prettymadness (prettymadness) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-08-14 18:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | #december 2017, clint, clint x victoria, victoria |
Who: Victoria and Clint
Where: Clint’s House
When: Late afternoon, Dec 27th through Dec 28th
Status: Complete
It happened so fast that Victoria barely had time to respond before the fog was upon her. One second she was driving through Overlook, on her way home, the next she was in a blanket of white so thick that she couldn’t see beyond the windshield of her car. She hit the brake, slowing to a crawl, hoping that if she kept to the center of the road maybe she could get home. It was a good plan, except that she couldn’t see the center of the road, and before she knew it she smashed into something, her seatbelt holding her in place as she jerked forward. “Shit,” she muttered, putting the car in park and turning it off before climbing out of the car. She might as well see who or what she hit.
On the plus side, it wasn’t a person, but she’d been pretty sure of that from the way her car came to a halt. Unfortunately, it was another car, the engine cold and silent, so it must be parked, so there was no way to place the blame on someone else. Her father was going to kill her. And probably take her keys. With her hands on the car, she slowly returned to her own to retrieve her purse, then scribbled out a note to tuck under the windshield wiper. She could be responsible at times and really didn’t want anyone to think this was some kind of a hit and run, though she couldn’t move her car, so there was no mistaking who’d done the hitting. At this point, driving the rest of the way home seemed like a bad idea, but so did waiting in the car. Maybe she could walk.
She’d gotten about ten feet away from the car when she realized her mistake, but when she tried to turn back she couldn’t even find the car. She couldn’t find anything and quickly became frantic to get inside. It was freezing and the thought of getting stuck out there for any length of time was terrifying. Veronica wandered around blindly, hands outstretched to make sure she didn’t run into anything, until she felt the ground beneath her change from snow covered grass to cement. She knelt, confirming that it was a sidewalk, before she slowly began to inch forward, one foot in front of the other, keeping to the path. It felt like forever, but eventually she came to a door and she started knocking nonstop with one hand, ringing the doorbell with the other. “Please answer,” she whispered to herself, a quiet prayer for help.
Clint had rather been enjoying having the house to himself. It didn’t happen a lot, but both of his parents had gone out of town for some after-Christmas time alone, so he had the run of the place. He’d jerked off a couple of times, texted some with Ruby, and then settled in for some video game time on the big TV in the living room, with the volume turned up loud. Clint had the curtains closed for maximum immersion, and he wasn’t even aware of the change in weather outside, or that his phone was no longer connected to anything.
What got his attention was his game freezing, then the message that he should check his internet connection. Cursing softly, Clint got up to go to the kitchen and get a drink, hoping the modem or whatever would reconnect while he was away from it. It didn’t. Or the next time, after he got a snack. He was on his third irritated pace through the house when the doorbell started to ring. Clint still hadn’t looked out a window, not really. Frowning, he went to the front door and peeked through the peephole, only to see ... Victoria Chapman? He pulled the door open with a puzzled expression that quickly turned into awe as he took in all the fog blanketing the world behind Victoria. And it was cold, shit. “Uh,” he said helpfully. “What the fuck.”
Victoria couldn’t tell whose house it was from the door alone and she didn’t care, so long as someone answered, but seeing a familiar face was a huge relief. “Oh, thank God,” she said and threw her arms around him in a hug, like he’d saved her from the storm. Technically, he had. She wasn’t sure she could’ve found another house in the fog, or even her own car, and with the weather as bad as it was she might’ve frozen to death otherwise. “I was driving home and then suddenly I couldn’t see anything and I hit someone’s car and then I fucking lost my car and I’m just so glad to see you,” she rambled as she released him.
Clint was startled by the sudden hug, so he didn’t respond immediately, only managing to get in a few awkward pats on the back before Victoria pulled away. “Whoa whoa, you hit someone’s car? Are you okay?” he asked with concern. Clint looked out toward the street again, only he couldn’t see it because of the fog. He’d been in short sleeves to just bum around the house, and the air was making his exposed skin hurt. “Come in though, come on,” he added, taking hold of Victoria’s hand to pull her inside with him as he backed up. It was impossible to see shit out there, so why stay on the front step?
“Yeah, I mean, I was going really slow. And it was parked. But I couldn’t see shit and my dad is going to kill me when he finds out. He’s still pissed about Halloween and that was two months ago!” Victoria said as he pulled her inside. It was much better there, warm enough that she began to relax a bit, though she looked back towards the door with concern. “It’s bad out there,” she said. “Like… I couldn’t see anything. Nothing. Like I was wandering blind.” She didn’t want to linger on it because that might mean thinking about what might’ve happened if she hadn’t found Clint’s house. “I should call my dad,” she said, fishing her phone out of her purse. “And our insurance agent, I guess. Is that what you do when you’re in a wreck?”
Normally, Clint would’ve made fun of anybody for hitting a parked car, but the fog was thick as soup out there, so he could see how that could easily happen. He wasn’t sure why Victoria hadn’t just stopped if she couldn’t see, but she seemed frazzled and upset enough already, so he wasn’t going to bring it up. Clint closed and locked the front door. “Yeah, that’s what you do,” he confirmed with a faint smile that disappeared quickly. “Though try your dad first, I guess. The insurance people will probably want information on the other car. Might have to get it after this shit blows through.” He gestured toward the two narrow windows that flanked the front door. “Was it a lot of damage?”
“I don’t think so? I mean, I was going so slow and it was just, like, the back bumper, but it was hard to see anything in the fog. I didn’t even know it was a car that I hit till I got out and checked,” Victoria said as she unlocked her phone and clicked on her father’s number. That probably sounded bad, but it had all happened so fast that she was just glad it was a car and not something worse. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she could have driven her car into someone’s living room if she wasn’t careful. “Hey, do you have reception? My call’s not going through.”
Clint was busy marveling that the fog was thick enough that Victoria hadn’t even known it was a car when she asked about his phone. “Oh, uh ...” he patted his pockets, but they were empty. “Come on into the living room, think I left it in there.” He gestured for her to follow as he led the way -- though she’d been in his house before, so that probably wasn’t necessary. Clint bounced over the back of the big sectional couch and flopped onto it to reach his phone, then grabbed the remote to turn the title screen music down on his game. It was still saying it couldn’t connect. He unlocked his phone and frowned down at it, poked at a few things, then shook his head at Victoria. “No signal, no wi-fi, nothing.” He nibbled on his bottom lip and then stood up again. “My dad’s got a landline in his office, lemme go check that.”
Victoria followed along, her eyes wandering as she took in Clint’s house when there wasn’t a party going on. She walked around the sectional, rather than climbing over it, and stared at the message on the tv. She didn’t have to know the game to understand that the Internet seemed to be down. It wasn’t a good sign, but weather could do weird things to the wireless devices, so maybe that was it. She wasn’t super tech savvy. “Landlines usually work,” she said aloud, tagging along behind him and trying not to feel like a little lost puppy. “I mean, when everything else goes down during a storm, they’re usually still up, you know? It’s not like it’s raining. It’s just… It’s just fog.” Like last time, she thought but didn’t say. No one she knew wanted to talk about the last time they’d had bad fog in Point Pleasant. At least this time was different, otherwise she’d have come to the door raving like a lunatic.
Clint didn’t mind Victoria following him, even into a room that was normally locked during his parties. While he wouldn’t say they were good friends, they ran in the same circles, and she needed help, so Clint was going to try to help her. He was already glad he’d decided just to stay in and be lazy all day. It was a bit unsettling to be so disconnected, though he was sure that wouldn’t last too long. Clint walked through the plush office to the big desk and picked up the phone on it. He expected to hear that dial tone that sounded so old-fashioned now, but there was nothing but silence. “What the hell,” he muttered, pushing the button on the phone base a few times. Nothing. “It’s dead too,” Clint told Victoria glumly as he hung up again. He glanced toward the windows in the office, all of which had that same odd, diffused light. “I mean ... you’re right, it’s just fog, so it’s gotta clear up soon, right?”
A chill ran up Victoria’s back as Clint declared the phone line dead, though she told herself again there was no real reason to worry. They’d just wait it out in the safety of Clint’s home. As far as places to be trapped went, this was about as comfortable as she thought she could get, other than her own home of course. “Yeah,” she nodded, then straightened her shoulders and put on a smile. “I’m so glad it was your door I knocked on and not, like, some strangers.” She vaguely knew almost everyone in Overlook, but that didn’t mean she’d be comfortable spending any time with them. At least Clint was a friend. Or a friend adjacent. A friend of a friend? Close enough. What mattered was that he wasn’t a creep.
“Me too, shit,” Clint agreed. He knew almost everybody who lived around here too, but that didn’t mean they were on ‘emergency door-knocking’ terms. Especially when it meant being stuck inside with them for however long this took to blow over. Not that Victoria had known she would be stuck, but still. And it was like company just dropped into his lap, so he wouldn’t be bored, at least. Since the phone didn’t work, Clint started ushering Victoria out of his dad’s office. “So ... no TV, no internet, no games that require internet ... what do you wanna do?” he asked, his tone half-amused. “We could get drunk, play some Scrabble?” Clint grinned at her, only half-kidding.
“Scrabble? Like… the board game?” Victoria asked with a laugh, unable to tell if he was serious or not. A game would be a good way to pass the time though, especially since her phone was pretty much useless without a connection. She’d never played Scrabble, but she’d heard of it. It was one of those old games that had been around forever. “Sure,” she smiled after a moment’s hesitation. “So long as we’re drinking, too. I need something to blame if I suck at it.” She didn’t like to lose, but if she was going to, then there needed to be a reason why other than her lack of skill.
Clint laughed, and her willingness to try made him like her a few percent more. His parents were pretty old-fashioned, and he’d been stuck indoors playing board games with them since he was a kid. Rainy days, family vacations, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. It had all at least helped him learn to spell pretty well. “Booze first, then we’ll figure something out,” Clint told Victoria, closing the office door behind them and heading toward the kitchen. “Doesn’t have to be a game. We got plenty of movies and shit too.” If time needed to be killed, he could definitely find a way to do it at home.
Being stuck at Clint’s house turned out to be a lot more fun than Victoria would have ever guessed. They played Monopoly while watching movies, his pick, then hers, though with the Internet down they could only pick from the movies he owned, which meant she couldn’t stray too far from his tastes. He didn’t tell her to shut up and stop talking, which she appreciated, though by the end of the night even Victoria was running out of things to say. She passed out on the couch somewhere in the middle of The Transporter, curled up in a borrowed sweatshirt and her jeans. When she woke the television was off, but she was certain she heard something. She rubbed her eyes and blinked, looking towards the windows. The fog was still there, but as she watched something seemed to drift by, a huge looming object outside the house. Her eyes widened and she crawled across the couch to shake Clint’s shoulder. “Wake up!” She hissed quietly. “There’s something outside.”
Victoria had turned out to be decent company, which was a bit of a surprise and a relief to Clint. He was pretty sure he would’ve been going extra crazy if he’d been alone through all of this, just stuck in the house by himself. He worried here and there about Ruby, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do, and Clint was pretty sure she was smart enough to get inside and stay there. He and Victoria stayed fairly entertained with games and movies until they both fell asleep on the huge sectional couch. He’d been sleeping pretty peacefully when he was shaken awake, and Clint half-sat up with a jerk and some mumbled nonsense. Victoria’s words didn’t register quite yet, and he rubbed at his eyes like a sleepy child, his hair wildly mussed and a couple of lines from the pillow he’d been using imprinted on his cheek. “Wha?”
He was cute like that, with his bed head and tired eyes, but Victoria wasn’t in the mood to admire him. “Something’s outside,” she whispered and, as if on queue, something brushed against the outside wall, scraping slowly, sending chills down Victoria’s spine. She reached for Clint out of instinct and held tight to his arm, her eyes wide as she looked towards the windows. Outside, the fog remained, hiding whatever it was that had made the noise, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. “You heard that, right?” she asked, looking back at him.
Clint had never heard that sound before, and his expression turned more WTF as his gaze snapped to the nearest window. Something about that sound made his skin crawl and he covered Victoria’s hand with his own without thinking about it. “Fuck yeah I heard it,” he murmured when she asked, looking restlessly around the room like that might give him a clue as to what was going on. He heard a thump and then another one of those scrapes, and he stood up a bit abruptly, pulling Victoria with him. “Come on,” Clint whispered. His dad had a few guns locked up in the master bedroom, but Clint knew where the keys were, and he suddenly thought he would feel a lot better with a shotgun in his hands.
Victoria had always loved all the windows in the Overlook houses, the way they looked out over the water or peered into the surrounding forest. The neighborhood was known for the view looking out, but now she was aware of the view looking in, the way someone outside would be able to track them from room to room. The fog was so dense that they’d have to be pressed up against the glass to do so, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was something out there, and she’d feel a hell of a lot better with more than glass between them. “Where are we going?” She whispered, her hand still clinging to the arm of his shirt. She glanced over her shoulder, just to make sure they weren’t being followed. Just because they hadn’t seen something in the house didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Upstairs,” Clint answered. “My dad’s gun cabinet.” He hurriedly led her in that direction, his own wide eyes swiveling around them. If something was going to come into the house, it would probably do it on the ground floor, so it made sense to hide upstairs. There were also fewer windows up there. He led Victoria swiftly up the steps and veered off toward his parents’ suite, doing his best not to outright run. He opened their door and shut it again once Victoria was inside. Clint went to peer through the thick curtains on the door that led out to the private deck they had, but still couldn’t see anything but fog. “Keep an eye out?” he suggested to Victoria as he went to the dresser to find the keys to the gun cabinet in the closet.
While Victoria definitely wanted something to make her feel safer, getting guns notched the threat up another level. She’d never held a gun, let alone shot one, so she hoped Clint knew what he was doing. She stuck close to him, her hands trembling slightly as he peered through the curtains. When he left her to keep watch, she looked out herself, seeing nothing but fog. Then she looked back towards the door, the curtain still pulled back. If they were going to be attacked, where would it come from? Inside the house or outside? “Do you have an alarm system?” She asked in a hushed voice. “Maybe we could set it, so we know if something comes in.” She’d assumed all the doors were locked, that they were safe because they were inside, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“Yeah we do,” Clint answered, turning to hurry to the giant walk-in closet. “There’s a panel upstairs, I’ll make sure it’s set.” He disappeared for a moment, his heart beating hard as he went to the back of the closet and unlocked the gun case. His father was a big believer in the Second Amendment and had made sure Clint knew how to safely handle firearms. He was a bit rusty, it had been a while since he’d been out hunting, but his hands were steady enough as he grabbed the shotgun and got it loaded. Clint considered taking something for Victoria to defend herself with too, but he hesitated. He stuck his head out of the closet door and looked at her. “Can you shoot?” he asked.
The answer to that should have been no, not at all, but as Victoria stared back at him with wide, scared eyes, she didn’t want to be told she couldn’t have something for herself. “Is it hard?” she asked instead. “Like, all I have to do is point and pull the trigger, right? And not aim it at you.” It felt like common sense, but then she’d never handled as much as a flare gun, so what did she know. “I shot a bow and arrow at camp as a kid, does that count?” Probably not, but she’d had decent enough aim with that. Not her favorite sport, but she’d always prefer sunbathing to archery.
“Not really,” Clint said, wrinkling his nose a bit. He kind of didn’t want to put a gun in Victoria’s hands if she’d never even touched one before, but he thought maybe they could do a quick and dirty safety lesson. And he would give her something low-caliber so if she did shoot one of them by accident it was less likely to be deadly. “Hang on,” he said, ducking back into the closet. Clint found a .22 rifle and the bullets for it and emerged again. It wouldn’t do much against some big monster, but it was better than nothing. “Rifles are easier than pistols,” he told Victoria as he went to lay both weapons out on the huge bed. “C’mere. You’re gonna learn today.”
The gun was huge and intimidating and Victoria wondered how it could possibly be easier, but she moved closer anyways. Even if she couldn’t figure out how to shoot it, it was big enough to be a weapon unloaded and she could just knock someone over the head with it. “Okay, um…I’m listening.” She didn’t even know what to say, quieted by the seriousness of the moment. Normally she’d blabber on, but she actually needed to hear what he was going to tell her.
Clint started pointing out the parts of the gun and naming them. He kept it as simple as he could, but he had to make sure she understood the safety parts at least. He showed her how to load it, then took the clip back out for the moment. Clint picked up the rifle and put it into Victoria’s hands, then circled behind her to guide her arms up to show her how to hold it. “Pull it against your shoulder,” he said, nudging her to do so. “Try to take some time to aim if you can, okay? And when you exhale, squeeze the trigger. It’s gonna kick back, so brace yourself. And on this one, you can just keep squeezing, you don’t have to cock it again.”
It was a lot of information to take in, but Clint made it sound easy. Victoria picked up the gun as directed, its weight surprising her. They always made them look easy and light in the movies. She put it against her shoulder and took aim, just to see how that felt. It was a weird feeling, holding a gun, made more pleasant by Clint up close behind her. If he had been single, and she wasn’t so damn scared, it would’ve been a perfect time to flirt with him. “Have you ever shot anything?” She asked, looking back at him.
Flirting was far from Clint’s mind for the moment, he just didn’t want Victoria to accidentally shoot him in his own house. Granted, it was a .22 so he would probably survive it, but still. It was the principle. When she looked back, Clint let go and gave her a bit of space, his mouth turning up in a rueful sort of smile. “I’ve been hunting, so ... birds, a few deer, a bunch of targets,” he said. He didn’t want her to think he was some kind of Rambo or something. “Never like, when my life depended on it. So ... let’s hope it doesn’t get that serious.” He stepped to Victoria’s side and made sure the safety was on her rifle, then gave her a serious look in the eye. “Don’t point this at me or yourself, got it? Whether the safety’s on or not.” He knew he’d said that at least three times, but you could never say it enough with gun-newbies.
“I got it,” Victoria said, emphasizing because she’d heard him the first two times he said it. It was a huge gun, she didn’t even think it was possible to point it at herself, and she’d be a fool to swing it his way. To his credit, it would’ve been easier to be flippant with something smaller, so this was probably smarter. “What do you think’s out there?” It sounded huge, but she couldn’t wrap her head around what it might be. The only thing big enough was an elephant and elephants weren’t just wandering around Point Pleasant, brushing up against houses.
Victoria could be annoyed with him all she wanted, Clint wanted her to keep it in mind so there weren’t any accidents. He picked up the shotgun from the bed and made sure the safety was on it, then carried it to the window to peek outside again. He couldn’t see anything, just fog. Clint had no idea if that was a good sign or not. “No fuckin’ idea,” he told Victoria, sounding pretty grim about it. “Some kinda ... escaped animals? I dunno. But we don’t wanna take many chances, so we’ll stay up here and away from the windows and shit.” At least Victoria wasn’t freaking out or having hysterics or something -- Clint didn’t know how he would deal with that. Since he’d just talked about staying away from the windows, he backed off of the one he was looking through, letting the curtain fall back into place.
As soon as Clint moved across the room, Victoria began to understand the warning. It was easy to want to track him with her gun, something he’d explicitly told her not to do. Three fucking times. She aimed it at the floor, watching as he looked outside. “If… If it’s a big animal… Are these guns big enough?” She knew he wasn’t going to give her something bigger, and she wouldn’t have been comfortable with it anyways, but Victoria had the feeling that even a shotgun wouldn’t have hurt an elephant. Wasn’t an elephant gun for that? Or was that just from a cartoon? “What if it’s a person? Or people? Did you ever see that movie The Strangers? Or that one where you can kill people one day a year?”
Clint honestly had no idea if the guns were big enough, even the one in his hands. He didn’t have a clue what they were dealing with, only that it was weird and scary and he didn’t like it at all. Weird and scary things happened in this town, sure, but they’d never been locked in with fog like this. “The Purge? Yeah I’ve seen that one,” he said, running one set of fingers through his fluffy hair and looking doubtful. “I dunno what person could make a fog like this, though. Unless it’s like ... unrelated, and they’re just taking advantage? I dunno. Better safe than sorry, though. This is the best we got, so ...” Clint shrugged. Victoria’s wasn’t the best in the cabinet, due to its caliber alone, but he didn’t think she was going to be a crack shot right off the bat anyway. “Oh shit, the alarm,” he muttered as he remembered it, striding out into the hallway where the panel was to set it.
“Yeah, that one. If someone shows up wearing a mask, I’m going to shoot them. Just warning you,” Victoria said, clutching the gun to her chest, its barrel pointed upward. She knew that wasn’t likely, but neither was an elephant or a giant alligator. Quite frankly, nothing made sense and that was part of why she was so scared. When Clint took off, she followed after him, unwilling to be left alone. “Don’t leave me!” She whispered loudly, her fear pitching her voice up to a higher octave. “It’s when people split up, that’s when they get them!” Either humans or monsters, that was how it worked and she didn’t want to give them that chance.
Some irritation flashed through Clint, because they were still safe inside, and he was pretty sure nothing had gotten in during the few minutes they’d been upstairs, but he knew that wasn’t fair. He was just scared too. And if this situation meant that Victoria was going to follow him around everywhere, he guessed he would just have to deal with it. “It’s okay, Vic,” he said, glancing at her as he punched in the code to the house alarm. “There, it’s set. We’ll hear if anything tries to get in.” Clint turned to her with a light sigh. “And I guess ... it’s back to trying to kill time? I dunno what else to do for now.” Killing time just wasn’t as fun when you were terrified and under threat, but it was what it was.
She calmed slightly once the alarm was set, hoping and praying that nothing had gotten in before they had a chance to lock the house down. Her heart was still pounding, but they’d started to put a plan in place and that felt good. “Um… where should we… I feel like we need to setup somewhere safe,” she said, laughing a little at herself, like the request might be stupid. Todd would’ve thought it was stupid. “Maybe we can talk, or play games. I… I wanna be able to hear if something’s near, you know?” Which meant no television, which sucked, but she’d rather be safe than sorry.
Clint didn’t think it was stupid, he just didn’t have an immediate idea of where ‘safe’ might be. There was a basement, but he felt like going down there might make him feel more trapped than the rest of the house. At the same time being on the ground floor felt kind of creepy. Clint knew he could get out of his bedroom if he needed to, there was a roof accessible and a trellis to climb down from there, so that was where he was inclined to go. “Yeah ... let’s go to my room,” he said, nodding down toward the door at the other end of the hallway. “We can get out from my window if we have to, I sneak out all the time.” Clint started heading that way. They could be quiet and listen, and if one of them wanted to nap or whatever, the bed would be there. Clint poked his head in through the door just to make sure when they got to it, then walked escorted Victoria inside.
Just before Victoria entered the room, a loud scratching noise came from downstairs, along with the sound of broken glass. Victoria yelped and hurried inside, letting Clint close and lock the door. “I don’t think going out the window would be a good idea. Inside seems better,” she said, her hands trembling. “And...doesn’t that set off your alarm? Sneaking out the window, I mean.” If she snuck out, she still used the front door, but it was rarely necessary. Her dad was almost never around and even when he was he pretty much let her do as she pleased. Sometimes she wished he would notice, but then she also didn’t want to get into trouble, not with him. Victoria looked around Clint’s room as she stepped inside, always curious about boy’s rooms. They were so different, usually more masculine in almost every way, from the colors down to the scent. Clint’s room smelled like a boy’s room, but it didn’t smell bad. Just… like a boy. Victoria took a seat on the bed, crossing her legs under her and the gun in her lap. She wasn’t willing to let go of it quite yet, not after that noise. “I hate this shit,” she sighed. “Christmas break was supposed to be fun. Couldn’t this at least have waited till we were back in school?”
Going outside was definitely a last resort, but Clint had seen too many horror movies about people getting trapped in their houses to discount it as a possibility. At least outside they could make a run for it. His neighbors weren’t that far away. Clint froze for a second when he heard the glass break, but the alarm didn’t go off, so he had to assume it wasn’t an outside window. Maybe a picture had fallen inside or something. Still, it gave him the heebies to think about a big Something making contact with his house. He closed and locked his bedroom door and went to peer between the crack in the curtain of his window. There was nothing to see at the moment, but that could change at any second. “It sucks, but think I’d rather be home than in school with bullshit like this happening,” he said, tossing a glance at Victoria on his bed. Not somewhere he ever thought she would be, especially not with a rifle on her lap. “It’d be even more chaos there, and we’d be stuck overnight. No thanks.”
Clint wasn’t the only one surprised at this turn of events, but it never even occurred to Victoria that she should sit somewhere else. A room with a couch would’ve obviously been a bit more appropriate, but all the rooms with couches had a lot more windows and safety came before social norms. “Oh, I’d definitely rather be home,” Victoria clarified. “I just meant I’d rather be missing school than vacation. I can’t think of anything creepier than being stuck in the high school.” Maybe the hospital, or the library, but then a thought occurred to her. “Except my car. I’d be totally screwed if I was in my car.” Thank God, she hadn’t tried to walk home. She wasn’t that far, but with the fog as thick as it was she wasn’t all that sure she’d have made it.
Considering how fast the fog seemed to have come in, and at such a weird time of day, Clint was sure there had been people trapped in their cars. He wished them all the best, hoping they weren’t freezing to death in the abnormal cold. Or eaten by one of those ... shadow things. He went to the cushy office chair in front of his desk and plopped onto it, leaning the shotgun up against the edge of the bookcase next to it. It made him uneasy to have it out, he was sure his dad would be pissed when he came home, but it was a weird comfort at the same time. Clint leaned forward and rubbed at his eyes and forehead, elbows on his knees, wondering uselessly where Ruby was and if she was okay. And all his friends, his teammates, everyone. Something else made contact with the house outside, a weird thumping scrape that made Clint stiffen and sit up straight. It went away again and he let out a heavy breath. “This is like a fucking nightmare,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.
Victoria’s eyes closed tight as noise rumbled through the house, her hands tightening around the gun. If whatever was outside somehow got inside, she was scared she might really have a meltdown. So far she’d managed to remain fairly calm, at least in her opinion, but she knew her composure would deteriorate in the face of real danger. “It’s this stupid town,” she sighed, opening her eyes to look across the room at Clint. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She didn’t understand why things like this seemed to happen in Point Pleasant, but she was of the firm belief that it didn’t happen anywhere else and leaving town was the solution. She couldn’t wait to go to college and leave it all behind.
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that sentiment, and Clint was more and more inclined every year to agree. He’d never encountered something like this before, but he’d heard enough stories and seen enough strangeness to be convinced there was something to all the rumors that Point Pleasant was cursed. Haunted, whatever. Fucked up things happened here, like inexplicable fog with giant roaming shadows in it. Fuck. “Yeah,” Clint agreed, shooting a way glance toward the window again. “As soon as fucking possible.” Until then, they were just going to have to bear down and make it through this latest disaster. Clint was happy he wasn’t alone for it, but God, he hoped it didn’t take forever to resolve itself.