Chapter 16 - X marks the Spot

Logan is shocked by the violent attack and cowers trying to protect himself.The birds continue their relentless assault on their victim!

Round 2

The birds keep nipping and tugging at Logan like a scene of a horror movie. Soon cuts and rivulets of blood cover his exposed parts, and his clothing gets ripped by claws and sharp beaks.

His pants are shredded to pieces, and the birds fuss at the pockets until all contents are removed.
They stop as one, and fly away with their booty, leaving Logan panting and shaking in the middle of the road...

Looking down at his wounds, Logan shakes his head. There's no way I'm getting in the library like this.

Shaking his head and being careful, Logan heads to his house as quickly as he can. Once there he'll sneak up to his room and get cleaned up.

Still fresh in his memory despite the shocking attack, the lettering of the tattoos resurfaces in Logan's memory, and he can write it down.

Logan does a great job writing the "tattoo" on his left arm, but using his off-hand to draw it on his other arm reveals very tricky. His right arm ends up with a rather wonky version of the tattoo.

---

Meanwhile in the Library Johnny hits that hated Enter key one last time, finishing the last book Donna gave them to input.

The duo have finished their shift at 7pm as scheduled.

"Fi-nal-ly!", Al exclaims. "They keep working us harder every time." Johnny of course is aware that he did the bulk of the work while Al occasionally helped. "I don't even know why I signed up for this again. I thought working with a computer would be much cooler. There should be aliens involved."

Once they get up and get out, Al says loud enough to not just address Johnny but any potential birds in the area: "I think I have an idea for where the treasure is. Let's go to Logan's place and try something with this map!"

Johnny rubbed his eyes and cracked his knuckles after finishing the last card. He'd seen people do this as a job on TV and in movies and he wondered how they managed to avoid going blind or getting arthritic hands. He worked in front of the terminal for only a couple of hours and felt this bad he could scarcely imagine a whole workday... Aliens? I'd figure it'd be more like some kind of evil program or something... He blinked, trying to reduce the traces of green/yellow haze seemingly burned into his retinas.
Oh, hey...be quiet. he cautioned Alana. Ms. Donna hasn't been around so don't give her any reason to come over. Did you find a good map copy we can use? he whispered the word 'map' in case there were elderly ears listening in.

"I did!", Al whispers to him. "And the whole point is for the birds to hear! They have to steal the map from us after we marked it after all!"

She climbs on her duck bike, still embarrassed by it but a bit more used to it by now. "Come on, let's go to Logan!"

We fast forward as Johnny and Al, followed by a little cloud of sparrows, ride to Logan's, getting there at 7.15.



Logan, who sneaked in not to be seen covered in cuts by his family members, sees the other Hunters arriving at his front porch.

Logan comes outside in a hurry, so as not to be discovered by his family. As he stops on the front porch Logan quickly speaks to the others. Hey guys, it's good to see you. I've found something, but we need to go somewhere else to talk about it.

Johnny and Alana see that Logan's arms are covered in fresh cuts- very similar to the ones that the bridge bird attack left on you all.

"WHat the heck happened to you?", Al asks immediately. "Did you have an adventure without us?"

Little birds land all along the railing of Logan's front porch. You start feeling like you're in a Disney movie. The wrong kind of Disney movie.

Seeing the birds and not wanting to risk another attack, Logan invites the others inside. Let's get upstairs to Monster HQ. I'll explain what all happened to me when we get there.

Al follows inside, keeping her eyes open for Logan's cat on the way. If she can spot it, she tries to lure it in to carry in her arms.