, Arthur Kirkland, working on it for a while."
Feliciano's eyes widened, and Alfred just stared.
Then, he laughed. "Oh." He laughed again, even harder. "Son of a bitch!"
Feliciano watched him in confusion, and the woman in the front seat watched him curiously through the mirror as she started up the engine.
"Alfred?" Feliciano said, mildly concerned. "Alfred, what's going on?"
Alfred grinned. "Arthur. When I was going through his crap, the three things I saw the most of was 'The California Project', 'Vector H', and the date, '03/24'."
"You knew Arthur Kirkland?" the woman in the front seat asked, but she was ignored.
Feliciano felt numb. Alfred grinned at him in exhaustion and amusement.
"We are the two luckiest people on this earth right now," Feliciano said.
"Yeah," Alfred said, smiling. "Yeah, we are."
Feliciano burst out laughing, and Alfred joined in again. Tears streamed from both of their eyes, and they held onto each other with trembling bodies and trembling limbs, and they laughed and cried until they only shook, no noise coming out.
The woman in the front smiled. "You two sure went through hell and back, huh?"
Alfred felt more tears leak out from his eyes, and he put his hand on Feliciano's cheek, brushing away tears he saw coming out again there.
"God," Alfred said. "You have no idea."
Feliciano reached up and put his hand on top of Alfred's and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together.
"Alfred," Feliciano whispered. "Alfred, we can go home now."
Alfred laughed. "Yeah. We're going home, Feli."
Feliciano took a deep breath and smiled softly. "Home. And no more road trips for a long, long time. No trucks ever again."
Alfred smiled.
"When we move out of the old house, let's make pizza together."