Revenant

Author: UTsSQ

Rated: M/MA

Genre: Horror/Drama/Comedy

1

He just needed to stop for a minute, to stretch his legs and get his bearings.

He was nearing on two full days with no sleep, little rest, and hardly enough food to keep him going. He'd been living on coffee pretty much, and given that his eyes were starting to feel like sandpaper when he blinked he would be paying for it for the next few days unless he forced himself to take a break.

It was hard though. Hard because he knew he was close. If he stopped even to sleep for a couple of hours that was a couple of hours he'd have to make up at some point. That was also assuming that he would have a chance to make up the hours.

Mark didn't think he'd ever been closer, that was the real hell of it. He could sense it. Hell he could practically smell it. One way or the other, soon it would all be over. That the was thought that kept him moving, kept driving him on even though he had reached the point of being so tired it was a struggle to blink without dozing off.

The cold rain helped. He'd pulled into the deserted rest stop along an equally deserted stretch of highway, stepped out of his truck, and had rolled his shoulders against the ache that had settled into the center of his back. The rain soaked him – it had been coming down steadily since midnight and showed no signs of letting up. In fact, the few times he'd snapped on the radio he'd heard reports that it was changing to snow in some areas. He believed it, watching as his breath puffed out in white vapor in the cold air. He had a jacket in the truck but he didn't bother with it. The cold rain might make him sick, but it would also wake him up a bit.

He paced the small rest stop, pausing to look over a faded map that hung behind a protective cover, trying to clear his head and figure out where he was going to go next. It wasn't a matter of wanting to go. It was a need, a compulsion; something inside him that would not let him stop. This would be the third one in eight years, and he still had no idea why he was compelled to chase these…things.

Mark forced the thought out of his mind and took in a deep breath of cold air, blowing it out with a groan. Eventually he would have to stop and rest, and probably very soon. He wasn't a kid – these marathon sessions driving down dark highways trying to sense…or being led to…these things was starting to wear him down. He was getting tired much sooner than he had been before, and the caffeine in his coffee couldn't keep up.

This one was turning out to be a lot more difficult than the others. Mark had missed it by mere hours, which in turn only aggravated him. Maybe being tired also played in to that, he wasn't sure. He just knew that he had to do something, and soon, before the lack of sleep and the constant urge to move drove him insane.

He didn't like to dwell on it. Thinking about 'why' was counterproductive and usually led to him losing even more time. It was best to just do what had to be done and then move on, and enjoy whatever peace he got until the next time. He dragged a hand over his face, wiping cold rain from his eyes, rubbing tiredly at his pounding temples.

Headlights cut through the rain, making him lift an eyebrow. So much for deserted. It wasn't the thing he was after – that would be way too easy.

Instead it was a woman who climbed out of a Jeep Wrangler. She didn't seem to care that the rain was soaking her as she walked toward the small building that constituted the restrooms. She was talking on a cell phone and hardly spared Mark a glance. That was a good thing. He could only imagine that he looked like hell, and probably wouldn't have been a comforting sight to a female traveling alone in the middle of the night.

"…and I told you I would be there when I got there." The woman's voice drifted to him over the sound of the falling rain. Mark felt his lips twitch in a bit of a smirk. The tone of her voice said the woman was tired of talking to whoever was on the phone, and she was about 3 seconds shy of just hanging up and blaming the weather. He was perceptive. He could pick that up in less than a sentence.

The door to the rest area swung shut, muffling any other comments the woman made. Too bad really, because it was a distraction from being tired and he could use it. Rather than skulk around the rest area trying to eavesdrop, Mark headed back to his truck and slid behind the wheel. Already he could feel the pressure to move coming back. Sleep would be a long way off.

It was stronger than it had been, though. Almost as if the thing he were chasing were heading directly for him. Mark had no better way to explain it. He spared the woman's Jeep another glance, frown of concentration on his face. Not this one. But someone, and someone soon, would have a brush with the thing he was after. He doubted that he would be in time to stop it. But maybe he'd be able to get closer, close enough to stop it before the next one. Or the one after that.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus on the horrible rushing feeling that seemed to pour through him, unable to pinpoint where it was coming from. It was everywhere. Mark opened his eyes and muttered a curse. He was close, so damned close, but probably not close enough. Resigned, he started the engine and backed out of the parking space, concentrating only on the crawling sensation that began at the back of his neck.

~~!~~

Of course she had to slow down when her sister called for the millionth time. Harper debated, only for a moment, and answered. If she didn't her sister would just keep calling. And calling. And calling.

It wasn't enough that Harper was on her way back. She wasn't getting there fast enough to suit her older sister. In fact, if she had lived next door and walked instead of jogged, she was pretty sure Colleen would have found a reason to bitch about it.

And why was she driving all the way across the country at her sister's whim? Because Colleen's father had died. Not Harper's dad, that lowlife was in Vegas with wife number 4. Or 5. Harper had ceased to care after the third one. Colleen's father had been the original, loaded beyond measure, a prolific womanizer who had kicked their mother out about eight seconds after giving birth to Colleen.

Harper was ten when her mother passed away. She had lived – very briefly – with her father and wife number 2. Number 2 had been an airhead, a blonde socialite whose biggest goal in life had been to find a plastic surgeon who could freeze her age at 25. Harper's father was a plastic surgeon but even he was not a miracle worker.

Harper's problem was that she had something of an acid tongue concerning her father – who her mother often referred to as sperm donor number 2 – and his bimbo of the month club. Even if said bimbo were technically married to him. But her dad had nowhere to send her, except for maybe private school, and Harper had run away repeatedly until he finally threw up his hands in defeat and had called Colleen.

Colleen was nineteen years older than Harper. And every inch her father's daughter. She was cold-hearted, with a bank vault where her heart should have been. She took guardianship of Harper and was unaffected by Harper's sharp tongue or threats of running away. In fact she'd hired a sort of babysitter/bodyguard whose job was mainly to keep tabs on Harper 24/7. If she had to use the bathroom, Colleen probably got a full report. It wouldn't have surprised Harper if she found out Colleen had been having her secretly drug tested. Or even drugged to keep her docile.

The fact that Colleen's father, Daniel, absolutely hated Harper was not glossed over either. Colleen seemed to take a perverse sort of satisfaction in his anger. Harper was stuck until she turned eighteen. Then she'd taken the money her mother had left her (kept in a trust fund of course, something they liked to hold over her head) and she'd taken off, putting as much distance between herself and her "family", for lack of a better way of describing them.

And she'd done all right. She was co-owner of a successful bakery and catering company. She had a nice house, a few close friends, and peace and quiet. And then this. Colleen's insistence that Harper be there for Daniel's funeral after not hearing from her for…two years? Harper had to think back to find the last time they'd spoken. Colleen had threatened her the last time – but damned if she could remember what the argument had been about. Harper didn't really care.

Yet here she was. To shut the bitch up she was on her way to the funeral of a man she was tempted to dance on the grave of. Harper thought she might do that anyway. She had thought she'd put all her hatred behind her but it was still there, as fresh and bright as it had been when she'd been forced by court order to stay with her sister until she reached legal adulthood.

The real reason was that Colleen was the head of her father's company now and had to put on the same mask her father had worn to appease investors. Family-oriented and stable. Oh yeah, Harper had been used to being trotted out as Daniel's sort of charity in progress, the bastard child of the whore wife who had left him because she had been in the midst of post-partum depression. The back story was meant to establish Daniel and Colleen as giving, loving family types. Harper was fairly certain that Daniel had made a habit out of killing small animals as a child, and Colleen had glass and nails where her uterus should have been.

Colleen was currently griping about Harper's chosen form of transportation. A plane would have been much faster, of course. But faster to what end? Spending an extra 2 days in the company of a bitch who she was only attached to by the grace of genetics? A bitch she honestly could not stand? No thanks. Driving, Harper could stop and rest once and get there with a few hours to spare before the festivities…er…funeral. She had no urge to trot herself out along behind her sister for a press conference, or an investor's conference, or a shareholder's meeting, or whatever it was Colleen had planned.

To be perfectly honest the only reason she was going had nothing to do with Colleen or even the opportunity to dance on the grave of a subhuman asshole; it had everything to do with her best friend, business partner, and sometime boyfriend Jack. Ok…boyfriend was pushing it. Friend with benefits, that was more like it. They had been exclusive for a couple of years but when he'd pushed for something more permanent she had backed off. Jack had been hurt for a while but they were good together at work, good together as friends. Neither could walk away. There had been other relationships but they were always there for each other, as strange as it seemed to other people who knew their situation.

He'd encouraged this trip. 'Closure', he'd called it. Harper wasn't sure what sort of closure she was going after, unless it was to restate to her sister that she thought the older woman was a world class frigid bitch with a black hole for a soul. At this point it would only be repeating something Harper was sure she'd made clear over the years.

So she was really only listening to Colleen's griping with half an ear when she pulled into the rest area and parked. Harper didn't even care she was getting rained on. In fact a spiteful part of her hoped water would seep into the phone and kill it, but no. Colleen droned on and on about Harper's "responsibility to her family" and "putting on a good public showing", two things which seemed as foreign to each other as oil and water.

The deserted rest area wasn't so deserted after all. There was a guy there, a very large guy. He looked exhausted. Harper could commiserate but at that hour of the morning it probably wouldn't have been one of her brighter ideas. Instead she concluded her conversation by rudely cutting off Colleen's voice in mid-squawk, then shut her phone off and tucked it in her pocket. She paused long enough to push her dark hair back from her face, wincing at the cold water that dripped on her skin, and peered into one of the mirrors that lined the back wall.

With a sigh she went into the stall and used the restroom before stepping out and scrubbing her hands. She had consulted her written directions at her last stop – she knew her next stop would be nearly100 miles down the road in a small town. She would refill her gas tank, get some strong black coffee, and continue driving. She was a night owl by nature, not bothered by driving in the cruddy weather. Even with the threat of black ice and snow as she headed west, Harper was confident in her ability to get there in one piece. She would stop in the morning, around sunrise, and find a motel to get a few hours sleep. Four hours, tops, and she'd be on the road yet again. She had patterns, and she knew how they worked.

She headed back outside and let the cold rain hit her full in the face for a moment before heading back to her Jeep. The guy and the only other vehicle that had been parked in front of the rest stop were gone. For his sake, Harper hoped he didn't have far to go before he reached his destination. She dug her key out and climbed into her Jeep to get back to her own journey.