Back when I worked for him, one of the first things I learned about Bobby was that he detested few things more than silence. A shocking thing to hear about a man living several feet underground, no doubt.

I remember this one time we were at a train station. (This was before he lost his head, so walking around in public wasn't an issue.) We'd just missed our train. So, we sat out on the platform. It was pretty cold night, so it was just the two of us. I was exhausted, desperately trying to find the willpower to make it until the next train. I was already sure I'd pass out the moment we got on-board. I was looking forward to it.

The only noise was the sound of Bobby impatiently tapping his feet.

"They're going to do it, I heard." he said. "They're really going to colonize the Moon."

I said nothing.

"Someone said that in just a few years, getting there will be like getting on the bus. Crazy, right?"

I said nothing.

"It's totally crazy, if you ask me. What's so damn good about the Moon, anyway? It's just gray everywhere. I bet half the people who go there are gonna be bored in like a week and be too stubborn to admit the whole thing was a waste of time and money."

I said nothing.

"Then again, hey, when the world ends, it might be a good—Okay, fuck this."

He got up and jumped on the train tracks.

I leaped out of my seat. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Making conversation!"

Making conversation. An antique store where everything screams. A home deep below earth. Marble hallways. A fancy elevator. A wolf's head.

Making conversation.

"C'mon now, it won't hurt to try it." I can hear him say to Dee from the back. She's sitting next to me while I drive, refusing to make eye contact. "It's been like half an hour and you guys haven't so much as said a word! Are you always like this?"

She continues to stare out the window. It's like he's not even here. Like I'm not even here.

"You didn't have to come." I whisper to her. "I could've taken care of—"

I stop. She didn't so much as move a muscle, but the message reached me just fine: "Just shut up."

The camper shakes and rumbles every few seconds. It should only be a little after noon, but the treetops have all but covered the sky. I've had to turn on the headlights. The forest feels ominous; and not just because of the darkness. These trees are no doubt aged and diseased, yet the leaves look as green and plentiful as ever. It's a trick of the mushrooms. I'm certain of it. They cover the surfaces of most trees; embedding their mycelium deep within the trunks. These trees must've died long ago. Now it's just the mushrooms playing the puppeteer.

I glance over at Dee. I feel a little ashamed for my thought. I'm so desperate to try and get her to look my way that I consider sharing it and immediately apologizing for the grotesque comparison. I realize that, on any other day, for anyone else, the thought would've just sounded dumb. It wouldn't have meant anything. It doesn't, really. Dee would tell me it doesn't. But everything suddenly feels like a minefield.

The only thing I can safely offer is silence.

"So! That Moon thing!" I can hear Bobby scratching the back of his head. "First apartments and everything! Have you seen the photos? Looks neat. I mean, I'd never live there, personally. But, you know, if the world ends or becomes a molten pack of lava, it's a nice thought that there's somewhere we can escape to."

"And then what?" I jump at the realization the question was Dee's.

"Then... what what?"

"The world ends. We run away to the Moon. But before that, we'll see that Earth's ending. So, in our panic, we'll probably do something that makes the Moon a worse place to live. Maybe people get too antsy and start fighting to get their own little spot. Maybe the politics of the Moon end up being a jumbled, inconsistent, regressive mess. Maybe so many people get on the Moon that it just becomes uninhabitable. Maybe it's impossible to even sustain the colonies. Can food be produced? Can animals be raised? And, besides, whatever destroys the Earth will probably destroy a part of the Moon. They're not that far off. That is, assume, the colonization doesn't destroy the Moon to begin with. So, okay, with all that in mind, we run to the Moon anyway. And everything's shit. Then what?"

"Well aren't you a downer."

"Of course, for us us, it doesn't really matter. We'll just come back as something else." She snaps her fingers. "By the way, when the apocalypse does come, will you make sure to bring along all the people you've got trapped in your shops? Because, you know. They can't escape anywhere. Now or ever."

Bobby sighs. "I'm sensing some hostility."

"Wow. That wolf head really must help you pick up on the subtlest of cues. Truly, you are the perfect predator."

I hear Bobby groan. "Frankly, I don't understand where you're even coming from here. I give those people purpose. I didn't choose for them to end up in the objects they did."

"You did choose to force them into doing something they don't want."

"They didn't want to come back to begin with, but things aren't that easy, as you yourself should understand. Or, I guess you wouldn't." He stops, but Bobby isn't the type to just stop talking without trying to make some kind of point.

I keep my attention to the road. As bumpy as the road is, there are times where it feels like some of the tree branches move on their own. There's no wind. No coincidence, either.

We're being watched.

Bobby clears his throat. "Did you know that some people — dumb teenagers mostly — sometimes take hamsters and just throw 'em through windows? Recent thing, deeply fucked up, if you ask m—"

Dee turns to me. "How much have you told him about me?"

"Oh, he didn't tell me anything. I'm just playing through the game. Fascinating dude, this pr0c guy."

She looks over her shoulder. "Get off my laptop!"

"I seem to remember this being the laptop I gave to Juice fo—"

"It's her laptop." I say. "Just put it away."

By the time I look at Dee, she's already focused her attention back to the window. Great.

"You know," I catch myself shaking my head, "I don't even understand why we're doing this. I thought Clara was a non-threat at this point."

"She ripped my head off, Juice." Bobby says simply.

"Yes, as a way of brokering peace. Which you're now breaking. Speaking of, I thought the whole point of said peace was to get those cultists of hers to put manual labor in for you. If she dies, those guys aren't just gonna work for you by default."

"I'm well-aware. Well-aware!" He laughs.

There's a light off in a distance. They must've turned it on when they were sure someone was coming. It's a warning as much as it is an invitation. The warning says: 'You shouldn't be here.' The invitation says: 'Come and see what we've seen.'

Even inside, it feels like I can hear the cracking of twigs. We're not safe in this camper any more than we'd be going on foot.

"What work did Juice do for you, exactly?" Dee's voice catches me off-guard yet again. What's wrong with me?

"Made deliveries, mostly. And I sent him out a few times to find objects to keep the shops stocked. I tried to get him into engineering, but he was just garbage at it. It's a good thing I died with a degree in it, I guess. Otherwise, none of this would've been possible."

"Hmph. Yeah. Lucky." I can almost see the venom dripping from her mouth.

"Oh, and Juice was the only surgeon we had on-hand."

"I'm not a surgeon." I point out.

"Doctor. Whatever. Someone who knew where all the organs were and wasn't afraid to touch them."

"Why would you need someone like that?" she asks.

"We—"

"Well," I'm getting this; I won't let her just ignore me forever, "sometimes, my boss got onto some train tracks to 'make conversation,' and promptly got run over by — shockingly — a train."

"Good times. The new guy I got is more flexible — a lot more open to experimentation — but kind of a bore." Bobby makes his way to the front, tapping me on the shoulder. "See this guy? Nobody I'd trust more to murder a tree than him."

"A tree that operates a cult." Dee murmurs.

"A possessed tree that operates a cult full of dumbasses she's tricked into thinking she's an Eldritch being." Bobby corrects.

"And your former lover." I note. "Don't forget about that."

Dee frowns. "Uh. Before or after she ended up in the—"

I hit the brakes. In front of us stand three robed figures. Which means there are at least five standing in the back. This is as far as we're going.

"We're here." Bobby squeezes my shoulder. "Try acting nice and keep your mouth shut." he tells me.

"I'm always nice." I say.

"Then just keep your fucking mouth shut." He slides his hands into his pocket. "Don't forget your toys, kids."

Always impatient, he hops out of the camper, finally giving a chance for Dee and me to try and tal—

"I don't want to hear it." she says bluntly. "Now doesn't seem to be the time, anyway."

"I'm sorry." It's still the only thing I can think to say.

"Imagine if it's me in that store. Would it be fine then?"

"No! And I never said what he's doing is fine. I just told you the way he saw it."

"You worked for him."

"And why do you think I stopped?"

"Whatever it was, it wasn't because of this. Don't try to pretend otherwise. Those people were just objects to you then and I bet a lot of them still are now. Like I was up until recently. Right? You're the guy who gets used to all the screaming. That's what you told me, right? It was the only way to survive?"

"The screaming isn't, like, a thing specific to the shops, almost all of the people who wake up as—"

"But it is the loudest you've ever heard in the shops, isn't it? But, hey, I bet the ones you've 'psychologically broken,' aren't as bad. I'm sure those keep nice and quiet."

I squeeze the steering wheel. "No."

"No. Well. Learn something new every day."

She gets up. "And now we're going to burn down a tree with a living woman inside it because your 'friend' is asking us to."

"He's not my—"

"Whatever."

I close my eyes. Suddenly, it's like I'm right back at that train station. Bobby's spread himself out on the tracks. I'm standing at the platform, unsure of what the hell to do.

I'm still not saying anything.

It's pissing him off.

And in that moment, I realize I hate him.

I hear our train coming. He sees it, too, but doesn't seem to move.

Our eyes are locked. I'm so goddamn exhausted.

"I quit, Bobby." I tell him.

"You've got nowhere else to go." he says.

The train hits him. I stay on the platform. I can hear screaming from somewhere. Maybe it's Bobby's. It doesn't hurt him; if he's the one screaming, he's doing it just because he can.

A few minutes pass before I start looking for the pacemaker. I know we'll have to find him a new body. And I'm the man that'll have to install the pacemaker into it. And in the new body, he's gonna need time to adjust. He'll need me for that, too. Then there's some logistical stuff that still hasn't been settled. Probably not doable without me. And then there's The Order of St. Gareth. Those guys don't look like they're going to leave the woods anytime soon. They keep asking for some of our objects. Can't imagine Bobby's gonna manage to get out of that without me in some capacity. There's also that 'one brain, bunch of workers' idea he had. No doubt he'll try to get me to work on that, too.

You've got nowhere else to go.

I open my eyes. I'm back in the camper. Dee's standing right behind me. I can see her in the rear-view mirror. She's looking at me. I can't make out what her expression is.

"I'm sorry." I say.

She sighs. "I know. We'll— Look. You should've told me. I would've been angry, but I would've had a chance to process it. I could've talked to you instead of having to listen to that asshole drivel for half an hour. But the fact of the matter is, you made an idiot of me back there. And I'm not going to be receptive to whatever justifications you've got."

"I'm not going to try and justify it."

"This isn't a fucking sitcom. Those people died and now they're sitting on a shelf, hoping that they won't be picked for some mind-break procedure, or bought and thrown in the trash or whatever the hell can be done to them at this point. Because, most people, after they die, aren't going to have a grand time. I was lucky. I'm lucky every minute I get to even walk around the way I am now. That I can talk to you. I'm lucky I even met you. But when grandma Ethel dies at the age of 60 in her bed, she's not gonna like ending up as a washing machine in a house of people that she almost certainly doesn't even know."

She gets closer. "Now, Bobby can look at it however he wants. But even without the blatant, disgusting exploitation, I think—" She pauses. Deliberately. She needs me to understand this. I know. I'm listening. I don't want you to be mad at me. "—I think there's actually nothing worse you can do than put someone who's trapped in an object in a room full of other possessed objects. Because being in a room full of miserable people every hour of every day, who are in the exact same situation, and seeing that nothing's changing or getting better, is not going to make them get over what's happened to them. That's why they still haven't stopped yelling, Juice."

"I'm sorry." I still can't think of anything else. Please forgive me.

Please forgive me.

"Let's just go do this thing." she says. "Don't forget the syringe."

Please forgive me.

"We'll talk later, okay?" She heads for the door. The cultists have already surrounded that, too, but I don't care about that right now.

Please forgive me.

I get up, grab the poison, step outside the camper and get immediately grabbed by both shoulders. Bobby's already pressed face-down on the ground. Dee's swearing at the ones who've grabbed her. They're pulling me away from the door and it hurts.

But none of those things are reaching my head. To me, this is all already over. We've already survived this. Because she said we'd talk later, and we definitely will.

When that happens, I need to know how to beg her not to leave because of this one mistake. I didn't think it'd matter this much. Does it even matter as much? I don't know. I just need to make sure things are okay. I don't want her to leave me. I can't be alone again.

I don't have anywhere else to go.