The Broken Date

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Jack's POV:

I didn't talk to him after that.

I slumped down to the floor of the van and waited in silence. I tried to think of an escape plan, but discovered I was too frightened to think clearly.

Pictures popped in and out of my mind. Strange picture, real and unreal, not related to anything that was happening to me.

I saw Chris pleading with me to play Hungry Hippos. I saw Mark swimming in his first swim meet. I saw Felix suspended upside down by his ankles from rings in the gym, smiling and swinging back and forth.

The mind act so crazily, I thought, when you're about to die.

“Here we are, babes.”

The van squealed to a stop.

I heard the driver’s door open. I looked through the small opening. On the other side of the cracked windshield, I saw woods.

I heard Darks footsteps crunching on the gravel.

Suddenly the back door of the van was pulled open. The air outside was as stifling as inside the can. The sky was still a solid, dark gray.

I saw a stucco cabin on edge of thick woods. For some reason, the cabin had been painted a pastel green. A woodshed, also pastel green, stood a short dirt path from the cabin. A clothesline had been strung between tree trunks. Some socks and a pair of faded blue jeans hung drying on the line.

Dark had the long coil of rope in one hand. He reached into the van and grabbed my hand. “Here we go,” he said, his red eyes filled with menace.

He pulled me roughly out of the van and threw me to the gravel. “Hey!” I snapped, more in surprise than pain.

He pulled me to my feet and gave me a hard shove toward the cabin. “Get inside---quick,” he said.

I started slowly toward the small cabin. But I heard a cry. I turned back just in time to see Mark leap from the top of the van.

“What the---” Dark cried, astonished, as Mark landed on Dark’s shoulder, knocking him to the gravel.

For a brief second, I thought I was dreaming again.

Two Marks grappled in the stony drive, two heads of raven-black hair, four arms punching and pushing, two heads grunting, crying out, groaning from the pain and the exertions of the fight.

But it was no dream.

I quickly figured out that Mark must have leaped onto the back of the van before it was pulled away from the front of the school. Then he must have held on for dear life all the way out to the woods.

Mark was on his back now, Dark sat on his chest, landing hard punches to Mark’s face. Forgetting my terror, forgetting how unreal the fight looked to me, I ran forward and shoved Dark off of Mark. Dark groaned loudly and rolled on the gravel.

Now Mark leaped on top of Dark, landing hard on Dark’s stomach, causing him to cry out and gasp for breath.

“Run, Jack! Run!” Mark called.

I stood staring at the two raven-black heads, unable to move. This isn’t happening, I thought. I’m imagining this, too.

“Jack, run to the woods!”

Mark’s desperate  plea snapped me back to reality.

I turned and started toward the cabin.

No. Wrong way.

I looked back at the fight. Both of them were rolling in the gravel, struggling to get the advantage.

I looked for a tree limb, something to hit Dark with.

“No!” Mark shouted. “Run! Just run! Run and get help!”

Of course. I could get help. I could find another cabin down the road, or a gas station, or something. I could call the police. Yes. Get help.

But first I’d have to get away.

If I headed for the road, it would be easy for Dark to catch up to me. Mark was right. I had to run to the woods.

I could hear grunts and cries of the fight as I ran over the tall weeds into the trees. The air felt thick and wet. It seemed to get even hotter as I ran over the thick brambles, twigs and tree limbs, and tangles of tall weeds still wet from the ran.

The ground was soft and marshy. I ran stooped over, with my arms in front of my face, shielding myself from the thorny branches and low limbs that seemed to swing up from out of nowhere.

Running blindly, I tried to keep parallel to the road and hoped that the woods ended at someone’s property line, that I’d soon come to a cabin or farmhouse where I could get help. I cried aloud when something scampered past my feet. But I quickly realized that it was just a rabbit I had startled.

‘Bet I’m more scared than you are.” I told the rabbit as I ran over a thick carpet of pine needles.

Past the pine needles, my heart pounding, my throat too dry to swallow, a pain in my side spreading around to my chest. Through low, thick bushes. Into a muddy clearing.

With a loud sloshing sound, the mud rose up over my sneakers. I pulled my knees high, trying to float over the mud, and realized that my left sneaker had come untied.

Should I stop to tie it. (Prob not..)

If I didn’t, it might come off in the mud. (Who cares..)

I turned, looked behind me, listened. No sounds. No one coming.

I bent over to tie my sneaker, (.....) the muddy laces slipping through my fingers. It seemed to take forever. The pain in my side grew sharper. I couldn’t see clearly enough to hold the laces.

Finally I had them tied. I stood up, started to run across the small clearing---and tripped over someone’s raised black high-top.

“Where ya runnin’ off to?”

I scampered quickly up from the mud. I turned to see that I was tripped by a man that looked just like me, but his hair was a darker green and he had a cut on his neck. He was wearing ripped skinny jeans, and a black shirt with the black high-tops.

"Don’t be in such a hurry.” He said.

He rushed forward, grabbed my right arm, and jerked it behind me.

“Ow! Stop! You’re hurting me!” I cried, struggling unsuccessfully to get out of my ‘twins’ grasp.

“Dark’d be real unhappy if you slipped away,” the man said. “And you don’t wanna make Dark unhappy, do you? I’m Dark’s kitten, and take it from me, you don’t want to make Dark unhappy.”

Twisting my arm behind me, the man turned me around and began to force me back toward the cabin.

Word count: 1125. Sorry I didn't post for a while, I had something with family..