Ivan Press

Ivan

Terminally afflicted by wanderlust and inconstancy, it's never long before Ivan wants to leave home again. Today it's a trip north, the idea springing spontaneously to mind sometime over a breakfast of fruit and fresh cream. He wants the car readied. He wants an overnight bag packed. He wants lunch in a picnic basket, but make sure the cold things stay cold and the warm things stay warm. The staff scrambles to comply; he only gave them an hour.

And now they're on the road. Just the two of them, enfant à la maison. He's driving one of his more tasteful pieces, a Ferrari of yesteryear. The top is down; the wind is in his hair. The wind is in Hilary's hair too, which possibly infuriates her. He is not speeding, though. For once he is driving at a sane speed, meandering along winding blacktop. They cross the border into Italy; it's a small road, and a single patrolman guards the pass. A cursory glance at passports gets them through. The road they're on leads to Turin, and perhaps eventually to Rome, but they turn northward again and snake into the mountains.

The radio is on. He let her pick the station. It is beginning to fade into static, though. He drives with one hand on the wheel, the other draped over her seat.

"I thought we might stop somewhere picturesque for lunch," he suggests. "Perhaps spend the night in the mountains. Come back through the vineyards tomorrow and buy some more of that delicious Rhone."

The staff ends up with more than an hour, but only because Hilary - unlike the people whose salaries Ivan pays - will not be rushed. It certainly isn't due to any consideration for their labor on her part; it's more a perversity of her character, as inevitable as Ivan's restlessness. He has a whim, and he wants it all now, and so she denies him. Obviously.

Hilary finishes her breakfast, leisurely appreciating each strawberry, having a little chat with Anton in French about the blueberries he is eating with a spoon. Contrary to expectation, that spoon is not silver but highly polished steel. The bowl is fine china. Her son has never used trash neon-colored plasticware, and she will be perfectly content if he never does. Then again, she's never had to sweep up the shards of something he's broken, but that is what servants are for.

And for packing bags. This, Hilary wants to oversee, so Ivan's is waiting by the door long before the lady of the house has excused Darya from her closet, which is a room unto itself. The last time Ivan took her on one of his jaunts she had only the clothes on her back, and made him go out to buy her something new the next morning. She won't get into that trouble this time. He took forever, after all.

Then Anton has come running down the hall asking Hilary where she is going, and so she is having yet another conversation with him, holding his hand (freshly washed, free of blueberry stains) as she walks towards the stairs. It is in French again, and how much of it Ivan catches depends on how much effort he's actually been putting in to learning, and who can say how much that is on a given day? It depends on his mood. But she is telling Anton that his maman an his papa are going on a little drive, that's all. And Anton wants to know if they will be back for bedtime, and she breezily says it is unlikely, and he is old enough now to try very hard not to cry, but he is upset, and

there is a moment, there. Hilary, standing at the top of the stairs, holding his hand. There is something stricken about her features, brokenhearted to have upset her beloved son, to be the cause of his stifled tears. There is something flashing dark and violent behind her eyes, annoyed by this pathetic thing's neediness. And a slightly-too-long hesitation, where she is torn and uncertain, having not the faintest idea what to do with the sudden storm that Anton's feelings stir up in her.

Then: resolve. A version of it, at least.

"C'est triste," she agrees with him, uneasily, because this is almost too close for her to her own sadness, her own terror of being left behind by the one she loves, her own childhood nightmares, especially when so many of them came to life. "
Cependant, vous ne serez pas triste très longtemps. Et puis nous reviendrons. Ton papa et moi ne te quitterons pas pour toujours."

Anton sniffs, and marshals himself, and nods. Hilary squeezes his hand, leans down, and instructs: "Bise." so he lifts his chin and gives her a peck on the cheek. She smiles, and his eyes spark with the sort of adoration a child his age can't quite help but show clearly. Then she is letting go of his hand, drifting away down the stairs, and now it is well past an hour and Ivan may be incensed and impatient or may have half-forgotten his whim, or he may have seen his son's beautiful mother walking away from him and remembered his own mother, his own boyhood.

Or perhaps he sees none of it, hears nothing, is out waiting by the vintage car, sunglasses perched on his face, watching Hilary come towards him.

--

She is dressed in a tea-length skirt and a pair of flats, a little camisole and a pretty cardigan half-buttoned over it. She's cut her hair a bit shorter than he likes, closer to the shoulders, and it's straightened today, which he also doesn't like, but she is putting her sunglasses on while she more or less ignores him, and for some reason that usually seems to darkly delight him.

The Ferrari does not offend her, due to its antiquity. He has learned a thing or two. He won't put the top up, so she removes a silk scarf from her purse and ties it over her hair, looking all the world like she belongs somewhere in the middle of the last century, rather than the present day. His speed is more relaxed than usual, though, so Hilary is - perhaps surprisingly - in a rather good mood. She thinks she did well with Anton. He stopped crying. She did not frighten him. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and he is okay, because she did better this time.

She has to remove her sunglasses for the guard who looks at her passport. She does not smile, and yet all the same, he's a bit stunned, a little taken aback to look at her. It is not unusual; many men are, and not all of them are as isolated as this man is every day on the job. Her sunglasses slip back on; Ivan keeps driving. Hilary is thinking that she doesn't speak a lick of Italian, despite being so close, and despite having such a degree of competence in other so-called romance languages. She considers learning Italian, but she doesn't much like Italy, or Italian people, or even most Italian food. All those tomatoes, she thinks. Pick a different vegetable for once.

Ivan is talking. She blinks behind her shades and looks at him. It's only just now she's noticed that the classical music from the radio has turned to stuttering noise. "That sounds adequate," she says, which is an odd thing to say, especially since her tone is that of a woman who might have said 'lovely' or 'fun' or 'delightful'. She means it as praise. It is just - as so much, with her - slightly off the mark.

[French: It is sad. However, you will not be sad very long. And then we'll come back. Your daddy and I will not leave you forever. Kiss!]

Adequate. That is the word she uses, though her tone is -- rarity of rarities -- pleased. He glances at her, the shadow of his eyes and eyelashes visible behind his dark lenses, and smiles. Anton is old enough now that she can see the resemblance; they have the same smile. Anton employs his less, though, and with far less finesse. Ivan's smile is a well-honed weapon, by turns charming and deadly.

Right now it is neither. Right now it's something real. Which is rare for him on the grand order. But not between the two of them.

They drive on. They climb. The road coils on itself; one side drops away while the other rises, sheer and bare. Turn after turn brings them ever closer to a dazzling blue sky. The sunwashed scrublands of the Mediterranean shore drop away; in their place, a dense pine forest rises. Those peaks that haunt the horizon of the Côte d'Azur are before them now, close, rearing miles into the sky. From time to time they have a view toward the southwest where they can see how high they've climbed, how far they've left the earth and sea below -- until they are so deep in the mountains that there is no more view of the coast. Even then, the tallest peaks tower overhead, so immense they seem nearly to bend over the valleys below.

There's a highway through these mountains, bold and wide, four lanes of large sweeping turns and arrow-straight tunnels engineered to move freight and commerce between countries. The route they take, however, is older and meandering; a parallel course following a river through its natural passage. A string of resorts dot this road while other paths, narrower still, twist off into the peaks.

Ivan picks one of these little roads. It's a random choice, a whim. The road is quiet; they're the only car for miles. The rest of the world has to work. It is possible they don't even know which day of the week it is, nor care.

The radio is nothing but static now. Ivan turns it off. This road is so small it bears no dividing lines. It is steep, hairpinning back on itself, leading toward some minor summit. Up ahead, a little turnout: a cafe, closed today, with a few patio tables set out for its guests.

Ivan pulls to a stop. The engine falls silent, leaving birdsong and wind to fill the silence.

That is one strange little thing that she and Ivan have in common: beautiful smiles, captivating smiles. Smiles that can lead people astray, destroy lives. Smiles that are, for most people, entirely false. And then, rarely: like this. Genuine smiles, even touched with warmth and sometimes affection and occasionally even their love.

Hilary looks outside the car at the drive. She watches the world fall away, then turns her gaze to the sky, the vast blue above the treetops. Ivan can, just barely, hear her sigh; he can see the lift and fall of her shoulders. And then she turns back, glances at him. Ivan is turning onto ever more obscure roads. If this were the first time, she might be quipping about him murdering her, biting her, taking her into the woods to devour her. But this is not the first time. They are years into each other, and much of the brittleness has been smoothed over, the cracks between them sealed.

So she leans back in her seat, head tipped against the rest. She feels the sun overhead and the forces at work as they move along the road, back and forth, up and around. She listens to snatches of music, to wind and engine, wheels on road, a bird soaring past. She alternates her observations between the sky and the world around them,

and Ivan.

--

The radio skips and fuzzes, and what is left of the music turns to white noise, collapses in on itself, becomes all sounds, no sound at all. Just noise. Ivan silences it. Hilary looks around and realizes, finally, just how deep they are in the middle of nowhere, how far from everything, how terribly high up.

Ivan stops the car. She turns to him.

"This is a very strange place for a picnic," she tells him,

a bit tartly.

Ivan laughs under his breath as he opens the driver's side door. "We're falcons," he says as he gets out. A small break in the conversation -- he walks around to the trunk, gets the picnic basket out. Comes around to her side to open her door, "High ground seemed appropriate."

And he offers his hand, gallant. "Come on," he says. "After this we'll take the Mont Blanc tunnel to Chamonix. Find ourselves a nice little hotel there."

Hilary almost laughs at that, but doesn't. She sits in the passenger seat, waiting for him. While she waits, she unties her scarf and flips down a mirror, smoothing her hair back into place. Then Ivan returns, carrying the picnic basket, opening her door. And she tells him: "I've never really though of myself as a falcon."

It isn't a denial by any means; just a statement of fact. She's never considered that term applicable to her own self. She sounds curious about it. She sounds thoughtful, but ultimately unconcerned one way or the other. Rises from the car looking unconcerned, too, smelling of herself and of some faint perfume. Floral, definitely. It's a delicate scent, well intermingled with her own. Tantalizing, teasing, escaping classification except at very close proximity. It lures, just like a flower does to a honeybee.

Her hand covers his, then slips within it, holding his as surely as she held their son's. She sounds a bit lost, and perhaps hesitant, when she says: "You should... get me a new book." It sounds so out of the blue. Reminiscent of when they discussed birds, and types of birds, and getting both she and Anton books about them so she could learn and tell her child. Except, a moment later, it becomes a bit more clear: "An atlas." She remembered the right word for what she means. And just in case Ivan doesn't understand: "A book of maps. So I know better... where things are."

Something in his regard softens. It is visible even with his eyes hidden behind those ever-fashionable sunglasses. He pulls her closer by their joined hands, their arms winding, his forearm against hers. Leaning down, he shares a kiss with her, which feels soft and secret though they stand under a limitless sky.

"If you wanted, I'd have a map of the world painted onto your studio floor for you," he says, smiling, "but I suppose a book will have to do."

He sets the picnic basket on one of those patio tables. During the height of ski season, when these peaks are alive with tourists, this little cafe might see a lively business. Right now -- early spring, and the middle of the week besides -- they're the only ones in sight.

"Let's see what poor Evgeny has made for lunch, hm?"

Even in such romantic scenery as this - on a little jaunt into the mountains, on a picnic in the middle of nowhere - it's impossible to tell whether Hilary will permit him to kiss her, or if she will turn her head away, annoyed with him for one reason or another. Particularly when she is alluding to her desire to understand more than she does, which itself alludes to a certain lack of understanding, which ultimately alludes to the darkness and strangeness of her early life, he might expect her to recoil from his attention to her, and her desires, and her lack, and her strangeness.

This time, she does not. She allows him to tug her body closer, her long torso pressing against his side, her back slightly arched under his hand to hold her balance. She regards him from behind amber-colored sunglasses, the wind tugging at her hair now that she's put away the scarf. He is taller than her, though only just; a lowering of his chin, a lifting of hers, and their mouths meet. He feels just a hint of softness enter her, a relaxation to her limbs and her breath. Even in the middle of nowhere, alone like this, she holds on to some odd ideal of decorum and restraint.

Of course, that makes it all the more delightful to break her from it.

In any case: she kisses him back. She kisses him softly, and it's very sweet. He is close enough to see her eyes opening again after they part, just as he saw them drift closed for a moment at the end of the kiss. Then he, being ridiculous, talks about painting maps on floors and she scoffs at him.

"Absurd," she says, with a touch of irritation that must amuse him terribly. "I don't want to dance on it, I have to be able to read it." Idiot, she says, at least in tone of voice.

They head for one of the tables outside, and Hilary observes the chairs and such for dust and grime. She's suspicious. "Why is it closed?" she wants to know. "It's the middle of the day." How dare they. Layabouts. She has nothing whatsoever to say about the picnic basket, even to inquire why Ivan regularly refers to him as 'poor Evgeny'.

[FAK.]

[BE FIKSD PZ]

"Off-season, darling," Ivan replies, unconcerned. "Anyway, you'd be annoyed if we were surrounded by loud teenagers and their snowboards."

He pulls out one of those little chairs for her; hands her into it. Taking the one beside it for himself, he lifts the lid on the picnic basket and begins to unpack. A fresh baguette emerges, followed by an olive-truffle spread; slices of melon wrapped in smoked salmon on ice; a large, squat, tightly-sealed thermos of bisque. Evgeny is leaning into the French. He's trying, anyway.

"We should buy ourselves an alpine cabin, though," he muses. "Do you still hate the cold when there are mountains involved?"

Hilary actually has no argument for that. She would, in fact, hate to be surrounded by teenagers and snowboarders and their families and to have overly solicitous shop owners hovering. But she doesn't like it when Ivan is right, so she scoffs at him anyway.

The chairs are, perhaps due to melted rain or wind or simply the freshness of the air, deemed clean enough by Hilary to sit on. She sits and is tucked closer to the table. She does not offer to help. She watches what comes out of the basket thoughtfully. Her eyebrows lift a bit at the spread that follows the baguette, perhaps intrigued. She keeps expecting some awful cold soup made of cabbage or some slab of overly peppered meat, but no: everything that Ivan unpacks is tolerable. If Ivan had not mentioned his own cook by name, she might have thought Elodie packed this basket.

She glances up, however, realizing Ivan is speaking to her. She is also realizing she's quite hungry, and the olive-truffle spread is appealing to her, so she was not paying much attention to Ivan. In answer:

her nose wrinkles.

Hilary looks interested by the spread. Someone should tell Evgeny, Ivan thinks. He supposes it should be him, but then -- it seems such a bother. He unpacks plastic cutlery, disposable dinnerware; tacky, perhaps, but preferable to doing dishes.

"Perhaps not, then," he says, amused. When he opens the thermos, the bisque is still quite hot, steaming in the cool mountain air. He ladles out a bowl for her and another for himself. While she samples the spread, he helps himself to the salmon. A companionable quiet settles for a few moments,

broken when Ivan looks across the table at his lover, frowning.

"Do you feel all right?"

One day he may convince her to vacation with him in some cold, remote place, surrounded by snow. He'll want to go skiing. Anton can play in the snow. She'll go to the spa at the lodge, receiving endless massages and facials and hair masks and pedicures, drinking champagne before getting fucked senseless every night.

One day.

Steam escapes between them from the thermos. Hilary smells it and, with a chef's senses, recognizes it for what it is. Who even taught that brute what a bisque is? She takes a napkin and unfolds it across her lap, as delicately as she would something made of fine linen rather than paper. Reaches for the baguette, meaning to begin slicing it, if she can just find a knife. Perhaps there isn't one, and Evgeny means for them to tear it, which certainly doesn't create a lovely surface for that nice spread, and then she can judge him all the more ferociously for trying and failing so terribly.

Ivan interrupts himself. She has her sunglasses perched atop her head now, a casual look that makes her seem a bit younger, a bit less worn by her own madness. She blinks at him.

Thinks a moment. Considers whether she feels anything at all.

Then: "Yes?"

She's not seen this look on his face before. Not ever. His frown is not anger. It is puzzlement, but also concentration. He looks past her; tips his head, as though listening to something she cannot hear.

"I feel..."

He halts. Perhaps because he does not want to alarm her. Perhaps because he does not know how to describe it. A beat or two. He sets his food down. Stands.

"Something isn't quite right. I feel different. Off." He holds his hand out to her. "I think we should leave."

It isn't the way he looks at her, when he's trying to understand her. That's so focused, so intense it looks like hunger, ravenous hunger that drives all the rest of the world out of his comprehension. Or the way he looks when he's amused. There's no amusement in him right now, which alone is strange. Ivan is almost always amused by something, or exasperated by it. This look on his face almost seems childlike, and it makes him look strikingly like Anton. She's always seen their resemblance, especially as the boy gets older and his features take on more and more of his father's shadow. And she often sees Anton with an expression or mannerism that reminds her of Ivan. It is rarely like this, reversed, where Ivan takes on an expression more common to his son's face.

It unsettles her.

Then he sets his food down and she's annoyed. They drove all this way to have a picnic, and it's already unpacked, and she was just about to see if that olive-truffle spread is worth a damn, and now he wants to leave.

"I will not," she says, affronted, refusing to take his hand. "Sit down and eat."

His eyes flick back to her; there's something sharp in that motion, something quick and animal. He swipes his sunglasses off.

"Hilary," he says. It's not a tone she's never heard before. It's a tone she's heard precisely once, long ago, when he said to her: run.

He doesn't say it now. He breaks off. That quick raptor turn of his head again. He's staring at the closed cafe, fixed, intent. For a long few seconds, nothing -- no movement, no sound. He begins to relax. Then a shadow moves inside, and tension leaps jagged through his bones. She's been mated to warlike Fangs before. She may recognize the look, the reaction, rare as it is on this oft-amused, oft-exasperated, rarely-warlike current mate of hers.

It's the look of a Garou reaching for his wolf. Ivan doesn't burst into another form, though. He tenses. It goes nowhere. He exhales in a single rushing burst, equal parts shock and realization: "I can't shift."

A thud from inside the cafe.

The angriest Ivan has ever been with Hilary - at least that she is aware of, remembers, categorizes as angry with me - there has always been an undercurrent of fear. When something happened (and honestly, who can remember what it was?) on the streets of Chicago, and he told her to run, and she didn't. Or the time he found out that Oliver Grey had tracked her down, had bent her over a railing, had bounced her head off of it, was going to do god knows what to her. And the time she left, because she was angry with him, and they could not make sense of themselves or each other and he could not reach her, nothing he said could make anything right, and it was unfuriating and it was terrifying, because they almost came apart forever.

Hilary does not recognize his tone as angry with me, though. She can't even quite call it irritation, this look on his eyes. He says her name and she tips her head, more curious than defiant now. God, isn't that just the way with her? So incurious and empty about so much, except now, except lately, when she is curious about everything, even when she should be worried.

Though, outrageously, she never seems to be afraid of actual danger.

He looks at the cafe, so she looks at the cafe, and there's a shadow, and she sounds simultaneously annoyed and relieved: "Oh, someone is here," because now maybe she can have a proper napkin. Ivan, of course, is being very dramatic, and for the purposes of her desire to dismiss his whims, she decides he is often - always - dramatic. It hardly matters if that is reality.

She does not recognize what is going through him. Looks at him again. Does not realize what he is trying to do until he says he can't do it. She can hardly think of times he's shifted in front of her; she can scarcely bring to mind what he looks like in some other form. She feels something odd, to hear this, but has no name for it at first. It takes an awfully long time, somehow, for the hard-wired instincts granted to all living creatures to slither through her brain and ignite reactions that are meant to be instantaneous. It's as though they're all muffled, all wrapped in cotton. But she finally does begin to feel some flicker of real unease.

The thud! startles her at just this moment, the right moment, and she gives a little jump. It seems to get the pilot light going. Her spine is very straight, now. She is staring at Ivan and not blinking. She is motionless, as perfect a prey animal as ever Gaia made.

"Oh," she whispers. "Oh, dear."

If he weren't so unnerved, he would be angry. And if he wouldn't be so angry, he'd be amused. She just sits there. She doesn't move at all. He almost wants to laugh, but then: no room for amusement. Or anger.

Only fear. That's what this is, and Ivan has never been so bound up in his own ego not to admit it. He extends his hand to her -- never withdrew it in the first place, but extends it all the more now, hand outstretched, fingers too.

"Take my hand," he says. His eyes don't leave the cafe. Shift or not, he doesn't seem to have lost all his tricks. There's suddenly a blade in his hand, and not something with which one might cut a baguette. "Stay behind me."

A flicker of movement in the dim interior. A figure inside. A person? Yes, a person -- coming closer. The gait is slow, unsteady. It comes forward, this person, until all of a sudden the bright sunlight catches it through the windows. Ivan blinks once, quick, a miniscule flinch. Then he sees who it is, what, and very nearly scoffs.

It's an old woman. Hair white and askew, skin creased and worn. Eyes cloudy with age. She stares in their direction. She keeps shuffling forward. She doesn't stop, not even when her head hits the plate glass door with another, louder THUD. She keeps walking, her feet repeatedly running into the door, her face mashing into the glass.

Oh, but taking his hand means moving, and moving means that something moving in the dark will see her, and if she is seen,

she will be gobbled right up.

--

Ivan will probably never know what it takes Hilary to take his hand. He likely can't guess that if it were dark, if the sun weren't shining so gloriously above them, she would probably not be able to move at all. What he knows of how she was truly broken is not spoken of, because it is unspeakable. It's a miracle she can walk and talk and love him, love Anton, care about how much saffron is in the paella, appreciate art, do anything but stare at a wall and replay horror over and over and over until her brain is made up of nothing else. She must have been born with an iron will, an inner strength enough to put demigods to shame, for the pillars of her personality to have survived at all.

Regardless: the sun is shining. It is a beautiful day. There is something in the darkness, but it's separated from her by a wall, and she is not alone. So she hesitates, and then she takes his hand, not quite holding his, but likely he grips hers hard enough for both of them. She is rising to her feet, but very slowly, as though her fear response is still not flight, not fight, but freeze.

Hilary doesn't even notice the knife, which may be for the best, because did he not notice her looking for one.

Obediently, silently, she ducks behind him, shrinking herself a bit as though she could really conceal herself. She isn't looking at the cafe at first, until she hears another thud. Behind his back, she flinches. She squeezes her eyes shut the way a child does against a night terror. She exhales, and forces them open, the way a child does who knows they have to look. Under the bed. In the closet. Down to the bottom of the stairs. If they don't look, they'll always wonder. Wondering is worse.

Hilary opens her eyes when she realizes: she doesn't really have to wonder. She's seen the worst thing a person can see. She's still here.

So she peers, carefully, past Ivan. Watches the woman thumping into the door. Her brow furrows. Another woman, another person - most people, in fact - would feel at least some pity for the woman. She's sick, obviously. Something is very wrong with her. Naturally, such a thought doesn't begin to occur to Hilary. She is disgusted. She is repulsed. And she is bothered.

No, not bothered: she's disturbed.

"Make her stop that," she whispers to Ivan.

He does indeed grip her hand tightly. He holds on even when she ducks behind him. He feels her against his back, her brow to his shoulder for a moment while she hides, closes her eyes tight.

Then she looks over his shoulder. Perhaps he has some idea of the depths of her terror now. The depths her mind goes to. That horrible, horrible trauma inflicted upon her when her mind was not at all able to cope. His hand is still so firm on hers, and when she looks and sees what he sees, he squeezes once.

"I don't think I can," he says, low and even. "Let's go. Let's leave."

He leaves the food where it is. Those salmon-wrapped melon wedges; that delectable bisque. That tantalizing spread neither of them had the opportunity to try. Poor Evgeny. He takes a step back, then another. Then he turns.

And halts. Ivan's face is blank with incomprehension. There, between the two of them and the car, is another old woman. Except it's the same one. The exact same, shuffling slowly toward them on bare, scrawny feet.

This is absurd, and unfair, and she's upset. She wants the picnic now, wants it quite badly, perhaps partly because she can't have any of it. She wants to have a nice time, as though she wasn't entirely nonchalant about the whole enterprise as soon as it was suggested. It bothers her to leave the food, and the basket, which is ridiculous, because she's never cared about the dross they leave behind. But she cares right now, because nothing is stable, there is no order to anything.

Ivan turns, and so she turns with him, holding his hand (or rather: letting him hold her limp one) and staying by his side this time.

Then he hears her shriek, loudly and in terror, clapping her free hand over her mouth before the sound has fully left her throat. He's never heard her make a sound like that. He's never startled her enough, she's never been afraid like this in front of him. It's an utterly alien noise to hear her voice take on. Behind her hand, then, a low whine of distress, not a child's scream any longer but an animal whimpering. It's only traces of humanity that have her even trying to stifle it.

She starts moving backward, making Ivan's hand pull at her. Jerks her head back to look at the cafe, to make sure she's not backing up into the arms of another old woman, or something worse.

Ivan has never heard her make that noise.

Not in all the times he's made her scream. Not the times he's made her angry. Not even that time in Chicago, when he told her to run and she didn't. Not even that time she was so very angry at him, they were clawing at each other, he wouldn't relent and neither would she and her psyche was threatening to shatter under the strain like glass pulled too hard.

It might be the noise that galvanizes him to action. She is pulling backward, but he tugs firmly in the other direction. Her wild glance over her shoulder catches a third doppleganger -- this one shambling from around the corner of the little cafe, coming slowly but inexorably toward them.

Ivan's arm is around her shoulders now. "Move," he says. He propels her forward, and to the side. They are faster than these bizarre creatures, at least. He's trying to circle around the one that stands between them and the car. She -- it? -- stumbles after them, though. Beelines toward them, drawn like iron to a lodestone.

There's a fourth now. And a fifth, and a sixth. More. A whole cohort of them coming up the very road that brought Ivan and Hilary here. It's getting harder to avoid them all. All of a sudden one is quite close. She reaches for Hilary. Bony fingers swat mindlessly against her arm.

Three now. Now Hilary isn't even making noise. She's choking on whatever sounds she might make, shrinking further in on herself. It is exactly the wrong response, when it comes to survival, but... her brain is broken. It doesn't recognize danger, it doesn't react to danger correctly.

In the end she moves only because Ivan gets her moving. Literally grabs her and moves her body until she can start to do it on her own. She sees more and more of these women showing up and then

one almost touches her.

Hilary screams. Her arm flails out, lashes at the thing, even though the scream is still one of terror more than anything else. "No!" she shrieks, sharp and insistent.

Perhaps she expects the thing to be vicious. Tough. To take the blow without a flinch, and to keep coming.

She lashes out. It's instinct, untrained. The side of her wrist smashes into the nose. The bones are fragile with age, osteoporosis. A distinct crunch. The old woman topples back, blood immediately beginning to pour from her nostrils. She doesn't make a sound.

Neither do the others. They keep coming forward. Thin, dry hands skate off Hilary's arm, glance off her shoulder. Ivan shoves one, punches another. Then he begins using that knife. It flashes out pristine, a vicious and curving thing. Plunges between ribs, comes out red and glistening. One of the women collapses without a sound. The rest don't even react.

"Get to the car." His free hand is on Hilary's back now, physically propelling her forward. "Keep moving. Go."

The crunch makes Hilary recoil all over again. She dances back from the blood, effortlessly graceful even in her panic. She stares, her mouth open, her face contorted with distress. And then they keep coming, touching her, and Hilary lashes out again. She shoves them away from her, straight-arming them, knocking them over, shuddering even as they fall away. She doesn't look at Ivan's knife. She cannot look at Ivan's knife.

The car. Go.

She keeps moving. She goes. And - perhaps shockingly - she does not get into the passenger seat. She gets behind the wheel.

There are so many now. It's hard to tell where they're coming from. Somewhere. Everywhere. Closing in, a dozen, dozens, more. The same face, over and over again, withered and blank. The same skeletal hands. The same brittle bones, the hips that break with every fall, the cheekbones that crumble with every blow. Ivan, cynical and jaded Ivan, flinches with every flash of the knife. His teeth are bared. One of them has caught hold of his shirt, and he can't figure out which one to cut. Another blind, batting hand grazes off Hilary's face and finds purchase in her hair.

And then the car is there, brilliant red amidst a sea of faded floral-print fabric. The door opens and someone still has a hold on her, someone else has grasped her ankle. She tumbles in behind the wheel. Ivan doesn't even bother with the door. He vaults directly into the passenger's seat, shoving a doppleganger back.

"Go!" Survival has reduced his vocabulary down to just a handful of syllables. While she turns the key in the ignition, he rolls his window up furiously, then turns to yank the top up. Hands are reaching in, grasping at the edges of the windshield, the windows. The engine turns over and catches.

Something grabs her hair and Hilary's fear briefly - with the tug of pain on her scalp - turns to anger. She wheels for a moment on this one, kicking and hitting it until it tumbles, and then kicking it a few more times before getting into the car.

Keys are right there. No reason to take them out. She stars the car. Ivan lands in the passenger seat. The word hasn't left his mouth before Hilary is going. She doesn't drive often, but that does not mean she has forgotten how. She doesn't execute a perfect three-point turn, however. No no no.

She shoves the gas pedal to the floor enough to plow over the ones on the front, then slams that same foot on the brake.

Then she does her three-point turn to get out of there.

A vintage Ferrari was never meant for such things. The engine roars as the wheels go over two, three dopplegangers. There's no screaming. They can't even hear bones snapping like this. But there's blood in the rearview mirror, bodies broken on the ground. There's blood in the tire tracks too, darker still against the blacktop.

They leave the cafe behind. And their goddamn lunch. A few tenacious hands grasping at the edges of the windows are torn away as they accelerate. Ivan slams the top closed, then reaches across Hilary to crank her window up, too. They bump out of the little parking lot and the curving mountain road is before them, two directions only. Down the way they came, where a veritable army of mindless geriatric monstrosities are still shuffling their way toward them -- or farther up the winding mountain road.

If Hilary could appreciate fine cars and if Ivan could be attached to the pretty things he breaks, they might both feel a little bad for the sweet little Italian thing they're brutalizing over the bodies of old ladies.

Neither of them feel bad. Her heart is beating harder than she can ever remember feeling it beat, and her blood is screaming in her ears, and she almost loses control of the car when Ivan reaches past her to the window. She sees a horde of the things coming up the road and for a moment idles, shocked, appalled.

Then she turns hard and heads up. The road is still winding and tight and she has to go fast, so in a few seconds she's just saying:

"I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to."

Neither of them have a seatbelt on. Vintage or not, freshly over human(?) speedbumps or not, it's still a Ferrari. It takes that corner on rails, centrifugal force flinging them both half out of their seats. She accelerates. He turns, watches the shambling duplicates follow mutely in their wake, a few of them breaking into hobbling runs.

I don't want to, says Hilary. He doesn't know what she means. She doesn't want to go up? She doesn't want to go fast? She doesn't want to have to kill any more of them, maybe, or she doesn't want to see any more. He puts his hand on her shoulder, a firm grip.

"You're okay," he says. "We're okay."

They follow the road around a curve, a tight one, and the cliffside blocks their view of the horde. For a moment Ivan can almost believe none of that happened. There's blood on his knife, though, and blood on his hands. His shirt is torn. Her scarf is gone. A sudden thump brings his attention back to the front: another thing flings itself into their path and they go right over it. Ivan swears under his breath.

They whip around another hairpin curve. Without warning, as they pull out of the turn, they hit a wall of dense fog. Visibility drops to nothing.

"No, I am decidedly not, Ivan!" she snaps at him, distraught. She says nothing of the 'we' aspect. She's going slower though, because she doesn't want to fly off the side of a mountain or hit a tree. She's shaking.

At least he got her to stop repeating I don't want to.

Then, another one, sudden, and she screams again. Does not go right over it. Slams on the brakes again, which jerks both of them forward and flings the new one off the front of the car. Hilary is gripping the wheel hard, foot pressed to the floor on the brake pedal, but she doesn't move the car again.

"I don't want to!" she yells again,

like a fucking child.

Well. She's right about that. She's not okay. He's not either, for that matter. It may have been the first lie he's told her, and she calls him on it.

Whatever he might've said in response goes out the window. They hit another one. This time Hilary hits the brakes. Ivan hits the dash, grunting. The car jerks to a stop, the engine idling choppily. There are dents in the hood.

Ivan turns to her. He leans over, facing her, close.

"I know," he says, low, steady. "I know. But Hilary, we have to keep moving. Or those things are going to catch us, and we are going to die."

That actually makes her feel bad for a moment. That he hits the dash.

At least the look on her face is one he knows, now. That almost infantile unhappiness, that pleading for him to fix it all, make everything bad go away, make her happy again. Except that now is not the time.

"I'm afraid. I'm going. To crash," she says, not for emphasis but because she cannot help but speak choppily.

Half a beat; no more.

"And then we'll die."

It isn't a plea, that. It's something else; a realization he did not walk her to. One she reached on her own, and one that brings a startling, sudden calm to her fingers and her shaking shoulders. She looks away from him. She takes her foot off the brake and the car, hungry for motion, begins rolling. She eases her foot onto the gas pedal and accelerates back up. Glances in the mirror and sees the old things coming. Focuses ahead and sees the one she flung off the hood running toward them again, and

accelerates harder.

This time she doesn't stop.

This time the car rams into the decrepit thing with such force that it goes over them rather than the other way around. For a terrible instant it smashes face-first against the glass, thuds over the soft-top. Then it's gone, a crumpled pile of limbs left in their wake. There's a smear of blood on the windshield.

They keep going. They whip around another hairpin curve. They pull out of the turn and, without warning, hit a wall of dense fog.

Can't see now. Can't see the side of the mountain, can't see the cliffside to the other side. Can barely even see the road beneath them.

Hilary turns on the wipers after a second.

Hilary slows at the fog but does not stop.

Hilary exhales.

She turns on the headlights, after fumbling for a moment to find where they are.

It doesn't feel natural. Fog this dense, this sudden. Banner clouds over mountainpeaks are common enough, but they would've seen it from below. There was nothing but blue sky then.

Then again, none of this feels natural. They have little choice. She goes on. He's silent and watchful, finally thinking to reach over and help her with her seatbelt. Finally clicking his own on.

They drive on. Slow now. It's silent outside. Nothing else impacts their car. Nothing else leaps into their path. An interminable amount of time seems to pass.

Then, gradually, the fog begins to thin. They can see the road now. They can see its curves and turns. They can see they're no longer climbing, no longer coiling amidst perilous cliffs, but instead descending into a valley between peaks. As the last tatters of mist scatter across their windshield, they find themselves in a soft green meadow strewn with wildflowers. Snowmelt cascades from the shoulders of those craggy peaks, tumbling into wide streams that feed an impossibly blue lake. On the shores of that lake are a handful of solitary cottages, each with steeply slanting roofs and stone walls.

The sun seems to have jumped in the sky. It's early evening, the light golden and slanting. Soon the valley will be in shadow. The road beneath them peters out just a few yards ahead, though it hardly matters. As soon as they emerge from the fog, the engine begins to sputter. Yards later it dies. The Ferrari rolls to a stop, and no amount of cranking will convince the engine to catch again.