Episode 6: Darkness

Darkness.
"I’m driving as fast as I can!"
Glimmer of light. Kind face, at her head, pushing down on her shoulder. Oh, god, her shoulder…
"Drive faster!"
Plush interior. Kind of soft. Carpeted roof. Is that a fly…?
"I can’t drive any faster! I just said that!"
Urgency in the air. Oh, god, her shoulder… It hurt so much… And so hungry…
"She’s going to… She’s going to bleed to death!"
Bleed? Oh, was that her blood she felt in her hair…?
"Don’t die… Don’t die…"
Kind female voice. So familiar… Die…?
Darkness.

* * *

It had been very difficult getting Jill into the car. Judy had kept panicking, and the Bat Boy wasn’t strong enough to carry her on his own. And the blood was oozing out all over the place. The Bat Boy’s hands were red, and beginning to become brown. Finally, they managed to load her into the back seat. Mario put Judy up front with him, merely so that she wouldn’t be able to look at Jill; the Bat Boy stayed with Jill in the back seat, continuing to try to quench the blood flow. It wasn’t working too well; his cloth was soaked.

Finally, he just took off his whole shirt, revealing his flabby, but not quite fat, torso. He wrapped it tightly around the wound, and it immediately began to absorb the blood. It had already soaked Mario’s back seat.

"If that bitch comes up back there…" Mario screamed, his foot level with the floor of the car, the speedometer needle pointing far below the top-speed of the car.

"Don’t call her that!" Judy squealed, tears streaming from her eyes.

"She won’t," the Bat Boy said calmly. "I promise, she won’t."

A deadening silence, broken only by the sniffing of Judy, overcame the car.

"I met Jill… Two months ago…" Judy finally broke the silence. Mario let the gas pedal up a bit; they dropped back down into the zone with readings.

"We were both in the same… club. It wasn’t (sniff) a normal club, it was a club… for… bad people. A home."

"Juvie?" Mario whispered. A club? he thought she must be really embarassed by it. He noticed that they were entering a curved road area; he slowed to sixty.

"Y… yeah…" Judy wiped away a tear. "She and I… We both had tried to steal cars. I needed to get to a date, but someone had told my (sniff) parents I was doing drugs… So they grounded me, and locked up my car. I… I (sniff) tried to get in, but I couldn’t. So I went out and… broke into the first (sniff) car I saw. The alarm went off, but I (sniff) tried to hot-wire it anyway. The cops found me pretty (sniff) quick."

"And you got sent to Juvie for that?" the Bat Boy asked.

"And the (sniff) drug accusations. I (sniff) never did drugs…"

"That’s awful," Mario grumbled.

"It was a short sen(sniff)tence, but I was still there. And so I met (sniff)… J… J… (sniff) Jill. We hit it off q… quick. And we (sniff) talked. She was in for the (sniff) exact same thing as I was. It had (sniff) been the same night even. After about a (sniff) week, we figured out it was the same (sniff) guy."

The three of them shared an awkward, psychotic, but full laugh.

"What a bastard," Mario finally said, taking a tight turn at forty mph.

"Yeah. We (sniff) got out around the same time, and as part of my (sniff) charges, I had to work community (sniff) service. They let me (sniff) volunteer at the baseball games. And then (sniff) J… Jill… Jill… (sniff) promised to come (sniff) help me! And this was (sniff) our first game… Oh, god… I got Jill ki…"

"Don’t talk like that!" the Bat Boy screamed. The blood was soaking through his shirt now, and was beginning to drip onto the seat. The damn wound wasn’t sealing itself…

The silence filled the car again, but this time Judy was quietly crying.

"I was working the game for money, you know?" Mario began, keeping his eyes on the road. "A couple years ago, I started to raise money for new instruments for the school band, right? But, it was so easy, I just took the job permanently when I graduated. Because now, I need money of my own. My parents both moved back down south."

"And they just left you here…?" the Bat Boy was patting around the backseat, in total darkness, looking for something to stop the blood with. It had seeped all over the seat now.

"Yeah, well, I am an adult now. I’m supposed to live on my own, right? But, this was the only job I knew how to do."

"Shit…"

"What? What is it?" Mario called into the backseat.

"She’s bleeding everywhere! I’m out of things to stop it!"

"No!" Judy screamed. "No! You can’t let her bleed…"

"I have nothing to stop her!"

Judy ripped off her shirt suddenly, and threw it into the back. "Use that! Just save her!"

The Bat Boy took it and, removing the old shirt, wrapped Jill’s nice greenish one around the wound, just as tightly, if not moreso.

Mario pounded the accelerator into the floor; they were back up at top speed. Being a straight male, he could not help but take a glance at Judy. It’s amazing how much can pass through the human brain during a split-second glance; the first thing he noticed was her bright lavender bra, which was a nice firm shape from his angle; her belly was nice, firm but soft on the eyes. She was heaving a bit, from the sheer panic of the situation. He quickly snapped his eyes back on the road, and his mind back to the situation behind him.

"We still have to hurry!" the Bat Boy screamed.

"I’m driving as fast as I can!" was Mario’s frantic reply.

"Drive Faster!"

"I can’t drive any faster! I just said that!"

"She’s going to… She’s going to bleed to death!"

"Don’t die… don’t die…" Judy whispered, taking a glance back.

None of them had noticed Jill’s eyes flutter open during the exchange, nor did they notice them glaze over, losing all color.

And then they were there; in the parking lot of the hospital.

It felt like a deserted place. Cars were everywhere, parked askew, some even sideways and upside down. One was on fire off a ways from them. Mario and Judy quickly piled out of the front, and pulled open the door for the Bat Boy.

"I need another bandage!" He screamed. Judy’s shirt had been a lot less absorbent then his. (Probably more man-made materials in hers, he thought.) She was already bleeding more profusely; it was dripping out of the car.

Mario quickly tore his shirt off and tossed it to the Bat Boy. He removed Judy’s shirt from Jill’s shoulder, and began to replace it with Mario’s. But the blood flow had stopped.

"No…" the Bat Boy whispered. He turned away from Jill.

Judy swelled up in tears. She fell against Mario’s firm, tanned, strong chest. "NOOO!" she screamed. And then she sobbed. He slowly reached out, and clutched her closer, comforting her.

* * *

Darkness.
Darkness.
Nothing.
Darkness.
Not Darkness now. The Notdark.
Scent. Food!
Scramble. Bite.
Loud noise. Pain. Like the Dark. Eat food. Dark no more.
Loud noise again. Different. Familiar v… voice… voice? Not important. Eat.
Loud noise. Different again. Like Pop! What?
Pop! Again.
Darkness.
Darkness.
Nothing…

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