Interstate Blues

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Pet Sematary

January 15th, 2020
Golden Meadow, Louisiana

"Jack, are you okay?" Marley appeared in front of him as soon as he and Emmaline reached the mouth of the corridor that led into the market.

Standing up a little straighter and attempting to mask his pain as best as he could, he slapped a smile on his face. "Right as rain. Did you find anything good to buy?"

Marley's gaze narrowed in on him darkly. "I heard you screaming, don't try to change the subject," she scolded sternly, but she broke out into a bright grin after only a few seconds. "This place is awesome!" She couldn't hold in her girly squeal of delight as her sparkling eyes tried to take in everything surrounding them.

"Pick out a few things you need. I'll buy them for you." Jack slung an arm around her shoulders nonchalantly, but really he needed to lean on her a little for extra support on his unsteady legs.

She whirled around, nearly causing him to topple right over, except that she grabbed his arms excitedly. "Really?" Her high-pitched voice echoed off the walls around them. A blush coated her dark cheeks and she hung her head a little when other people looked their way. "Sorry."

"Yeah. Go on, before I change my mind." Marley rolled her eyes, but bolted off down the aisles to find the things she wanted the most.

"Seriously, though, you're alright?" Ash came up behind him from the other side of one of the aisles and stared at Jack with that same cold look he couldn't seem to shake.

"Yeah, fine." He carefully sat on one of two uncomfortable plastic seats near the check-out counter.

Ash stood imposingly in front of him with his arms crossed, and his short, light brown hair falling into his eyes. "Oh, really? Don't lie to me, I'm your brother," he snapped, his voice gruff and low, so as not to attract any attention to their conversation.

"Right. So, I should tell you everything going on in my head, but you can just drag me fifteen hundred miles across the country to get tortured without saying a word." Jack winced when he moved his arm wrong, putting pressure on one of his fresh cuts.

A sheepish expression crossed Ash's features for half a second before it disappeared. "I had to know." His words were steely and unapologetic.

"Fine." Jack sighed, not having the strength to argue. "But you could've just been upfront about it." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall behind him, as Marley conned Will into holding the things she intended to buy while she looked around more.

Ash shrugged, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I didn't want to spook you." Jack shot his brother an incredulous look, but let the matter drop. Once Ash thought he was right, he wouldn't stop until he proved his point, so usually it was more worth it for him to just retreat inside himself for a while and cool off.

"Did you talk to Madame Balestrieux? Did she tell you I'm not a monster?" He changed the subject entirely, smiling a little as he watched Marley's overeager shopping.

"Yeah. Before you and Emmaline came out. She said she didn't find anything different about you." Ash dropped tiredly into the seat beside him.

"Good." A thought entered his head suddenly that made him sit straight up. "Hey, whatever happened to the serpent?" Silently he debated whether he should tell his siblings about Dick Grayson being Death's informant.

"It's dead. I put a silver blade through its chest the second I spotted it after you died. When that didn't work, we cut his head off and incinerated the body."

Jack's eyes darkened, and his expression fell. "Did you empty his pockets first?"

"What kind of question is that? No, we didn't. Was there something important in them?" Ash's eyebrows furrowed when he saw the ghostly look on Jack's face. "We recovered all your stuff from the warehouse. Your knife and everything. It's all in your pack, if that's what you're worried about."