Realistic or Modern Jackie & Tom's Excellent Road Trip

[TrashRabbit]

The ghost moose takes the chase. Charging with hand-shaped antlers bared while Tom screams and the gremlin careens backwards at full speed down the narrow roads.

"SHI SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK JACKIE JACKIE GOD SHIT MOOSE"

 

[CelticSol]

"YES I AM AWARE OF THE FUCKING MOOSE, TOM! STOP FUCKING SCREAMING!" Jackie shouts, her hands in a vice grip around the wheel and around the back of Tom's headrest, flying down the winding roads backwards, somehow pushing the gremlin faster than she had when she was going the other way, "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SUMMON A GHOST MOOSE WITH THE FUCKING ENGINE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

 

[TrashRabbit]

"THE MOOSE WASN'T ME. I DO NOT DEAL IN MOOSE. JACKIE PLEASE. JACKIE DRIVE FASTER. JACKIE!!!!!! JACKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"

The Ghost moose's antler nudged the Front of the gremlin and caused the hood to pop down from its up position with a bang, which gave tom an even better view of the thing through the windshield. IT screamed again like a dying man and Tom Screamed back.

 

[CelticSol]

Jackie screams as the moose catches up to them, it's antlers forcing down the hood of the car. Jackie can't hit the breaks without this screaming moose coming through the windshield and possibly killing Tom but definitely killing her, but she can't push the gremlin any harder than she's already pushing it, "I'M GIVING HER ALL SHE'S GOT, CAPTAIN!"

She's got the gas pedal pressed down to the floor, the gremlin is roaring, the moose is screaming, Tom is screaming, she is screaming, she doesn't know what she's going to do-

Jackie sucks in a harsh breath, feeling the edges of her vision suddenly going dark and her entire body numbing. "Tom," She murmurs distantly, not even really meaning to say it out loud as she reaches the hand she had on his headrest and places her palm on his chest, fingers digging into his shirt as her vision blurs and her hearing dulls further and further, "Tom, Tom, take the wheel-"

Suddenly, Jackie falls limp in her seat, head coming forward and slamming into the steering wheel, causing the horn to blare loudly as they careen backwards down the Maine backroads.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh f-" Is all Tom has time to say as Jackie goes limp, her hand keeping a death grip on his dr. Doom shirt. That moment of lax on the gas is all it takes to let the thing catch up and for it's antlers to nudge against the hood again. His brain anticipates impact and he squeezes his eyes shut- and something impacts but its not the mouse. The cold is so intense he can't feel his body, the opposite andequally intense sensation as the moment of body less heat when the 18 wheeler had married him. He can't breathe. The world is made of screaming metal sounds and an invisible series of possibilities. And when he breathes out again the gremlin hits hard. Bounces up on two wheels and nearly flips and thuds to a stop among corn stalks.

The sun is bright.

He can taste blood. He's turned into a human gusher- his nose, mouth and ears leaking cherry flavored fun time.

"Jackie," He says, slumping in his seat, "Jackie. Don't be dead. Jackie." He taps her hand still gripping his shirt.

 

[CelticSol]

The jump, combined with the backwards momentum they carry, gives them enough velocity to carry the gremlin right through a barn, the jolt to the vehicle enough that Jackie hits her head hard against the wheel and splits her forehead open as they plow through a corn field surrounding the barn, her grip on his shirt likely the only thing that kept her in the car. When the gremlin comes to a stop, Jackie slumps against the steering wheel and slowly slides to lean against the door, her unyielding grip pulling Tom to lean towards her side. She is unresponsive to her name, her hair sticking her face due to the blood.

When Tom taps her hand, it's as if Tom had electrocuted her - she shoots up straight, one of her hands flying to the blood smeared steering wheel and taking it in a vice grip so powerful the metal brace beneath the faux-leather creaks, her grip tightening on his shirt as she yanks him close, eyes rolled back in her head as blood pours from her head wound. She says nothing, but makes a long, pained sound like a death rattle, as grating as broken glass. Then, as suddenly as she had flown into action, she slumps back into her seat, releasing Tom and the death grip she has on the wheel as her eyes shut, fluttering.

She comes back to herself, but all she sees when her eyes open is red. She reaches up, wiping her eyes, but her hands come away slick with blood. She looks over to Tom, then out the windshield, then out her window, and notices that the moose is gone, they are not in Maine, and there is a...

"...There... There's a chicken. Why is there a chicken? Where did Maine go...? My head hurts.... a-real bad."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom has enough wits to hold very still and say nothing as Jackie threatens to rip the metal steering wheel form its handles. Jackie has told him about her little problem but seeing it is another mater. By the time she comes to again he has lit cigarette in his mouth and has reclined his seat back as far as it will go.

"My phone says we're in Ohio."

 

[CelticSol]

"Ohio..." She echoes, her words forming the word strangely, "Tom, I'm concussed. I think. I'm bleeding.... everywhere. I don't think the... blood will come out of the seats? The leather seats? Should I lay in the corn?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

He sat up with some effort and found the recline lever for her seat, "Its our car we can bleed on it however much we want." The car was technically and legally his through a series of shinangins that was another novel altogether. he reached in teh back seat and grabbed the closest soft thing his hand touched wich happened to be a T-shirt and held it against her head. "Look first aid. You're gonna be fine. This is like a 2 on the scale of that time I almost watched you die. I promise." This was not quiet as reasuring as he hopped it was because his nose was still bleeding steadily and had begun to stain his shirt.

 

[CelticSol]

"Nothing will ever be as bad as that one time, Tom. We don't talk about that because that was fucked up and getting impaled sucked a lot. But... dude. Are we gonna talk about the fact you got hit by an eighteen-wheeler and like... Didn't die? Maybe it's the concussion talking, but we should maybe talk about that? What the fuck?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

"When the fuck did you ever get impaled?!" He says, "JACKIE? this is fucking news. And we're talking about that never. When did you get impaled?"

 

[CelticSol]

“We don’t fucking talk about it, Tom, and you were fucking there,” She presses the shirt against her head a bit harder, trying to stop the bloodflow less to not die and more so she can stop getting a mouthfull every time she opens her mouth, “Stop deflecting. You’re terrible at it.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

He really wasn't a great liar or actor. The details of the impalement event were hazy, but it was something he couldn't actually forget no matter how many drugs he'd been on at the time. "I thought you'd hit your head harder," He says in disappointment. "God you bleed a lot," He complains, "Should I call 911?"

 

[CelticSol]

“Mhm, its because of all the blood I have in my body. I also don’t know if I have health insurance. I should be fine. It’s just bleeding so much because its a headwound.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Okay- lets switch- cause I don't want to be here when farmer Dan shows up with a shot gun and wants to know why we wrecked his barn," He said motioning at the drivers seat. He felt like shit, but its not like he could die or anything so who cared.

 

[CelticSol]

Jackie groans, then sits up in her seat. It’s not graceful, and it’s alot of flailing limbs, but she maneouvers herself into the passenger seat and lays down right in Tom’s lap, her legs stretched into the driver’s seat, “That’s all the coordination I’ve got. The world is double and I can’t move anymore or I’m gonna fucking puke.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I've had enough Jackie puke on my jeans for a whole lifetime, so don't do that." He pats her head and her shoulder and is gentle as he can manage as he climbs out from under her. He has the good sense to open the door and go around. The door slams shut as he hops in the driver side and he puts the cigarette out in the ashtray.

"Buckle up. I'm gay and I can't drive."

He turns the engine over and puts it back into drive and negotiates the chickens and the barn debris.

"So....Ohio? Is,,, nice?"

 

[CelticSol]

Tom slides out from under her as slowly and gently as he can, which is an effort she appreciates , except it’s still a little too much movement for her brain to handle, and she feels her stomach turn forcefully , “Fuck. Tom. Why have you forsaken me,” She throws out a hand to stop Tom from shutting the door, twists, and empties her stomach onto the flatened corn. She holds herself up using the door’s handle, her arm shaking, an imaginary little man drilling a whole straight in the center of her forehead, and spits the awful flavour in her mouth out onto the ground.

She pushes herself up, bringing her bloodied Tom shirt back to her forehead as she looks in thr dashboard for her stash of minty gum, popping one into her mouth for the sake of not tasting her own vomit in her mouth, then reaching out and slamming her door. As Tom gets in the driver seat, she groans, knowing Death is now inevitable, “I wished splitting my head opened had killed me, because I know for a fucking fact that your driving is definitely going to kill us.”

As he starts attempting to pull through the corn and not hit any chickens while he’s at it, he says, of all things, a compliment about Ohio, “Ohio is a hell hole and you fucking now it. God. There was probably a demon in that fucking barn and now its gonna possess you. Or me. Can two demons live in the same meatsack?”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I'm pretty sure you still got a monopoly on demons- and vice versa," He said reassuringly. "I don't know the rules on demon real estate. but they don't seem like the sharing type, so like probably fucking a texas sized no, on two to a meatsack."

 

[CelticSol]

“I mean, I see what you’re saying. But what if the demons were gay or something. Would they be good then, or is it the same thing as working with a significant other - you know what, it really doesn’t matter. Important thing, is my head still bleeding?” Jackie wipes her forehead with the shirt to hopefully wipe away some of the blood so Tom can check her wound, which is bleeding sluggishly, “Take it easy on me. If you can see bone or some shit, don’t tell me.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"You're still bleeding, just tuck that back on the nogging for a little longer. It's really not that bad, head wounds are just dramatic bitches," He said. His nose bleed was still going strong, but he had the self care instincts of a cicada-- wich for the records didn't have mouths and tended to die after screaming and fucking. "Now. I mean Gay Demons. that's difrnt. That a whole other fucking level of demonlogy. Jackie. Whats worse than being possessed?? Being possed by a gay demon? Whats worse than that-- Two Fucking gay demons. I'm sorry honey but like your not that special like you'd have to do a lot more sins, to get two gay demons up in here. Unless its me. Maybe I'm the gay demon. Maybe the gay demons are the Tom's we met along the way--" He rambled as he drove.

 

[CelticSol]

A handful of hours pass with little difference in the landscape - long sprawling farmlands that are occasionally interrupted by town centers that quickly return to farmlands. They stop twice - once to wash the blood from their skin in a gas station bathroom and change out of bloodstained clothes, and another for food at a diner, where Tom uses her concussion induced haziness to steal her french fries. Which, as much as she chewed him out for it, she didn't mind - her stomach was still upset, but she ate because she knew she would feel worse if she didn't.

Back on the road, with nothing but farm fields and Tom's shitty music to amuse her, Jackie had nothing to do besides think. For a while, she imagined a creature was running alongside their car as she looked out the window until that bored due to the overwhelming emptiness of Ohio posing no obstacles for this imaginary thing. She could think about the moose, of their car accident, or even think further back to Tom getting smeared across a highway and not dying, but when she thinks too hard on any of those, her brain freezes and refuses to think any further.

She's not sure what compels her to think this, or even what makes her share it outloud with Tom, but Jackie, her feet up on the dash with a lit cigarette between her teeth, says, "Have you ever seen Buzzfeed Unsolved? I think we could ghost hunt better than they could."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Well first of all, we actually find ghosts. So confirmed. I don't know if we're as funny tho?" He says. He distracted. They do seem to run into more bullshit that most ghost hunters, but he's certain its because both of them are also cryptids in their own right.

 

[CelticSol]

"We don't even have to hunt the ghosts or whatever - they just come to us. But instead of like... Screaming and running like we usually do, we can like... Hunt them. Exorcise them. Or something - not sure if I could exorcise anyone. But you get what I mean? I think we're hilarious. Cathal once called us both cryptids, so wouldn't it be hilariously ironic for two cryptids to hunt ghosts and other cryptids? Come on. Tom. Come on. "

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Okay but here me out. What if we get turned in for being cryptid snitches and then bigfoot puts out a hit on us and then fucking mothman with a shank gets us? Is that what you want?" He asks playfully.