Synopsis: In this chapter, Jack meets his two strange uncles and finds out that his stay may be even more painful that he could ever have imagined before.

Author's Note: Again, synopsis, sue me. I know there is a lot of set up before you furfags get to see a transformation scene, but, suck it up and get over it. :3 I'm not going to cater to all your fap needs. If you need that, go elsewhere. Anyways, here's another chapter and I think it actually is much better than the last one. Enjoy, peace out, see you later.
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Chapter 3: Crossing Lines

In the morning, I woke and packed without even being told to by my mother. I didn’t want to speak with her anymore than I have to. Unfortunately, I’ve already done her enough damage for one lifetime. After packing most of my clothes and personal belongings into two duffle bags, I left my room and found a bus ticket on the kitchen counter.
Mom had already gone off to work, no doubt. She works some of the strangest shifts sometimes, but, mostly works from six in the morning until five in the afternoon. I took the ticket, shoved it into my black leather jacket and left. The walk to the bus stop wasn’t long; thankfully I didn’t need to take my car over.
There I caught the bus and boarded it, finding a seat near the back since it was already full. Most of the people on the bus were elderly or past middle age, so, the ride wasn’t bad. It was quiet and I read a book the businessman beside me finished about twenty minutes in. It was a book called The Grapes of Wrath.
The ride became longer and longer as the story went on. The bus even became scarcer as businessmen were dropped off in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago and so on. The man who lent me the book told me I could keep it. It was leather-bound and old, so, I agreed to keep it safe.
Soon the bus was basically empty save for two Korean men near the front and the bus driver. A couple of people boarded and departed, but, for the most part, it was just the four of us. My eyes were trained on the book for most of the ride, although I peeked out to watch mountains roll by, the bus rumble through a tunnel, cross the Mississippi and begin to stretch across the endless prairie called the Farm Belt.
The bus driver, having lost his favorite radio stations, began to talk loudly to everyone on the bus. I moved up several rows and listened. Apparently he was raised in Brooklyn to an immigrant family from Poland. He did well in school, but made some bad choices and had to become a long-haul bus driver just to make ends meet. He says he wishes he could go to sleep and wake up on his eighteenth just so he could go to college and set things straight.
When we left Baltimore the sun was barely coming up, but, by the time I got off of the bus, the sun was going down. The bus driver was almost dead anyways and had become quiet hours ago. Finally I was the only one left on the bus, sitting near the front and watching the scraggily grassland rumble by through the glass.
I listen as the engine begins to rumble down, the heavy diesel pistons pumping hard to move the five ton vehicle at a phenomenal speed. A little bit of radio plays through the overhead speakers, some hillbilly music that is hard to make out over the buzzing of the rubber tires.
The Polack clears his throat and then lifts his eyes up to the mirror above his head. His hands move quickly to shove the bus down into lower gears as the bus slows to meet a small station ahead. Station is an overstatement as what is ahead is just barely more than a wooden platform with a small roof, which has many holes in it, a bronze light post, a Ma Bell payphone and a ticket booth that is empty.
I pull my head away from the glass, sigh audibly and then look towards the front of the bus. The Pole and I meet eyes and he nods his head. Grumbling, I lift myself up from my seat and then slide out. My hands always holding the plastic and metal bars above, I hold myself up and then stretch.
My body had basically fallen asleep through the nearly twelve hour ride, but, I don’t mind it. Stretching my lethargic and cramped muscles feels good and reminds me that I’m still bound to this world. Lifting my tired and cold hands upwards, I throw open the plastic door and grab my black bags.
“This is last stop, buh-dee.” The bus driver informs me.
His heavily accented dialect is hard upon my ears and even more difficult to decipher, but, having listened to him for hours on end, I hardly notice it. I drag my bags out from inside and then catch them before they hit the floor. The bus shifts down into first gear and then grinds to a halt.
As the airbrakes let out, I put the straps of the bags over each shoulder; slam shut the plastic door and then let free the metal bar. I stumble towards the front of the bus, feeling one bag heavier than the other, and watch as the Pole turns to watch me come. My heavy boots slam down onto the rubber mat that runs the length of the interior and then buzz as they drag along its surface.
But as the mat runs out and my harness boots touch metal, the sound disappears. Tromping down the steps, I skip the last step and hit the dirt heavily. Licking my lips, I take a deep breath and feel the warmth of Montana hit me like a ton of bricks. Inside that bus it is like a cooler where they keep cadavers as they transport them to some faraway university. Outside it is like a pressure cooker, except without the humidity of the east coast.
“Beam me up Scotty, I think I’m on the wrong planet.”
Looking around, I scan over the new scenery I am supposed to get used to. For miles upon miles in every direction there is nothing but browning tall grass stretching until it meets blue, cloudless sky. The only things that break the monotony of this western stereotype are scraggily collections of bush ready to break from dried stems and the road which slices the country in half.
Suddenly the airbrakes let loose, the door slams shut behind me and the bus begins to steam away from me. Turning my head around, I watch it go and then turn my body towards it. My jaw unknowingly falls open and I take in several short, choppy breaths. The only way out of this hellhole is rumbling away into the sunset.
“Oh, man, don’t leave me here!” I cry out and take several quick steps towards the metal hulk. “Don’t leave me here!”
But the bus doesn’t slow down. The Polack doesn’t heed my calls. Instead the land cruiser climbs a slight hill and then disappears slowly beyond the horizon. I stop walking and then sigh, letting my shoulders droop down. Turning away from the road, I sigh audibly and look over the wooden stage they call a bus stop.
“You gotta be shitting me.” I say loudly followed by a sigh.
I step back to the wooden platform and then climb up onto it effortlessly. My boots slam against the rickety, unkempt wood and seem to amplify, rolling off into the distance. With each step more and more boards crunch and creak, as if unused to any weight at all. Looking around, I find that there is nobody here to meet me.
I assumed that Dan and Dave were supposed to be here to meet me, you know, instead of leaving me to fester and die in this hellhole. But instead they are nowhere to be seen. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the ticket stub and read the name of the platform and the number.
Swinging my head up, I look to the ticket booth and match the number just above the cracked glass window to the one on the little piece of crumpled paper. They are exactly the same and discovering that I’m in the right place, I drop the paper and just moan. Rolling my head back, I yell out into the open air and listen to the sound roll across the grasslands.
Taking several deep breaths, I lower my head and look around. In every direction I see the same thing I saw five minutes ago. Nothing has changed. My screaming has summoned nobody and has altered nothing. I moan again and then see a crate sitting under the little canopy along the road.
I tromp over to it and then drop my bags along its base. I sit down on its surface and then listen to it protest the unaccustomed weight. But, ignoring it, I just cross my arms and relax. Soon the sun, which hangs low in the distance like a teardrop on a child’s chin, begins to heat up the black leather.
But I hardly notice it. I’m so used to the warmth the heavy jacket brings me that I’m more likely to notice a chill in a hot room than a blast of hot air in the winter night. I just open up the zipper and reveal the white shirt beneath it. I then wipe my forehead of sweat, my upper lip and my neck.
As the sun lowers further, I turn my eyes onto the gravely dirt road which the bus cruised across. A little shield bug crawls across the pebbles, tumbling to and fro, struggling to get off of the road. Then its wings come out, it flutters them and then runs into the wooden wall of the platform. The brown then disappears into a little collection of browned and dead grass clustered against the wood.
I close my eyes and sigh, wondering how I got myself into this. But then the answer comes to me and I moan loudly. I’ve no one to blame but myself, she’d say. Goddamn it. But through the silence suddenly comes a little buzzing. It is faint at first but soon it becomes louder and louder.
Opening my eyes, I lift my head up and then scan the horizon in both directions in which the road disappears. Nothing has changed and my eyes meet nothing, but the sound continues to gradually grow louder. I sit up straight and continue to look back and forth. Hopefully it’s Dan and Dave, but, if it isn’t, maybe this person can give me a ride into the nearest town.
Then, as my eyes are looking towards the west, a large metal box crests the ridge and begins to descent into the little valley I’ve been abandoned in. A Ford pickup truck from the late eighties rumbles and bumbles its way down the earthen road. From here I can see two dark figures sitting in its cab.
I slide off of the wooden crate and stand up. Without moving from the platform, I watch the vehicle approach at a reasonable speed. A huge dust cloud kicks up behind the speeding vehicle as it nears. It’s white and blue body gleams and glitters in the orange sunlight.
The truck slows in speed and an arm hangs out of both of the windows. I sigh with relief, knowing that my ride outta this hellhole is finally here. Kneeling down, I scoop up the straps of both duffels and then sling them over each shoulder. Standing back up again, I put my toes over the edge of the wooden platform and keep a straight face as I wait.
Inside the cab the man in the passenger seat turns his head towards the driver. He nods his skull to and fro and then pulls his arm back into the window. The truck continues forward and then slowly comes to a stop just in front of the platform, its old, worn brakes screeching and the shadow mounting the wood ominously.
“You Jack?” The man in the driver’s seat asks.
I eye the man over before ever responding. He is an older man with a thick, brown handlebar mustache which rings his thin lips. His nose is large but the thick sunglasses that are supported by them are even larger. He wears a huge white cowboy hat with a leather rope around the base, just revealing short brown hair and long sideburns beneath it. He wears a blue plaid shirt and rope tie.
“Depends, who are you?”
He smiles just gently and then tilts his head forward, his eyes peeking out over the top of those aviator sunglasses. His left hand wrenches the steering wheel while his right one disappears. Then he puts his right hand out of the window and presents it to me. I look to it for a second and then reluctantly take it.
“My name’s Daniel Henderson. This here’s my brother David.” He nods to the long haired man in the passenger seat, who nods in return. “I believe your mama sent ‘chall out here.”
I shake his hand, which feels more like a vice grip than a hand, and then he drops it. I look to the man in the passenger seat and see he is almost exactly opposite of his brother. He has long brown hair which billows gently over his blue and white button-up shirt. His mustache is short and is accompanied by a small goatee on the lower lip. He appears much younger, though I believe they are both the same age.
“Yeah, Ma she—well, she—she sent me here, yeah.”
I don’t feel very great about why I’m here, but, if they don’t know the details, I’d prefer to keep them ignorant to them. I scratch the back of my head as I clear my throat and the two brothers don’t seem to notice my stammering.
“Then hop on in; our home Idn’t too far away.” Daniel commands his voice deep and sultry.
I nod my head and then lift the bags up higher on my shoulders. I walk towards the back of the truck and as I step down off of the platform, I toss the stuff in. Rounding the chromed bumper of the truck, I come up towards the passenger side of the truck. But upon reaching the passenger door, I find David still rooted in his white vinyl seat. He looks to me, smiles and nods.
“You’ll be riding in the bed this time, kid.” David says.
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but, apparently my dumb brother ordered another fancy piece of shit out of one of those ma-guh-zeenes he loves to read so very much.” Daniel adds sarcastically.
Looking across David’s lap, I see a big box in the center of the seat. David pats it with his hand as he rests his arm across it. I scoff and then shake my head. Stepping backwards and away from the cab, I walk back towards the wheel well where I know I can climb up in.
“Yeah, sure, all right, whatever.” I say as I walk.
I grab the metal wall of the bed and then step up onto one of the wheels. Pulling myself upwards, I step over the metal and drop into the white bed. My body makes a loud ruckus as it lands on the bed and soon I drop into a seated position. I let go of the side of the truck just as Daniel hits the gas pedal.
Before being able to get myself situated, I tumble backwards and land on the side of the bed. A shock of pain goes up through my head, but, it quickly goes away. I don’t try to sit up and don’t say a word to the men who put me here. I just hold onto the ruts in the bed of the truck with a death grip for dear life.
The truck swings around in the dirt road and then guns back in the direction from which it came. As it crests the peek, I feel a moment of weightlessness, but come slamming back down onto the metal. The wind whips at my body and pulls as hard as it can. But I hold on harder, hoping this ride won’t be long.