Earlier that night, Neo had thought that there was nothing scarier than being alone in the mountains at night. It had seemed like a valid hypothesis before, backed by intense observation. Now, however, he found himself realizing he'd been wrong. Being alone in the mountains at night wasn't the scariest thing in the world.

The one thing scarier than that was suddenly discovering you were, in fact, not alone.

Squinting against the headlights, he ducked behind the seat, peering into the blindingly bright light until he could see something other than the burn against his retinas. His mind was racing through all the possibilities why a car could be here at this time of the night. None of them were in any way promising. Most of them were terrifying.

"What the hell," Zeke muttered beside him, shielding his eyes. "Who drives up here in the middle of the night!"

"Shh," Neo whispered back, motioning for him to lower his voice and also his head. "Do you want them to hear you?"

"Like they can even hear what we're saying in the car," Zeke muttered, but he did lower his voice. "You—uh—think they could help us get out of here?"

He was trying to sound optimistic, Neo could tell, but his voice faltered as he spoke. Both of them watched with wide eyes as the unfamiliar car pulled up beside them, its shape indistinguishable in the dark except for the blinding glow of the headlights.

"Maybe it's just people who wanna see some stars," Zeke said after a while, quietly and without conviction.

"Or photographers or something," Neo agreed. "Or someone doing dumb shit. Like ghost hunting or a test of courage."

"Uh huh."

They waited. Nothing happened. The car's lights went dark.

"Or maybe it's something else," Zeke mused, almost conversationally. "Like poachers or something."

"Or someone trying to hide something," Neo added, trying to keep his voice as even and unbothered as possible. "Like drugs."

"Or a body."

"Or another suitcase full of cash," Zeke tried to lighten the mood, but his voice fell flat in the darkness.

"Maybe," Neo agreed. "Or it's a serial killer."

Zeke shrank behind the seat. Neo inched closer to his side, pulling the scarf more tightly around the two of them. Suddenly the night was chilly again. He wished they had some kind of weapon with them in the car, a gun maybe, anything to protect themselves with. But since they had packed for a flight back in Chicago, the most dangerous thing in their luggage was a discarded plastic spoon.

If the person in that car turned out to be armed and dangerous, Neo knew they would have no way to protect themselves. Except by running away, in the dark, in the foresty mountains in unknown territory, which was basically a death sentence in itself. That…or fighting, barehanded. If push came to shove—literally—one of them might have to protect the other, maybe even risk his life so at least one of them could get away. If that happened, would Neo try to shield Zeke? Would he take a knife for him…or even a bullet?

Regrettably for everyone involved (especially himself), he found that the answer was probably yes.

But for now, at least, there was no sign of anyone trying to attack them. No one even got out of the car. It just stood there, completely dark, and no matter how hard he strained his ears he couldn't hear what might be going on inside. What on earth was happening there? Was it a trap? Was the person inside the car waiting for them to let their guard down before killing them in cold blood?

"Why's that car just standing there?" Zeke muttered beside him. "Either that person wants something up here or they don't."

Neo nodded. "This is suspicious."

"Extremely." Zeke inched closer, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. "Maybe he's waiting to make sure we're asleep before he gets out the body bag."

They exchanged a glance.

"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" Zeke added.

Neo gave a sharp nod. "Let's pretend to be asleep."

Turning back around in their seats, they reclined as best they could, adjusting the scarf and closing their eyes. Zeke started snoring quietly until Neo elbowed him in the side; after that, he let out an irritable huff and very deliberately leaned his entire weight on Neo's arm and shoulder.

"What," Neo managed out, "are you doing?"

"Sleeping," Zeke replied. "Say nighty-night to the feeling in your arm."

"You could sleep anywhere else."

"I can't annoy you anywhere else," Zeke retorted, and Neo didn't have to open his eyes to know he was sticking out his tongue. "Good night, I hope you dream something scary."

"I hope you can't sleep all night," Neo shot back. He resisted the urge to lean on Zeke in return, resting his head against Zeke's messy hair, but it was a damn near thing.

For some time, everything was quiet. Neo didn't dare move, but every so often he found himself cracking open an eye, glancing over to the car parked beside him. Definitely too dark to tell what was going on. Had the driver fallen asleep too? Were they still lurking inside, waiting for a chance to do whatever misery business they had come up here for? Did he even want to know?

Well, yes. He did want to know. He didn't, but he did. It was complicated. Kind of like watching a fight break out behind the bar at three A.M. and recognizing, with your last sober brain cell, that it was not your problem and you should walk away before it became your problem, but being too morbidly curious to stop watching and leave. That, or rescuing a certain guitarist from his absolute douche canoe of a singer and getting stuck in a band with him. In either case, not an attitude that usually ended well for him.

The night crawled on. There were barely any signs of life coming from the car, which was in itself suspicious. Had the person inside come all the way up here and died? Should someone call an ambulance? What was that number—911, right? Even after all his time living abroad Neo still wasn't entirely sure that number wasn't purely fictional.

Sure, the car had creaked and wobbled earlier, but no one had gotten in or out. At least, no one he could see. But then again, he hadn't heard a car door either, so maybe no one had actually entered or left and he didn't have to worry about potential invisible serial killers prowling around the car and waiting to strike.

Invisible serial killers? Son of a bitch, he was starting to think like Zeke. They had clearly been stuck together for too long already.

The car shook again, rocked, but still the doors didn't move. Neo opened both eyes now, turning as far as he could without pushing Zeke off his shoulder. Something was going on, but clearly it didn't involve getting in our out of the car. Was the driver still cutting up the body before dumping it in the woods? Should someone call the cops? Oh right. No reception. Or did that not count for emergency numbers? He dimly remembered hearing something like that once, but it might be a myth.

But before he could come to a decision, someone in the car let out the most eardrum-shattering scream.

Neo's heart leaped into his throat. Beside him, Zeke jumped out of his half-sleep like a startled cat. Both clung to each other, shivering.

"This sounds bad!" Zeke whispered, fingers digging into his arm. "Really bad! What do we do?"

Stay out of it, said one half of Neo's brain. The other said, Get involved.

"Get out of it," he wound up saying. "No…stay involved."

"What?"

Another scream. More muffled this time.

Whispering a curse, hating every decision that had ever brought him here, Neo unlocked the car door and stormed out.

"Hey!" Zeke called out, following him without missing a beat. "You can't do this! If they kill you for this, I'll have to do paperwork!"

But Neo had already reached the car. The windows were dark, showing nothing except for the reflection of the moon and his own faint shadow. If he wanted to know what was going on inside, he had to open the door…or the window.

Squaring his shoulders, putting one hand to his belt like he actually had a weapon there, he banged on the window.

The car went quiet.

"Hey, asshole!" he shouted in what he hoped was a convincingly threatening voice. "Open the door or I'm calling the cops!"

There was a girly shriek from somewhere inside, then a scramble, then a hand landed on the window and wiped it. He hadn't just seen nothing because it was dark, Neo realized. The window had been foggy.

And suddenly it dawned on him that he had made a terrible mistake.

The lonely place and the night had deceived him. There was no terrible crime happening here. The two people in the car—teenagers, from the looks of it—had been doing something perfectly mundane. Something you could write great songs about (The Heist had some in their discography), but not something very comfortable in real life (Neo had tried) and certainly not the type of thing you wanted to witness and interrupt. And now that the survival horror filter had left his brain, he realized the scream hadn't sounded like someone being murdered either. More like someone being a little too expressive about having a good time.

There was an awkward pause.

"Oh," he said at length, rapidly backing away and covering his eyes in a frantic attempt to give them privacy and unsee what he had just seen.

"Sorry," he said.

"Wrong person," he said.

"Leave us alone, weirdo!" a girl's voice shouted from the car. "We came up here for some privacy, you creep!"

"We can't leave you alone!" Zeke shouted back. "We'd love to! But we're out of gas!"

"What?" said a male voice.

"We're out of gas!" Zeke gestured to the dead car. "Car not turning on! We're stuck, guys!"

"Hang on!"

The car rocked frantically, then a boy of around eighteen jumped out, zipping up his jeans and pulling a flannel shirt over his arms, not realizing or not caring that it was inside out. Hurrying to the trunk of the car, he pulled out a smallish container of gas (not a gallon, Neo was pretty sure a gallon was bigger than that, although he had no concept of it to begin with) and shoved it into Zeke's hands.

"Don't worry about the container, man," he said. "Just leave and never come back."

"Never ever," Zeke promised. "So long, and goodbye!"

A few minutes later, it really was running again. At least enough to get them to the nearest gas station. In the car, both guitarists were silent; they had somehow come to the unspoken agreement to never mention this incident again and pretend it had never happened.

"And where do we go from here?" Zeke said around a yawn when they reached the gas station. "We still need a place to sleep."

Neo shrugged, downing his terrible gas station coffee and washing it down with an energy drink. "You sleep," he said, vibrating slightly. "I'm awake again."

"And then I can drive while you sleep?"

"Whatever."

"Was that a yes?"

"No."

"But you're gonna crash the car if you keep driving on no sleep!"

Neo flexed his hands. They were a little jittery, and he was starting to see colors normally reserved for mantis shrimp, but it was still a better alternative than Zeke driving. "I'm awake," he said. "Sleep. Everything else comes later."

With that he returned to the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot and back on the road.