Neon In The Nighttime
Summary: It's the end of the word as we know it. A west coast baker and the drummer of a metal band team up in Boston, MA thinking they're one of the last few people left alive after a viral outbreak turns those infected into blood hungry monsters.
Their destination: Los Angeles, California- the last place Lucien's eldest brother was living while gearing up for a presidential run. Lucien is desperate to escape the memories of his past life and what he had to do when his wife, Jes, became infected. Elain wants to try and reclaim the fractured pieces of the life she remembers before everything went to hell.
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Before:
Something was blocking the tunnel.
Tapping her fingers against the steering wheel of her car, Elain wondered how much longer she’d be trapped in the dark. The orange glow of the lights bounced off her tinted windows, casting long, looming shadows against the dark interior. She’d turned the radio off a good ten minutes before, frustrated with the upbeat pop music pouring through the speakers while she remained frozen in place growing more frustrated by the second.
She had no cell service in the tunnel that might have passed the time. No way to tell her father she was running late or to call a friend and complain. Just Elain and her thoughts—and lately, Elain had been trying to avoid those, too.
Everything was falling apart. Trapped in the dark, she supposed now was as good of a time as any to reflect on her many failings. Elain had mapped out her entire life when she’d been ten years old. Sure, she’d done it in glitter gel pen and maybe she’d had to adjust some things—she was never going to be princess of any country, and thank God for that—but for the most part, those loopy scrawled plans were tattooed on her brain.
Finish school.
Get married.
Have kids.
She’d finished school, she’d gotten a rather good job at a museum which had helped her finance her even better job at the bakery she owned. And she was supposed to be getting married, too. That was where the shiny paint on her shiny life started to peel away. Graysen wasn’t a bad man. Not really. Disinterested, sure. And married to his tech job, absolutely. He was also very obviously in love with his best friends girlfriend, though he would have denied it if she’d accused him of such.
Again.
Her father was sick, had picked up some virus he couldn’t shake and Elain hadn’t complained at all when Feyre and Nesta had called, asking if she’d go check on him.
He’s getting old, Nesta had said, her implications clear. Maybe he needed more supportive care now that mom was gone. Someone should arrange that. And though both Nesta and Feyre were far closer to their fathers Virginia Beach home up in New York City, it had been Elain, all the way from San Diego, who’d flown back to handle it.
She hadn’t even been mad like she might have been in the past. Elain needed to clear her head of Graysen and her impending marriage. Did she want to be married to a man that couldn’t remember her birthday but could drop everything to pick up Laura from the airport on a random Tuesday afternoon? And did she want to always be competing with someone so effortlessly beautiful? What happened when Laura and Tom broke up? Would Graysen throw their marriage away, kids and all, for a shot at his dream girl?
She felt insane. Pressing her forehead to the steering wheel, Elain accidentally honked at the person in front of her, which led to a rolled down window and a middle finger pointed right at her.
She deserved that. Sighing, Elain fiddled with the radio, ignoring the static until finally there was music again. California Girls could blow her, actually. She didn’t change the song, though her mood only worsened. Uphead, someone laid on their horn, likely just as furious as she was becoming.
There was traffic and then there was whatever this was. Someone going too fast, staring at their phone, and now they had to wait for a tow truck to make its way in. Elain missed nothing about this place. Three cars ahead, someone had opened their door and was yelling something at another driver.
The song ended abruptly, sooner than she remembered. Only half paying attention, Elain didn’t catch the first part of the of the radio jockey’s joking words.
“...Chesapeake Bay Bridge is still closed due to a pile up. If you can, take another route, folks! It doesn’t look like it’s gonna clear anytime soon.”
Elain emitted a soft scream, shaking her steering wheel beneath her white knuckle grip. Of course there would be an accident, and while she felt for the people involved, she also hated them a little, too. Elain might have voiced this somehow, might have joined the people just leaving their cars had the strangest thing not have happened.
Someone was running. Weaving through traffic without a shirt and stained with a substance Elain couldn’t see well. The guy who’d left his own car a few up shouted something at that bare chested woman.
And in true, New England fashion, she screamed in return. High pitched and furious, garbled from whatever substance she’d likely ingested. Elain was surprised when the woman lunged for him, slamming him up against his car.
“Did she…” Elain watched, heart pounding as the strangers mouth latched to the angry mans neck. Shaking her head, the woman shook him around like a dog with a rabbit, ripping his throat out with her teeth. Too late, Elain realized it was blood staining her bare chest.
“HEY!” The guy in front of her got out of his vehicle, brandishing a gun. “Lady! Get off him!”
Elain screamed when that gun was pointed, when the sound of a bullet echoed through those dark tunnel walls. He was close enough he’d aimed well, hitting her square in the chest, for all the good it did. She lunged again, teeth sinking against his forearm.
“BITCH!” he roared, shooting again. Elain couldn’t drag her eyes away from the way her head seemed to cave in around itself or how blood splattered in every direction, including her windshield.
The man in front of her turned, wild-eyed and terrified, still holding the gun in one hand. His arm dripped blood to the asphalt below.
“I…” Elain only shook her head through the window, wincing when more shouting and more bullets echoed from somewhere in the distance. What was happening? Dread prickled along the back of her neck, keeping Elain strapped beneath her seatbelt even as another blood soaked interloper raced through the parked cars in the tunnel.
That person was shot down, too. More people had begun to flee their cars, turning back the way they’d came rather than wait to see what—or who—might step from the darkness. Elain hesitated. Leaving seemed foolish—she had miles before she was above ground again, and beyond that, this was a rental. But on the other…there were three dead bodies now lying between her car and her destination, and no possibility she was going to see her dad that day.
And when the man with the bleeding arm pounded against her driver side window and said, “You and me, lady. Let's go!” Elain unbuckled herself, cut the ignition, and got out of her car.
“You’re not a nurse by any chance?” he asked, eyeing her hopefully.
“Baker,” she said, not daring to look too close at the bite wound on his arm. She might be sick if she did. “What was that?”
“Fuck if I know,” he replied, wincing as he pressed at his skin. “There was nothing in those eyes, though. Just…she was like some kind of fucking zombie. Never heard of a drug that did that to people.”
Neither had Elain. “Should we leave our cars?”
“Look, it’s your funeral if you stay,” he said, looking over his shoulder. Fear laced his every word, and though this man looked like he could handle himself, something about the way he clutched that gun made him seem small somehow. “But I’m not sticking around to find out what that bitch was on, or if she brought more friends.”
His words were punctuated by the sound of loud, terrified screaming and more bullets from people like the man standing in front of her. How many people in the tunnel had brought a gun? And how many would use it before the day was over?
“My name is Elain,” she told him, slamming her car door behind her. An exodus of people was happening as others, clearly shaken by the death happening so close to them. It was easy to fall into step with the others, to wind among the cars still hoping to get to their destination.
“George,” he replied, wincing again. “She fucking bit me good.”
“Let’s get you out of here,” Elain told him, glancing at her cell phone. No service still, which shouldn’t have surprised her. “We can call for 911 when we’re above ground.”
“You’ll tell them—”
“Yeah,” she agreed, catching the relief flood his face. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Always wondered what it would be like,” he confided. Orange gilded the guilt not lining his weathered face, casting him in a near demonic light in the dark. “Killing someone, I mean. Used to think it would be like the movies.”
She was going to be sick. Forcing herself to keep walking, Elain pressed her lips together.
“It’s not,” he confided, his voice cracking. “It’s nothing like the movies.”
A cruel part of her wanted to tell him that anyone with a brain could have guessed that. Of course there was a peculiar kind of horror to taking another life, deserved or otherwise. It wouldn’t have helped the man beside her, pallid and slick with sweat as he was. He looked as though he might fall to his knees and begin sobbing, and Elain didn’t think she was equipped to help him.
They lapsed into an uneasy silence. No one spoke as they walked, eyes focused straight ahead. More people joined, leaving car doors open to walk with the crowd and when the sound of bullets echoed behind them, shoulders tensed and children wailed, but not one person said another word.
The man beside her had begun to shuffle by the time they’d reached the entrance. Elain was exhausted and wrung out, checking her phone every few seconds, desperate to get a text to her sisters.
Something is wrong in Virginia. Someone attacked a man, ripped out his throat. I’ll check on dad another day, planning to come home. Can one of you meet me at the airport?
Beside her, the man doubled over, grunting as he slammed to his knees. Elain hated how she hesitated, hated even more that part of her wanted to leave him there. She wasn’t the only one. The crowd parted around them like water against a rock, though she and a few others had halted, trying to decide if they’d drag him out or not.
“Are you okay?”
He looked up at her, the sunlight casting his pale face in stark relief. Only his eyes were illuminated, the rest hidden in the orangy darkness of the tunnel.The blue of his veins seemed to bulge while his eyes, once a lovely shade of green, seemed to be bleeding red.
Elain took a step back while he slid that gun between them. The metal bounced off her flats, resting between her two legs.
“Kill me,” he whispered, eyes locked on her. “Do it.”
Elain shook her head back and forth, bile rising in her throat. The people who had stopped to help were now backing away from them both, their own fear so stark, so pungent she could taste it on her tongue.
The stranger—George, his name was George—lunged for her, mouth open and Elain screamed. Elbows slammed violently to the asphalt, jangling every nerve in her body. Elain reached for the gun, pressing the barrel to his forehead as he came atop her. In the daylight, Elain could see how red his gums were, how stained his teeth had become, or maybe always had been. Like he’d spent a lifetime smoking or something was rotting him from the inside out.
He snapped his jaw shut, the tendons in his neck practically bulging.
“Please,” he growled, his voice hoarse as if he’d been screaming. “Please, before I—”
Whatever light existed, whatever soul people possessed, winked out like a light. If she hadn’t been sprawled out on the ground, she wouldn’t have seen it. Elain didn’t think the people in the semi-circle around them had caught it. But George—the man who’d killed already and come to regret it, vanished and left behind nothing but a shell. Blood tinged teeth snapped at her like a rabid dog desperate for nothing but a taste of her skin.
She didn’t let herself think about it. Finger on the trigger, Elain squeezed, eyes closed tight. George fell to the ground, still twitching, eyes still wide open and staring.
And he’d been right.
Killing was nothing like the movies.
Now:
LUCIEN:
When the world went to shit, it had the decency to do it all at once. There was no soft whimper, no slow decline but merely a burning wildfire that spread hot through cities and killing indiscriminately. Lucien recalled those early reports of a virus and the warnings to isolate, to stay indoors and wear a mask whenever they needed to go out. And he remembered the endlessly opining of politicians, unconcerned with anything but reelection and their own bank accounts, getting on television to argue it was the end of America if they had to shut down for even a day.
How right they’d been, in the end. America as Lucien knew it was over.
A month after the first reports of what had happened in Virginia, the lights went out on the east coast and never came back on. He’d been touring with his band, The Exiles, at the time and had been desperate to get back to his wife. Lucien had driven until he couldn’t and walked the rest of the way—all the way to Boston, where Jes had been waiting.
Infected.
And Lucien would never forgive himself for what he’d had to do. Vacant, lifeless and yet still moving, still seeing—she’d tried to rip his throat out and Lucien had killed her. Had left her body bleeding in the kitchen of their shared apartment, bought with the money his label had given him when they’d sold their record.
He hadn’t known if he could touch her long enough to bury her and in the end, he’d simply left her behind. And for months afterwards, he’d camped out in the building across the street, alternating between wishing he had the guts to kill himself, crying and screaming and destroying the now empty walls he was trapped in, and devising a plan.
The last time he’d seen his elder brother had been in Los Angeles. A Senator of California gearing up for a third run and thinking of presidency, one day, Eris had urged Lucien to relocate to California.
It’s safer out here.
Eris had been one of the few people in those early days arguing it was better to be safe, to distance socially rather than lose lives needlessly. And if Eris had survived the early days, Lucien knew he’d still be alive now. A year had passed since Lucien had come back, a year since he’d last looked at Jesminda’s empty brown eyes and pulled the trigger of the gun he’d stolen off a body in Georgia.
He couldn’t keep going like this. Jes wasn’t coming back, and the life he’d once fought so desperately for wasn’t, either. This new world was something else, something new and terrible and still beating its putrid, stinking heart.
And fate, if such a thing existed, had decided to spare him. What good was it to sit in an apartment that had once belonged to someone, staring out a window missing the wife who had died while he’d been fucking around on tour? There was no saving Jes, and maybe no saving himself, either.
But he couldn’t kill himself, and he couldn’t spend another New England winter without heat. The streets had been empty for weeks by the time Lucien stepped into the muggy, summer weather. The scent of rotting sewage was overwhelming, gagging him the moment he was outdoors. Pulling the neck of his black shirt up over his nose, Lucien made his way down the sidewalk toward a parking garage. He had keys in his hand, stolen from the family apartment he’d been squatting in.
He prayed for anything but a minivan, and in the end was rewarded with a black pick-up truck that had three quarters of a tank still. It wasn’t enough to get him to California, but it was enough to get him the fuck out of Boston.
He’d always liked camping. Maybe he’d get a tent, fuck off to the wilderness, and hike his way to California when he ran out of gas. The thought pulled Lucien from his self-loathing just long enough to convince him to stop at a large box store for supplies. He had no money, and needed none, either. The lights were off, the door barricaded, and the parking lot long abandoned. Lucien was used to it.
Prying open the sliding glass doors, Lucien didn’t bother offering a greeting. He’d used to in the early days, back when people had taken to squatting in stores where there was an abundance of available food. Violent gang wars broke out over non-perishable items and anyone with sense moved on. There was no sense in losing your life over shelf-stable green beans, after all.
Lucien exhaled, ignoring how the store smelled like mildew and how light didn’t penetrate through the filthy windows anymore. There had once been a deal on strawberries—two for five—back when you could walk in and get a plastic container on your way home from work. There was no produce left, either eaten or rotted away to nothing. Flies buzzed around his head, swatted as he continued down the aisles, ignoring food in favor of a rolled up sleeping bag and somehow, a rather nice tent untouched, and yet dusty, in the box. Lucien pulled it all apart just to be sure there were no missing pieces and when he found there wasn’t, he almost smiled.
Almost.
Because behind him, the sound of a hammer pulled. He hadn’t heard whoever was lurking until he felt the cold kiss of steel against his temple. Swallowing his fear and the urge to thank this person for putting him out of his misery, Lucien very slowly raised his hands. “No harm done.”
“Yet,” came a delicate female voice. “Turn around. Let me see your eyes.”
Slowly, Lucien turned only to be confronted with the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t her. She looked as if she should have died in those early days of chaos and the gun still pressed to his head seemed wildly out of place in her fair, slender hands.
Brown eyes flecked with gold surveyed him, her full lips pressed in a thin line. Her golden brown hair was twisted off a, frankly, stunning face with a pretty pink ribbon. Tight, black leggings and an oversized Who's Your Laddy shirt told Lucien this woman had likely been living here a while, picking through whatever was left—which seemed to be the seasonal clothing, if nothing else.
It worked for her, though.
Still crouched to the ground, Lucien waited for her assessment. “How do you feel?” she demanded, eyes sweeping over his form.
“Besides the gun against my head?” he asked pointedly. She didn’t bother to look sorry, though she did pull it away. Lucien didn’t even blame her for it—this was how she’d survived, surely.
Shoot first, ask questions later. “I’m not sick.”
“I’ve heard that before,” she replied, her bottom lip wavering a little. He rose, drinking her in as he showed her his hands.
“Want to check me for scratches?”
“If you’re lying, you have maybe an hour. Two if you’re lucky. I’m so tired of killing, just…just go,” she whispered, looking up at him through dark, thick lashes.
“I’m not. I promise,” he added, unsure why it felt important he do so. “My name is Lucien.”
“Elain,” she replied, tucking the gun beneath her arm. Lucien was tempted to take it from her and didn’t want to risk a bullet between his eyes.
Elain took a step back while Lucien gathered up his open tent box and the rolled up blue sleeping bag. There was a purple one just beside it, the last one on the shelf. He grabbed that, too, just for good measure.
“Elain,” he repeated, wondering if she’d join him in California or he’d leave her here. A slithering sense of relief filled his empty chest at the thought of company—of someone to talk to after a year of raging silence. “Where are you from, Elain?”
That bottom lip quivered again. “San Diego…or Virginia Beach, technically. I was visiting my dad when…”
Lucien tried not to think of the horror. Ships of infected sailors had come in through naval ports, while travelers had tracked it through airports. Major naval bases had been hit just as hard as major cities, and Virginia Beach was still considered point zero for the outbreak.
“Ah.”
She fell into step beside him, trailing him toward the now empty registers where he could leave his equipment and grab some food, too. “How did you end up here?”
“I caught a ride with someone,” she admitted, her pretty eyes glassy in remembrance. Another friend she’d had to kill? “My sisters were in New York City.”
Lucien doubted they still were. One of the last images he’d ever seen was the chaos in the city—the infected running after screaming civilians, ripping people to the ground with their teeth. Eating them alive, feasting on the living. Lucien closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to banish the memory. He didn’t want to think about it, or what had happened to Jes while he’d been away.
“I doubt anyone is still in that shit hole city. Even the rats have probably gone by now,” Lucien said with a shrug. Elain trotted after him, grabbing red plastic basket helpfully.
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
“California. My brother was out there—I’m going to find him.”
“How do you know he’s still alive?”
Lucien sighed. “Eris is like one of those nuclear bomb proof roaches. There’s no way he’s dead. If anything, he’s probably the leader of some doomsday cult.”
“My sister Feyre was like that. Maybe they found each other.”
Lucien could only shrug. In a different world, a different life, he might have offered her a shred of hope or comfort. Now, though, all he had was frank honesty. Her sisters were probably dead, just like his brother, and only the fear of being alone kept them from admitting it to themselves.
“You want a ride?” he asked before he could think better of it. Elain reached toward a dusty shelf and slid every can of pinto beans into her arms before letting the cans tumble into the basket.
Lucien took it from her, certain it was miserably heavy.
“To your cult leader brother?” There was a hint of humor to her words that almost made him relax.
“Or to start our own,” he replied, offering her half a smile. “I’m not picky.”
“What are you, then?” she asked, peering up at him with curiosity. Her gun was still tucked beneath her armpit, a reminder that for all the sweetness oozing from her lithe form, this woman was a killer.
A survivor.
“Tired of talking to myself,” he finally admitted. What else was there to say? Lucien didn’t know what he was or even who he was anymore. A drummer in a band that no longer existed. The youngest son of a dynasty that could be traced further back as far as most European royalty. A husband who’d taken the life of the very woman he’d sworn to protect.
Was he a survivor, too? He didn’t feel like it, but maybe he was. Maybe by virtue of standing before her, arm laden with beans and the gun she carefully set atop her cans, Lucien, too, was a survivor.
He knew he’d be disappointed if she said no, though.
Elain offered him a shy smile. “Alright, Lucien. But I get to lead the cult. None of this co-leader stuff.”
He grinned.
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
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