A War You Can't Win

Chapter 5: Junkyard Dog

A mile into the shady area, Michelle let go, nervously straightening her hair. “That was pretty scary, huh?” her trembling voice broke through the still air.

“Yeah, kind of, but not really. I mean, I've been through worse,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Okay, well I haven't, so it was a little freaky, alright?” she said in a panicky tone.

“Alright. Look, just calm down, will ya? I'm not used to having another person, especially someone like you, with me. I forget how crazy things might be to other people.”

She just stayed quiet.

They kept moving, ducking into shadows at the slightest hint of any noises. As they plunged deeper into the neighborhood, more and more of the houses had motion detecting porch lights, which was surprising for how poor the area seemed to be. It was getting increasingly difficult to hide from the occasional civilian and squad cars that drove by. “We're gonna have to find another place to cut through,” Kid said as they slid out from behind a bush. “This is getting way too risky.”

Glancing around, Kid spotted a rusted sign with an arrow pointing to a path on their right. Under the arrow, 'Junkyard' was crudely printed, although most of the letters were scratched off. “That junkyard doesn't sound like too bad of an idea,” Kid mumbled.

“Yeah, but knowing our luck so far tonight, it probably is a bad idea.”

“Probably. Let's go.”

Following the sign, they eventually came upon the fenced in, and of course, incredibly dark junkyard. Razor wire gleefully danced along the top of the weathered fence. The entrance was locked with a mostly damaged padlock. “It doesn't look like anyone's been here for years,” Kid said, studying the lock in his hands.

“Can you break it?” Michelle asked, trying to peer through a hole in the fence.

“Yeah,” he quickly responded, grabbing a thick rock that was lying beside his foot.

He gave the world behind him a hasty once-over, then smashed the lock to pieces in one swift strike. They pushed through the door, and happily closed it behind them. The delved into the yard's seemingly never ending black. Passersby would hopefully assume nothing was amiss, that nothing ever occurred there, save for bits of the shattered, and very easy to miss, padlock scattered about.

Inside the hauntingly empty yard, they could make out mountains of rusted cars and scrap metal all around them. Its maze-like structure made it appear to be some sort of obstacle course that had to be completed in order to exit through the back. “Stick close,” Kid whispered. “I don't need you getting lost.”

She scoffed. “I bet you'd get lost way before I ever would.”

“I'll gladly take you up on that bet another day, you know, when I'm not being hunted,” he quipped, surprised to find that he was actually smiling with the remark, though no one would ever have known through the heavy darkness.

The pair entered an empty shipping container that opened up into what resembled a trench, due to the walls of cars on either side of it. There was a sign placed in front of the trench informing anyone who read it that the path was strictly for personnel only, but the duo weren't really in a following the rules sort of mentality at the moment. The trail managed to be darker than the rest of the junkyard, as their ever decreasing luck would have it. “I don't much enjoy wandering around like some blind rat,” Kid said, his arms held out in front of him.

“When our eyes get a little more adjusted to it, we'll be able to see where we're going a lot easier.”

“Hopefully we'll be outta this hellhole before that can happen. I'm already sick of this place.”