Chapter 16 - X marks the Spot

"I have to think. There must be a way. Watch out, out there. Stay away from birds. They're watching our every move." Eddard concludes the phone call.

Shortly after Logan puts down the receiver, the phone rings again. This time Alana is calling.

"Hey Loey!", Al greets him. "I tried to call Johnny but he's doing recon at the old folks' home! We need to stop Solomon from attacking more people! And to do that, we have to get the treasure. But how do we do that? Maybe I can just play out in the garden with Ripper so he can steal my map. But we still need someone to go to the real place."

Yeah, I know. The problem is that no one is going to go out voluntarily and get it. There's no way we can go get it by ourselves. Unless we sneak out, but that's to much trouble for us to get into.

Logan thinks for a moment before he continues to talk. I talked to Eddard and he thinks the tattoo is what worked for Ramon. He said not to go out with it drawn on our skin in pen. It more than likely needs to be a real tattoo. With the only tattoo shop, in town, shut down we can't really do that option.

Logan gets concerned when he hears Al's plan. If you go outside, you need to be careful. Trust me, it's no joke when you get attacked by the birds. We should hold off on giving the map up until we have a solid idea for the treasure.

"What about Anna? She's basically a monster hunter but Solomon doesn't know that. She can get the treasure and then we'll share it with her," Al suggests. "And if that's not enough incentive, I'll also let her play with Ripper!"

Johnny dutifully heads out to push the heavy laundry cart around the facility, collecting up the night's bedding into the once-white cart trying not to think about why it, and it's contents, smell like ammonia. He pauses in front of the big wall of pictures, figuring the missing ones were knocked down by the bird attack. The one taken by the bird had to have been the one Logan had sketched from. He cautiously looked at the windows for any winged spies and wondered if there was a way to shut this Solomon Black character down for good. A trusty BB gun would probably solve a bit of the bird problem but not all of it since there were so many...

Johnny helped out as much as he could before calling Charlene for a ride home after the lunch rotation finished around noon.

I don't know about Anna. She's been walking a straight line lately. Especially with the bird attacks. That and I'm sure she wouldn't be interested in hunting for treasure. Besides I don't think she'd believe us.

"Lemme talk to her!", Al replies immediately. "I bet I can convince her! It's treasure after all. Who could resist that?"

Anna! Phone for you. Logan bellows up towards Anna's room. She'll be here in a second. I hope this works. Logan says to Al as he waits for his sister to come get the phone.

"Hey, fellow monster hunter! It's me, Al. Logan's friend," she introduces herself. "We need to ask you a favor. Or not really a favor. More like a job, because there's treasure and so you'll get paid for your help even! It's a super huge reward for basically no work at all."

Anna sighs hearing it is another of Alana and Logan's crazy requests, and listens to the plan Al is proposing...

"We've been following this treasure hunt set up by this old sea captain who died recently. He might have even been a pirate! And he hid his treasure here in Gulf Haven. We even know exactly where, so all you need to do is go there and find it. And then you bring it home and we share it. And you can play with Ripper if you want!"

"It's not a game!", Al insists. "It's a treasure. Imagine all the cool stuff you could buy with the treasure. Like some necklace or whatever you're into."