Chapter Five- The Unusually Dense Brick Of Reality

Chapter 5

The Unusually Dense Brick Of Reality

            Asa guided the silver vehicle through the darkness on a long winding road, paying no attention to his speedometer, which, if he had bothered to look, was indicating that the car was moving at a speed of about sixty miles an hour. The boys were tense, looking around constantly for some sign of a new terror that would attempt to end their lives. Asa pulled off of the road, and drove through an open gate to what looked like some sort of strange building. After passing the gate, Asa took a left, leading them onto a dark dirt road. He traveled down the lonely path, each boy in the solitude of their own mind as they continued their journey until finally Arlo called from the back seat, “Hey, where are we going?” Odd looked to Asa, silently inquiring the same thing.

            “Somewhere we can rest.” He replied in a low monotone.

            The dirt road soon turned to a gravel path, which soon thereafter became enveloped in a sort of forest. They continued down the relatively clear path, tires crunching as chunks of crushed concrete and other forms of rock shifted and grinded past one another under the weight of three teenagers and a vehicle. They eventually came to a point where the forest cleared out for approximately twenty-five feet, exposing a seven foot drop to a lake on either side of the now fifteen foot wide opening covered in gravel and dirt.

            Asa slowly brought the car to the opposite side of the clearing, close to the drop-off. To their front, the boys only saw dense forest, and to their left, there was a thin cover of trees and vines followed by a drop to the water. The area was quiet and, after Asa turned the car off, became an area filled with an almost pressurizing silence. The boys all sat in the thick, imperceptible liquid of the silence until Arlo finally broke its grasp on their eardrums.

            “So where exactly are we?” He asked passively.

            There was a pause before Asa replied, “… My make-out spot.”

            There was another pause, broken by an eruption of laughter from the boys.

            “Did you seriously take us to your make-out spot to hide?!” Odd gasped out between fits of intense laughter.

            “Hey, I’ll have you know that I’ve never been disturbed here, and I swear that if we make it out of this alive and I take a girl back here to find one of you two already here, you’re dead.” Asa defended in an almost-serious manner.

            There was yet another pause.

            At that moment, the entire scenario became completely real to the boys. Until then, it was as if they were spectators in first-person, watching some sort of insane action film or playing some violent video game, but in that second, they all became aware that they were being hunted. They knew why, but not how. They knew that their lives were no longer normal, and they knew that they were in danger from that point on, until the threat was either escaped or eliminated.

            Asa suddenly remembered his parents. He frantically dug his phone out of his pocket, hoping they had not returned home from their night out to be greeted by those soldiers, and dialed his mother’s cell phone number. The ringer sounded like a crescendo in a horror movie’s soundtrack as suspense grew, bringing him closer and closer to knowing if his family was going to be okay. She answered.

            “Hello?” Her voice came over the phone clearly.

            “Mom? Are you okay?” Asa asked, attempting to stay under control.

            “Yes Asa, what’s wrong?” She inquired, an edge of worry in her voice.

            “Listen, I know this is crazy, but I need you to stay away from our house. It’s not safe.” Asa replied, feeling his heart begin to beat faster,

            “What?! Why?!” She yelled into the phone’s small microphone, coming out slightly distorted in the small speaker of Asa’s phone.

            “Listen, men with guns attacked the house. Me, Arlo, and Odd got away. They were after us. We don’t know why, but they wanted us dead.” He explained, knowing what would come next.

            “Where are you?! Who were they?! Meet us at the hotel now!” She cried into the phone, becoming hysterical.

            “Mom, I can’t. It’s not safe there. We’re safe where we are. Just don’t go home, okay? I love you so much, please don’t try and find us right now.” He said, holding back tears. After those words left his lips, he hung up.

            He knew he may not see her again.