Rubén and Athena volunteer to go back to the van and try to head Al and Tara off if they can, leaving Finch, Gerald, and Jim to follow on foot. They're not sure precisely where to go, but they follow the path of least resistance.
"Finch?" Jim asks as they wander through overgrown and dead wheat and cornfields.
"Yeah?" he replies, cocking his head to the side as he glances up at the band member.
"Is Athena always like that?"
"Always like what?"
"Shady as hell."
Finch thinks for a long moment as the trio moves in silence. "Well, not usually quite this shady. But she does pride herself on being pretty damn shady."
Gerald doesn't seem to be paying any attention to the conversation as he wanders further and further from Jim and Finch. He's humming a song to himself that sounds an awful lot like Fun Zone, but Finch and Jim can't quite hear it clearly enough to tell.
"Wait, stop, hold the phone," Finch says, stopping and backing up a few steps. "Look!" He points at the dirt in front of them. Though it's fairly dry and dusty, there is the clear imprint of a sneaker sole. It looks to be too big to belong to Tara, but not too big to belong to Al.
"We're on the right track," Jim says.
"They're doing a pretty good job covering their tracks," Finch says as he stoops down to get a better look at the shoe print.
Gerald exclaims suddenly, and Finch and Jim realize they can no longer see him.
"Gerald?" Jim asks.
The young man stumbles out of the overgrown cornfield to their left— though he'd been on their right when they'd begun their walk— carrying two ancient-looking glass bottles.
"UHF RUUUUUULES!" he shouts happily as he pops the cap off of one of the bottles and guzzles its contents. Finch rolls his eyes and sighs. Jim covers half his face with his hand and shakes his head.
"Where did you find that?" Jim asks. Gerald shrugs and belches loudly as he finally lowers the bottle, which is now half empty. "What even is it?"
"Vodka," Gerald belches. "Tripped over it lookin' for Al."
Neither Jim nor Finch alert him that he just said something other than praise for UHF, and he doesn't seem to notice. He does, however, look far more comfortable since discovering the bottles.
"Let's keep going," Finch says. "We're getting close.
In the van, the atmosphere a far cry from the lighthearted frivolity of the three giving chase on foot. Neither Rubén nor Athena speak a word to each other as they drive down a long, overgrown, dirt service road. Rubén focuses his attention on the trees they're rapidly approaching and trying to see between the gaps in the plants as they pass row after row of dead and dying corn stalks.
It's all Athena can do to keep the van on the road, though she'd hardly call what she drove on a 'road' by any means. It was rougher than any road she'd ever driven on.
"Stop," Rubén says suddenly. When Athena doesn't immediately comply, he turns and looks at her. "Hello, stop!"
"Why?"
"Stop the van," he says. The van shudders to a stop, and Rubén hops out. Once out of the van, he stops and looks off into the distance before taking off running through the corn.
"Rubén! Where are you going?" Athena demands. "RUBÉN!"
Tara has never felt more anxious in her life than she does right now with her arm draped across Al's back for support as she walks. She's insisted for at least a mile that she can walk on her own, but Al's arm has yet to move from around her waist. He has to walk slightly hunched over, and Tara is certain that it can't be comfortable. He doesn't complain, though.
"You know, I've heard some broken records in my time but this is getting ridiculous," Al finally says after Tara's twenty-seventh time insisting that she can walk just fine on her own.
"I—" Tara opens her mouth a few times to reply, but closes it right back up each time. She's suddenly right back where she was the last time she'd been in Al's presence, months ago at one of the first concerts of the tour. She hadn't been able to form a coherent sentence then and she certainly couldn't find words to string together now.
"I don't bite," Al says after another ten solid minutes of silence. "This might pass a bit more quickly if we talk to each other."
"Or," Tara says, taking a deep breath, "talking could draw our abductors straight to us." Al sighs and nods.
They walk in silence for a long time. There are a few birds singing and the wind is rustling the leaves on the trees, but beyond that their walk is silent.
"I can't do it," Tara whispers. Al cocks his head to the side.
"Should we stop and rest?" he asks. She shakes her head.
"No, it's not that," she says. "I'm scared, okay? I'm frickin' scared."
"I am, too," Al says. "I've never had something like this happen to me before."
"I've never had to deal with the fact that you're a real person," Tara says. She immediately regrets saying anything. They stop walking.
For a moment she expects him to go off and lecture her, but he doesn't say anything. He helps her sit down, even though she's nowhere near tired enough to rest yet.
"Al— Mr. Yankovic— I didn't— I mean…" Tara's heart is threatening to beat right out of her chest. "I… I spent my childhood imagining what it must be like to be you. To know you. Hell, to even have met you. I mean, you've been my idol since I was super young. But back then I mean I never thought it was even possible for someone like me to get to meet someone like you. I don't know how but I convinced myself that you couldn't possibly be real. And yet here you are."
At this point Tara knows she's about knee-deep in wordvomit at this point, but she can't stop. The reaction Al seems to have had to what she'd said has triggered an anxiety attack and now she's terrified that he hates her.
"I— Forget I said anything I'm sorry this is why I haven't been talking not because I'm afraid we're gonna be found by the wrong people," she says, looking at the ground.
"You don't have to be afraid of me. You already earned my respect," Al says after a long moment."
"You wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for me," Tara says.
"No," Al replies. "I refuse to let you keep saying that. I mean, you're right, I wouldn't be in this situation. No, I'd be in one far worse than this. I might be a bit beat up, tired, and hungry, but I'm free. And we're making progress with this escape. So far nobody's following us."
"That we're aware of," Tara points out. She hasn't looked up from the spot on the ground she's fixated on yet. "Every time we stop we increase the risk of someone finding us."
"Do you think they've realized we're not still in that barn yet?" Al asks.
"Oh, we're well aware," an all-too-familiar voice says.
