WANDERLUST: Season II

The memory of him never left me.

His touch still burns my hands and occasionally his eyes still standout in the dark of night. His voice still calls out my name, and his laughter still screams out to the audience. I feel his breath on my neck and the weight of him on my body.

I still hear him asking me,

“Where do you want to go?”

“Ella?… Ella?”

I snapped back to reality, back to the shitty cramped Ford. My seat was shaking with the purr of the motor. The windows were let fully down, so Allen could put off fixing the broken AC. The birds screamed, nearly drowning out the country that I tried to immediately switched off. I glanced over at the Marching Band, still practicing for the "big" graduation day. There were around one hundred people missing from their usual spots due to the chaos of Senior’s Final Day, I was among them.

“Ella, I swear to god I’ll take us both to Chipotle if you say nothing.”

My face was quick to contort and Allen burst out into laughter.

“God I know you too well, don’t I.”

His smile stayed smug while he adjusted the mirror and threw the great hunk of metal into reverse.

“I hope you hit a shattered bottle again.”

“Psh, with the way you screamed at the tire blowing out, I doubt it Sanchez.”
He suck out his tongue and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“So, seriously though, Ella…”

“Where do you want to go?”

It had been seven years since I last saw Wanderlust on stage, three less since I last saw him on screen. I'd seen all sorts of councilors and psychiatrists after he died. Mom figured they couldn't sue us after that, and they couldn't, so long as it stayed between me and the stiffs.

A lot of them didn't believe the story, they told me it was my mind making shit up out of trauma, that nothing like that exists. At least it was better than the few who'd prescribe me meds, only for the pharmacist to tell me they were anti-psychotics.

I gave up trying before high school began, mom kept at it, but after a while I seemed normal enough to her that she stopped caring too. It wasn't until I met a kid whose mom went missing that I mentioned it again. His name was Allen White, and he claimed that men in gas masks took away his mother and gave him laughing gas.

Everyone laughed at him. Until one day during an assembly, the whole gym filled with mist and the men in gas masks rushed in to grab any runners. I pretended to be out, running could only save me once. Allen was grabbed and taken aside and fed all sorts of pills until he knocked out. When we came around we were all told it was a gas leak, though I and Allen remembered through the inky taste.

That night we both hung out and he showed me a forum. Said I could look at all sorts of shit on there, see other peoples supernatural stories, see the local posts he made about ghosts, and even share my own if I had any. I asked then if he ever saw Wanderlust. He smiled and nodded away, telling me how he dreamed of being on the show and seeing the host in his signature falcon mask playing along with the kids.

I told him it was a fucking nightmare.

We both stayed together after that, we were the freaks of the school but no one but us knew it. Finally one night we were sitting in his rotting truck bed, watching a meteor shower when he asked me

“Where do you want to go?”

"For break? I dunno man, I'd say Mexico to visit family but you can barely speak Spanish."

We were laying in Allen's room, he was splayed across his bead like an oil spill while I hung off of his couch upside down. Some racing game from a Discount Family Video Bin was plugged in and controllers were in both of our hands.

"Nah, Nah, here here listen."

My hand could barely cover Allen's mouth fast enough. My head was dizzy, but still I held onto both mouth and controller tightly. His muffled speech could barely be heard over my laughter. I finally ripped it off when he licked my hand.

"Oh what the fuck, are you a child?"

I rubbed my hand through his hair and he burst out laughing. Once my hand was cleaned enough I went back to the game, still in third, in comparison to Allen's 5th, otherwise referred to as second to last.

"Okay though, seriously, seriously. I was asking Ella cause I wanted to take you somewhere."

I glanced back Allen's way my head slightly cocked. The bing from the TV brought me back to it.

"Where to?"

"A cabin in the woods."

"Ominous."

I zipped past an AI driver and found myself staring at second place.

"It's dad's hunting cabin, thought I could take you up there since there's a haunted mine near by."

"Haunted?"

"Mhm, hey also can you hand me the Cheetos?"

I glanced down at the half open bag and sneered.

"Not while we're gaming no, I don't want my controllers getting dirty, like last time."

"I'll clean them!"

I ignored the whining and kept on moving ahead. When the final lap came I was hollering with joy while Allen was giving the Cheetos bag grabby hands. I threw it his way sending dust and Cheesy hell bits all across his bed. I shrunk back, he only burst out laughing.

We spent the next hour cleaning, and once it was all done he was smiling looked at me.

"So, what do you say Ella, do you want to go?"

"To the cabin?"

"Yeah."

"I'll think about it."

Allen's smile turned into a frown for a split second before returning back,

"Yeah, just let me know if you want to go there or somewhere else, or uh… to like the movies, or to the local cemetery to ghost watch.. or"

He paused in his blabbering to look up me

"What I'm saying is let me know-"

“Where do you want to go?”

The phrase started ringing in my head someway on the halfway point between I-90 and I-80. It was in his exact same southern drawl, Allen turned the radio to some random pop station and I turned it up louder to drown him out. I looked out of the open window and into the woods below, ever so often I'd find myself staring down the red I once knew and feared.

It was the void, that pitch darkness, calling me and pulling me in. Allen shook me once or twice, trying not to get too distracted lest his license nearly get suspended again.

I glanced in the back with all of our supplies, soda and snacks, Switches and DS's, pillows and blankets, a change of clothes and toiletries, and a shotgun for bears. I told Allen we would absolutely not use it. He agreed, said it was his father's choice, not his.

I stayed silent the whole way there, Allen on the other hand sung to every song on the radio he knew and switched channels when it was one he didn't.

We were nearing the second to last exit, getting ready to turn off for gas when I saw something, up in the trees. The headlights flashed and the gold reflected right back into my face. It took the shape of a crooked falcon mask posed on a man's face. He was staring down at us. I swear I could see his smile.

"Allen keep driving."

"Whu?"

"Allen the gas station lights are off don't pull of here."

"Oh shit… They aren't? Thought it was a mile off."

"It's not Allen, I saw them, they're off."

The ticking of the blinker stopped and the truck drifted back into the turning lane.

"God what would I do without you Ella."

"Probably get lost."

I stared out the rear view mirror, waiting for another car to pass and hit that spot up in the trees just right with their headlights. Though it never came.

The final exit couldn't come soon enough, we were on the final gallon, scanning for some dingy place off of the side of the highway when Allen pointed out the exit like the holy land. We both screamed and he whipped off.

Of course filling the tank was the boring bit, the most fun we had was betting how much it would cost to fill the whole thing up. He guess 50, I guessed 30 cents knowing that we were playing by Price is Right rules. I won, meaning he had to buy the snacks and drinks for the finishing mile.

He went inside, picking up everything that I requested. I was smiling at my victory first, until I felt it. That void feeling of being alone in a buttfuck gas station so close to the woods. It felt illogical that a murderer was there, but still the image of the mask from twenty miles before flashed in my head.

We were going eighty, maybe one-hundred with the way Allen drives. It was far behind us if it was him. Better yet, it likely wasn't him, I'd been told before, by those folks on the form that he was a spirit, or a ghost. He was trapped to the studio, trapped to the crash site. Either or, he was trapped likely a thousand miles away from me.

My breathing calmed and the convenience store bell dinged. Poor Allen was standing there, arms full of every type of tooth rotting candy one could imagine and then the "health food" chips I liked. I helped him chuck it all in the cab though not before picking out some veggie sticks from the pile and tossing it to my seat. The disgust on his face could barely be rivaled.

"We're all good yeah?" I asked.

Allen nodded, turning the key. It took several minutes before the truck roared to life. It shook horribly, causing me to explode open the veggie sticks mid opening. Allen covered his face, I was not so fast. He and I both laughed before we pulled out of the lot, bit by bit I threw out the floor sticks, letting them race across the air before settling into ditches.

Except for one, which thunk-ed against something as if the thing was blended into all of reality. We were going by too fast for me to see anything at all, but somehow the question got louder in my head:

“Where do you want to go?”

Allen was stretching out of his sleeping bag and onto the bison fur rug. The fire from last night was embers and our snacks had been fully raided, save for the donuts, which were currently being raided.

"What do you mean?"

"Haunted mines, big ass lake, walk in the woods or lazy day, what do you want Ella-Fella?"

His smile was dopey, face half hidden by the fuzz. I raised a powered doughnut above my head, he cringed away near immediately.

"I'll do it."

Allen mumbled out something that ended in Ella-Fella. Powder went everywhere across the hide and wooden floors. He screamed out with laughter. I jumped back up and grabbed the doughnut to slam it into his face further when his phone started incesently buzzing. He held up his hands in defeat and I began cleaning up the mess.

"Hello? Yeah I sent you that text last night?"

I shook through the bison fur and shoved the powdered sugar into the wooden cracks.

"Yes we brought everything you told us to."

Allen rolled his eyes and smiled at me. It quickly dropped into a tight-knit frown as the voice spoke again.

"Yes no funny business I know."

"Yes dad! Thank you! Bye!"

I burst out laughing. Hitting my legs further.

"Allo people huh?" I said, poking into Allen's side.

He chuckled back.

"God always fucking with them."

"Yeah they don't even do the cool things like go ghost hunting!"

Allen smiled goofy, leaning into the half bark wooden table.

"So is that what you want to do today?"

I nodded, handing him the final doughnut, he held his hand to his heart.

"Oh thank you, I accept this marriage in ghost hunting now!"

I rolled my eyes, he laughed in reply.

"You really are a theater kid huh?" I asked

"You were the only one on TV."

When he finished up he stood, looking about.

"So we head off now?"

I shrugged,

"Yeah, why not?"

….

Authors note for da post:

I have been wanting to kill off wanderlust ever since i created him. I knew its how he had to end, Ella had to kill him. Im happy that she did. I also dont know if this is her happy end as these things, they haunt people and effect them for the rest of their lives. obviously its good to get rid of them but she has a long long ways to grow.

Anyways, as always, to the person i wrote this for: go throw your toaster(its important its plugged in) in a pool and take a nice long swim, or go to jail, both are great in my book.

..

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