Lola hurtles across the Arizona desert like she’s a reflection of a comet streaking across the night sky. Her treads belch orange flame, though the burning tires seem never to melt away, nor produce any toxic fume to endanger her occupants, as she speeds well in excess of any limit a vehicle of her type and capacity is bound by law – perhaps also by physics – to travel. Her interior is the least offensive feature she expresses, a housing that while pitch black does not retain the heat which it ought capture and suffocate its occupants with. The air within is clean and warm, bearing the oddest combination of scents for being a vehicle on fire: the salty bite of sea breeze, the soothing scent of massage oils, and… if one’s nose were sensitive enough… the sweetness of citrus, berries, and tropical flowers.
But occasionally, that calming bouquet is abruptly pierced by the acrid punctuation of antiseptic cleansers.
The driver is aflame, though he doesn’t cry out as his skull burns endlessly. His empty-eyed gaze is fixed on his destination, perhaps not even seeing that Lola is not astride a path… or not caring. His means is as the crow flies. He has a death grip on the wheel, as though willing his scorched chariot to remain steady for the rail-thin passenger across the backseat, huddled beneath the blanket he had draped across her. And Lola obeys that bid, her shock absorbers bearing every burden beneath her wheels without so much as transmitting a single stone’s intrusion upon their improvised road.
His foot depresses the brake pedal, and that application seems to not just slow their velocity, but also the intensity of the flame surrounding both the vehicle and himself. Within moments, Lola is slowed to a speed more customary to highways, and a nudging course correction brings her onto the shoulder of a road cutting across the dark waste. By the time she aligns fully with the westbound lane, she bears no trace of flame or soot… and neither does her driver, whose features return to him beneath the cold light of the moon.
Five minutes later, when a cherry red 1962 Chevrolet Corvette arrives at a nondescript motel smack in the middle of nowhere, not a soul on Earth could rightly say where the car had come from… nor that the bored and exhausted owner of the establishment cared one whit, as long as they were paying customers. A handful of cash identifies those customers as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, though the proprietor never lays eyes on the missus. Neither will he lay eyes on the mister again after giving him the room key.
Phil returns to Lola moments later, opening the driver’s door and leaning in. His voice is no more ravaged by the flame that had consumed his head than his features are. “We’re here. I’m going to carry you inside now.”
He does exactly that, bearing Beth up in his arms with no effort whatsoever… considering her obvious malnourishment, by this point, the suppressing collar about her neck might weigh more than she herself does. And he carries her to the door of their room, on the other side of the lot from the attendant’s station.
It’s the closest he has ever come, in his entire existence, to performing the bridal carry. A tradition of questionable morality – ancient Roman, because of course – but one of its inspirations seems especially pertinent now. Perhaps evil spirits will be disinterested in crossing this threshold if they’re forbidden from entering through Beth’s bare feet… though she need only be released from that damnable collar to attend to that matter herself.
When the door closes behind them, he shifts his hold about her, bringing her to the edge of the bed – of course there’s only one, because for a mister and missus, why should there be two? Are they Ricky and Lucy? – so that he can set her down.
But it’s in that moment that her arms snake about his neck and constrict him like a boa. He can feel the hiccupping breaths she draws, her chest stuttering against his as much as her breath issues in staccato against his ear.
He can do nothing but wrap his arms about her in turn. If they are all they have now… then this is more important than anything in the world. And he gives her perhaps the last iota of comfort he has left to give.
“I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The last hours have been a series of blurry snap-shots. Fire consuming down to the bone but encapsulating her with warmth. Something cracking open inside of her chest after incredible atrophy and the pained relief comes pouring out of her in tears. In terror. In clinging like a frail vine on a trellis. Her ears ring occasionally, alternating between piercing shrieks and emptiness, more pressure than sound that she can only associate with the sensation of numbness. Light and dark and abruptly cut off screams, shearing metal, burning...flesh, sickening her further with a sense of hunger. All stitched together with lancing pain and waves of nausea, ameliorated with the mercy of silent darkness that comes when she drifts to unconsciousness.
She doesn't know how she arrives in the car, nor is she fully awake to register the sharper visuals of Lola's race through the night. She breathes in shallowly at first then deeper drafts when there's a noticible lack of sterile, desiccated air. Now and again she thinks she might be hallucinating in an attempt to self soothe from the misery of her new reality. Of course it would explain Phil in such a monstrous guise. His protective nature, his willingness to give up everything he holds dear to protect someone he considers his own. Her mind filters in the smell of hibiscus and plumeria, pikake, but also paper flower, orchid, and ginger. Scents common in her islands but also...
They don't talk about that place, she doesn't know it and Phil never really wanted to dredge up that particular point of his past. It was the first steps toward truly learning to trust one another.
She clings to the trade-wind brine.
Slowly she registers the futility of this fantasy but still finds herself needing to hold onto it, to let it provide a buffer for what she will suffer when the dream ends. That moment comes sooner than she would like it to though at first its only the second hand sensory input that dulls until it fades into obscurity. Other noises that don't belong in her carefully spun delusion grab her and drag her toward wakefulness systematically even when she fights and fails. Eventually she gives up trying, she doesn't have the stamina for it.
The first thing that comes to mind is a shock of shivering cold. Goose-flesh ~chicken skin, as she's always know it to be called~ prickles her skin and jars her body with the slightest movement. Beth groans into the dark but the sound doesn't reach anyone's ears but her own. She doesn't try to lift her head. It feels too heavy and in danger of floating away if she does, a dichotomy she cannot resolve in her current state. Then that calm, familiar voice sweeps in around her.
She pries her eyes open and her lashes are spiky with dried tears and dusts. The darkness she's always been afraid of is suddenly soothing while her throat, stiff and raw from lack of regular use and liquids, seems to crack when she gasps.
"Phil? Are you....real?"
She isn't sure if he's putting off answering that or if he didn't actually hear her when he scoops her up into his arms. His familiar scent envelopes her. As does the sound of his heartbeat. The aura of calm that she's rarely seen ruffled feels like a salve to sun ravaged skin. She murmurs slurred apologies about being a burden even as she presses her face to the side of his neck, feeling a faint hint of stubble against the tip of her nose. Otherwise she remains surprisingly docile as he carries her into a room.
It isn't the dated Seventies decor, and cut off from her spheres, Beth is spared the knowledge of what might live in the carpet ~orange, patterned but clean enough looking~ or what fluids might have irrevocably stained the covers on the bed, that truly snares her attention. It's the solid feel of him, the cumulative reward of her faith that though the world might have ended, Phil would still survive it. It means that in spite of everything she didn't betray him. Arms wrapped around his neck, she shakes as tears spill freely down her cheeks. Her breath hitches and she swallows against the cold, heavy weight around her throat.
She tries to pull herself together.
"You've got to be so tired. Tell me you're not hurt. That the monster didn't find you and hurt you."
