and
are driving down a dusty dirt road between thick rows of pine trees. They were bouncing up and down from the rough uneven patches in the gravel as they drove quickly. The scenery was zooming by in a blur. "We really need to get rid of the Crawdad logo on our Van," says
. "We got some really weird looks from the locals back in town." All of a sudden, the van hit a big hole in the ground. A tackle box flies into
lap. "Fuck!" He yells loudly. "We need to clean up this damned van."
The Van was full of fishing line, tackle boxes, big nets, industrial rope, pullies, floating buoys, several large fish tanks, food wrappers, crushed soda bottles and several orange safety cones.
"Stop the car!" Yells . Cryptonius slams on the breaks and the car swerves around randomly before coming to a halt in front of a large tree on the side of the road. "Look!" says Shroom, pointing out the side window of the van. There was a small log cabin ten feet from the road built into the side of the hill. A large sign said "Cheap Firewood: Knock on Door." There was no fencing or property line and no grass lawn in front of the Cabin.
Shroom knocks hard on the door of the log cabin.
A man wearing strange animal fir clothing and jean shorts hobbled out of the door. He was leaning on a wooden cane and clutching a Budweiser can in his left hand. He smelled of cheap hand rolled cigarettes and incense. "What do you want," the old man says with an angry frown. He looked over at the van with a Crawdad logo on it. "We are here to buy some firewood," said Shroom firmly. "No you aint!" Says the old man. "You boys have out of state license plates and it's the middle of summer!"
"We are looking for Lake Infinity," Crytonius blurts out.
The old man paused for a moment and thought. "You boys are catching Crawdads?" The old man asked, gesturing to the van. "Theres loads of Crawdads in Lake Infinity." The man coughed and then spit onto the ground. "You boys better clear out before nighttime though. This whole area is haunted. Lots of paranormal activity. People go missing." The man sighed. "Why haven't you gone missing," said Cryptonius with a skeptical tone. "My people have a belief," said the old man gesturing to his log cabin on the side of the hill. " If you go underneath the earth during the nighttime, you will not be harmed by evil spirits." The man turns around and starts to close the door. "Good luck," he yells.
The old man had also given the directions to Lake Infinity. "Drive slowly forward until you see a sideways trail veering left into the tree line." They would have missed the trail on their own for sure. They had to drive slowly now: The van was inches from a rows of trees. They could hear pine needles and branches hitting the outside of the vehicle. "Do me a favor," says Shroom. "Don't get bit by a rattle snake out here or anything. This is the most remote area I've ever seen. Good thing we brought extra gas!" All of a sudden Cryptonius hit the brakes and the van came to a screeching halt. It turns out they almost drove the van right into the lake!
The lake was small. They set up some fishing lines on one side and then started moving rocks around to look for crawdads. "Do you believe that old guy?" Says Cryptonius. He to a step into the water with his leather boots. There was a splash of muddied water. "The drunk superstitious guy?" Says Shroom smiling. "Did you see his cabin? It looked like a gorilla built it." They scooped Crawdads into nets and then plopped them into buckets of water at the edge of the lake. By the time they filled up all their buckets, it was already dark.
They packed everything into the back of the van and then hopped in and put their seatbelts on. "Let's get the fuck out of here," said Shroom. "Hold on." Cryptonius took out the keys and put them into the ignition. He turned the keys, but nothing happened. "Shit!" He turned it over and over and nothing happened. The electronics were completely dead. "We are screwed now," said Cryptonius. He sighed. "We can just sleep in the van tonight," Says Shroom. "In the morning we can try and get it started". Cryptonius looked shocked. "No fucking way am I sleeping here tonight." He shifts his hands around. "We could get eaten by bigfoot, abducted by aliens, raped by wolfman, haunted by ghouls, screeched at by banshees ... Shroom looked impatient. "Okay I get it!" He took out a quarter from his pocket. "Here," he says. "We will flip for it. Heads says we sleep in the van. Tails says we walk a few miles to that crazy guys hut and YOU can ask him to sleep over."