Chapter Text
It's been a year since Tim left behind the blood stain that once was Alex Kralie on the top floor of Benedict Hall. Coincidentally, it's also been a year since his last operator sighting. The quiet of it all reminded Tim of college, before shit hit the fan in his senior year. Only this wasn't the comfortable quiet of sharing a joint with Brian after giving up on studying for finals or sitting in a room full of people too desperately concerned with memorizing a subpar script for chatter. It was the tense kind of quiet, like right before you said something you couldn't take back, or after the ringing of a gunshot finally faded. It was equal parts maddening and relieving.
After the tapes were burned and Brian was buried, he stayed on the roads for months, as if he'd finally be able to outrun that Thing. After 5 months of missed calls and recorded nights, Tim figured maybe he had. Maybe that Thing had only been able to follow them because its host had sniffed out the trail he and Jay left like a hound tracking a kill for its master. After 6 months, he started answering Jess's calls.
By the 6-month mark, he'd grown equally worried that the money he'd gotten from insurance after his house burned down couldn't support his lifestyle, as he was about the seemingly unlikely reappearance of the operator. And, after 6 months of sleeping in his car, constantly looking over his shoulder, and stewing in his solitude, he was sick of the constant flight, sick of feeling like he was living on autopilot. When his car broke down in the suburbs outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, he took it as a sign. He had enough money for the first, last, and security on a quant 1 bedroom in Green Bay, conveniently located a block away from a mechanics shop that was hiring. The first week of staying still, of really, truly meaning to stay put for the first time in years, was agonizing. The peace felt unstable, and the quiet gave way to an unpleasant cocktail of paranoia and guilt-fueled spirals. He'd wake up to every small noise, every shifting shadow from passing headlights. That is, if he got any sleep at all. The images of Alex, spluttering on his own blood, still insistently begging that Tim kill anyone who knew, that he kill himself, or of Brian, bent out of shape and limp under Alex's grip, the bloodstained letters left in Jay's wake, the stench of rotting flesh, the taste of blood, haunted him in and out of sleep. Phantom hands around his throat as he played over that final confrontation, the weight of a steel pipe in his hands, the "what ifs" that left him gasping for air, guilt and panic constricting around his chest as he crumpled in on himself in the dark of his too quiet apartment.
8 months in, and he and Jess started to meet again. Jess had moved to California after everything settled. It wasn't a smooth transition from what Tim gathered; she'd moved to Kentucky first, then New York, before eventually deciding the other side of the country was her best bet if she wanted to stay in the States. He always listened to her voicemails, but it wasn't until he could trust he wouldn't "infect" her that he started responding to them. It wasn't long after they started talking again that she insisted they meet up. A lot had been left unsaid outside that doctor's office. A lot that couldn't be said over the phone. He knew she knew more than he'd let on, or at least that she had reason to suspect so. When they met that day, alone, while he picked at his nails to get the ghost of Alex's dried blood out from under them as he spilled his guts, it didn't take a genius to figure out Tim was alone because Jay went and died. She knew Brian was dead; she'd picked his burial spot for fucks sake. He had to tell her about Alex; he couldn't leave her with that doubt. But the details, the in-between, anything that might've provided closure or pushed Tim to close to the edge was left unsaid before he disappeared for months.
A 16-hour drive from Woodlake, CA, and Green Bay, WI, respectively, Littleton, CO, quickly became their usual spot. If Tim was responsible, it was a two-day trip from Green Bay. If he threw back two Red Bulls and maybe stopped once for a quick nap, he could make it a one-day ordeal. It was on one of these caffeine-fueled drives through the mostly deserted mountain roads of Denver at 2 am that the only other car on the road skidded to a stop, swerving into the other lane at a diagonal. Tim eased onto the brakes, slowly rolling to a stop behind the still-running car. He considered getting out and checking on the driver, maybe they hit a deer or popped a tire or something. His hand was on the door handle, seatbelt undone, and keys stuffed in his pocket when he spotted the source of the trouble. A gangly man stumbled out from in front of the other car, shielding his eye from their headlights. Tim's hand faltered on the handle, his brain screeching to a halt as he noticed the blood. The side of the man's face that Tim could see was crusted with dry blood. Thinned streaks of it ran from his ear to his neck. Down his chin and front, the coating of crackling blood was thicker. There were clumps and dots of it, like gruesome moles and freckles splattered across his face. The man staggered, catching himself on the other car's driver's side door with bloody hands. From his elbows to shoddily wrapped hands was the unmistakable reddish-brown of dry blood. His head swam, memories of Alex's blood, dry by the time he woke up, cracking and pinching his arms, tangling in his bread. He recognized the streaks on the man's face as those left by the desperate clawing of someone already choking on their own blood. The image of his bloody reflection in the driver's side door of his old 2006 Mercury Milan revisited him as the blood-covered man pounded his fist against the driver's window. He couldn't quite make out what the man was saying, but the cacophony of metal on metal caught Tim's attention, drawing his eye to the blood-crusted hatchet swinging wildly from a dirty carabiner clipped to the man's belt.
"What the fuck?" He fumbled for his phone, pulling his eyes away from the bloody man for a second when the sound of tires squealing grabbed his attention. The car ahead of him peeled off. The man stumbled back before turning towards Tim. The other side of his face was just as bloody, Tim noted distantly. He made it all of one step before his legs gave out under him. Tim could hear the dull crack of the man's head on the pavement. He waited, as if expecting the man to get up, peering out the window at the limp body. The thought that, maybe, the man was covered in his own blood suddenly crossed Tim's mind.
"shit" he muttered, fishing his keys out of his pocket. His car started up with a rumble, and he pulled over to the side of the road, turning on his hazards as he pulled the key from the ignition. He looked out the window again. The man hadn't moved, bloody and limp, smack dab in the middle of the road. He huffed, pulling his first aid kit out from under the passenger's seat and climbing out of the car. He stuffed his keys in his jacket pocket, swapping them for the reassuring weight of Jay's pocket knife. He approached tentatively, stopping a few feet away.
"Hey, you alright, man?" Nothing. He took a step closer, nudging the man slightly with his boot. Nothing for a moment, then suddenly the man launched into a sitting position. He swayed, content to sit for just a moment before he was trying to push himself off the ground, hoarse, cracking voice pitching and dropping as he stumbled.
"No eyes, no FUCK no-o face," he struggled to his feet, teetering to one side before catching himself. His head swung wildly as he looked around. His attention caught on Tim, and he lurched towards him.
"There's-" his neck jerked "s-someth-hing in the woods" he tilted forward, arm outstretched, and Tim caught him more on instinct than anything else. Terror, sudden and nauseating, washed over him; he needed to get out of here now. He eased the man to the ground, looking around desperately for any sign of looming, suited, faceless horror. Nothing yet, it did nothing to settle him. Blood be damned, he'd figure out what to do with the guy later; for now, they needed to go. He hooked his hands under the man's armpits and dragged him back towards his car, finagling the door open and cracking the man's head against it accidentally as he maneuvered him into the back seat. This was a terrible idea, but what the fuck? Was he supposed to leave him in the road, or call 911 and have to wait for someone to arrive in a timely fashion at, he checked his watch: 2:18 am? No, he didn't have the time or conviction for that. He did, however, take a moment to, using a rag from off his car floor as a glove, unclip the hatchet from the man's belt and huck it into the grass. If the man, who looked rather young now that he was up close, woke up scared or angry, he wasn't trying to end up on the sharp side of that thing.
He turned the radio off when he got back behind the wheel, as if not being able to hear the static the operator caused would mean it wasn't there, should it decide to join them. Any sense of purposeful direction Tim had was replaced by the desperate need to keep moving, to get away. Panic bubbled in his lungs, clawing up his throat. He heaved one unsteady breath after another, and with a shaking hand and unfocused eyes fumbled for the pill bottle he kept in the glove box. He heard the click of the glove box, distantly felt the soft thud of the pill bottle land in his lap as he moved on to fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. For a brief moment, he thought he might not be able to, and the helplessness of it had his chest constricting, until with a slight shift the pack fell free and he could breathe again. He swallowed the pills dry. How many had he taken? Shit, whatever. He sucked smoke into his lungs and let it crowd out the panic.
...
The ever-present hollowness rooted in his chest stirred. He had spent nights awake, staring into space, “keeping watch”, wondering if he had done this to them. If those things he saw, hallucinations and seizures from an early age, if it had been because of that Thing, the “operator.” He’d spent grief-wracked and terrified nights alike wondering if he had been the source of Alex’s, of everyone’s, infection. Rationally, he could point out the holes in that train of thought, or at least reason that it wasn't just him. Emotionally, however, the uncertainty was almost worse than a concrete “yes, you spread this.” At least then he would know how to go forward with his life, if he chose to.
At times, entertaining the notion felt like being a scared teen again, listening to that voice in the back of his head telling him he was unloved in a household that all but showered him in it. If he focused on the voice, its argument collapsed under the weight of his attention like a house of cards. But if he let it whisper in passing, unchecked and malicious, he could almost let himself believe it. He could imagine what Alex would say about it, the real Alex, not half-fried, scared shitless and murderous with a gun and can of gasoline Alex. He’d say there were too many confounding variables to assume Tim’s diagnosed schizophrenia was actually a faceless demon stalking him.
Tim’s hallucinations had always been varied, and no one else had seen or heard them growing up. For fucks sake, he’d had an episode or two on camera during the whole ordeal with Jay. He’d screamed at that empty corner in that damn hospital room like there was anything there to hear him. Others could see the operator, and it looked the same, warped and worse at times, but generally the same, faceless, suited figure across the board.
Was the uncertain psychiatric diagnosis an easy scapegoat? Sure, even doctors didn’t know what was wrong with him; how could he blame anyone else for speculating? But maybe, maybe, Tim was just crazy, not patient zero of some supernatural bullshit. He'd never wanted so badly for schizophrenia to be his reality.
Jay had theorized that the operator went after people with a “weak” mind. That "the hooded figure”, aka Brian, unbeknownst to them, was stealing Tim’s pills because the anti-psychotic somehow reinforced the mind's defenses. It made some sense. Alex had been under a lot of stress, long before the operator’s involvement. Then again, so were most people, so why Alex? And besides, Jay threw theories around like they were confetti; he didn’t remember what his reasoning was at this point, much less if it was any good. Instead, he just had the same cycle of answerless questions; he didn’t need to remember much to keep coming back to them. Had that thing been trailing Tim, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike? Or was there something else?
His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, finding the bloody lump in his backseat. He’d always wondered how Alex concluded that murder was necessary. Why was he so concerned about it spreading? Hell, how did he figure it would spread? Did he know something they didn't? Did the operator warp his perception until death was the only freedom he could envision? Or was that just his flavor of good o' fashion terror-induced insanity?
He flexed his fingers, releasing the white-knuckle grip he’d taken on the steering wheel. His eyes darted to the rearview again as paranoia clawed up his spine. The kid, he had looked young from what Tim could see, was covered in blood. He got the impression that most, if not all of it, wasn’t his. His last words before blacking out had been incoherent mutterings about something faceless in the woods, and he realized reluctantly that it reminded Tim of Alex. Alex, teetering on insanity, still desperate for a solution, not yet having chosen death for them. When his actions and intentions hadn't aligned, memory still fuzzy, and the tackiness of drying blood was a distant enough memory to have been a dream, or maybe a vision. When the crown of blood hadn’t settled, and the thought that he needed to kill everyone to protect them hadn’t quite consciously cemented itself.
It put him on edge, the uncertainty of this kid’s situation. He’d been there, covered in blood, stumbling around like a drunk. But, so had Alex. He needed to know what the hell this kid had been up to right before dropping like a stone on the backroads of Colorado, almost as much as he knew he needed to stay the fuck away from this if he wanted to keep some semblance of sanity and the quiet life he'd just started to rebuild.
...
His fingers drummed against the wheel. A sign caught his eye: lodging, Belcaro Motel, stay right in 2 miles. He wasn’t particularly confident in his route; he’d driven to Littleton before, but the specifics whenever he got off the highway were what he had a map for. Between watching the road (and the woods alongside it) and keeping an eye on the kid in his backseat, he’d barely been paying attention to his half-memorized route. He grimaced; he'd have to stop at some point and reorient, may as well stop somewhere he could put space between him and the kid. Eventually, the kid would wake up, probably better to be somewhere a little less cramped if he turned out to be violent, crazy, or otherwise scared shitless. Not to mention, the whole having his back turned to a bloody stranger and hands occupied thing was grating on his already worn sanity.
...
Jess would call, probably around noon tomorrow, to check in, see if he made a stop. What the hell did he tell her?
“Fuck” he whispered. What the hell does he do with this kid? The thought of dumping him somewhere made him slightly nauseous. He knew firsthand how terrifying the operator's attention was. And on that note, he wasn’t willing to put himself, or Jess, at risk again.
The road forked, and Tim stayed right, merging onto a long, straight two-lane road lined with small stores and auto shops. He kept an eye out for a motel sign, Bel- something. It wasn’t long before the shoddy green and red signs came into view. He pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, finding a spot in the middle of it. There were two cars in the lot. He glanced at his clock: 4:24 am, then at the bloody body in his backseat. Probably for the best that this place was deserted. Hopefully, nobody would be awake to watch him haul what looked like a corpse into a shady motel room.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath, holding it before releasing it in a sigh.
“here goes”