Children of Dawn

CC’s POV
“Guys this boat is done,” I said trying to spread my fingers a little farther so that they covered the holes in the bottom of the boat just a little better. Jake was bailing water out as fast as he could with a tin cup and Ashley was doing his best to keep from getting wet.
“Seriously Jinxx, get us to land. We’ve been using this damn thing for, what? Like two weeks? It’s done it’s not gonna get us any farther than it has already,” Jake said, sounding just as exasperated, and cold as I felt. Jinxx appeared to be steadily ignoring us as he forced the dying motor to bring us just a little farther upstream. The thing was clearly about to croak at any second.
“Dude!” Ashley exclaimed from his position cramped up in the top point of the boat. Nearly sending all of us and our things into the water that he was so desperately trying to avoid. It would mess up the splint on his leg, he claimed. I turned and looked at Jinxx he was sitting up taller than usual and squinting at something in the distance.
“There’s some buildings over there,” He deduced, softly.
“Great, we can pull off and steal another boat from some country hicks and we’ll move on,” Jake said. Jinxx shook his head.
“That’s a city, big one,” Jinxx said. I heard Ashley snort.
“We’ve been floating past nothing but forest for days, are you hallucinating or something?” Ashley scoffed. I looked up where Jinxx was and I saw the tip top of a building peeking over the trees.
“Nope it’s really there,” I said. Suddenly the boat veered off to the left towards a grey pebbly beach. As our boat crunched into the sand Jake jumped out into the shallows and pulled the boat onto the shore. As soon as it didn’t feel like we were going to tip over I went to the end of our boat to help the princess get out. As I stood on the beach and held Ashley’s hand he climbed out of the boat awkwardly, trying to act like he didn’t need as much help as he clearly did. Meanwhile Jinxx and Jake were unloading our less precious cargo. We had a total of three large bags, and lucky for us they were filled to the brim with things we needed. The fire hadn’t managed to destroy very much of our stuff, other than a few singed threads on some blankets.
I made a point about handing Ashley his crutches. I wasn’t really annoyed with him at all, I was just goofing with him, and he knew it too. Jinxx tossed a backpack to me and I slung it over my shoulders.
“What city is this?” Jake asked turning to Jinxx, who shrugged. We had no idea where we could possibly be, someplace with a big river through it that got cold in the winter time.
“Let’s go figure it out, I mean we’re not gonna solve any of our problems by standing here,” Ashley said, nodding towards the beach where a path lead into the trees. He crutched off in that direction. He wasn’t one for planning really, just liked to get things done as fast as possible. I followed after him, I didn’t have much of a choice, and I could here Jake and Jinxx crunching along not far behind me. Ashley was struggling to get up the incline when I got to him, it was a steep, mud-frozen hill with small leafless trees lining it. Ashley was holding onto a tree with one hand and trying to crutch himself up with another. His crutch was precariously placed on a slick rock, ready to fall out from under him at any second.
“You couldn’t have found an easier way up?” I asked coming up behind him.
“I didn’t see one,” He replied, finally placing his good foot on stable ground. He heaved himself up just a little farther, the hill only got steeper from there. I followed behind him easily, while he shimmied diagonally up the cliff. I watched mildly amused as he struggled to balance and after a while managed to get to a point where his head was above the cliff. I took a deep breath and decided to hit the cliff straight on. With my long legs to assist me I managed to take about six giant steps and found myself standing on some snow dusted grass next to a road. Ashley glared at me from a few feet down, he was just high enough to maybe get his arms onto the grass. He would have been able to pull himself up had both of his arms been working right. I stuck out a hand to him as Jake and Jinxx scrambled up next to me. Ashley looked at my hand reluctantly.
“Come on man, there’s no shame in needing help,” I said, Ashley sighed and took my hand with his good arm. I pulled him up so he stood next to the rest of us. Well, he stood next to Jake and I. Jinxx was already making his way down the road, staring at the skyline of the city that we were headed towards. The rest of us followed after him, hurrying to catch up. The road we were on stuck to the river and before long we started seeing boats as the river widened. Barges, speed boats and even the occasional steam boat chugged by us as we walked. Soon we came around a bend and saw a big sign. The white letters on the green background read “Welcome to Cincinnati”. As we came around the corner buildings loomed in front of us, down a strip of road I could see an intricate sculpture of a bird, or a dolphin or something. Down the river I could see a yellow bridge, and then farther down a purple bridge they stretched all the way across the river that had stretched to be almost half a mile wide.
“We made it all the way to Ohio?” Jake asked. We stopped, taking in the sights. Not only were there bridges but there were also giant stadiums, paddle wheels (without the boats), and floating restaurants on the river. The place was busy, people were milling around everywhere, walking on the sidewalks or seeing sights, and cars honked as they filled the air with smog. Jinxx turned and looked at us.
“Well what’s the plan?” he said looking from face to face.
“Get a hotel, I mean we have enough money?” Jake suggested.
“Right, and put our names down on a guest list, real smart,” Ashley said.
“Could always use fake names,” I said.
“That works until they ask for identification,” Jinxx replied, putting his hands on his hips. It seemed like we annoyed him because, maybe we weren’t smart enough for him.
“Well I mean,there’s a huge population of homeless people here, we could just blend in with them and hope for the best,” I suggested.
“A group of four homeless boys with a backpack full of cash, we’ll last a week at best before someone robs us and beats us to death while they’re at it,” Ashley said. I sighed and looked around. We didn’t seem to have a lot of options.
“Look, why don’t we just find another secluded patch of woods, like we had before and start building again, I mean we have money, we’re smart, and before too long I’ll be able to move around again. If we do it right we can stay there for a long time,” Ashley said looking at the three of us.
“So where do you propose we go?” Jinxx asked. Ashley pointed, less than a block down there was a map of Ohio with many of the towns and cities labeled on them. Ashley made his way over to the map.
“So if we’re here and if we head south we’re in Kentucky, but if we keep north we stay in Ohio, there’s a lot of forest in Ohio,” Ashley said. I neglected to mention that there was probably more forest in Kentucky, I wanted Ashley to feel like he was doing something important. We all studied the map closely, trying to find someplace that seemed good.
“What if we went there?” Jake said putting a grubby finger on the map. It was a little town called Warren, to the northwest of the city. It was surrounded by miles upon miles of forest.
“If we’re a few miles into the woods I doubt anyone will think to look for us there, but we can be close enough to to the town that we can go get supplies but we can probably hide out for a long time,” Ashley said, considering the option.
“I don’t see any better place to go, and it’s not far,” Jinxx said, he looked at the map for a moment in silence.
“So how are we going to get there,” I said looking at the sky, it was still early morning.
“Let’s get a cab, have him drive us up to the sign that tells us what city we’re in and then we hop out and go into the woods from here,” Jinxx said. No one had any better ideas so we got a cab to stop for us. Jinxx, Jake and I climbed into the back seat while Ashley managed to convince the driver to let him ride in the front because of his hurt leg. The driver turned and looked at us suspiciously.
“Trust me dude, we have enough money to pay,” Ashley said. The driver looked at all of us in turn, it seemed like he was trying to figure out if we were going to try to mug him.
“You guys homeless or something?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Kinda, but we have money, and that’s all you need to worry about,” Jinxx said. The driver took one more suspicious look at all of us and then sighed.
“Fine, where too?” He asked.
“The City of Warren,” Ashley said. The driver squinted at us so much I wasn’t sure if he could even see anymore.
“Wanna be a little more specific, bud?” The driver said.
“That’s all we got for you man, drive us to the entrance of the city and we’ll pay you,” Ashley said.
“Fine,” The driver said and he put the car in gear.
When we got to the sign that read “Welcome to Warren Ohio” The driver pulled to the side of the road and stopped the car. As we piled out he made a fuss.
“Come on guys where’s my pay?” He said. I pulled the bag off my back and handed him a few twenties. He eyeballed me again and then finally gave me my change. We stood on the side of the road and waited until his car was out of sight before looking at each other and starting off into the snow covered woods. We walked deeper and deeper into the woods, going no direction in particular until we found ourselves in a clearing with steep rocks on one side and sloping hills on the other. The clearing was flat and surrounded by trees, somewhere not far away I could hear the rush of water.
“Why don’t we set up here for tonight,” Ashley suggested. I knew he was trying to hide the fact that he was in a lot of pain. Being on his feet and walking all day had really taken a tole on him. I could see in his face that he was drained. I think everyone else could see that too, because without much acknowledgement at all we started unpacking our things to keep us warm through the night. Ashley eased himself onto a fallen tree and breathed out in relief once all his weight was off the leg. I helped the others get set up. I cleared a place on the ground for a fire and after a lot of coaxing, swearing, and almost giving up I managed to start a small fire.
“Hey Ash, you want to cook us some dinner?” I asked. I knew that he felt bad for not being able to help the rest of us out much. Ashley came over and sat down next to the fire where I’d cleared the snow away, I found our cooking equipment and then left him to his own devices while I helped Jinxx and Jake set up a tent of tarps and sticks around the area where we had the fire. Within the hour we were all sitting around the fire eating pasta that Ashley had managed to boil up for us. We sat in silence listening to the clacking of branches together. I looked up at the sky, it was cloudless and I could see the stars beginning to peek back at us.
“What’s the point of all of this?” Jake asked.
“To not go to jail for things that we didn’t do,” Jinxx said.
“I mean we’re gonna get caught at some point, what are we doing with ourselves out here. We aren’t doing anyone any good, the cops are all out looking for us when they should be looking for serial killers or something,” Jake said.
“Why don’t we help them out then,” Ash said around a mouthful of noodles.
“What do you mean? Turn ourselves in, after all this?” I asked, looking at Ashley like he was crazy.
“No, what if we caught the killers that they’re out there not looking for while they search for us,” Ashley said.
“Sure, we can be our own little group of four batmen, catching criminals without the help of the police,” Jake said sarcastically.
Third Person POV
Not more than fifteen miles away from the group of misfits sitting in a circle around a fire in the woods there was a skinny, fourteen year old boy. He was in his room, the bed was unmade, and the walls were covered in posters. He was looking at himself in the mirror. Dark purple blotches ran from the side of his face and covered all the way down most of his torso. He wasn’t as concerned about the one’s on his body, his shirt covered those up. He was more concerned about the one’s on his face. His parents would see those, and then they’d be upset, then they’d call the school. Then the school would talk to his bullies, then the bullies would bully him worse. He sucked in a shaky breath started putting on the concealer that his parents let him buy; he was just expressing himself after all. His parents weren’t going to be the ones who didn’t let their boy wear makeup if he wanted to.
The boy worked for a long while trying to make sure he’d covered up all the bruises that his parents might see, and just when he was satisfied he heard the key scratching in the lock for the front door of his house. He took a deep breath and closed the makeup, putting it all away.
“I’m home! Your dad’s working late, but I brought you some dinner!” He heard his mom call from downstairs.
“Okay mom, I’ll be right down,” He yelled attempting to make his voice sound lower than it was. He was over halfway through his freshman year of highschool and every single boy was bigger than he was. He wanted to grow so that he could defend himself against them. He left his room and went downstairs to find a bag of fast food sitting on the table. He sat down and starting eating as his mom put things away after her long day.
“How was your day at school?” She asked.
“It was great, I got a pretty good grade on my english paper,” He said, avoiding the real question.
“You know what I mean, Andy. Are those boys still picking on you,” As his mom asked the boy swallowed hard. He didn’t like lying but he didn’t want his mom to make his situation any worse.
“No mom, the principle scared them off. They’re totally leaving me alone, everything’s fine,”

Notes

Hopefully this update will make up for the fact that I had to take off the last 2 weeks. Anyway all you Andy fans finally get to hear from him. It'll be a little while still before he's totally in the story though. Leave me a comment and let me know what you guys think.

Also in real life, Juliet is an abusive bitch and I hope she gets hit by a bus. That is all. See you next week.