The Outsiders - Church Days

Chapter 2 : Arrival...?

Johnny woke me up. "Come on Ponyboy, rise and shine!" he said softly. I groaned. "Blast it Johnnycake, what time is it?" I said to him. "I don't know, around seven I think." he replied. At that moment, all I wanted was sleep. "Get up!" he yelled. "Okay! Jeez!" I got on my feet and started walking with him. It was warm up in the country, a lot warmer than last night, that's for sure. Me and Johnny didn't exactly know where we were heading, all we knew was we were looking for a church up on a hill. Johnny stopped. "Hey, look over there. Maybe we can ask them where we can find the church." he said. There were two men standing in the grass. "Well, I'm not going over there!" I said. I really meant it. I probably looked and smelt like trash. Johnny knew he wasn't going to change my mind, so he went along and asked them. I saw them talking. One man examined Johnny while the other pointed at me and scratched his head. They told Johnny where to go, then he led the way. We started walking again and reached a Dairy Queen. We were hungry, so we ended up spending all the money Dally had given us on the food there. At the time, we didn't even realize we wouldn't have any money left to spend on other supplies. Damn it Dairy Queen. Always stealing us greaser's money. While we were walking, we passed by a hospital, a school, a grocery store and a bank. It all looked pretty cool, but we had most of this stuff in our side of town anyway. We kept walking until we reached our destination. But it didn't look like a church. In fact, you could tell by first sight that this building wasn't a church. We were confused and walked in. There didn't seem to be anyone inside. It was dimly lit by a couple open windows. Dust blew all over everything as we closed the door and a gust of wind blew in. This definitely was not a church. There were tables, red leather couches, stools and a big counter. This was an abandoned restaurant, not an abandoned church! I took a step in, looking around. Still, no one seemed to be here. I was pretty sure by the condition the interior was that this place was abandoned years ago. I took another step, still examining the place. As I placed my foot against the floor, a loud creak was let out from the floorboards. I looked up. There was a cop right in front of me, pointing a gun at my forehead. I turned around. Johnny was frozen, and white. I put my hands up. "Don't you boys know better than to take advice from strangers?" he said funnily. He didn't seem very professional. He kept taunting us, walking in a circle and making sure we didn't move. "It's awful strange that two boys with your exact traits were reported missing just last night, right after two boys were also seen fleeing from a murder scene-" he kept going. He just wouldn't shut up. He moved closer to me, attempting to put me in cuffs. "Hands behind your back, boy. And you, short one, don't even try anything back there!" he was seriously placing us under arrest. I wasn't going to jail anytime soon, especially if the first time I got to see Darry and Soda again was in cuffs. As he was placing the first cuff on my wrist, he wasn't even paying attention to me, he was staring at Johnny! He made it too easy. I raised my arm, hitting him in the back of the head. "Johnny, run!" I yelled. Johnny bolted forward and before we knew it, we were hiding. Hiding from a cop who by this point, wanted us dead. I ran left and Johnny ran right. I heard the sound of gunshots and dove behind one of the red couches. The cop kept firing and some bullets tore right through the leather. He eventually stopped shooting in my direction and went to go look for Johnny. I found a steak knife on the floor and picked it up. I stood up from behind the couch and saw Johnny hiding in the corner of the bar. The cop turned around, saw me and... smiled. Not a genuine, happy smile, but a creepy, grim smile. He turned back around and acted like I wasn't even there. He focused his attention back on Johnny in the corner. He pulled out his taser and was looking to hurt Johnny. Johnny was scared, I could tell by his face. The face he wore at that moment was the exact same face he had when we found him at the vacant lot after he was beaten up by the Socs. Fear. I couldn't take it anymore. Without even thinking twice, I threw the knife. It turns out I'm a pretty lousy aim too, cause I was aiming for his leg but hit his stomach. He fell to the floor. I guessed me and Johnny were both murderers now. The cop kept grunting and wheezing. He reached for his gun but lost consciousness while he was pulling it out. Johnny started to cry. "That's two people dead in less than a day! Two!" I responded saying: "Come on Johnny, let's just get out of here before things get too out of hand." I realized what I had just said made no sense, because things had already gotten way too out of hand. We both ran out as fast as we could. On the street, there was a newspaper stand. I took a look at some of the articles. Three of them caught my attention. 'Two Boys Reported Missing! pg 12', 'Three Child Molesters Escape From Prison! pg 27' 'Naked Cop Body Found In River! pg 34'. Before I could finish processing all of that information, someone tapped me and Johnny on the shoulder. I turned around, but before I could see who it was, they pulled us into a dark alleyway.