minor incident on an unmapped highway.
Watchmen.
A belated phone call.
I un-anoned for this one because that 'Twilight Zone' crossover prompt killed me dead, and also: I have no shame. Can't really blame the booze this time.
This is 50% crack, 50% idgaf.
His name is Walter Kovacs, and he is forty-five years old.
He is making his way back to New York City. Back to civilization. Although he has been unemployed for many years, there is an important job that he must complete. An important mission.
He has only the vaguest idea of what this mission is.
-
He's been driving for two days straight.
(He is glad to be out of the ice and the cold.)
He's never owned a car in his life, never even tested for a driver's license, but these are unimportant details, small, nagging wisps of memory that seem none too pressing. He needed a way to reach the city, and it is only fitting that he found one, gone from one moment in the cold, bitter wind biting into his skin, and to the next, suddenly driving, driving, seeing nothing but the endless stretch of highway, the bent metal road signs, the cold sunlight slanting down through the dusty windshield.
There is a man standing solitary on the side of the road, thumb held aloft.
Walter passes him.
-
He passes the man, the hitch-hiker, six more times today.
The man is wearing a slanted fedora and a pressed suit, his silhouette not outlined in sharp black or white against the tall landscape of rock bordering the road, but in pale grey. The cut of the suit is modest; old-fashioned.
People don't dress that way. Not anymore.
-
He has been driving for days, but somehow, the car does not run out of gas, and he thinks it is smart that he chose a vehicle that obviously does not need it.
He pulls over only once, to make a phone call.
He does not know the number, but he knows that they are together, and that he needs to speak with them. He needs to let them know that it is all right, that he is taking care of the job that they are too frightened to attempt on their own.
The operator connects him quickly, and he belatedly realizes he had not even given her any names, any area code, had simply muttered, "I need to talk to them."
The connection doesn't last long.
They believe his call to be a prank, which he thinks foolish. But then, they always were softer, weaker, than him.
Daniel sounds unbearably angry, says in a hard voice that this isn't funny, and Miss Juspeczyk-- Laurel. Her voice. Her voice, when she hung up the phone.
She sounded as though she'd been talking to a ghost.
-
He sees the hitch-hiker for the last time on his seventh day of driving.
The man carries no luggage with him. He has a kind, wrinkled face.
"Going my way?"
Walter wordlessly moves to unlock the passenger side door. This hitch-hiker--
He thinks he looks the way his father might have.
A belated phone call.
I un-anoned for this one because that 'Twilight Zone' crossover prompt killed me dead, and also: I have no shame. Can't really blame the booze this time.
This is 50% crack, 50% idgaf.
His name is Walter Kovacs, and he is forty-five years old.
He is making his way back to New York City. Back to civilization. Although he has been unemployed for many years, there is an important job that he must complete. An important mission.
He has only the vaguest idea of what this mission is.
-
He's been driving for two days straight.
(He is glad to be out of the ice and the cold.)
He's never owned a car in his life, never even tested for a driver's license, but these are unimportant details, small, nagging wisps of memory that seem none too pressing. He needed a way to reach the city, and it is only fitting that he found one, gone from one moment in the cold, bitter wind biting into his skin, and to the next, suddenly driving, driving, seeing nothing but the endless stretch of highway, the bent metal road signs, the cold sunlight slanting down through the dusty windshield.
There is a man standing solitary on the side of the road, thumb held aloft.
Walter passes him.
-
He passes the man, the hitch-hiker, six more times today.
The man is wearing a slanted fedora and a pressed suit, his silhouette not outlined in sharp black or white against the tall landscape of rock bordering the road, but in pale grey. The cut of the suit is modest; old-fashioned.
People don't dress that way. Not anymore.
-
He has been driving for days, but somehow, the car does not run out of gas, and he thinks it is smart that he chose a vehicle that obviously does not need it.
He pulls over only once, to make a phone call.
He does not know the number, but he knows that they are together, and that he needs to speak with them. He needs to let them know that it is all right, that he is taking care of the job that they are too frightened to attempt on their own.
The operator connects him quickly, and he belatedly realizes he had not even given her any names, any area code, had simply muttered, "I need to talk to them."
The connection doesn't last long.
They believe his call to be a prank, which he thinks foolish. But then, they always were softer, weaker, than him.
Daniel sounds unbearably angry, says in a hard voice that this isn't funny, and Miss Juspeczyk-- Laurel. Her voice. Her voice, when she hung up the phone.
She sounded as though she'd been talking to a ghost.
-
He sees the hitch-hiker for the last time on his seventh day of driving.
The man carries no luggage with him. He has a kind, wrinkled face.
"Going my way?"
Walter wordlessly moves to unlock the passenger side door. This hitch-hiker--
He thinks he looks the way his father might have.