NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: New Arrivals
As it turned out, the worst was pretty terrible, although Elliot didn’t quite know that. That’s because it was, especially at first, the worst for Brett. After they’d arrived in Portland, he and Jonas found out that his luggage had been lost somewhere between home and Portland International Airport. He’d called his parents, but they’d responded with a half-hearted “Well what do you want us to do about it?” They’d wired him some money for a few overnight stays at a hotel to wait, in case the luggage magically showed up, trudging along the god-awful not-quite-blue carpet, possibly apologizing profusely for its tardiness, but that hadn’t helped and Mother and Father had insisted that he go on to the university anyway. After all, he was a Big Boy now, the real world was Out There, and he had to Seize the Day, possibly Pulling Himself Up by some mythical and difficult-to-grasp Bootstraps. Brett was, all things considered, pretty miserable.
Which was why, rather than take the shuttle bus and be cramped with all the other possible students in a vehicle that would somehow be both too dry and too cold, Jonas had offered to pay for a cab for them both. CMU was in the middle of nowhere, and the cab driver had confirmed three times that that’s where they wanted to go. His resigned ‘Well, okay then,’ raised eyebrows and something mumbled about ‘the valley’ were less than encouraging, but they piled in anyway. They only had half the luggage, after all. Jonas had reassured Brett that the luggage would turn up, and that they could always call back to Portland to have it picked up when it did. It hadn’t done much to brighten Brett’s mood, and neither had the weather, which felt a lot like standing in front of a wet fan.
Jonas had tried to cheer Brett up a little by reading more about the region from a little travel guide he’d bought at the airport, and, for what it was worth, it had helped some. Not because the region was tremendously interesting -- it wasn’t, containing mostly wet lumber -- but because Jonas had a calm voice and Brett liked listening to him. After a couple of hours they passed one of the Springfields, which may or may not have been that Springfield. There was a large donut, at least. It didn’t keep their attention very long -- it was, after all, a pastry sold on the basis that there was less of it in the middle -- but it made Brett smile, which made Jonas smile. It did for about twenty-five minutes.
When they finally got to the proverbial Sticks, which consisted mostly of lumber yards, trees, half-forgotten statues of Paul Bunyan and other pine-related sights, they both discovered that ‘bad’ could always take a detour through ‘okay’ before taking a left at ‘worse’ and they lost any and all cell signals. Probably, Jonas insisted, still trying desperately to be somewhat optimistic about things, there would be a signal when they got to Crescent. It was a student town, after all. What were they going to do, not have WiFi or 5G? The thought was absurd and terrifying. Brett clenched his jaw and prepared for exactly that. He wasn’t going to tuck tail and run on the first leg of what was supposed to be the most exciting adventure of his life. Adventures had setbacks, and his parents wouldn’t forgive him if he gave up just like that. He had to make them proud. They’d made that abundantly clear. Brett was stuck in his own head, which was why Jonas bopped him on it with the travel booklet.
“What?”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“I’ll have you know I’m very good at the thing,” Brett said, sticking out his tongue. “Whatever the thing is, you should let me fly, like the beautiful, soaring bird I am.”
“Dumbass,” Jonas said. “You’re overthinking something. I can smell it.”
“That’s just what Oregon smells like,” Brett said, sniffing for emphasis. “Overthinking is more of a pleasant cinnamon.” His little deflection didn’t seem to impress Jonas very much. Slowly, like a glacier slowly slipping into the ocean, a single eyebrow went up to make that abundantly clear. Brett groaned. “Fiiiiine,” he said and dramatically fell backwards, landing his head on Jonas’ lap, who had to yank his hands out of the way. Brett just looked up at the ceiling of the car, not really paying attention to the fact that Jonas was ever so slightly blushing. “I’m just worried about Mom and Dad, you know? Don’t get me wrong, the studying part is gonna be easy as hell. I just don’t want them to come here
and make things difficult. If the rest of this god-forsaken state is as miserable as this drive has been,” he glanced at the cab driver, “present company excluded, of course…” he sighed. “I’m just worried about being stuck out here where the buses don’t run, in some back-water town where they haven’t even heard of electricity…”“You know it won’t be like that,” Jonas said, swallowing slightly. He kept his hands awkwardly at his side, Brett’s head, eyes closed, still obliviously in his lap . Bret just ‘hmm’-ed. “We’re gonna make the best of it. Always have, always will.”
“Hell yeah,” Brett said, and fell onto the floor of the cab when the driver abruptly braked. “What the hell?!” he exclaimed from around Jonas’ feet. The cabbie turned off the meter and looked over his shoulder.
“You guys are going up to the new University, yeah?” As Brett extracted himself from halfway under the seat, he noticed that the driver, while looking casual, seemed to be a bit nervous. Well, he’d better be, if he treated his customers like this. A tip was starting to look unlikely. He nodded. “This is the place,” the driver said. Brett looked out the window.
“This is a small road in the middle of nowhere,” he said matter-of-factly. “There is literally nothing here but shitty old concrete and pine trees.” The door popped open, and the little ‘plung plung plung’ from the indicator immediately grated on him.
“It’s just a couple miles that-a-way. Sun’s out, I say you make use of it.” Brett and Jones stared at him in disbelief, but just a few minutes of fruitless arguing later they stood on the side of the road and concluded that the driver had been full of it, that it was not sunny out and that, all things considered, the universe was a cruel and unjust place. That’s when it started raining, and Brett screamed.
They walked next to the old asphalt road, which winded between the trees. The smell of wet pine needles was thick in the air and not altogether unpleasant, but neither of them really spent a lot of time taking in the smells and sounds. Sure, they’d both been in the school’s track program -- Brett mostly because he’d been forced to pick something, and Jonas was already on the team -- but that didn’t mean that slogging in the rain was something either of them relished. If they had, they would have realized that the trees all around seemed to be a lot younger than they had been for most of the ride in, or that the road seemed to be both smaller and newer the closer they got to their destination. Finally, they reached the top of a hill and both of them looked down into a large caldera, with Crescent at the bottom. It was like a giant finger had pushed down into the landscape, forming a giant circle, hills rising at the edges.
“Weird,” Jonas mumbled. “It looked flatter online.”
“Everything’s weird up here,” Brett grumbled, and began the descent to the lake. The town was curled around one edge of it, the roads leading down to it winding haphazardly around the area. The University was easy enough to spot, right on the other side of the water, and the two of them made their way to the campus grounds. Might as well try to find a warm place as quickly as possible. It took them forty-five minutes to get there. Not that the roads were ill-maintained, they were just… smaller. Windier. Almost like all of Crescent had been forgotten, which was silly, considering how new the University was. Finally, the first buildings came in view, just as Brett and Jonas heard a bus pull up behind them. More students, they assumed as they turned the corner onto the campus proper. They froze. Brett was the first to move, grabbing Jonas by the arm, who was trying not to swallow on his tongue.
“Jonas.”
“Hhhh--”
“That’s--”
“Hhhngk--”
“That’s a--”
“Hngk--”
“That’s a bear, Jonas.”
“Ngk.”
“Why’s it wearing a jacket, Jonas?”
***
Elliot stepped off the bus. It had stopped just behind a campus building that looked to be a student dorm of some kind. She hoisted her carrier bag down the old rusty bus steps, then helped McKenzie descend too. The other girl seemed determined to die, crushed by her own luggage, being less than athletic with only a stubborn streak to make up for it. McKenzie could start an argument with an empty house and win. The rain drizzled lazily down, and Elliot quickly got an umbrella up. Only two other people got off the bus, and with a pop and a hiss their transportation was gone. Elliot and McKenzie had been on buses for days, and yet Elliot got the feeling they weren’t doing nearly as badly as the two boys who stood a little further, one clinging to the other. The short one, brown mousey hair, was a mishmash of different impressions. He looked cute, sure. He also looked absolutely miserable, and like he wasn’t used to feeling miserable. Elliot couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. Rich kid who looked like he’d been dunked in a pond. She only realized she was staring when McKenzie nudged her gently with just the slightest smirk.
“Thought you were gay, Elliot,” McKenzie whispered as she began to walk towards the campus. She cared less about her hair than someone might think if they saw her at a glance, and clearly enjoyed the slight rain. Elliot’s face immediately went bright red and she hurried after her friend.
“Hey!” she hissed, “can you keep it down? I don’t need people here to know, y’know!” The two other passengers had already rounded the corner, but the two boys still stood frozen in place. Her already not-very-wild fury dwindled as she saw the expression on their faces. They looked terrified. But why had the other two people not stopped? “McKenzie,” she said softly, but the other girl either didn’t notice or didn’t care. McKenzie had a tendency to barrel through life at her own pace. She was smart, certainly, but straightforward. When she set off somewhere, inevitably, like a locomotive, she would arrive at her destination, often without deviation, and any livestock that wandered in her path would be politely yet firmly bounced aside. Which was why Elliot, who was still trying to catch up to McKenzie, was so surprised that the blonde also froze when she rounded the corner.
When Elliot finally made the turn herself, she finally understood why. The campus grounds were fairly empty. The rain had forced most people inside. But there were still quite a few people walking around, and Elliot found herself hesitating on the term ‘people’. There were two large dogs wearing backpacks. A large half-girl, half-horse held up a comically large umbrella with ease, flanked by two girls. One of them seemed completely normal. The other had large white wings and a little halo. Finally, a woman whose entire bottom half seemed to be at least a dozen feet of snake slithered around the corner, and she perked up visibly when she saw the four standing there.
“Hiya!” she said. “Are you guysss the exchange ssstudentss?” None of them moved. They stood there and looked at her. Then, another woman joined her, someone who seemed, superficially, to be completely normal, although Elliot hadn’t actually seen her feet move as she walked. “You guysss?” the snake-girl asked. Elliot made a quick mental note of the fact that the girl’s lisp was cute. Then the reality of the situation sank in, the lights went out, and she toppled over like a cut tree.
