Untitled (the Roommates)

3. A Car, A Chase, A "Death"

The black van was still there.

It had been trailing Elton ever since he left the mall. It wasn't one of those boxy, creepy, get-in-my-car-I-lost-my-puppy kind of vans, it was sort of soccer mom-ish, but sleeker and cleaner. It definitely didn't look like a police car, though. Elton had no idea why he was being followed and not pulled over already. But he didn't have a good feeling about his current situation, and he had no way of knowing whether or not the incident at the mall and his being followed were related, so he reached into his bag and pulled out his phone to call the cops.

A black screen with a red and white battery icon was what greeted him.

"Damn it." Maybe it was better this way. Maybe a description of him was with the police and if he called them he would just essentially be turning himself in. He was a big boy. He could handle it himself.

But no matter how many side roads he turned off of, how many times he turned around, how many drive-thrus he circled in and out of...

The black van was still there.

He couldn't go to Heath's house. He couldn't go home. He was afraid of stopping. He couldn't call anyone.

Elton wasn't paying attention to where he was going, but when he came back to his senses he realized that both he and the van were in a very desolate part of the city. A neighborhood with no houses, maybe an abandoned warehouse here or there, and no other observable people. In any other circumstance, Elton would be thrilled at discovering new places to stay overnight, but at the current moment he was too busy worrying about how the van was speeding up. In his mind, this was a life-or-death situation, which was why he did what he did.

He didn't know what came over him, but he had to get rid of that van. Gruesome images of him being kidnapped or murdered when he was caught up with flashed across his mind as he reached out for his backpack with one hand, while steering off-road toward a warehouse with the other. It took a couple tries to get both straps around his shoulders without taking his hand off of the wheel, but when he finally did he looked up into his rear view mirror to see that the van was further away, but still pursuing. He breathed deeply and opened his door a crack, while driving full-speed toward the back of a warehouse. Here goes nothing, Elton.

One second his car was fine, the next it was smashed and crumbled in the entire front half. One second Elton was there, the next he was nowhere to be found.