Off To Alcatraz We Go (CLOSED)

I stood on the curb where Apollo had dropped us off, my head was dizzy from the speed we had been going in his cab, and I guess it was from finally meeting my dad and getting the coolest violin EVER.
"Well," I said, "that was... Interesting."
"I told you he was a pretty chill guy," Luke said.
"We'd better get going, guys," Roxy said staring at the airport, "need to catch a flight." Luke, Finn and I nodded and we jogged our way into the big gray building. when we entered we were greeted by a clusterfuck of unorganized people stressing about being late for their flight. The airport was nearly packed with people, most were rushing around giving their tickets and trying to get their luggage onto the plane in time. We seemed to be the calmest people in here. I was sure I wasn't making it out of this airport alive. Because of ancient Greek monsters? No. I was afraid I was going to get trampled by modern day people. The four of us seemed to walk closer together, I guess we were all scared of being run over. I was glad I packed light, over my one shoulder I carried a backpack, which held my green shorts, gray sweater, which had been torn and sewed with miss-matching patches of cloth over time, Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and clean socks and underwear. Over my other shoulder I carried my violin. I watched as people with as much as four suitcases lugged them around uncomfortably. sucks to suck, I thought to myself with a smirk. We stopped in front of a large board which showed the times of each flight. We all stood in silence, looking for the flight that we needed to take.
"Right," said Finn. Luke, Roxy and I turned our attention to her. She didn't avert her black eyes from the board and kept her fist to her mouth, her index finger placed under her nose in thought as she pondered what route we would take. "Why don't we take the 2:00from here to San Francisco, it's 12:30 now," she said. I looked back at the board and gave a small nod.
"Sounds okay to me, that means we have an hour to talk about our plan and relax a bit before we get on," I said.
"Sounds like a solid plan." Luke said.
"Let's go buy our tickets then... It might take us a while to get through THAT," Roxy said, pointing her index finger to the crowd of people lined up to get their tickets checked. The workers at the desks looked stressed out and overwhelmed. I felt kind of bad for them. The four of us got in line, the shortest and fastest moving one we could. People were bumping into me left and right. My stomach growled in hunger, I clutched my gut, realizing I hadn't eaten all day. The line moved slow at first, but as the workers at the counter got the hang of what they were doing again the line started to move quickly. Soon enough it was our turn. Luke walked up to the counter.
"Four tickets for the 2 O'clock flight to San Fransisco, please," he said.
"You got money?" The lady asked rudely.
"Um... Yes," Luke said digging in his pocket for the plastic bag full of money and Drachmas that Chiron had given us. When he found it he gave a sigh of relief and nodded to the woman. She sighed, chewing her gum and pressed some buttons on the computer,
"That'll be $240," she said, smacking her chewing gum against her teeth. I wanted to rip it out of her mouth and stick it in her ugly gray-rooted orange hair. Luke counted out the correct amount of money and passed it to her. She looked surprised that we could afford the tickets but took the money anyway, exchanging us our change and tickets. our tickets showed us where we would be seated. They were the seats at the back of the plane, there were four available, two in the very back, and another two in front of them. We walked away from the crowd and stuck our luggage onto the belt and watched it go. I decided to take my violin as carry on, as I wasn't ready to part with it yet.
"Well," said Finn rather suspiciously, "this has been easy so far..." Finn eyed around the airport with her black-hole eyes, "I don't like it," she said.
"Don't jinx it, man," Luke said, although he was also peering around the airport. My stomach growled again, I looked at the time. 1:15.
"Hey, guys, what about that food we packed, eh?" I asked. I looked at the expressions on their faces, they all looked like they were realizing how hungry they were. We found four seats and started unpacking food to eat as lunch. I unwrapped a chicken sandwich and started to eat.

As Luke hit the ground the plane jerked. My stomach twisted inside of me, like that feeling you get when you're on a roller coaster and you go down a small sharp hill that leads up to the large drop. I didn't want Luke to send the plane full of mortals on a risky roller coaster ride. I glanced at Lyssa, who had her back turned to admire the rage she was inflicting on the mortals. I looked up at the place where I'd put my violin, I grabbed it quickly. I glanced at Roxy and Finn who were both keeping an eye on Lyssa, they took a minute to look at me and I motioned for them to get down on the ground, which wasn't hard to do with the help of Luke. He pounded his fist angrily into the floor of the plane. It forced the plane to jerk so violently that all three of us felt our legs buckle underneath us and we all fell with a thud.
"Fuck, ouch," I whispered under my breath to myself rubbing my ass. I looked up at Luke and grabbed him by his sleeve, pinning him down on his back in the small space they give between seats. He kicked and fought and let out growls of anger. Roxy and Finn came army crawling around the corner. Finn helped me restrain Luke by holding his legs. Luke gave out a scream of rage and I cupped my hand quickly over his mouth to shut him up, as I didn't want Lyssa to notice our scuffle. That was a bad idea, as I had just freed his arm, which he used to blindly punch me in the eye. Roxy quickly jumped over to Luke, dodging his flying fist and holding him down with surprising power, I guess she had experience in restraining patients. I had both my hands over my right eye, I was rocking back and forth trying to keep myself from screaming in pain.
"Fucking hell, Luke! You hit hard," I said through gritted teeth. I lowered my hands and tried to open my eye. It hurt like a bitch so I shut it again.
"Fletch! What's your plan?" Finn asked in an urgent tone, seeming to be having some trouble keeping Luke's feet under control. I sat on Luke's stomach. I took out my violin and twisted the top right tuning peg, once again it turned into a beautifully crafted bow and arrow set, complete with quiver. I took an arrow out and notched it to the bow.
"Alright, Finn," I said, "you need to find a way to sneak around to the old lady and catch her when she's not looking, I'll be shooting the two headed snake, but I need you to keep her from coming over here. Don't let her see you or direct her rage to you. That's important."
"piece of cake," Finn muttered, I wasn't sure if it was sarcastic or not. I turned to Roxy.
"Roxy, I need you to stay with Luke and calm him down. Don't let him get angrier." Roxy nodded, and continued to hold Luke in a tight grip. My eye was throbbing, it was going to be hard to shoot the two headed snake, but Finn was the only one who had the skill to sneak over to the old lady and get a clear shot at her. I readied my bow, I caught the snake in my sights with my good eye, it was making it's way around the rows of seats, snapping and spitting it's poison. Finn had taken the route under the plane chairs to get to the lady, how she fit under them I had no idea, and it wasn't something I needed to be thinking about. I pulled back the silver string of my bow and took aim to the snake, I let go and the arrow whooshed past my head and hit one of the heads in the neck. The snake hissed and looked my way in anger. It began to advance towards me, and I notched another arrow to my bow. With my one good eye, I aimed for the mouth this time. Maybe I could block the airway it would choke. When it finally foolishly opened it's mouth to give a menacing hiss and I let go, the arrow went into the mouth, but off to the side. It stopped the two headed snake for a moment as it tried to cough up the arrow, it's blood dripping from it's mouth onto the floor. I took another arrow, biting my lip as I took aim, I sent it straight into its head above it's eye. I had been aiming for the eye, but I figured for one eyed aim that was pretty good. The front half of the snake fell, gasping for breath with the little life it had left and it's other half turned to lunge at me menacingly, spitting poison at me, which I blocked with the tray that fell from the back of the seat beside me. I took my bow and shot it in the nose this time, it hissed in infuriated anger and dragged it's other half along with it as it started to move as quickly as it could towards me. It got too close to shoot, I was backing up into Luke, who was calming down a bit, due to Roxy's soft coo's. I took the arrow from the bow in my hand and at the right moment, when the snake lunged to bite me, I jumped back jamming the arrow into the top of it's head. It squirmed in pain and hissed. I drove the arrow deeper into it's head and it stopped moving entirely. I took the arrows that were lodged into it's face and neck and wiped the blood off on the carpeted floor. It was sticky.
"Ew," I said miserably, "These were new arrows." A screech sounded from the direction of Lyssa. I looked over to see Finn on her shoulders. Her hands were positioned over Lyssa's mouth and eyes, so that she couldn't look in the direction of anybody or speak to them to insinuate rage in them. Finn was holding on for dear life, concentration showed on her face as Lyssa ran around the plane angrily. She was running my way, I held out my foot and looked at Finn to make sure she knew what I was going to do, she nodded, and as Lyssa fell, tripping over my foot Finn fell on top of her. Finn placed her feet on Lyssa's arms and bent forward, shoving Lyssa's face onto the floor. The spirit kicked and screamed in rage.
"Finn!" I yelled, throwing her my knife. She caught it and drove it into the back of Lyssa's neck, driving it upwards through her head.
"You'll pay for this, half-bloods!" Hissed Lyssa, screeching in pain and anger before she evaporated into a black smoke. Both Finn and I sat back, panting. Slowly, everybody on the plane began to come back from their blind rages. I held my hand over my eye as I sat on the ground. I knew this wasn't going to be the last horrible monster I got the displeasure of meeting on this quest. I took my bow and arrow and turned the top of the bow, it clicked and transformed itself back into a perfectly tuned violin. I placed it back in it's case and put it over my shoulder, adjusting the strap on my chest so the case would sit comfortably on my back. The three of us waited for Luke to say something. He was laying there in Roxy's lap with his hand over his eyes.

I woke up having trouble opening my eyes, my eyelids insisted on closing every time I tried to open them. My vision was blurry, my ears were ringing, my head was pounding and I couldn't feel any part of my body. I was laying on the ground. My head was propped up on something, someones chest. I tried to move my head to see who it was, but in my peripheral vision I saw an arm with a checkered wrist band attached to it. Luke, I thought. I lay there for a while longer, not like I had much choice. The ringing in my ears died down after a while, and my vision started to come back to me. My body began to remember how to work again but my head felt like a 1000 ton anvil had been dropped on it. I felt Luke starting to wake up under me too. Although he didn't move much I could feel his head jerking to the sides as he was probably trying to open his eyes. I got off of him and propped myself up.
"Augh, Gods.." I groaned holding my hand to my head.
"Fletch?" I head two voices say to my right, I looked over to see Roxy and Finn. Roxy was in the middle of bandaging Finns upper arm near her shoulder.
"Have a good cuddle?" Asked Finn with a cheeky grin.
"How is it that you can find time to joke at any time and have it still be okay?" I asked her, secretly admiring her for it, as whenever I joked in bad situations people tended to get pissed off at me.
"It's a gift," she said shrugging the arm that wasn't damaged. Roxy finished bandaging Finns arm and made her way over to me. Her face was cut on her lip and forehead, probably by flying glass.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
"I don't know, Doc, am I?" I said. She checked me over, making sure my eyes were dilating in light and doing what they were supposed to do, and checking my reflexes and reaction time to make sure I didn't have a concussion.
"Yeah, you're okay," she said, "Here," she handed me a small square of Ambrosia. I took it from her with a crooked smile and ate it. It tasted like grandmas home-made cookies. It left a cloudy feeling in my head, but when it subsided I felt better than I had.
"Thanks, Rox," I said, relaxing myself,
"Don't mention it," she replied sitting next to Luke. Finn sat beside her and we waited for him to wake up, his head began to jerk to the sides again after a while and his green eyes fluttered open. They shot open in surprise seeing all of us looking at him, he tried to sit up, I guess he forgot where he was, but he relaxed when he remembered.
"Shit, guys, what's with the Edward Cullen move?" He asked, though his voice sounded weak and pained.
"Luke, look at me," Roxy said. He did as she asked and she looked over him, doing the same thing as she had done to me. She started to clean his scratches and gave him some Ambrosia. We all sat in silence for a while, trying to recollect our scattered thoughts.
"Have you guys gone to the back of the plane to check on the mortals?" I asked
"Yeah, they're alive, but none have woken up yet," said Finn.
"What are we going to do with them?" I asked, "we can't just leave them here." Nobody said anything, we sat there and tried to think. I didn't even know where we were, or how we were going to get to our destination with no plane. I waited for someone to say something tensely.

Luke leaned on me as he dialed 911 for the police to report the plane crash. The four of us looked around wearily in search of monsters that would unlikely appear out of nowhere. Luke held the phone up to his ear and let it ring, finally an operator picked up.
"911, what's your emergency?" They asked, they sounded like a woman, probably in her 40's.
"I'd like to report a plane crash," Luke said.
"Where are you located?" The woman spoke more urgently, even though Luke kept his voice as calm as he could.
"Somewhere in.. Kansas?" Luke guessed, "can't you trace the call?"
"Yes, sir, how many on the plane?" asked the woman.
"Uh, about... 90?" Luke guessed again.
"Are there any injured?" Asked the lady.
"Two pilots dead, and no other serious injuries." Luke replied.
"Alright, stay where you are, we're sending police officials now. Keep everybody calm," said the lady.
"Thank you," Luke said, hanging up the phone. He chucked the phone into the smashed window of the cockpit, "fuck that," he said, "let's go, guys." Finn and Roxy took the lead as Luke and I followed behind them, Luke still using me as a support. We walked as fast as we could in the direction the plane nose was pointed. We trudged through long grass, which seemed like it had never been cut. It fell over in the direction the wind was blowing, some of it was dead and easy to walk through. Slowly Luke was beginning to regain his strength, although he probably would have regained it faster if he had taken a minute to let himself feel better. I knew why he felt rushed. He had no idea what Charlie was planning to do with his friends, I knew he just wanted to get them back. We walked on for what seemed like hours in the sun.
"How are we going to get where we need to go again?" Finn asked looking back at Luke.
"We need to find a road, then maybe we can find a taxi," Luke replied.
"Luke, we barely have any money left," Roxy said looking back, "do you know how much it will cost to get all the way to California from Kansas or wherever the heck we are?" Luke looked down. I knew he blamed himself for getting us into this, but none of us saw this coming.
"Rox, there are two Apollo kids here, and ones got an instrument... Which he's pretty kickass at playing if I do say so myself," I said pointing to my violin, "if we really need to go begging for money on the street I can arrange something." Roxy thought about it for a moment and nodded.
"We've also got a thief," I said looking at Finn, "pickpocketing has to be a skill you've mastered, eh?" Finn nodded slowly, she looked like she was starting to like this plan. "Don't worry about money," I said, "we can handle that." Luke was walking straighter now, he looked at me and gave a thankful smile as Finn and Roxy turned their heads. I smirked and held out my fist for a bro-fist. Luke returned it and grinned, looking forward again. Finally, after walking in the sun most of the day we made it to a road, which lead to one of the biggest cities I've seen besides New York City. Cars zoomed past us on the highway, and just across the road there were shops and restaurants lined up.
"If we're in Kansas... This must be Wichita," I said out loud. We found a place to cross the road and walked up the shops.
"We should ask someone where we are," mused Roxy. Finn nodded and poked a guy that was was about to pass her. He stopped and faced her. He was a big guy with greasy hair and an impressive handle bar mustache, he wore beige shorts and socks with his sandals, he also wore a Hawaiian styled shirt with bright pink Hawaiian flowers.
"What do you want?" He said in an annoyed tone looking down at Finn who looked into his brown eyes.
"What state is this?" She asked.
"Kansas," the man replied.
"What city?"
"Wichita." Finn nodded and thanked him, we kept walking.
"We should figure out what the plan is," I said, looking at Luke, Finn and Roxy.
"Let's go into this diner," Luke said tilting his head to his right to a small diner. The words 'Kansas Greasers' were lit up in red, flashing through the night sky. The diner was themed like an old gang hangout in the 1960's or 70's. Waitresses walked around with their hair done up and lips red like they were teenaged girls living in the 60's.
"Alright, sounds good." The four of us piled into the diner and took a seat into the booth. Well, more like we all flopped onto each other in fatigue. Roxy sat beside Finn and Luke sat beside me.
"GodsDAMN it's good to sit down," said Finn extending her legs to put them on the seat next to me. I looked at them, then looked up at her. She winked at me with a smirk and I let it slide.

Sleeping four people in a cramped tent is not easy. There is very little room, and you're all squished together. Luke jolted awake, as if he'd had a bad dream or had had a dream of falling, I woke up thinking something was wrong. I looked around, only to see Luke pressed up against me, half asleep, probably trying to get a hold of his surroundings. His arm was around me. I grinned,
"Have a nice sleep, Dear?" I asked, trying to imitate my best female voice.
"mmm," said Luke, with a smile tightening his arm around me. He nuzzled his face into the back of my neck until he realized what he was doing. He sat up with a surprise and removed his hand from around me.
"We need to stop cuddling," I said with a smirk, rolling onto my back to look at him.
"What? When were we cuddling last?" He asked in a tired and confused voice.
"I was using you as a pillow on the plane," I said. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. I looked around, trying to see if Roxy and Finn were still in the tent. I knew Finn would have something to say about this, but they weren't there. I heard voices outside in the distance, maybe they'd gone for a walk because they sounded like they were getting closer. Luke got up and pulled his pants on over his boxers. He threw me my clothes from my bag. My Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, black pants and lucky gray sweater. I slipped on my shirt, running my fingers through my dirty hair.
"Ugh, need a shower," I mumbled to myself.
"Yeah, you do," Luke agreed.
"You're one to talk, Morning Wood," I said.
"Morning Wood?" Luke sounded confused, then he remembered, "godamnit, Haiku Face." I grinned as I struggled with my black jeans. I put on the soft sweater, the sweater I refused to throw away, although there was no reason to throw it away, it fit me fine. This sweater had been through every big experience in my life. It was ripped and patched up, and so worn that it was soft and thin. Luke and I exited the tent to meet Finn and Roxy, who were sitting on a bench. They turned their bodies to look at the tent at the sound of the zipper as we closed it.
"Good morning, Love Birds," called Finn. I guess she had noticed Luke and I sleeping together when she had woken up. We got closer and I leaned on the back of the bench.
"Jealous?" I asked her, grinning.
"Of course not, I can appreciate some guy on guy action," she said, making her fingers walk up my arm to adjust the hood of my sweater. I let out a lame 'pfft' noise and stopped leaning on the bench, feeling the flush of red in my cheeks, as much as I tried to hide it. Finn looked at me with a grin, knowing she'd won this round.
"Get a room, guys." Roxy said, almost grudgingly.
"Maybe later," Finn said with a wink at her. Roxy's ears turned pink and she looked away.
"Again with the sexual tension," Luke cut in.
"Alright, guys, on a more serious note, what are we going to do?" Roxy asked. We sat there and thought for a moment, we all knew we needed money. We had enough to eat, maybe go to a grocery store and stalk up on food, but we needed enough to travel.
"We should go to a grocery store and get more food, all of ours was destroyed and lost in the crash. We can afford that, but then we need to figure out what we'll do for transportation," I said, repeating my thoughts out loud.
"So, are we going to get that money by stealing it and conning it off of people?" Finn asked, I knew she was getting excited about it.
"Well, if we can't find another way then yeah," I said, "we're going to have to."
"Is that the only way? I'd feel bad for taking other peoples money," Roxy said, Luke looked at her, looking like he agreed with her.
"Homeless people do it all the time, Roxy," I pointed out, "we're basically homeless right now too, it's the same thing." She took a minute to think about it and nodded slowly, probably not totally sold on the idea. I thought for a minute, trying to analyze another way to get us to California.
"What about the Chariot of Damnation?" I mused quietly, although everyone heard me.
"No, we're way out of their area," said Luke, the others nodded in agreement. "Plus, if I can help it, I never want to ride that thing," he said.
"Right," Finn said, "so we're stealing."
"got a plan?" I asked the thief.
"Yeah, it's pretty simple. You'll stand outside on the sidewalk and play your violin, people will give you money, if you're good enough they'll gather around. When they do, I'll go around stealing as much money as I can. Roxy and Luke, you go around making a big deal about Fletch to people who are coming so that they'll take interest." Finn finished, crossing her arms and grinned. I was impressed, she was a smart girl. I had tried stealing things like food more than once before Camp Half-Blood, I always got caught, I wondered if maybe Finn could teach me how she did it.
"Alright, let's pack up and head out to a busy corner then," said Luke. Finn and Roxy got up from their bench and the four of us jogged to the tent. Luke and I cleared it and started to re-pack everyone's bags as Finn and Roxy took down the tent. We walked for a while until we made it to a small flea market on the corner of one of the roads, people had stands up and were selling freshly grown fruit and home-made bread. It all smelled so good.
"There's a lot of people here," Finn said, "alright, we'll start here, Fletch, you ready?" I nodded taking my violin off from my back and taking it out of the case. It fit me perfectly, feeling so natural. I took the bow and strummed a few chords to make sure it was tuned, a few people looked up at the sound. It sounded brand new. Finn went to duck behind a garbage dumpster. I left the case open at my feet and started to play upbeat tunes. Country songs, Irish songs I even stopped using the bow and strummed it like a Ukelele, singing a happy love song. People gathered quickly throwing money into the case, although I barely took notice of them, I was lost in my own music. Playing brought me to a happy place, I thought of my grandma, grandad and Casper. He used to love watching me play the violin and my Uke in my old house. That was one of the reasons we clicked together almost immediately, because we both had a strong love for music. Luke and Roxy were running around getting peoples attention and Finn was casually walking by people taking their wallets from their pockets and purses and collecting their money. She gave a me a signal to stop, and I took a bow, the audience clapped and cheered. I packed up the violin feeling quite proud of myself. As the audience dispersed, going back to their shopping and browsing Finn, Roxy and Luke ran up to me.
"Fletch! That was amazing, you really are good a that," Roxy said. I smiled.
"Thanks, Rox."
"Yeah, I thought you were just kidding when you told us you were good," said Finn. She smiled at me in a joking manner and I grinned back. Luke gave me a bro-fist and looked at the violin case, bills and coins scattered around it. Finn reached into her pocket and brought out a wad of bills and coins. We sat there and counted the money, we were up to $550 including the money we already had.
"Alright, that should get us some food, and leave us with enough to buy another four plane tickets to San Francisco," I said.
"If we get the food from here we'll definitely have enough," Luke said, "while Roxy and I were running around I looked at the prices of the food, it's really cheap. $1.50 for a loaf of bread."
"Perfect," said Finn. We got up and started shopping.

The four of us walked down the road, Roxy and Finn were once again leading, holding a conversation of their own while Luke and I strayed a little farther back. I walked at his paced, playing with the strap of my violin case. Luke looked so unsure of himself, like he had so much going on in his ADHD mind. He walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and had his shoulders shrugged, he was staring at the ground as he walked.
"Hey," I muttered to him. It jogged him from his thoughts an he looked up at me. "It's gonna' be okay, Luke."
"Your name wasn't what those girls were screaming," he said.
"Dude, I promise not to let them scoop your eyes out with spoons," I said. Luke let a small crooked smile slip onto his face, but it soon faded. I'm not going to pretend like I knew what he was thinking about, I've said before you need to be blunt with me, but I knew he felt guilty about something.
"Chin up, dude," I said patting him gently on the back. "For what it's worth I think you're a really great leader."
"You're great reference," he said with a harmless smile, "you're a bit biased, don't you think?"
"Yeah, but you've managed to keep me alive so far, and I'm the clumsiest person I know," I pointed out. Luke looked like he was thinking, maybe about the time I'd almost stabbed him with a misfired throwing knife, or the time I came across him in trouble by tripping over a branch and rolling down a steep hill while playing capture the flag. He nodded, and his harmless smile turned to a grin. He seemed to straighten up as he removed his hands from his pockets, holding out a fist. I bumped my fist against it and we jogged to catch up with the girls. The four of us continued to walk down the many roads of Wichita until we spotted a dirt path, which lead through a hole in the fence. We stood there analyzing it for a while.
"...Couldn't hurt to check it out," Finn said with an interested expression.
"Well, I mean it might hurt," said Luke, "what if we meet up with another nasty monster?"
"Come on! Don't be such a pussy, Luke!" Finn said, pushing his shoulder. Roxy had stayed silent, she was looking at the hole in the fence, there was a sense of curiosity on her face.
"Why don't we go in, and see if it's safe. No monster can fit through a hole that tiny," Roxy pointed out. "If something happens we can just run back this way and we'll delay it." Luke still didn't look convinced, but I could tell his irresponsible curiosity was taking over his common sense. I couldn't blame him, the same thing was happening to me. He looked at me,
"What do you think, Fletch?" He asked.
"I say we go for it," I said, getting excited. The four of us took turns going through the hole in the fence, first Finn, then me, followed by Roxy and Luke. As we got closer, we noticed that after a dip in the ground there were a pair of train tracks.
"Where's the train?" I asked. Finn looked to her left, then to her right.
"C'mon," she said with a wave of her hand. She followed the tracks to her right and soon enough we came across a large train, one they take to transport things. Finn stood with her arms crossed over her chest smirking.
"Looks like we've found our transport to California," she said.
"How do you know it's going to California?" Asked Luke. Finn pointed at the boxes that were sitting near one of the open doors. I didn't know what was in them, but in big bold writing on each box said 'TO: CALIFORNIA, FROM: KANSAS'
"Sounds like a greeting card," I said. Just then we heard two voices, that sounded like they belonged to a pair of middle-aged men coming from the other side of the train. One was short and quite over-weight. He was cleanly shaven and wore jean overalls over a formerly white shirt that had been stained with yellow and black. The other was tall and muscly built. He had a small beard, which was complimented by a neatly trimmed goatee. Finn pulled Luke and I into the bush she and Roxy had already hid in and she watched. The two men began loading the boxes onto the storage cart.
"Bill, you almost ready?" Asked the tall man.
"Yeah, Joey, just gotta grab a pack of smokes from the shop down the road then we can go. Want anything?" Joey thought for a bit.
"Cornello," he responded. Bill nodded and walked off. Joe made his way into the drivers part of the train.
"Alright, are we stowing away or what?" Asked Finn. Roxy, Luke and I exchanged looks.
"If we do, we'll constantly be moving, monsters won't be able to chase us out of their area for long," I pointed out.
"Right, so we'll stow away until they find us," said Roxy, "and when they do, then what?"
"ASSUMING they find us," said Luke, "we'll think of a plan on the train."
The four of us nodded to each other and jumped onto the train. There were no doors to close on the cart, but there were two metal blocks that would stop the boxes from falling out that reached to the middle of the cart. We each found four different piles of boxes to hide behind and waited for Bill to return with his box of smokes and Joey's Cornello. He came back about ten minutes after we'd found good places to hid and lifted the blocks up with surprising strength. He left, whistling a tune and we all came out of our hiding spots. We decided to put blankets down on the floor, and move the boxes to make a small shelter that would hide us from all sides if they came back to check on the boxes.
"It's just like a fort!" Luke said excitedly, sounding like a seven year old child.
"I know, man!" I said, in the exact same exciting manor as he did. We sat on the blankets, which were surprisingly comfortable and relaxed for a bit. Luke decided he was hungry and started to root through his shopping bag for a snack. One by one he threw Roxy, Finn and I each a twinkie. I opened it hungrily, having not had a twinkie for quite some time. The first bite of this beautiful creation was like an orgasm in my mouth, I melted in my spot.
"What else you got in there?" I asked him curiously.
"Oh, you know, just the important stuff like ice cream, cookies, chips, twinkies, freeze dried dinners and party hats," Luke responded happily. I looked at him quizzically, as did Roxy and Finn, although they didn't say anything because they were still chewing their twinkies.
"What are we going to need party hats for?" I asked.
"... They were %50 off," Luke replied , he dug through his bag and grabbing one. He then proceeded to place it on my head and fit the itchy string around my chin. Finn grinned and Roxy smiled, covering her mouth with her hand so that she didn't expose the sticky twinkie she was chewing.
"That's a good look for you, Fletch," said Finn, "a big Ol' shiner, and a party hat to match. You look like one of those dalmatian puppies they put on 'happy birthday' cards." Finn had her hand up to her chin and her head was tilted to the side, as if she was admiring a fine piece of art. Roxy let out a giggle from beside her as she had finished chewing and Finns cheeky smirk turned into a soft smile, her lazy black eyes moved to her right where Roxy was sitting, but the expression was gone just as quick as it had come. The train started moving, and we made our way to California. For a good long while Roxy, Finn and Luke adjusted the party hat on my head, face, and yes, body. First I was a unicorn, then I was a bird, then I had a really long chin. Luke brought out another and they put one on either side of my ears. They spent ten minutes laughing at that, as did I. The two party hats were put on my chest, Luke zipped up my sweater over them making it look like I had pointy boobs, and believe me, I flaunted that shit fabulously. I strutted up and down the cart, outside of the small shelter we had made, while Finn and Luke pretended to take pictures and Roxy laughed, almost rolling around on the floor. Finn decided to move one of the party hats down to my crotch and I pelvic thrusted my way all over that storage cart. Mid thrust the train hit a bump and I lost my footing as the cart jerked forward. I fell on my face, and the three of them were all rolling on the ground laughing now, and I fumbled my way back inside the shelter, rubbing my face. I was glad I could make everyone laugh, it seemed like we had all been a bit tense on this quest. A lightened mood was just what we needed. We sat there on the train, as the afternoon sun slowly became a pink sunset. Luke, Roxy and Finn each told stories about their years at camp, and I listened while playing soft background music on the violin, at their request.