Girl On Fire

2

"I'm fucking sick!" I yelled at myself in the mirror, sounding nasally as hell. I wanted to smack my head against the counter at how stupid I was to get sick on the same day as we leave. Hopefully I'll be fine by the time night comes around; if not, then I'm fucked.

"You alright?" My friend, Ashley asked me, standing in the bathroom door way. I sighed and leaned my head down on the cold counter.

"No, I have a cold." I said with irritation. Ashley made a face and walked away, leaving me alone and now seething with anger. I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore her reaction before I ended up physically hurting her.

She wasn't a very good friend of mine; she always leached off me and stole my shit. She's been this way since we were children and I've always just put up with it cause she was my only friend and we get up together here. I knew she was a fan of Greta Van Fleet so I invited her to join, thinking I could suck it up for a week, but maybe not.

I sniffled and stood up straight, staring at myself in the mirror once again, deep in thought. My sight in the mirror was blurred to shit due to my lack of eyesight. Without my glasses or contacts, I was near legally blind.

"It's too early for this shit." I mumbled as I walked away from the bathroom. It was 4:55 am, we were supposed to leave at 5 but the trucks not packed up yet.

"Let's pack up. It's almost 5 and it'll take 6 hours to get there. By the time we reach the hotel, it'll be 11 and I want to have lunch by then at a place near it." I informed Ashley. No response was given, which was suspicious to me. I looked around my dimly lit house with an eerie feeling.

It was silent. Too silent.

I knew something was up when I noticed the tickets were gone off the counter and her stuff no where to be found.

"This fucking bITCH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I grabbed my pocket knife and ran into the dark morning, my doc martens thumping loud long with every step I took on my old creaky hard wood floor.

She planned this and I knew she did because she only brought her purse inside and not her luggage. She left everything in her car. I found it weird but never questioned because I didn't care enough to know.

After staring at the dark for a second, I hopped into my truck and took off down the road, knowing she was heading to Georgia.

"It's not too late to catch her. Her shit slower than my truck." I angrily said to myself with my engine roaring to life. You could hear me from miles away. I was ready to kill. I worked hard for those tickets and I was not about to lose them.

Josh Kiszka POV

"Whaaoooooo, detour through Florida! Home of oranges and the old people!" I yelled from the front seat of the Greta van, my necklaces swinging around from the bumpy dirt road were on that for some reason Danny took.

"Yes!" Sammy yelled back in excitement while staring out the window. He tried to stay in place on his seat in the back next to Jake, but was struggling.

"Why are we taking this road again?" Jake asked in his Oliver Reed voice to Danny, who was driving, and the only one sober.

"One road was closed from a bad accident, so we got to take this one all the way back to the main, and then back to the highway." As Danny explained as he stared at the gps in front of him. I let myself go limp in the seat to be tossed around like a rag doll with the seat belt locked, but quickly stoped when I felt the alcohol make its way back up my throat.

"Stop the van. Pull over." I mumbled quickly. Danny didn't understand me, giving me fear that I would vomit in the van at my feet. That would be a horrid time to clean.

"What?" He asked me, swinging his hair as he turned his head. With all the bumps, I felt the sunglasses begin to slide off my face.

"Danny, I need you to pull over." I said quicker than before with urgency. Before he could even stop the van, I swung the door open and let it loose. My sunglasses falling off into the dirt as I released everything I had in my system.

"Go go go go!" Jake started then Sammy following along. Danny looked at me with slight disgust but also a hint of amusement. Once I finished, I sat up with a cough, wiped my mouth, and threw a fist in the air.

"Beer me!" I yelled with pride. My brothers cheered as Danny snickered and began driving again. I hear the cooler open and a cold beer in my hand.

"That Honda is hauling ass!" Jake yelled as Oliver Reed, watching a grey car fly by us in the opposite direction. I spun my head to see but it passed by too fast. I only saw the dust flying up from the speeding.

What we're we doing at 5 am, drinking alcohol and driving in the van, you must be asking. Well, we don't know either so we can't answer that for you.

However, there is a black box truck flying up the road, quiet fast actually. Maybe it was chasing that other car we just saw.

"Damn, that truck is flying." Danny said, squinting at it as it came towards us at a fast speed. It almost scared me. We all stop what we're doing to stare at the bright headlights that we're once in front of us, disappearing and turned a completely 90 degrees into the ditch filled with tall grass with a loud pop.

"Did they just crash?" Sam asked, not taking his eyes off the truck that now sat still; the front half in the wilderness. We were all frozen, shocked that we just possibly witnessed somebody die because at the speed they were going, this could've been bad.

"Call 911." I ordered. Danny did as told. I quickly rushed out and over to the truck. Suddenly the front bursted into flames, catching the tall grass around it on fire a bit.

"Fuck!" I heard a girl screech in anger and a bit of fear, but it was muffled. Suddenly the loud sound of glass shattering filled the air.

"Holy shit!" I yelled as I ran over to the truck first to help the girl climb out the back window and onto the bed. You can see the glass shards were hurting her stomach as she crawled through, ripping the lower half of her shirt.

Her long black hair covered her face as she crawled into the bed of the truck, gripping the sides as tight as she could.

It was like The Ring, expect it's on fire and not a TV. I was practically sober at this point due to fear and concern of what was happening in front of me. Danny hopped out the van and ran straight over, hoping into the bed to punch the rest of the back window with his bare fist to help her get out easier. I watched the flames in the front rise higher, lighting up every thing around it in an orange light.

I felt the flames lick my legs, singeing my leg hairs off my ankle a bit, making me sweat in nervousness. I would've moved but I was paying too much attention to the girl and Danny, I didn't care what was happening to me.

Jake ran over with his phone in hand and panic on his drunk face. Sam ran over with the fire extinguisher in hand from the van, spraying it onto the truck to put out the aggressive flames that grew higher by the second, engulfing the front of the black classic truck. I didn't know we had one on the van.

"Open the doors!" I barked at Jake, carrying the girl with Danny through the dirt. She was stumbling hard, her legs struggling to work. Maybe out of shock, or bad injuries. Once Jake opened the van doors, we sat her down on the ledge and started grabbing stuff, asking questions like we were the paramedics.

She was wearing a dark grey and red flannel with a black shirt underneath, black ripped jeans, and boots that looked like it added two inches to her height. The lower half of her shirt was ripped and torn with a bit of blood seeping through.

"Can you grab her a water?" Danny asked Sam. Sam nodded and walked into the van. Jake stood next to me in silence as we both stared at the scene in front of us. It was a lot to take in and definitely was going to be a night we would remember.