Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven blasted through the speakers as Lawrence Perkins' truck cruised along the endless strip of highway, humming with the song as his fingers tapped rhythmically on the wheel.
Now that he was at his second most favorite spot in the world, his first being encased in his wife's arms of course, he felt completely at ease in the seat of his 16 ft box truck. Nothing short of that could beat traveling across the country, listening to the classic rock of his childhood.
It was funny how far he'd come.
In the beginning, before he was offered this job, he'd been a nervous wreck. A sell-his-left-nut desperate, peak-over-his-shoulder-every-five-minutes kind of wreck.
Money had been horribly tight. His daytime job as a shoe machine operator barely able to pay the bills let alone put food on the table, and with their second child on the way, Lawrence was about ready to sell himself out as a male prostitute.
That was, until he got offered the job as a transporter of goods.
At least, that was the simplified version of it.
It didn't take Lawrence long to figure out the 'goods' he was transporting wasn't your run-of-the-mill hardware or foodstuffs.
No, the too-good-to-be-true job offer had been exactly that; too good to be true.
He could've left right then and there. Could've forgotten everything he saw and searched for a less shady business, but really, that hadn't been an option for him before, so why would it be then?
It was either take the risk now or lose everything.
That was exactly why they had chosen him, he was certain. The desperation mixed with the fear made for a very loyal and dependable worker.
He didn't mind, though.
Not after that first paycheck.
When that money had been wired into his account that fateful Friday morning, he had nearly spat out his coffee all over his laptop. He had cried, he had laughed, he had woken his wife up in a way she hadn't been woken up since their honeymoon, then he kissed his daughter awake and took them both out to Denny's for breakfast!
Their lives had changed for the better and there was no way in hell he was ever going back to that.
Even if that meant he had to turn his head away from certain things. If they told him to plug his ears with his fingers, squeeze his eyes shut, and sing la-la-la at the top of his lungs, he would do it. He would do anything for his family and they knew it.
A loud thump emanated from the trailer in the back, startling him from his thoughts.
Speak of the devil.
Lawrence felt his heart rate spike at the muffled shouts and bangs and leaned over to crank up the volume so all he could hear was Robert Plant's voice crooning about a lady buying a stairway to heaven.
This worked for another hour and half before he felt the familiar sensation of a rest stop being needed very soon. Lawrence frowned as he glanced at the time on his dash. He had at least another three hours before reaching his destination. Maybe when he was ten years younger that wouldn't have been so much of an issue, but now. . .
Lawrence lowered the volume and listened passed the low rumbling of the truck's engines. Silence.
With a slow release of breath, Lawrence navigated the large vehicle down the first exit with a truck stop sign and pulled into the farthest parking spot away from the other trucks. Hoping the distance would prevent anyone from overhearing things and getting curious.
Turning off the ignition, Lawrence was about to exit the cab when the banging started back up again.
"Can't those idiots do anything right?" Lawrence muttered, irritably. Referring to 'the hunters' as they liked to call themselves. The one's who collect and package the carefully chosen cargo. If they did their jobs correctly, none of the contents should be stirring for another eight hours or so.
Clearly, Lawrence was the only one who cherished his head on his shoulders.
Leaning across the center console, Lawrence opened the glove compartment and pulled from it a small, shiny, black pistol.
Not a real pistol, of course. He had been given strict instructions not to allow any unnecessary harm to come to the merchandise. Lawrence was fairly certain that they just didn't trust any of their workers not to turn on them with firearms. This was a PNEU- Dart X-2 gauge pistol given to him to use specifically for when situations go awry.
This was the first time in the five years he had been working with this organization he ever had to use the thing and it took him a few minutes to remember how to check the CO2 canister, adjust the pressure gauge, and check for a dart inside the chamber.
Loaded and ready to go, Lawrence exited the cab. Tucking the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and out of sight from prying eyes, he walked around to the rear of the truck and rolled up the back.
Silence was the only thing that greeted him.
"Come on, I know one of you's awake. I assume you was wanting my attention. Well, now you have it!"
The trucker climbed into the trailer and stood still, listening.
Heavy breathing, soft snores, and the occasionally shift of a body surrounded him, but nothing indicated which cage held the waker. Large tarps and moving blankets were draped over top the cages, obscuring his view of their contents.
He had also been ordered not to look at the merchandise if he could help it. Something he'd never had trouble following until now.
Lawrence considered going back out, the need to take a piss was getting stronger by the minute, but he didn't dare leave the truck alone if one of them decided to start back up again. He did not need concerned citizens trying to do their civic duty and poke their nose in places they didn't belong.
"Alright, you bastards want to do this the hard way, huh?"
Grabbing the blanket from the cage closest to him, one of those 30 inch black dog crates, and yanked it off.
During loading, Lawrence had caught glimpses of some of the things kept in these cages. The disproportionate limbs and other strange extremities peaking from between the bars suggesting something mother nature demanded no credit for.
He had been fully prepared to see something disturbing or revolting that would keep him up for the rest of his nights, but instead, what he saw when the blanket fell away was a normal fox.
The orange creature was curled in the corner like a little fireball, happily dreaming away.
Why would they be transporting regular animals across the country, he had no idea.
Shoulder's slumping with relief and maybe slight bit of disappointment, Lawrence was about to throw back up the blanket when the fox yawned and stretched before flopping onto its other side, revealing the horrible disfigurement that had been hidden earlier.
Attached to the fox's neck was the head of a pig, its left limbs replaced by hooves.
Quickly, Lawrence dropped the blanket and scrambled backward with a string of expletives, trying to shake the image of that fox/pig hybrid from his brain.
He couldn't even imagine what other combination of creatures there were in these cages, nor did he have any desire to find out. However, the thought that one of those things were awake and moving around was much too terrifying to ignore either.
No, he had a job to do and he'll be damned if he lost a paycheck over this.
Fuck, he'd probably lose a lot more than a paycheck if anything were to happen to these. . . creatures.
Throwing the fallen blanket back over the fox/pig's cage without fully focusing on it, Lawrence continued on his search for the conscious one.
Every glimpse under each cover never lasted for more than a handful of seconds, not wanting to give him too much time to process what exactly he was seeing. Just identifying it as a sleeper or waker as fast as possible before moving on.
He was nearly at the back of the trailer and was beginning to wonder if the thing had fallen back to sleep since it hadn't made another peep since, when he uncovered the next cage. This one larger, much more fitting for a great dane or something similar to that size.
After the shock of that first reveal, Lawrence hadn't thought another could surprise him as much again, but this one. . . this was one was much different.
It was turtle. That much was obvious to discern with its shell encased torso and scaly green skin, but it appeared to be mixed with human DNA as well. It had two long legs, and two muscular arms, two hands and two feet albeit it was missing some fingers and toes.
Oddly enough, it wore clothing too. Well, scraps of clothing anyway. It had a belt tied around it's waist, knee and elbow pads, and a thin strip of orange fabric around its face with eye holes cut into it.
That wasn't even the most disturbing characteristic about it.
Decorating it's scarred up shell was little neon-colored geometric stickers that reminded him a little too much of his daughter's school notebook she customized with unicorn and fairy stickers.
Obviously, the mutant was older than a five-year old girl, but he could strangely tell that it was still on the young side. Maybe it was the way its face was rounded by what he assumed was baby fat. Maybe it was how fit, yet lean and gangly its limbs were the way a prepubescents body was when morphing into maturity. Whatever the case, it left a rather sour feeling in his stomach.
"Ya touch a single scale on his body and I will tear ya limb from fuckin limb and hang ya from yer torso until ya bleed out like a stuck pig."
Lawrence spun around and raised the barrel of his projector towards where that deep, agitated voice came from. His eyes scanning the wall of cages that lined the back of the trailer.
Which one did it come from?
And how did it know what he was doing?
"I know yer here. Ya fear is makin this truck stink."
The voice was male and spoke in perfect English, saturated with a New Jersey accent.
Lawrence's eyes briefly glanced at the humanoid turtle wearing orange. Was the one speaking one of those things? How did it learn to talk? How had such a biological breakthrough never been announced publicly yet?
"Ya gonna do somethin? Or are ya gonna just stand there peein ya pants?"
Lawrence's mouth flapped open and closed soundlessly. Unsure what to say or if he even should say anything. What good would come from conversing with a specimen? Especially when he was already breaking the rules as it was.
"I swear tah God, whatevah yer plannin on doin tah us, I will make sure tah pay ya back tenfolds."
"M'afraid that's not my call." Lawrence muttered as he quickly yanked up the tarp of the nearest cage. He only saw a flash of golden eyes glaring hard at him before he was rapid firing three tranquilizer darts into the turtle's muscular arm.
The tarp dropped before he could take in any more details. A few minutes of angry cursing and death threats seeped passed the tarp, slowly drifting into slurry bantering, until finally it was out like a light once the drugs hit its system.
Only now did Lawrence realize he had been holding his breath that entire time and forced himself to exhale. Prying his finger off the trigger, he tucked the weapon back into his pants and exited the truck.
His eyes surveyed the parking lot, making sure no one was paying attention to him before he closed the truck door closed, padlocking it, and heading into the restrooms.
The brief image he had captured of the second turtle hybrid popped into his mind as he finished his business and washed his hands. It had barely been a second but it had been enough. While the two were definitely related, there had been many obvious differences such as its skin being a darker shade of green, like the shadows in a forest. Marred with far more scars than the younger one. It did wear the same type of gear with only the face mask being red in color instead of orange.
It was also bigger. . . Much bigger.
With all that weight in pure muscle, it was no wonder it had woken earlier than the others if he had been injected with the same dose levels.
Hopefully the three darts hadn't been too much, though. Lawrence doubted his bosses would be very happy if he'd delivered an OD'd product.
Shaking further thoughts of the matter out of his head, the truck driver made his way back to the cab and pulled the vehicle onto the highway. His classic rock playlist blasting through the speakers as a way of distracting him from thinking about the things he was transporting to who knows where to do who knows what.
. . . Perhaps it was time to retire.
Lawrence had a healthy amount of money in the bank to take care of him and his family for at least the next ten years.
With a couple more paychecks he could afford to send both his children to college, then maybe move somewhere nice. Somewhere far away from here. Somewhere like Portugal or Ecuador.
Yes, just a couple more jobs and he could put this freaky, shady shit behind him.
I know OC's don't get a lot of attention on fanfiction sites but it is fun to write in some else's perspective for a change. I've always found it interesting to view an outsider's perspective on certain fandom characters. Would like to know what you guys think. Who knows, maybe Lawrence will make a return later on?