Chapter 5-Road trip!

"Alright, rest stop in five minutes."

Cody nodded in the back seat. We had left the morning the man came, and we only had time to grab out backpacks. I had called shotgun, so poor Cody got stuck in the back, with a pile of boxes. The man, Jerry, wouldn't tell us what was in them. He'd only smile and give me a look.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaatever," I rolled my eyes. Jerry laughed at me. I gave him a sideways glare, and all three of us burst out laughing.

A few minutes later, Jerry pulled over to a rest stop. Cody tapped my shoulder and motioned past the building, towards a clump of trees. I nodded, and we got out. Jerry headed inside, Cody and I went to the copse.

"I've got a bad feeling about this. I mean, he's nice and all, but I got a real bad feeling about this." Cody watched the car. "You know what I mean?"

I nodded. "A bit. He's one of those dudes who say to trust you, and you wanna, but something tells you no." I looked at the ground and kicked a can lying next to my feet. "What do we do about it?"

He shrugged. "Don't get too close to him. Make sure he doesn't get close to you. And, for both of our sakes, keep an eye on him. I don't want him to go and turn us into some place that uses us as slave labor or something."

I heard someone call my name. It was Jerry. The two of us ran all the way back to the car. Cody slipped into the front seat before me, which meant I got the Seat of Box Claustrophobia. What fun.

Half an hour down the road, I got curious. The box closest to me was partially opened, but I couldn't see inside of it. I looked up to check that Jerry wasn't looking back, then slowly lifted the flap. I saw rods, maybe a centimeter wide, and painted red. One end was pointed, the other fitted with uniformly cut feathers.

The box had dozens of arrows. The kind you use for hunting. I silently closed the box back up and leaned towards Cody.

"He's got weapons," I whispered in his ear. He nodded slightly, letting me know he had heard me. "This doesn't help the suspicion."

Another hour later, we stopped for the night. We shared a room, but Jerry offered to take the couch, leaving Cody and I to share the bed. We were fine with this, we kept our cots pushed together, back at the center. We went into the motel room, and the driver crashed on the sofa.

Cody looked at me. "Get the keys. I'll find something to open the boxes with." I nodded and rummaged through Jerry's pockets. Hearing a jingle, I pulled out a ring, with a small black box and a silver key on it. I looked over at Cody, then went out to the car. I opened one of the back doors and pulled out a box. It was four feet long, three feet tall, and two feet wide. Cody came up beside me, a plastic knife in his hand.

"Best I could find," he sighed. We opened the box. It had enough swords to arm a half dozen people to the teeth. He looked at me. I shook my head.

"This is......this is wrong. We're on a trip with a guy we don't know who has an armies load of weapons in the car. And he's acting like nothing's out of the ordinary." I looked at Cody. "What now? I don't know if I can sleep, knowing this."

He looked at the other boxes. "I dunno, either. Do you wanna open another sucker?"

Another shake of my head. "I really don't know. I don't care what we do at this point. What have we got to lose, really?"

Cody thought for a minute. He slowly grinned, then looked at me. "Nothing. We've got nothing to lose." I furrowed my eyebrows, and he clapped his hands once. "Cammie, how well can you drive?"