I Started Writing and This is What Happened

My legs were burning, heart pounding out of my chest, and I could barely breathe, but I couldn't stop running; the only thing racing through my head was how I got into this mess to begin with.
I woke up that day like I did every day. My dated alarm clock's buzzer sounded like it should have been thrown away years ago, but it still sounded its dreadful alarm every morning at seven-thirty. I pulled myself out of bed and hopped in the shower. The water was constant refreshing splash of cold water. I had become accustom to cold showers, it started with a broken water heater and now was an easy way to go from half asleep to wide awake in thirty seconds flat. It takes me all of an hour to go from alarm clock to out the door putting me on my way to school at eight thirty sharp every morning. I was your model sixteen year old.
It was lunch before I realized that day was going to be a memorable one. There was a new student in home room today. He was from North Dakota. He was home schooled and grew up on a soy bean farm. Apparently he had the intellect to graduate but his parents made him transfer to an actual school to gain social skills. You could say Gary was different. Gary, that was his name. I would never forget that.
He walked into the cafeteria and sat down across from me at my typical lunch table. I looked at him puzzled, like expecting that he knew proper high school lunch room etiquette. I gave him a half smile and stared down at my half-eaten grilled cheese. "What you doing tonight," he asked out of the blue. I looked again with the puzzled look I'd given him a few minutes before. "Umm, I've got plans with some friends," I answered hesitantly. Gary just smirked and said, "Cancel them and meet me outside around ten tonight. I've got a fun place we can take that truck of yours, oh and you can bring your friends too if you want." I was speechless. Who was this new guy, who came and sat at my lunch table and is telling me to cancel my plans with my friends, so we can go drive my truck to God knows where? "Thanks, but I'm good," I said as I Brushed off the idea of spending a perfectly good Thursday night with some punk loaner from North Dakota, who before now probably only had human contact when visiting his local farmers' market. "Whatever, you'll be there. It'll be worth your time I guarantee it." Gary said that, and then got up and left as the rest of my friends sat down. They were all curious to what the new mysterious boy had to say and the second I told them the story, they were all about finding out what Gary had in store. That was it, the jury had reached a verdict and my fate for that Friday night was set.
Gary was in my final class that day. It happened to be History with the most boring, elderly man in the existence of education. The only thing that made him a decent teacher is that he lived through most of the historic events he taught. As I sat down Gary dropped a note on my desk as he walked buy. "Be prepared for some wicked shit tonight." I looked back at him and he winked at me and went back to reading the chapter on the Great Depression. What did I get myself into?
Ten o'clock couldn't come fast enough and when I showed up in the parking lot of the school that night with my two best friends and my truck, Gary was nowhere to be seen. We sat there until damn near eleven before we saw this dirty, red neck looking kid come strolling out from under the bleachers on the football field. Gary was right behind him. "It's about time," I yelled at him, already frustrated that I had to be here to begin with. "I had to take care of some things, forgive me," he said as he climbed in the back of my pick-up.
I drove south for about an hour. The night was clear, the moon was full. The moon was so bright in fact; I probably could have driven without my headlights on. Not me, though, I was the perfect sixteen year old remember? It was a little damp, enough to cause a barely visible mist in the air. I heard Gary from the back yell, “Take your next exit and pull over at the second stop light." I did as told wondering what the hell we were doing. I was in an area I didn't know with a two guys I didn't know. My two best friends my only back-up and they were all giddy like it was a fun adventure from some romantic comedy out in theaters. I felt like I was in a horror movie. Things just didn't feel right.
We got to the second light and I pulled over. We all got out of the truck and Gary pointed to an abandon looking farm house with acres of land surrounding it. "From the tree line on the left all the way to highway on the right, it' all belongs to my old man.” Now I was mad, fuming to say the least. I drove our asses all the way out to this unknown town to see where he lived. "You live here? You took us to your damn house?" I yelled at Gary. My two friends just laughed, as did the random red-neck kid, who had now taken the pack of cigarette out of the sleeve of is raggedy white t-shirt and lit it. "No, I said it's my old man's house, I live with my ma," Gary said as he started walking up the drive way to this old run-down house. The red neck followed by my two friends went up after him. I hesitated until the two girls yelled back. What the hell, I was already this far, I might as well see what else was in store.
The house was barely held together. It had white chipping paint on rotting wood separated by the occasional window that was so dirty, it looked solid brown. I made a joke to break the silent tension but was shushed by the red neck as he flicked his cigarette butt to the gravel drive way. When we got to the porch, Gary knocked on the door. Nobody answered, so Gary knocked again. Finally, after a few silent, uncomfortable moments, a man answered the door. He looked strikingly like the red-neck boy, but had a familiar look on his face. His eyes looked exactly like Gary's did this morning when he sat down at my table for lunch. I had realized that this was Gary's dad, and that the red-neck was his brother. "I'm here to talk," Gary said. His dad didn't say anything, just opened the door as to signal that he was allowed to come in. "Stay here with the girls," Gary said to his brother. With a grunt, his brother acknowledged and Gary went in the house. I was so confused. What the hell were we doing here? How did an invite to go joy riding in my truck turn into some weird family confrontation? What was my role in this? We sat there for a few minutes and then I heard yelling. It was coming from Gary and his Dad. Profanity, random sentences, something about a woman who was apparently unhappy, his mom perhaps, or a sister we didn't know about yet. Just then my thoughts were broken buy a loud noise. Like a crash or a condensed firework explosion. Gary flew open the door, and ran past us. "Run you idiots!" The second I heard him yell that I took off. We were all running up the driveway we had so calmly strolled down a half hour earlier. My legs were burning, heart pounding out of my chest, and I could barely breathe, but I couldn't stop running; the only thing racing through my head was how I got into this mess to begin with. That didn't matter though. What mattered was getting back to my truck and getting the hell out of there. I didn't know what happened but whatever it was it couldn't have been good. I got to the truck and Gary was in the driver's seat. "Throw me the keys," he yelled. "Not a chance," I said barely breathing. "We have no time," he insisted. I threw him the keys and hopped in the bed of my truck. What the hell was I doing?
The tires screeched and we pulled out of there and we were speeding down the road. Gary was in his own world, staring straight at the road. When we hit the highway, I thought for sure I was safe. It was weird, but it would be over. We were ok. Just as I settled down in the back of the pickup bed, my two best friends beside me, Gary and his red neck brother in the front I looked beside me and saw a garbage bag I didn't remember seeing before. I looked inside and saw what looked to be several thousand dollars in cash. I yelled up to Gary and asked, "What the hell is all this money doing in the back of my truck!" Gary looked back and saw that we had found the bag he had run out of his dad's house with. He slammed on the breaks, and opened the door. "Get out. Get out all of you," he yelled at my two friends and me. "Screw you, this is my truck. What the hell is all this money from?" As I finished my sentence I say Gary's brother grab my two friends and throw them out of the truck. Then Gary grabbed my wrist and pulled me out. I felt a sharp pain as I hit the ground. What was going on? I stood up in time to see him race away in my truck.
With my two friends crying and tears running down my own face I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed my brother. My brother James was two years older than me, and well, the only one other than my dad I could call when I got into trouble. I wasn't about to call my dad, so I dialed James. It took all my effort to prevent myself from breaking down talking to him on the phone. I told him I was stranded on the side of the highway a few miles south of town and I needed him to pick us up. We sat back in the grass and waited. Thank God the moon was so bright that night. It provided us with a natural almost night light to prevent us from being even more freaked out than we already were.
James got there fifteen minutes later, and as we drove back into town he asked what had happened. I made up a story. One of the girls' boyfriends played a joke on us. Stranded us on the side of the road and took my truck. We didn't feel like waiting so we called him instead. I don't know if James believed us or not, but he left me alone for the rest of the ride. We dropped the two girls off that night and then James and I went home. I fell into my bed and passed out.
That annoying tone came again at its punctual seven thirty time slot. As I opened my eyes, I wondered if what I went through last night was merely a dumb dream I had had. As I stepped in to my ritual cold shower I realize it wasn't. My left shoulder was black and blue and I had scrapes all down that side of my body. What happened is all I could think to myself as I got dressed. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes today. Getting dressed was too painful with my shoulder. I got a ride to school from James that morning, and when we pulled up my truck was in the parking lot. I got to my truck and the keys were lying in the bed. I grabbed them, locked it up and ran to class. I was running late today.
I met my two friends in our first period homeroom like every other day. We spent the hour trying to figure out what happened last night. Gary hadn't shown up, so I went up to ask our home room teacher if she had any news on why he wasn't there. She knew nothing of a Gary in this class, and didn't remember him from yesterday. I insisted and she told me to sit down and stop with the games, it was too early for her to deal with teenaged bullshit today.
I went through the whole day asking the same question, "Where's Gary?" And with the exception of my two friends, no one knew who he was. After school, I drove my truck home. As I was getting my garage door opener out of the glove box, an envelope fell out. Inside was a note. It read, "I'm sorry for putting you through that, but I needed wheels. I don't expect you to understand but I hope this make us for it a little. Folded in the letter was a pile of cash, two grand to be exact. I shoved it in my purse and went straight inside to my room. I was so confused and afraid of what was going on and what happened last night that I put the cash in a shoe box with the note and shoved it in the back of my closet.
A few weeks later my shoulder was almost back to normal and my friends and I had attributed the entire Gary situation to a weird stroke of unluckiness. That was until I was eating my breakfast and the local news came on interviewing a girl from a town a few miles north. She said a new student at her school had convinced her and some friends to go joy riding. She was taken to a strange house. As I listened to this interview, her story was as exactly as mine was. Different town, different car, but the story was the same. I dropped my glass, it shattered. My dad looked at me like I was a child; I apologized, cleaned it up, and ran off to school. Getting in my truck that day and driving to school, I was terrified. Who was this guy? Was he coming back? Am I okay? I didn't know what was in store. I did know that it wasn't coincidence that night. What my friends and I went through was real. What I didn't know is that Gary would be back, and there would be another night like the one a few short weeks ago, only then there would be more than money and my truck involved; someone wouldn't survive.