It's the End of the World

Chapter 19

By the time the train got to the closest train station to Mt. Shasta, it was almost sunset. It all. Came down. To this.

We got off the train station and found the rental car place. I found our car, which was really nice. I'm not a car expert, so I couldn't tell you what kind it was, but I think it was a Camaro or a Mustang or something like that.

"So, where's our driver?" Sam asked.

"I think we're the driver."

Sam looked at me like I was crazy.

"We can't drive, we're only 12!"

"Shh! Look, the world's ending, and getting caught driving is the least of our problems."

"Why is the sky purple?" Sam had a problem with zoning out.

"I don't know, because God wanted it- Wait, did you just say purple?"

I looked up. Sure enough, the sky was purple.

"This isn't good, this isn't good at all. Look how fast those clouds are moving!"

"Bye-bye clouds," Sam said.

"We better hurry up."

We got in the car.

I was actually doing a pretty good job driving.

"We're going to die!" Sam said over and over.

"Sam, shut up or you are going to die!"

Every time I drove into another lane, Sam screamed.

"Okay, our exit's up here."

I drove onto an exit that led up a hill, but too late did I realize that it was the wrong exit. I drove through the railing back down the hill to the highway.

"Okay Sam, I admit, you did have a reason to be screaming then."

"ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!"

"No, I'm just trying to hurry up and get to Mt. Shasta."

"Well can you hurry up without getting us killed?!"

"No."

Eventually we got to the town of Mt. Shasta.

"Okay, now what next?"

After thinking about it for a while, I said, "I think the best thing to do would be to go to the summit. But first, there's a museum of Mt. Shasta. I think we should check it out.

We went to the museum. It told us about how Mt. Shasta was an active stratovolcano. It told us about how skiers from all over the country came to Mt. Shasta. It also told us about Native American legends of the mountain.

"I remember reading about this," I said, "A girl fell down off the mountain and she was raised by bears." My explanation was very crude. What the legend was was that the Great Spirit came down from the sky onto Mt. Shasta. The Great Spirit's daughter fell down from the mountain and was raised by bears. She married the oldest cub, and the offspring was people. The Great Spirit couldn't stand the loss of his daughter, so he made all bears walk on all fours and spread their children (the people) all over the world.

The Shasta tribe, where Mt. Shasta got it's name from, said the Great Spirit created this mountain as a stepstool to come down to the Earth on. He made trees, and forced the snow on the mountain to melt to form rivers. He brought everything to life on this mountain.

"I've also heard that there's been UFO sightings and sightings of Bigfoot in the mountain."

"Great," Sam said, "If we don't get killed by Vespers, we'll get killed by Bigfoot. And if that doesn't happen, we'll get our internal organs sucked out by aliens."

After we checked out the museum, we decided to go to the summit. We took the highway to the summit. I'd like to say we didn't get lost at all, but it took us about an hour to find the highway that took us up to the mountain. It was going good at first, but after a while, I saw something scary in the rearview mirror. It was a truck following us. And the driver of the truck was Catherine.

I hit the gas petal. Not literally, I just stepped on it. I drove as fast as I could without having a wreck around every turn. I bet the song Catherine was listening to was "Renegade Runaway" by Carrie Underwood. It was a little weird because Sam and I were driving a Mustang, and Catherine was driving, a big Chevy truck. We were actually doing pretty good, in my opinion. Apparently pretty good wasn't good enough. Catherine was gaining on us. It didn't help that she had a gun that she was trying to shoot us with.

"Quit it!" I yelled, "You're getting bullet holes in my car!"

Eventually, I realized we weren't going to make it. Then I had the craziest idea I've ever had in my whole life. And that's saying a lot.

"Sam, this is going to sound crazy-"

"No, I've gotten used to crazy by now."

"Okay, well, see that drop-off off of the mountain right there."

"You mean pretty much everywhere?"

"Yeah. Well, we'll never be able to lose Catherine. Okay, now listen to this next part carefully. I'm going to drive off the side of the mountain. When I tell you to jump out, open the door and jump out as fast as you can."

"That's crazy! Are you committing suicide! Because if you are, let me out right now!"

"No, but that might be what she thinks. If she thinks we're dead, she'll give up and stop chasing us. Okay now get ready!"

"I don't want to do this! We're not going to make it!"

"On the count of three, jump out!" I drove the car towards the side of the road.

"One..."

"I don't want to do this!"

"Two..."

"We're not going to make it!"

We were almost there. We caught some air as we went off the side of the road. "Three! Now!"