"I can't fucking run anymore," Hollywood complained, finally ceasing to move and dropping against the trunk of a tree.

The shouts of the train station employees had faded out a bit ago, but the trio had kept running regardless. Dana made a noise that clearly showed her disappointment in Hollywood, then slumped against a tree as well. Tim opted to fall down and lay flat on the grass, staring up at the sky.

"How far'd you say Boston was from Franklin?," he asked once he had regained the ability to breathe easily.

"Around thirty miles," Dana reminded him.

Hollywood groaned and dropped onto his side. "That's...way too fucking far."

"Well, the trees have been thinning out progressively for a while now," Dana pointed out. "So we're probably getting close to some sort of civilization."

"I guess we could hitch hike," Tim said. "If we wanna risk the cops picking us up."

"I wanna risk it," Hollywood whined.

"Yeah, your carcogenic ass would just slow us down if we tried to walk," Dana said. "Maybe someone will be nice enough to pick us up."

"You know where to go when we get to Boston?," Tim asked Hollywood, hoping to divert the chance of another argument between the other two.

The chirping of a few birds punctuated the silence. "Uhh...," Hollywood murmured.

"You fuck up!," Dana exclaimed, picking a rock off the ground to throw in his general direction. "Do you have any idea how fucking big Boston is?!"

"Well, I guess I didn't really think - "

"No, obviously you didn't fucking think!"

"Neither did you, bitch! Shut the fuck up!"

Tim looked back and forth between Dana and Hollywood as they argued, his face expressionless. He knew they'd stop eventually, and he wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere.

Dana sighed heavily. "All right, well we're already all the fucking way across the country, I guess we might as well keep going. Even though we have no idea where we're going."

Hollywood pointedly ignored the way she was glaring darkly at him, pulling himself off the ground. Tim did the same after a moment, and finally with another resigned sigh Dana also stood up. They continued in the same direction they had been going, the trees becoming more and more sparse as they continued. After about twenty minutes of walking, the faint sound of cars in the distance greeted them and cohersed them to move faster.

Dana was the first to spot the highway, being that she was quite a few paces in front of Tim and Hollywood. She continued until she was about ten feet from the shoulder then stopped, watching a few cars pass and waiting for her cohorts to catch up with her. Finally, they did, with Hollywood still having excessive trouble breathing. They stood in silence watching the road.

"You realize how dumb of an idea this is, right?," Dana asked.

"Yeah," Tim said.

"No one's going to pick us up."

Glancing both ways down the road, Tim glanced at Dana then Hollywood.

"I think we should go right," Dana said.

"Nah, left, definately," Hollywood told her, looking down the road.

"You're just saying that to contradict me."

"Am not."

"Are, too."

"No, I'm not. Something just tells me we should go that way," Hollywood said.

Dana snorted and shook her head, but took off towards the left anyway.

"I didn't mean right away," Hollywood complained, but started following her once again and Tim did the same.

The air around them was rapidly cooling as the sun set. It confused Tim a bit, since he felt like the sun had just come up a while ago. He wondered for a moment if one could get jet lag from being on a train. The amount of cars on the road became less as the sky darkened, and soon enough only one would pass them roughly every ten minutes. Hollywood took up grumbling explitives behind them as they walked along.

A car went speeding past them, and Tim watched it as it slowed down and used one of those 'official use only' turn-arounds. He hit Dana's arm lightly.

"Is that a cop?," he asked her, pointing out the headlights that were a ways down the road.

Dana squinted at the headlights. "I dunno, it's too dark, I can't really tell."

They all watched as the car came back towards them, slowing down and eventually pulling onto the shoulder in front of them. Tim stepped back instinctively as the window rolled down slowly, revealing a stocky man with dark hair and a trimmed mustache. Despite his somewhat imposing demeanor, Tim had the immediate feeling that he was someone to be trusted.

"Where you guys headed?," he asked, his voice deep and somewhat rough.

"Uh...Boston," Dana said, being the first to find her voice.

The man in the car grinned an infectious, reassuring grin and pointed behind them. "Boston's that way, quite a ways off. You don't wanna be walking this late anyway, cops patrol this highway pretty frequently. Get in."

Hollywood looked doubtful and hesitated, but followed once Dana had walked around the car and slid into the passenger seat and Tim did the same with the back door. He closed the door behind him, closing off the outside world in favor of faux leather interior and the smell of cigarettes. The driver rolled up his window again and shifted the car back into drive, pulling onto the empty highway.

"I'm Matt, by the way," he offered once they were back on their way.

"I'm Tim."

"Hollywood."

"And Dana," she finished, smirking. "To complete the role call."

Matt lit a cigarette, rolling the window down a minute amount to let the smoke escape. "Where are you kids from?"

"East bay," Tim answered for them. "We got here earlier on...uhm...a train."

"Shit," Matt interjected. "That's a good distance away. I heard shit's getting rough over there."

"Mhmm, real rough," Dana assured him. "That's why we left."

"What made you decide to come here?"

"Well, he - " at this point Dana indicated Hollywood. " - has been in touch with this kid named Benji up here, well actually our friend Rachel was, but either way this Benji dude said things were better on this coast."

"Benji, huh?," Matt asked, his tone not really revealing whether he knew the person or not.

"Yeah."

"So you're probably looking for the Garage," he told her.

"We...didn't know, really," she admitted.

"Well, I guess you'll find out when we get there," Matt said, grinning again and turning the radio up.