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Hell had been raised for the group, and it wasn’t over yet.

After the neighborhood, no one spoke about it again. Somehow, they had all done things they regretted that day.

All of them.

Ah had put Hershey in charge of driving the car with Min in it while she took a nap in Matrix and Beta’s car. They were both against it but said nothing as they understood Hershey was the only one she trusted at that moment.

Now they were on their way to Elias, which Matrix kept graciously connecting to the word “Alias” as if it were some big, governmental, secret.

“Snack break!” Beta announced and Matrix groaned, putting the laptop under the seat.

“Oh thank God,” Ah spoke—the first time in hours—as Beta parked in front of the rest stop off the highway. “I’m really craving some pizza man.”

Matrix looked back at her with a furrowed eyebrow. Sleepily, she shook her head. “Sorry, I mean pizza…minus the man. It’s the Syncs—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Beta said, stretching his feet on top of the dashboard.

Ah left the car and went jogging to the vending machines. Matrix followed her hastily, and Hershey parked the other car and ran off after them.

Beta sighed as he saw Hershey run away, leaving Min asleep in the car. “And that would be illegal,” Beta muttered. Beta pulled out a book and began to read. Matrix, coming back to the car, leaned against Beta’s slightly ajar window. “Did you know Elias, in Urban Dictionary terms, means ‘one damn sexy mother fucker?’ This guy has sex with moms…think about that,” Matrix said before hurrying off after Hershey. Beta smiled, not being able to help himself.

As he read, the book started to shake, and soon he realized that his book wasn’t shaking, his hand was. And then he realized his hand wasn’t shaking, but the car was. And the car wasn’t shaking, but the ground definitely was. Beta closed his book as the shaking became more intense. He tried to open the door, but it was on child lock. He leaned over to press the unlock button, but it was broken when they had bought the car, and it was still broken now. Beta hit it aggravatedly. “Are you joking?” He was pretending to be calm, but in reality, the shaking was putting him on edge.

“Fine,” Beta exhaled, putting his hand on the door.

But nothing happened.

Beta froze, trying again. His powers weren’t working. “No no no,” Beta whispered, starting to panic. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Beta knocked on the window lightly. “Hey. Guys?” Beta sighed when he realized they were nowhere near him.

He climbed over the seats of the car and stared out the back window. There was a forest behind him, and he could see the trees shaking in the distance. Whatever was about to come out of that forest was something he didn’t want to tangle with. And on top of that, it was heading straight for him.

Beta’s heart sped up and he stumbled to the back seat. He yanked on all the door’s but none would open. It didn’t make any sense to him; everything about the car was fine until then. He pounded, frequently looking back to see how close the giant moving object was to crushing him. He pounded until his hands started to ache, finally stopping to search for something to break the glass. All he found was an umbrella in the back. He grabbed it, went to the front, and pounded the windshield with it. He managed to make a few cracks before the umbrella’s cap broke off. Beta screamed in frustration as he dropped the useless umbrella. He searched for something else.

Matrix sat on the bench with Hershey, looking at Ah as she awaited her snack to exit the machine with her rose gold headphones on blasting music.

“Hey, how’s Ah?” he whispered.

“How does she look,” Hershey replied. “She lost her husband, the only real link to pure humanity in her life, and now she’s raising a kid on her own.”

Matrix sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Yes, I know. Stupid question but…” Matrix got off topic. “Damn it Hershey I messed up.”

“How?”

“I…I ate people in front of her and her kid. I’ve got no self-control, Hersh.”

Hershey just stared at Matrix prolongingly. “You didn’t eat me…I’d call that self-control.”

Matrix smiled, but the smile didn’t last long.

He froze and soon after Hershey did as well. The thumping became nastier as time passed and it shook the ground madly. The few people at the rest stop looked around, concerned.

“It’s an earthquake! Everybody outside!” a man said.

Matrix stood up cautiously and shushed everyone. “There’s no way that’s an earthquake,” he announced. The ground shook more and Matrix lost his balance, falling. Hershey stood up to help but he ended up falling as well, hitting his head on the seat of the bench so hard he saw stars. Ah’s spirits kicked in then, the urge to protect their vessel strengthening. Matrix got up and stumbled to the exit of the building with Ah in tow, her headphones still on.

Matrix pushed the doors open and held it for others behind him that Ah was helping out. Beta looked over and saw Matrix and Ah standing there and started banging on the window again. Matrix redirected his attention to the car, seeing Beta mouth incomprehensible words. “Matrix!?” Ah yelled and pointed in the background. They both looked into the distance to see the trees shaking, and it didn’t take long for them to realize that their precious new car and new friend were in its path. Matrix ran to the car, telling Ah to help everyone else. He flew across the grass, pulling the key out of his pocket and aiming it at the car. He clicked a few dozen times but it wouldn’t work. He finally got to the car and tried to rip open the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“What the hell is wrong with this bloody car?!” Beta cried out.

“I wasn’t the one who picked it ou—!” Before Matrix could finish an axe flew into the hood of the broken vehicle. Both Beta and Matrix jumped an inch backward, shocked. They looked up the hill at Ah, staring at them with a panic. Matrix took no time to question it and tore the axe out of the windshield.

Ah, in the meantime, looked around to realize that Hershey was nowhere to be found. She turned around and, as suspected, he was still in the building.

“Hershey!” Ah called out, running inside to him. Hershey was just lying on the tiled floor in a daze, barely responding at first when Ah laid hands on him. “Hershey get up!” He did, panic settling into his stomach as he let Ah practically carry him out the door.

“Get down!” Matrix yelled through the glass and Beta did. He hit the windshield repeatedly with the axe. He moved it backward, then forwards again and again until the windshield shattered. Beta jumped out of the window, Matrix helping. He grabbed his wrists and dragged Beta over the hood and out of the car.

They ran to the right. Matrix pushed Beta down into the grass and they covered their heads as the mysterious objects reached the edge of the woods and came into clear view. That’s when they all heard it, the animalistic sounds coming from the creatures anon. Matrix turned his head, looking up wide-eyed at the animals before him.

It was a stampede of elephants, but it was the size of the one in front that shook them to the core.

A living, breathing woolly mammoth, and they watched in horrible confusion as it trampled their only car.

Hershey’s eyes were like a deer’s eyes in headlights once the elephants came for him and Ah.

And then, instinct came in.

Hershey shoved Ah out of the way, which only made her stumble a few feet as weak as Hershey was at that moment. Seeing the beast’s coming for him, Ah made a last gesture, grabbing Hershey’s arm to pull him away. As he was almost out of the way, holding onto Ah with both hands and tilting, the woolly mammoth’s leg rammed into Hershey’s bottom half, making him spin and crash into the brick wall of the rest stop.

Ah’s mouth hung agape as the sheer force of the stampede and shock made her collapse to the dry grass.

All four of them awaited the stampede’s end, which felt like it lasted forever. Once all the elephants had passed the rest stop and moved on, Matrix and Beta got up, breathing heavily.

Matrix was the first to see Hershey lying on the ground as Ah ran to him. “Hershey!” Matrix stood up and ran. Beta followed quickly. Matrix leaned down in the glass-covered grass and picked up Hershey’s head. He had bruises on his arms and legs and his face had some bleeding cuts. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth.

“Tell me he’s not dead,” Beta said, more to himself than to anyone else. Matrix put his head on Hershey’s chest and when he did so, Hershey’s golden eyes sprang to life and he popped up. The tension in the air seized, everyone feeling a little bit better than a few seconds ago.

“Oh God my head hurts,” Hershey complained, rubbing his temple. They helped Hershey up and sat him down on the bench outside. Beta ran into the bathroom to get some wet paper towel and Kleenex. The rest of the civilians that were inside the rest stop were either phoning the police or freaking out about what had happened.

“Anyone else wondering why we were almost killed by a stampede of elephants and one extinct woolly mammoth at a freaking rest stop!?” Matrix said before anyone else got the chance to, his anger rising for reasons he couldn’t yet explain.

“If I were to guess, I’d say the intentions weren’t to hurt us. Just to show how powerful they were. And, you know, kill the car.” Beta cleaned Hershey up while he talked, ignoring the moans and groans and cries and whines of the people around them.

“What, you think the Syncs did this?”

“It’s possible.”

“Mmebeh Eleas dud ut,” Hershey mumbled but it came out in gibberish.

“What?” Matrix commented.

“I think he’s saying maybe Elias did it,” Ah said. Hershey nodded.

Matrix’s eyes widened. “What? The voice in your head controlled a whole stampede? Doubt it.” Hershey shrugged, or Hershey tried but the pain made him wince instead. “Maybe he’s stronger than just a voice, Matrix,” Beta argued.

“So…are we still going to find this sushi buying bitch?” Matrix asked. Beta sighed, rubbing his temple. It was crazy that even after all of that, his drive to find Elias was as wild as ever. “I think now that we’ve seen what he can do…we’ve got to.”