Harrington 4

Straight to Hell

At some point I must've fallen asleep, because I'm jolting up straight and whipping my head around frantically.

"Hey, hey!" the driver shouts as I tug at my seatbelt. "Relax, kid! Jeez."

I look at him, and then the road, and exhale. I was having a nightmare, the same nightmare that's haunted my dreams for the past eight months. I can still see his outline in the back of my eyelids as I scream his name. But he's gone.

"Sorry," I say stupidly, rubbing my eyes and registering my pounding headache.

"The drink'll do that to you, you know," the driver says. "Give you nightmares."

I glance at him, wondering when he realized I was drunk. "Yeah, somehow I don't think it's the alcohol giving me nightmares. But I appreciate your concern."

He sighs and looks back at the road. I fish in my pocket and pull out my packet of cigarettes, tugging out one.

"You mind?" I ask, and he gives me a gesture that says 'go ahead.' I open the window and search for a lighter. "How far are we, anyway?"

"We passed Indianapolis about an hour ago," the driver says, and I whip my head to him.

"What—?"

"Tony said something about you living up North," the driver goes on, "so we're on the sixty-nine."

I look out the window at the highway and run my hand down my face again. "You didn't need to take me all this way."

"Don't know what other plans you had," the driver says. "No buses go all the way up here."

"I would've figured something out," I grumble. The truth is, I never planned farther than Indianapolis. I never planned on going back, not really. I figured I'd just suck up my pride and call Steve to come pick me up, but this is much preferred. I mumble a disgruntled "thanks."

"Where you really from, anyway?" the driver asks me suspiciously, and I keep my eyes trained out the window.

He knows. I know he knows.

"I don't make a habit of telling strangers my home address," I answer vaguely, and he grunts. I wait for it, and it comes.

"We're awfully close to that crazy old Hawkins place, I figure," he says casually. "You know. The one with all the mysterious happenings and whatnot."

"Never heard of it," I say through clenched teeth.

"Yeah, well they had all these crazy deaths last year," he goes on, apparently unable to take a hint, "and they said it was a mall fire, but I dunno. Seems awfully suspicious to me. You wanna know what I think?"

No.

"I think that it's aliens," he says, "I think that that town is hiding something. I think that those people didn't die on accident. Maybe they aren't even dead. Maybe they've been kidnapped, or something. By extra-terrestrials or something of the like." He adjusts himself in his seat as I clench the packet of cigarettes in my hand. "Maybe they're still out there. Being tortured, or something. Or on some other planet."

"You want to know what I think?" I ask softly, and he turns to glance at me.

"Yeah. Whaddaya think?"

"I think that they're all dead," I say, my voice steady. "I think that they were wiped off the face of the earth, and no one got to say goodbye. And they're never coming back."

He stares at me for a minute, and now he's got the hint. He turns back to the road.

"Right."

I unclench my fist before the packet of cigarettes bursts in my hand. "You can let me out here."