Interstate Blues

Introduction: Nineteen Eighty-Four

October 24th, 2010
Lost Creek, Colorado

The frosty, late-night, mountain air froze Jack's nose hairs the moment he jumped out of the truck after he saw his older brother emerge from the motel office. The large neon letters above the building flickered and buzzed, sounding like a swarm of a thousand bees, as they proclaimed, Paradise Motel. An innocuous sign to anyone else, but it made chills run up and down his spine as he kicked at the gravel, slowly making his way to where Ash stood tiredly, refusing to move one more inch.

"Jack, not again. Just go inside." His older brother grabbed his wrist and started dragging him toward the motel. To room 1984. They only had one more night before they reached their dad's new house, where he'd been impatiently waiting for three days to take them hunting. After several pit-stops, they'd finally gotten themselves on track, having been on the road since six that morning, and while Jack knew his brother was exhausted, he hardly budged.

"No." He shook his head petulantly, his thick dark curls falling into his face as he slipped out of Ash's hands. His piercing giant blue eyes met his oldest brother's indignantly. "I don't trust the ghosts, Ash," he confided, trying to get his brother to understand. Though, in his entire nine years of living nobody else had.

The mountain wind blew briskly through their thin jackets and deep into their bones. "It'll be fine, Jacky. They ain't gonna hurt you." Ash sighed, running a numb hand through his chin-length brown hair and swallowing back a yawn. "They're just ghosts. Come on. I'm right here with ya."

Jack shivered violently. "Fine." He let Ash lead him to their room, if only to get out of the bitter cold. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad that time. Maybe nobody'd died there.

"Finally, we can get some sleep." Ash slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open. The room wasn't the worst they'd stayed in, but it definitely wasn't the best either. The two twin beds were made up with bright yellow fraying heavy quilts and the carpeting was a goose-poop-green color. The place, while clearly outdated by about thirty years, had a tidy look about it. Certainly, nothing to be scared of, but Jack couldn't help it. Fear crawled up and down his spine as he reluctantly closed the door behind him and moved to sit on one of the beds.

"Think Dad's still mad at me?" he asked, trying to get comfortable on the too-hard mattress.

Ash shrugged out of his favorite leather jacket, falling onto the second bed and kicking off his boots, setting his stuff in a neat pile by his feet. "He wasn't even mad," he assured tiredly, despite Jack's obvious disbelief. Their dad had certainly acted angry the last time he'd mentioned one of his dreams. "He just has a lot of work to do. It stresses him out. You know that." But Ash didn't elaborate on why that meant he'd needed to move two states away.

"I dunno, Ash. Seemed pissed to me."

"Shut up and go to sleep. And don't wake me up 'til the sun's out." Ash rolled over so he faced the other way, and Jack knew it meant he should be quiet, but he couldn't.

"Can I call Mom?"

"No, just go to bed. Stop stalling. When we get to Dad's tomorrow, you can talk to Mom all you want. 'Til then, quit whining."

Jack opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it shut quickly. Even though Ash didn't make fun of him as much as their middle brother, Will, he still didn't understand that the ghosts couldn't be trusted.

A cold breeze blew his hair gently around his face as if the spirits were trying to communicate, and Jack pulled his knees to his chest burying his face into his folded arms. He snapped the rubber band that he'd just started wearing around his wrist. Once, twice, a third time, until he heard Ash snoring deeply in the bed next to his.

"Leave me alone," he whispered, hugging his legs tightly against his body and trying to control the heavy drooping of his eyelids. "You can't be trusted. Ghosts are mean." He snapped the rubber band until the skin beneath it was raw and tinged crimson. It was the only thing he'd found that kept him from falling asleep, where they could talk to him, and make him see whatever they wanted.

The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees and the TV snapped on without Jack ever setting foot on the old carpet. White noise glowed on the television screen as he huddled deeper into his bed for the night, squeezing his eyes shut, and wishing away whatever was surrounding him.

"Please," he whimpered, tears filling his eyes as they shot open at the faintest creaking sound, "please just go away."

She wouldn't, though.

And the rubber band trick only worked for so long.

His eyes drifted closed, his long black lashes fluttering against his sunken cheeks, as unconsciousness finally sucked him into its hellish depths. They'd been on the road for three nights and he'd had hardly a wink of sleep. The nightmares at home were dull and familiar. Everywhere else they were brand new and terrifying. As hard as he tried, he couldn't fight them off forever.

"Jacky! Come and play with me!" He heard the voice whisper in his ear, but he kept his eyes closed, hoping if he just pretended not to notice her she'd go away. It had never worked before. But maybe that time it would. "If you don't play with me, I'm gonna play with your brother!" she sang, and it sounded like it was coming from the other side of the room.

Jack's eyes snapped open, seeing a girl about his age looming menacingly over his big brother. He sat up suddenly and tried to scream at her, but the sound was stuck in his throat. She didn't even seem to notice, the second her black eyes landed on him, she smiled horrifically. He blinked and she was sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of him.

"You wanna know how I died? It was right here in this room." She leaned in closer to him like she was going to tell him the best secret he'd ever heard. Tears ran down Jack's face and more than anything in the world, he just wanted it all to stop. But he knew better. Fighting just made everything worse.

"Please," he whimpered, closing his eyes so he didn't have to look into her sunken, pale, face and her knotted dishwater blonde pigtails. One strap of her blue and white checkered overalls was torn and hung crookedly, while the other was tight on her shoulder, almost digging into her skin. "Please, don't show me. I don't want to see it."

Opening his eyes slowly, when nothing happened, he found the ghost girl staring at him, her head angled slightly to the side. Her unceasing gaze made him squirm in his bed, and he felt his heart start hammering against his ribcage.

"If you don't wanna see how I died. You wanna see how you die?" Before he could stop her she grabbed his face with both of her hands and once he looked into her swirling black eyes, he couldn't look away. No matter what he tried to do, he was stuck, seeing exactly what she wanted him to see.

Jack woke up screaming, with Ash standing over him frozen in fear.

"Wake up, goddammit, it's just a dream." Ash's groggy voice invaded his subconscious, while the slight pain of fingernails digging into his shoulders and shaking him around jolted him awake.

His haunted gaze stopped Ash cold and Jack shook his head, turning his eyes to the white noise flashing on the TV screen. "It wasn't just a dream, Ash. Someday my eyes are gonna turn black just like theirs and I'm gonna die too. I'm gonna turn into a ghost just like them."

"Stop playing around. No you're not. Get up and get dressed." But Ash's voice shook and Jack could tell his fear had gotten to his brother.