Somewhere between Red Pines and the next town—wherever the hell that was—the van was in full-blown gremlin mode.

Jonah had taken over DJ duty from the passenger seat and was abusing it.

“I SWEAR TO GOD,” Maya shouted from the back bench, “IF YOU PLAY THAT ‘TRUCK YEAH’ SONG ONE MORE TIME I’M THROWING YOUR IPOD OUT THE WINDOW.”

“It’s not even an iPod,” Jonah grinned, cueing it up again from a busted knockoff MP3 player with duct tape holding the battery in. “It’s a Moozic Rockz.”

Gabriel, sprawled across two seats with Randy the Possum in his lap like a war trophy, snorted. “Let him live! This is his villain arc.”

“I’M the villain if this keeps up,” Maya grumbled.

Up front, Thane had a clawed hand white-knuckling the wheel.

“I swear, one more plastic bag flies across this road looking like a raccoon ghost, and I’m putting the whole state in park.”

Cassie was next to him, sipping gas station coffee through a Twizzler straw like it was a lifestyle. “You know we’re all slowly mutating in this van, right?”

From the back cargo section came a thud.

“…What was that?” Rico asked, slowly turning his head.

Mark’s voice came from the very rear, half-buried under guitar cases. “A bag of Funyuns just fell off Jonah’s amp and hit me in the throat.”

“Is it your bag of Funyuns?” Cassie asked.

“No. And now I have questions.”

The van hit a bump. Jonah yelped. “MY MOOD SWINGS CD JUST FLEW OUT THE WINDOW!”

“Good,” Maya muttered.

Gabriel reached down into a questionable cooler and fished out something in a crinkled foil wrapper. “Guys… who brought gas station sushi?”

The entire van went silent.

Thane didn’t even turn around. “Gabriel. Put it down. Slowly.”

Gabriel stared at it. “…It’s warm.”

“OUT. THE. WINDOW.”

The van hit another pothole. Cassie spilled her Twizzler-coffee. Jonah accidentally hit play on a ten-hour YouTube loop of screaming goats that he had saved for reasons.

And somewhere in the chaos, Randy the Possum fell over sideways, seatbelt and all.

Mark spoke again, voice calm and low: “If we crash, I want it on my tombstone that this was not my idea.”

“Noted,” Thane grunted.

Eventually, the screaming goats stopped. Jonah ran out of cursed playlists. Maya ran out of ways to threaten him without physically leaping across the van. Gabriel fell asleep with a bag of sour worms stuck to his chest, and Cassie began drafting the setlist on a napkin with a broken eyeliner pencil.

Peace, as fragile and temporary as ever, returned.

And then Rico said, “Hey, has anyone seen my left boot?”

The van erupted again.