Chapter Text
"I swear, Rey, if you crash Emerson's van, I'm going to strap you to the car next." Rey rolled his eyes at Rider's threat but lightened vaes foot off the gas. "Not gonna lie, I forgot Pink was even up there," Hamlet commented. "Should we call and make sure co is alright?" V asked, holding up their phone, and got several "Yeah"s in response. Pink answered almost immediately, releasing a string of cusses that were nearly drowned out by the rushing of wind. The entire van broke into fits of laughter, and Ash reached out the window to hand Pink a bag of chips, before V hung up the phone. "That went well!" The group listened to music and chatted quietly for a while, before Charone noticed that Rey seemed worried. "Rey? Everything alright?" Bug asked, and Rey hesitated. "Um- Sodapop, are you sure we're going the right way?" Hamlet looked at the map and nodded. "Yeah, we're on Highway 69 right now, we should reach Ussyville Campground by about 10!" Ash stared at Hamlet. "Uh, I hate to break it to you, Ham, but it's 9:30 and we're in the middle of a forest. Let me see the map." Hamlet handed it over, and Zerox just turned back to face fizz. "Hamlet... the map is upside down."
Rey slammed on the brakes, causing everyone to be flung against their seat belts, and a scream to be heard outside as something (or someone) landed in front of the van. "What the fuck, Rey???" Ein yelled as everyone readjusted themselves, and V quickly got out of the car to check on Pink. Rey turned to face Hamlet. "You had the map upside down?!" Sodapop nodded sheepishly, and Rey groaned. "Oh my god, we're completely lost, the car is low on gas, and Pink is probably broken now!" No one said a word, but complaints from Pink were heard in the distance. Rey rubbed their temples. "Alright, well, Dog, can you find somewhere for us to stay tonight? And Ash, do we have any snacks left?" Ash let out an awkward laugh and slowly held up the snack box, which was now empty. Rey said nothing, he simply got out of the car, closed the door, and started screaming. When vae got back in, it was silent again, until Dog spoke up. "This may be a bad time, but I don't have service." Rey looked like they were gonna scream again, but Oblivion spoke up. "Hey, don't worry! There's a house just up there, maybe we can stay there for the night!" Everyone blinked at them. "Sounds like the start of a horror movie," Sketch muttered. Rey sighed. "We'll be fine. Everyone grab your stuff out of the trunk so we can see what supplies we have." The group quickly got out of the car, but froze upon opening the trunk.
"You guys really need to drive better, I almost died!" "Kyle, how did you get in our trunk...?" V asked slowly, and Kyle shrugged. "I just hopped in before you left." Kyle climbed out, allowing everyone to grab their backpacks. Once everyone had done that, they piled their stuff together. Ash had four empty drink bottles and two bags of chips left, Rey had a flashlight and a blanket, V had Monopoly and Uno, Sketch had several pocket knives and a bottle of pepper spray, Zeke had two bags of marshmallows and a fire starter, Pink had a sleeping bag and markers, Dog had a melted bucket of ice cream and an egg, Charone had a net and bug spray, Rider had an axe and a pillow, Hamlet had a bottle of water and a Switch, Oblivion had a baseball bat and three frogs, Ein had 50 plastic sporks, and Kyle had hand sanitizer and a phone charger. Rey looked at the pile and groaned. "Have you guys never been camping??? You know what, no, it's fine, let's just grab our shit and go see if whoever lives in the house will let us stay there." And so the group gathered their things, locked the van, and headed towards the house on the hill.