Lady Luck

26

        "You... you want to split up?"

I stared at Tim in shock, slowly absorbing his statement. Unfazed by my reaction, Tim just shrugged and nodded, folding his arms as he spoke. "Yeah. Look, I've been thinking for a while now, and we keep running out of leads. All we have are those memory cards, but at this point I'm pretty sure we won't find anything else on them. No matter how I look at it we should've found something by now, so I think we hid the actually important ones somewhere else."

So he figured that out too, I thought grimly, thinking of the cards still in my pocket. Trying to determine how much I could safely reveal, I slowly nodded and said, "Yeah, I've kinda wondered about that too. I didn't know how to bring it up though." Tim just nodded as I spoke, his expression remaining neutral, but I still caught a small glimmer of satisfaction in his dark eyes.

"I thought you might have noticed it. You tend to pick up on stuff when it matters."

"Uh, thanks, I guess," I muttered, and quickly steered the conversation back on track. "But why does the memory card thing mean we have to split up?"

"So far, both major leads involve locations from the... 'original series,' I guess," Tim replied, pausing briefly to search for the right way to phrase it. "I've thought about it a bit, and I think that at the start we probably went back to major locations since we didn't have any other major leads yet. That's what we seemed to be doing in that video from the park, anyway."

"True," I allowed thoughtfully as I recalled the video.

"So if I'm right, I figure that we might find some clues about what happened during that gap if we go back to those places. Since there's a few locations though, it'd be faster to split up." An impressive deduction. I felt a growing admiration for his logical thinking, though of course I still had a few problems with it.

"Okay, that sounds good and all, but I see two problems with this. First, right now we are basically living in a real-life horror movie. And in horror movies, splitting up tends to end with at least one person dead. Especially if they're exploring creepy abandoned buildings or forests. And—correct me if I'm wrong here—but isn't ninety-nine percent of Marble Hornets set in creepy abandoned buildings or woods?"

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow as I waited for a response, but Tim just remained the picture of calmness as he replied. "(Name), if we were onto something big, the Tall Man would probably appear even if there were two of us. Numbers haven't stopped him before, or at least not numbers that small. And anyways, if he appears we'll just run away. Always worked in the past."

Not always, I thought grimly, recalling the large slew of disappearances in the series. Almost everyone vanished at some point. Also, I was pretty sure Hoody was taken away at some point before becoming, well, Hoody. I didn't comment on this though, sensing that trying to argue with him on this point wouldn't work.

"Okay, fine, I'll just leave that then. But the other problem isn't that simple to solve."

"Oh yeah? Try me."

"How would I get anywhere when I don't have a car, or know how to drive?" Tim opened his mouth to respond but then stopped, doing a legitimate double-take as he blinked at me.

"Wait... You can't drive?"

"No really," I said with a shrug. "By the time I was old enough to get a learner's permit I'd noticed the whole 'bad luck' thing I have going on around me, so I didn't really trust myself behind the wheel of a two-ton hunk of steel hurtling down the road at fifty miles an hour. Haven't even touched the wheel of a car since I ran away." I could almost see Tim's thought process as I spoke, his expression slowly shifting from surprise and disbelief to understanding.

"Huh... I guess I can kind of see your reasoning there," he muttered thoughtfully. "Gotta admit, I'd feel a lot safer without you on the roads given your track record. No offense or anything."

"None taken. That's exactly how I feel."

"Well, it doesn't matter that much anyway," he continued. "I was thinking you could just stay behind at the hotel."

"...Wait, what?"

Now it was my turn to boggle at him, wondering if I'd heard him right. Mentally replaying his words to make sure I didn't miss something, I spoke slowly and deliberately. "You're saying you want to go to all the places from Marble Hornets, running the risk of the Tall Man showing up, all alone... While I just stay behind at the hotel, sitting around doing nothing?"

"No, you wouldn't be just waiting for me," Tim said quickly, apparently realizing how strange his statement sounded. "Obviously we came to this town for a reason, but we've been so focused on the videos we haven't actually looked into it yet. So I figured you could stick around and look into that while I look at the other places. You could probably get a taxi to those woods where we woke up, I've seen one or two driving around town.

"It'd still be dangerous though," he added. "Hoody's probably still in the area, since usually he kinda tries to leave clues on where to go next and he hasn't yet. So you might run into him. But your luck probably works better against human than..." Trailing off, he searched for the right word before he finally just waved a hand. "Well, whatever the Tall Man is."

...And his logic was back on track.

As he spoke I tried to think of a counterargument to all of his points, but nothing immediately sprung to my mind. Clamping my mouth shut, I pressed a hand to my forehead and squeezed my eyes shut as I fell deep into thought. Dangerous as the whole idea was, I was starting to see the benefits to splitting up. As Tim said, we still hadn't investigated this town since waking up, and both of the video leads so far did lead us to locations from the original Marble Hornets series.

Tim's line of thought was totally solid, clearly he'd put a lot of thought into this before approaching me.

Eventually, I opened my eyes and exhaled a small sigh, slowly shaking my head. "Know what? Fine. Let's split up." Tim perked up at my response.

"You're okay with it? No more counterpoints?"

"I'm still not that comfortable with the idea, but you have a couple of good points. And I'm pretty sure you won't take no for an answer."

"I hoped you'd see it my way." Tim sounded almost relieved, as if he expected more of a fight. And normally I probably would have, but at this point I was just too tired.

"So, when are you leaving?"

"I'm thinking tomorrow or the day after," he replied. "I want to stop by the bank first and see if I can withdraw some money from the ATM for the trip. Not sure how much I actually have in my account though, so I might need to do some more serious planning..."

"Right..." I nodded absently as he started rambling to himself about the potential costs of a tent versus hotel rooms, and his voice soon faded into the background of my mind as I got lost in my own thoughts. After about a minute I cut him off. "Hey Tim, I think I'm gonna go for a walk." Instantly he stopped talking, and there was a small delay before he spoke.

"You are?" he asked, and I shrugged.

"Yeah. Unlike someone, I've spent the entire day cooped up in a car. I could use some fresh air and stretch my legs a bit."

"Oh... right." Looking almost sheepish, he followed me to the door so he could go back to his room. As we parted ways in the hall he called after me, "Be careful, okay, (Name)? Hoody's probably still in the area."

You have no idea, I thought as I headed to the elevator. Soon enough I was walking along the perimeter of the hotel nonchalantly, keeping a leisurely pace as I enjoyed the warm weather. As I turned the corner I casually glanced at the windows, and noted all of the curtains were drawn shut.

Perfect.

Breaking into a run, I dashed to the parking lot and went straight to Tim's car, anxiously glancing at the windows one more time as I fumbled for the keys in my pocket. Weighing the benefits of stealth versus speed, I unlocked the car manually rather than use the key fob and have the car beep, quickly scooting inside and closing the door behind me.

Within thirty seconds I'd unlocked the glove box and retrieved the bag of memory cards, silently thankful for the deep pockets of my sweatshirt as I stuffed it in. Casting a final glance at the windows to make sure the curtains were all still shut, I silently slipped out of the car and casually walked away, my calm demeanor masking the butterflies dancing in my stomach.

Honestly, splitting up still seemed like a bad idea even with all of the good points Tim made—for all I knew, I might have signed our death warrants by agreeing. But as long as we were doing it, I planned to make the best of my time.