Not Until We Are Lost

On his list of seriously stupid and paranoid ideas, Alan had never figured hopping a fence would have been one of them. In fact, that was something he'd gotten pretty good at in Bright Falls, even before the Dark Place had claimed him. Hop the fence, keep on moving. The plan was simple. He didn't care what planet he was on. All he needed to do was find a typewriter or something like it. He could then write himself to wherever he needed to get to. Except maybe about an hour outside the fence, he realized that the fence had actually been put up for a reason.

He'd been glad he woke up in a place where his clothes and weapons were actually his. He'd even thought he was ahead for once. As he sat in the highest tree he'd been able to find in the jungle, he realized exactly how fucking stupid that notion was.

Of course it was some idiot's vision of Jurassic Park. Of course there were dinosaurs. Giant, meat-eating, could-take-a-bullet-and-come-back-for-more dinosaurs and Alan knew better than to think he was a Dr. Grant. He was the mathematician all the way, and in the book, that guy hadn't exactly survived. No matter what the sequels wanted people to believe. Then again, it wasn't like he had the capacity to get scared. Or even angry about it. This was all pretty much his life now whether he liked it or not. He'd just never been chased up a tree before.

So he lounged against the trunk as best he could, the almost-raptor-like creature jumping up to snap at his dangling legs, but it didn't have a prayer of getting anywhere near him. "Keep going there, Kobe. You're just gonna die tired."

To Alan, it was just a good time to go through his inventory which consisted of three flares, a flashbang he wasn't about to waste, and...a bag of popcorn.

He didn't remember even picking the food up - too many fever dreams and hellish nights to know the difference. And it was stale. Better since he hadn't had popcorn in what felt like months, but not good enough. Instead, he'd taken to throwing the pieces of inedible food down at the raptor. "Doing my best here," he said dryly. "I'm even out of fuck you's. And I could shoot you, but I'm kinda hoping to save the bullets."

Realizing he probably should eat just to keep his energy up, he reluctantly took a bite of popcorn anyway, chewing it over thoughtfully. "So sooner or later, someone's gonna put one between your eyes. I'm not usually in the business of killing animals anyway."

Obviously, the raptor had other ideas as it made some kind of screeching noise. "Oh come on, just go home!" he said, rolling his eyes. "My ass is already falling asleep."

Jo was still getting her bearings in this new place. She didn't care much for the way men treated women here. Fortunately, she had years of experience in protecting herself from far worse than the unwanted come-ons from men in this land that John Wayne forgot. As for being underestimated in terms of her abilities, well... she'd learned to make that work in her favor back home. And she'd manage it here too.

She'd been here for a few days already and still hadn't found Dean or Mary. She'd found Rob and seen Sam though, so she wasn't completely alone. She'd also found the Doctor and she was more convinced than ever that the group needed to band together more. She didn't know how to do it, short of trying to meet everyone. There'd been some newcomers since the crazy Easter/Halloween planet and the meeting that Piotr held there. On the flipside, there'd been an awful lot of people who'd gone missing. Which made it even more important that they kept track of each other.

So she took to the streets of this town. She checked the saloons and the shops for anyone that she recognized. As it got darker, she couldn't help but notice the one house that had candles burning in every window and a fire going outside. Everyone else around here seemed more interested in conserving their candles and/or kerosene. Jo circled closer to the house and thought that she recognized the guy outside tending to the fire. She didn't know him by name, but she was pretty sure she'd seen him on the last planet-if only briefly. She approached slowly and held up her hand in greeting.

"Hi," she said once she was in earshot. "This is going to sound weird, but I think that you might be a part of our group?"

If she was wrong, then she was likely going to just seem like a crazy. Wouldn't be the first (or the last) time.

Waking up in strange places that he couldn't remember writing about or being in had become commonplace. Half the time, he was fighting for his life while during the other half, he was lucky he wasn't curled up on the floor of the cabin while his own psyche did its best to tear him apart. Whether it was a fevered dream or not, Alan didn't really care. Obviously, he could see some of his early references coming to life with the whole medieval, Lord of the Rings thing going on, but the fact that he was there, in the middle of a town, with a bunch of people he didn't even recognize, scared the shit out of him.

The fact that both his pistol and flashlight were missing too didn't make him feel any better. In fact, he wanted to know who the fuck had dressed him and where all of his stuff had even gone. It didn't look like cell phones were all the rage yet, but if they had been, he might've just thrown it at someone out of rage. He'd always enjoyed Back to the Future, but never had he actually wanted to experience any of it.

As he wandered around, he began to notice things too. The men were there, but it seemed like they were outnumbered by the women. That might only have been a perception of his, but with every person he pushed past or bumped into, he saw more women holding weapons. Not many men were on the streets without a female escort of some kind. And while his 21st century New York perspective was more than definitely showing, he couldn't recall anything like this being in the history books. Deciding to try his luck, he tapped the first person - a woman wearing armor - on the arm and frowned. "Excuse me, but would you mind pointing me in the..."

She responded in some kind of old English and none of it sounded friendly. Holding up both hands, Alan just apologized and tried to keep his temper. Whatever kind of nightmare this was...it was definitely different, but he needed to know how many hours of daylight there were and fast.

Yet naturally, he had to back up into what he was supposing was the town's resident brick shithouse based on how he bounced off the man alone. Spinning around, he hoped there wasn't going to be a swinging fist or worse, a swinging sickle or axe. "I didn't mean it," he said wearily. "Just trying to figure out where the tavern is."

Was there a tavern? He hoped he'd used the right words, or else Alan figured he was screwed.