#* starter. closed.

jesse didn’t want to look at her. his stomach churned just hearing her voice. they had been thrown together by circumstance, the end of the world had sadly meant the end of the compound. it was sort of funny, in a cruel way. the siblings had prepared for it since their births. hunter and their mother had been cast out two years ago, so jesse had a few more years to prepare, and in the end it meant nothing. things fall apart, the center cannot hold. well, the center didn’t hold for more than a few months. sometimes, it seemed like the center never held at all. there was no center. there never had been. it was all a lie. that was the hardest part, worshipping his father as if he was a god only to finally realize tyr was nothing more than a megalomaniac. he couldn’t look at hunter, he felt too ashamed. he deserved to feel ashamed. he bought into a lie, let the liar exile his sick mother and younger sister. there was no way in the world that he could apologize, didn’t even know where to start, so he didn’t. jesse had a lifetime of experience in keeping quiet. eventually he forced himself to spare hunter a weary look. “i don’t know ‘bout that.” he said simply, gravely. “maybe there’s nothing to come back to. just the way it is. dog eat dog, whatever. just have to try to not get worse.”

where was bertie? it had become vikram’s only purpose in life; eight months ago his reality halted, everything stopped when he got the call that his mother hadn’t heard from bertie in days. he had spent most of his adult life in a strict routine of going to work, coming home, getting so high he could barely see straight, then off to bed and then wake up to do it all over again. it was a comfortable life. too many people he dated tried to convince him that it was a sad, pathetic way to live, but it was all that he wanted. other men of his age wanted to advance in their career, wanted to get married and have babies, have the american dream. vikram wanted nothing of that. an actual career and a family would get in the way of his true passion: smoking weed and watching reruns of american dad. that, of course, went out the window eight months ago. ever since his mother’s phone call, vikram dedicated all his time to finding bertie. she had gone on a spring break trip with a bunch of her girlfriends, and he had warned her beforehand about the dangers of the road. being a mortician, vikram was naturally morbid, and had a passing interest in true crime. he knew what happened to fun-loving, beautiful girls out on the highway. 

it seemed the highway got her, in the end. he hadn’t believed some random serial killer like the rural nevada killer or a ted bundy knockoff took his sister and her friends. there were too many of them for that, and there was no evidence left behind. if it wasn’t for his mom saying she hadn’t heard from bertie in awhile or her friends’ respective families saying the same, no one would ever know they went missing. no one would ever know they had existed. no, he believed bertie was still out there. he didn’t remember how he stumbled upon the theory of a highway that led to a different dimension, though he figured it had something to do with reddit or some other forum on the internet. he didn’t remember how he first heard about the southbound highway, but once he did, vikram knew that’s what happened to his little sister. or at least, that’s what he figured most likely happened, he hadn’t lost all rational thought (yet). everyone else had some other explanation, none of them a mysterious road that only could be reached after certain steps were followed, they all said they were murdered or their car broke down in the desert, probably wandered off to get help and then succumbed to the elements. no, vikram hadn’t believed that. he didn’t know how exactly bertie and her friends found themselves on the southbound, all he knew was that he had to make it there.

he didn’t know what waited for him on that highway, or wherever that highway led to. he didn’t actually know that was what happened to bertie. all he knew was that he had to try. whisperings on the internet were hard to follow, posts seeming to catch his attention and then altogether disappear as if they never existed in the first place. the only stories that seemed to stay on the internet were on places like nosleep, where all the stories were (supposed to be) fake, or some random murderwatch message board that mostly had replies calling it all bullshit and to keep that fake crap away from discussion of actual murders. he even saw a comment about his sister, asking that same question of her whereabouts, but only one person responded saying: who cares? well, vikram cared, and wrote that user off as some bitter incel. it had been weeks of tirelessly searching the internet, even bleeding into his dreams where he dreamt that he was driving down an endless road, seeing a town up ahead that he could never seem to reach. finally, after he called out of work one too many times and the funeral home owner told him not to bother coming in ever again, vikram got a lead.

the post was on some shady angelfire-like website from the late nineties, where it didn’t mention the southbound by name. the top of it said ‘directions to boot hill!’ and somehow, it felt like his entire laptop screen winked at him. like it was letting him in on a little secret, as if he finally earned it. the directions were odd, starting off with driving away from his home in the middle of the night, making sure to stop for gas, snacks, and a bathroom break. then it said to drive onto the main highway nearest to his apartment, get off on the third exit from there, then take the next five left turns, not to worry about where he was going or if it lead to a bad neighborhood. after those five turns, take one right turn, then stop off for a coffee from the closest mcdonalds. vikram didn’t understand why he had to do that, especially at a mcdonalds instead of his preferred dunkin’s, but he had followed those directions closely when he was ready to start his journey. after that, he was to get back onto the highway, even though the location of the fast food restaurant was nowhere near the highway. and yet, when he followed those directions, there was a highway entrance ramp. he followed it. next, he was to drive through the night, which seemed normal enough. the weird part was that insistence that when another car came up behind him or drove along side him, he was not to look at the driver of the other car, or even glance at their windows. even if he could feel their eyes boring into his face, never to look back at them. vikram scoffed at that when he read it, thinking it was just some lame attempt to scare people, but when he drove on the highway a few nights later, he did exactly as it said, no matter how badly he wanted to look. god, how badly he wanted to look!

the directions said to keep driving, keep driving, keep driving. despite the fact that vikram had started out in new york city, it seemed like the scenery around him quickly changed from east coast trees to midwestern plains within hours, and then suddenly, everything turned into dry desert before it was humanly (or earthly?) possible. he couldn’t have made it from new york to nebraska to arizona within six hours... but then again, vikram didn’t actually know how long he had been driving. it felt like six hours, but it also felt like six weeks. the sun didn’t start to rise for what felt like an entire day, only as he drove further into the desert did the sky start to lighten. the directions said to keep driving, so that’s what he did, remembering the rules of not picking up any hitchhikers. vikram had never wanted to do that, he had seen the hitcher numerous times and heard all the urban legends, that one didn’t seem hard to follow. it was only when he was on that road and saw someone on the side of the road did vikram ever feel the urge to pull over for a stranger. he didn’t see much of them, driving too fast to get a good look, but it seemed to be a young guy, probably a bit younger than bertie, curly haired and incredibly dirty, as if he had been walking on the highway for days. vikram held fast. the urge to find bertie was stronger.

finally, after he nearly fell asleep driving for the third time, did he see the sign. the sign that the internet post warned him of: if you lived here, you’d be home now! it was far too cheery for his exhausted, frustrated mind, but he nearly burst into tears upon seeing it. he had made it, he was worthy! it said twenty miles to go, then he’d be in boot hill. he didn’t even think about the fact that bertie might not be there, that maybe she was somewhere else beyond the highway, wherever it went. he didn’t think about the fact that he might be dreaming, or probably suffering from psychosis. all he knew was that he had to make it to boot hill, he wouldn’t be safe until he did. when he eventually rolled into town, the sun was high in the sky, making the main street too bright, as if the saturation settings on a video game were set too high. looking at the people on the sidewalk, he only saw suspicious faces, none of them belonging to bertie. he kept going for a little while longer, almost tempted to drive down the main drag until it drove out of town and into the abyss beyond those mountains over yonder. instead, vikram finally slowed his corolla down, turning into the parking lot of some boxcar diner. jesus, he didn’t realize until he parked his car just how... colorful the diner was. it hurt to look at.

vikram pushed on, getting out of the car and suddenly feeling the soreness of his knees. jesus, had he really been crammed in there for that long? was it possible to cross the entire country in just one night, or did his knees just hurt from being 6′4″ in a midsize sedan for a long drive? recovering after a moment, he walked over to the diner, throwing open the door and immediately seeing a turquoise-colored counter and matching bar stools. he assumed it was seat yourself dining, taking the short stride over to the counter and settling down on a stool. sat down again, vikram yawned and stretched his long arms over his head, not caring if he accidentally clipped someone. bringing his arms back down without incident, he surveyed the diner, seeing a blonde, gum-popping waitress leaning against the counter further down the room. “uh, hey?” vikram’s voice cracked a little from disuse. when was the last time he had an actual interaction with another human? jesus... “could i get some coffee, please?” settling back as much as he could on a stool, he looked tiredly down at his lap. holy fuck. he didn’t realize how tired he was. as if he hadn’t slept in years. in a sudden flash of clarity, vikram realized something: he only saw those directions to boot hill once. he couldn’t find the website again after he first saw it, unable to print them off or write them down before it disappeared, and yet he remembered it all... he made it. he made it to boot hill.

his shift at the miss rudy abilene book emporium felt like it took three hundred hours. blair didn’t really like his job, but he didn’t hate it either; mostly it was boring, there were few customers found in robichaux, and there wasn’t much to break up the monotony. it was especially grueling when all blair could think about was the book that his twin brother had found. his thoughts were plagued with studying it, caressing it, practically itching to try out a spell he saw in it. the moment his shift ended, blair was out the door and driving home to the trailer the poorer winesaps had been living in since the twins were babies. opening the front door and then the door to his brother’s room, blair didn’t pay any mind to knocking or respecting darby’s privacy. they were born together, spent nearly every moment together. blair was darby’s, darby was blair’s, privacy didn’t exist between them. nearly diving onto darby’s bed, the springs underneath screeched in protest, and his head lolled slightly as the mattress settled. “so where’s it at?” he asked, leaning on his elbow. his mind changed then, remembering his manners, “sorry. i mean hey, dar-bunny. how was your day?” he glanced up at the iron maiden poster on the wall, resting his elbow and flopping backwards onto the pillow, “now... where the fuck is it?”