Chapter Text
October 20, 2021. Travis
It made sense that she would come after him in the end.
In the dead of night, well after the full moon has risen, Travis hears a door handle jiggle. No one is supposed to be there at this hour—at any hour. The long abandoned police station is dark and locked up. The door handle jiggles.
Sticking to the shadows, Travis creeps out of his office and looks towards the station’s front entrance—and there she is, on the other side of those doors, her head and shoulders’ silhouette too close to the glass pane.
She’s looking in. Travis cannot see her face clearly through the frosted glass, but he’s as sure that it’s Laura as he is of why she’s here. Briefly, he wonders how much she is able to see. Save for an Exit sign flickering red above a fire escape to his right, the only source of light is the moon. That one’s looking in over Laura’s shoulder, and through windows of the second floor, and every crack in the roof. That one can see him alright.
Struggling to control his breathing, Travis steps deeper into the shadows, flattens himself against the wall. His shirt catches against plaster and clings uncomfortably to his wet skin. He’s broken into cold sweat.
Laura tries the door again. Another thought comes: Travis is not supposed to be here either. No one knows where he is. No one would know where to look. Would there be anything to look for? Then—if he makes a dash towards the fire escape, he might be able to get to his car where it’s parked out of sight among the trees. And from there—
Laura’s eyes land on him, and it’s like the frosted glass pane isn’t there at all anymore. Travis is a moth, pinned to the wall by her stare, the fire escape forgotten.
“Travis.” Her voice is so small, it’s a wonder he hears her at all. He’s only ever heard Laura sound like that once, when she—
Travis makes his way towards the door on unsteady legs. Still a moth, he damn near bumps against the glass.
“Travis,” Laura calls, small and pitiful and all wrong, “it’s so cold out here. Let me in.”
He does. He unlocks the door and stumbles backwards. She steps inside. Laura is as pale as the moon. She’s shivering worse than he is—but then again, the dress Travis buried her in two months ago is hardly even a layer against the late October chill.
-t-
When Laura came to the Hacketts’ family home to kill Chris Hackett, she brought along a friend from the summer camp and a werewolf under her skin.
It went down like this. The rest had fled, so there were four of them left in the house, in the dining room: Travis himself, Laura’s camp counselor, and two werewolves ready to dine on them. Travis dropped the gun loaded with silver in the skirmish and the counselor boy grabbed it, leaving Travis on the floor, armed with a shard of a silver-backed mirror. It cut deep into his palm when he picked it up—deeper still when he stabbed the monster that burst from inside of Laura with it.
It went down like this: Laura’s monster let go of his right forearm and sank its two double rows of teeth into his left shoulder instead. His arm mangled but still moving, Travis brought the shard up, up, up, but all he managed to do was count the werewolf’s ribs with it. Or so he thought.
Up.
The werewolf exploded above him, spraying Travis with gore. In its place was now Laura. The mirror shard was in her chest. On the other side of the room, the counselor shot the monster who used to be Chris Hackett, but that didn’t matter anymore.
It ended like this: she called his name in that tiny, wrong, scared voice, and then she was dead.
He didn’t remember her friend leaving but he must’ve at some point. Come dawn, it was just Travis, Laura’s stiffening body still in his arms. Across the room from them lay his brother; Chris was missing half of his head. If it wasn’t for Laura, he’d be alive—Travis had no doubts about that, no illusions. She wasn’t the one to pull the trigger on Chris, but only because the werewolf curse left her unable to hold a gun once claws ripped through her slim human fingers. Hell, had she more time, she’d probably take the shot while Chris was still chained up. Maybe she’d catch him in the back of the head like she did Kaylee a few hours ago.
Kaylee. Her fragile form in the bed of the family truck, covered with a tarpaulin. Laura killed his sweet, gentle niece with a silver bullet that Travis made. He hated—
Laura, for not listening, not slowing down for one fucking second. For running off with his blasted gun to shoot her way back to normal life as if it still existed. Himself, for trying to keep her safe.
It wasn’t fair. Laura was determined, and brave, and did what she thought she had to do to save herself and the one she loved.
She was growing cold against his heaving chest.
When the sun rose, Travis put Laura down on the floor that was sticky with their blood. He put an old purple dress on her to cover her nudity. Then he put her in the ground.
-t-
It makes sense. Since Travis didn’t have the decency to bleed out from her bites…. It’s not like he expected to meet his end at the hands of Laura’s vengeful ghost, but really, if all of Hackett’s Quarry werewolves didn’t get him, who else would?
The door closes behind Laura and there’s a finality to it that almost makes him feel… relieved. He waits. Minutes pass but Laura doesn’t do anything, just stares at him in the dark, silent. Then her eyes roll back and she sags to the floor, landing with a dull thud.
Travis blinks.
What the—
Heart in his throat, he strides towards the nearest light switch and slams his palm on it with way more force than necessary. Fluorescent lamps come to life high above, filling the room with a quiet buzz. When Travis turns around, he half expects Laura to have disappeared, but no, she’s still there, lying prone on the dirty linoleum. Travis wonders if he’s lost it as he approaches her again and crouches beside her. Did the moonlight play a trick on him, morphing some other blonde girl’s face into Laura’s? The station's been decommissioned, but an outsider in need of help might not realize it.
His hand is still shaking some when he reaches out and turns her over, although he’s stopped sweating bullets, at least.
He doesn’t want to look at the girl’s face. In the span of a few seconds, Travis convinced himself he was going to see someone else, so when the mirage doesn’t dissipate and it’s still Laura—
The world tilts beneath him and he falls flat on his ass. Fuck. It was easier to come to terms with facing a ghost, or a ghoul, or whatever she’d become after two months in the forest soil. The idea scared him shitless, but he was prepared for, for, for bones poking through rotting flesh, for claws and glowing eyes and a horrible fucking death. That is familiar. This doesn’t fucking happen.
She can’t be here. Laura can’t be— Urgently, Travis presses two fingers to her neck; her skin is cold but beneath it, unmistakable, flutters a pulse. She’s breathing shallowly—he sees it now.
Alive.