Author's Note: Just a couple more hours of cows, I PROMISE. I would love to get more reviews, so readers, please spam people advertising this story I never get any reviews...I have two. For this story, anyway. It really, really, really sucks. Don't worry, though, I won't stop putting up chapters if I don't get reviews. But they'd be great anyway. Oh fine, I'll quit bugging you. By the way, I corrected the glitch in Chapter 1. Fangs to Pal101 for pointing it out to me, that kind of messed up the story Love you. Oh well, onto chapter 7.

The boys danced into the other car, Andy with them. There were less hay bales in there, so it made it easier to move and dance around. I was alone with Brand, and I could tell him my suspicions.

"Why is everyone else so oblivious?" he asked before I could say anything.

"I agree," I said. "It would have been odd anyway if he had been going after the same thing as we are, but...just the way he had to clarify that we weren't supposed to know..."

"He dropped his accent for a moment."

"I know."

"I...I just have a really bad feeling about this, Luna. I don't know about you, but I'm going to hang about in the train station for a while in Jajowe to make sure he leaves. I really don't think he's good news."

"Which brings me to the question of how we are going to get out of the train. I think people will notice and get ideas if they see us spontaneously climb out of a boxcar. Remember we aren't supposed to be here."

"What's all this about breaking the law?"

"Yeah, he thinks we're hiding from the law, that we defaced a restaurant. We spray painted the windows, messed up the lock, and stole stuff from the refrigerator."

"No we didn't."

I glared at him. Honestly, guys can be so dim. "No, Brand. That's what i he /i thinks."

"Oh."

"Now remember, my name is Colleen. Mikey is Benjamin, Andy is Jennifer, and you are?"

"Joshua."

"Right. We use those names in town. If, for some reason, we have to stay the night somewhere, perhaps a youth hostel, we use those names."

"Ok."

"Could you maybe give me something other than one-word answers?"

"Ok."

I sighed. His brain had turned off, I think. He was acting so knowledgeable a moment ago. I love kids, but the problem with jocks...

The door opened back up again, and in came Andy and the boys. "I just saw a sign!" Mouth said excitedly. "Only 25 miles to Jajowe!"

"This train moves slowly," I observed. I realized I could no longer smell the cows. I had gotten used to them. I probably smelled like cows now. Urgh.

"Yeah, it'll probably be like another hour or so before we get there," said Andy. "What to do for an hour?"

"Mikey, tell a ghost story!" Mouth yelled.

"Yeah, Mikey, tell the one about the brackets!" Chunk told him.

"Now?" Mikey asked, looking confused. "It's not even dark..."

"Please, Mikey?" Andy begged, widening her eyes so she looked sad and innocent.

Mikey grinned and gave in. "Ok, not too long ago, in a village in Kansas..."

I let my muscles relax. Maybe my worries were empty. Maybe everything would turn out ok, I was impressed we'd made it this far. It was time to have some fun, just...kick back, so to say. Which would be fairly easy to some people. But I tend to dwell on things. Sometimes it's a bad thing, I have a tendency to remember every little detail of everything unpleasant that has ever happened to me. But for some reason, I don't remember much about the crash. Some shrinks told me I was too young, and that's why I don't remember. Don't tell me that, I remember things from before then. I think that I pushed it from my mind, and I have just been doing it for so many years it has become unconscious, and I can keep it away without thinking. However, when I am sleeping, it all comes back. I'll have dreams about it. I'll wake up, and remember my dream for a moment, then it simply fades away. I don't know whether that's because my subconscious is giving way to awareness, or maybe I'm willing it away. It's not something I normally like to think about, only when I have too much time on my hands.

Which is why I need to always stay busy. If I start thinking too much and too hard about that, I have a tendency to hurt myself. No, I don't slit my wrists, that's too cliche. And easy to spot. I actually have a heavily scarred area around my hipbone. You could wear a freaking bathing suit and no one would notice, I don't think anyone knows about it at all, except for me. For some reason, when I cut myself, the blood didn't bother me. Maybe it was because I had brought it upon myself, I may have thought that I had control. And it was true, I had control of my own suffering, I could make it stop when I wanted to. And that fact scared me pretty bad, nearly just as much as the blood would have.

Damn, I am one messed up person. I shouldn't let kids hang out with me. I might send negative subliminal messages, haha. But I am also selfish and love them too much.

I also love ghost stories. They are like a light in a tunnel built of romance books. Once, when I was about eight or so and in bed with my stepmom, I read her book over her shoulder. i The kiss was long and passionate. /i Gag. She likes to read these thick books that consist of three or four stories of a certain theme. Examples of the some of the themes include: Christmas Romance, Cat Romance, Foreign Romance...you get the picture. Never "Robots in Love" or "Space Honeymoon" or "Loch Ness Weddings." Romance stories are actually okay if you combine them with other genres, preferably fantasy or science fiction. But hey, that's just me. I'm also partial to adventure stories. Maybe I should turn this into a story. 'My Adventures on the Cow Express.' Haha, fascinating. New York Times bestseller.

Ack, my mind works in funny ways. The nub and gist of it is that I prefer ghost stories over romance. And I was all ears to Mikey.

MIKEY'S GHOST STORY

Not too long ago, in a village in Kansas, there lived a widow and her daughter in an old house. Many years earlier, her husband had hung himself from a lantern bracket near the porch. Time passed, the widow slowly got over the death of her husband, but many of her neighbors thought that she was mad, because she claimed that her husband still visited her at random intervals. She said that he'd come, they'd talk, he'd apologize for leaving her and his daughter, and he'd simply fade away.

When the widow passed away, her daughter moved in with her fiancee and sold the house. A young couple, fresh out of college, moved in. But not before they were warned that the house was a kind of 'vacation home' for her dead father. They paid no heed, as they were skeptics to the paranormal, and it didn't stop them from setting up.

One night, the young woman that lived in the house ran into her husband's room, claiming that there was another man in her room. Her husband got out a handgun and slowly crept into her room. There was indeed a man standing there, who appeared perfectly solid. However, after saying, "Take down the lantern bracket before July the 4th," he disappeared. The couple was baffled, but the young woman refused to be shaken. She had convinced herself that someone was trying to scare her using clever mirror tricks, and moved her room.

A number of nights later, the man appeared in the husband's room. He said the same warning. "Take down the lantern bracket before July the 4th."

The next day, the young couple went outside to inspect the lantern bracket. It was quite attractive and added a quaint flair to the house. They decided to keep it, still refusing to believe anything.

This happened to each of them once more, and they did not heed the warning, whether the message did not sound urgent or they just refused to let themselves believe in the ghost in the house. But July the 4th came, and like many young couples, went to the park, found themselves a bench, and sat down to watch the fireworks.

Meanwhile, their elder next-door neighbors had a fight, and in a fit of rage, the old man threw a chair at his wife and it struck her in the head. It broke her neck and she died almost instantly. The man, afraid to get in trouble with the law (he firmly believed seniors should live out their last years in comfort), quickly came up with a cover-up plan and carried it out.

When the couple came home, they were horrified. Their picturesque, beautiful home was ruined by the sight of their next door neighbor, hanging by a noose from their lantern bracket.

"Well, that killed twenty minutes," Andy sighed. "That was morbid, Mikey."

"You asked for it," Mikey said.

"Did not."

"Did too," said Chunk, putting on a high-pitched voice and widening his eyes. (On Andy it might make her look cute and innocent, but it was rather scary when Chunk did it). "Oh please, Mikey, tell us a ghost story!"

"Shut up, Chunk," muttered Andy good-naturedly.

"I've heard that one before, Mikey," Data complained.

"No, you haven't."

"Have too, remember when we all went camping, and we were around the campfire?"

"Oh yeah," said Mikey. "That's the time when I found that arrowhead, and took it to the museum, and they told me it was ausintic."

"I think you mean i authentic /i , Mikey."

"That's what I said, don't contradict me, you always contradict me, Brand. I was right."

I smiled and breathed in the cool air. I was really happy, really, truly happy. And that was the best feeling in the world.

I wondered how long that would last.