dane
“Shit!” I ducked, hitting the ground and copping a face full of mud and leaves.
“Dane!” Ashton shouted from somewhere down the hill behind me.
Declan shot again, and the bullet hit Ashton’s truck, causing the driver’s side window to explode. I heard Ashton swear as his precious truck was destroyed by the bullet and the killer who had been taunting us.
Since we were stuck down here with no way out anyway, I made a split-second decision to slide down the slope to join Ashton. Together, we slid down so we were below his truck, using it as protection from the gunfire. Declan kept shooting.
“Is he coming after us?!” Ashton asked, leaning up against the side of the truck. I climbed over to join him. A branch broke close by, and then another bullet struck the car, this time blowing out of the back tires. The truck lurched sideways, shoving us down the hill.
We screamed and decided to run and half-slide down the hill, fearing being squashed by Ashton’s truck.
“I’m gonna kill that bastard!” yelled Ashton when we reached the bottom of the hill and continued running into the woods.
“If I don’t beat you to it first,” I said. “We should head this way. Hopefully, we’ll find the power station.”
Ashton muttered curses as we ran about whether the Summervale residents needed their power and why he volunteered to do this. I focused on getting us out of the woods alive.
Thankfully, it wasn’t far from the power station. We only had to run and trip over fallen tree trunks and through a bit more thick woods until the power station came into view.
There was a hole in the chain link fence, which we slipped through, so we didn’t have to waste time undoing the combination lock on the front gate. More branches broke behind us.
“He’s coming! Hurry!” I said to Ashton. We ran to the front door. But there was another combination lock.
“Damn. What’s the code again?” asked Ashton. A bullet was fired again. We ducked as it struck the fence.
“6666,” I said, telling Ashton what the sheriff had told me.
“Seriously?” he laughed. “That’s the combination?”
“Yep.” Suddenly, the floodlights came on, illuminating the power station and its surrounding area of woods. I looked back to see Declan standing at the edge of the woods. He began running toward us as Ashton cracked open the lock and pushed the heavy metal door open. We ran inside and slammed the door shut as Declan reached it. I slid the deadbolt closed and locked it when we were safely inside. Ashton and I collapsed against it to catch our breath momentarily, exhausted from running for our lives.
“I thought Bobby was on his way?” asked Ashton.
“He is. It looks like Declan got here first.”
“I’ll radio him to tell him we made it to the power station and that Declan is outside with a gun.”
I patted my pockets for the radio, which I had clipped to my jeans previously, but my stomach sank as I realised it wasn’t there.
“Oh no. it’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“The radio. I must have dropped it while we were running.”
“There must be another one in the office,” suggested Ashton, taking off down the entry hallway. I followed him into the darkness, with only our flashlights leading the way.
The Summervale power station was smaller than most other power stations. Most fuses, electrical components, and all the metres and things were underground. You could see them through the grated walkways that comprised the upper levels. We were on the ground floor, and another floor was above us, according to the blueprints the sheriff provided.
“According to the blueprints, the main office is over the bridge and to the right,”
As we crossed the grated bridge, we looked down at the rows and rows of electrical fuse boxes and computer hard drives that powered the town and the neighbouring towns. Several floors were below us, and you could see to the bottom through the grate.
“Goddammit, why does this bridge have to be see-through?” complained Ashton.
I almost forgot he was afraid of heights.
This came from when we were growing up and when Bobby, Dylan, Ash, and I were climbing trees. We were about ten years old, and there was this one enormous, ancient tree that had been there since before any buildings had been established. We always used to dare each other to do stupid dares. The night before, the boys were at a slumber party at my place and played Truth or Dare. Ashton had picked dare, and Dylan had dared him to climb the largest tree in town, this one ancient oak tree.
Bobby, Dylan, and I stood at the base of the old tree and watched Ashton climb to the top.
And then me, being the mischief maker I was back then, I was a bugger of a kid, always getting into trouble, and thought it would be funny if the boys and I left and ran away, leaving Ashton up the tree.
So, we had left to go home, and Ashton got stuck up there, too frightening to figure out how to get down. That night, when Ashton’s parents were frantically looking for him at my place, I confessed what I had done, and Ashton and my dad got a ladder out to get him down.
Ashton didn’t speak to me for about six months after that incident.
“Sorry, dude. Just don’t look down,” I told him.
After a few beats of silence, well, relative silence, as all you could hear were the resounding clangs of our boots on the metal grated floor, I spoke, thinking of the memory.
“Also, I hope you know how bad I feel for that time we left you up the old oak tree. It’s my fault you’re afraid of heights to this day.”
He turned back to glance at me, stopping to hold onto the metal railing. He raised his eyebrows in question, a look of surprise on his face.
“Oh. I didn’t think you’d still be holding onto that, dude. I forgave you a long time ago for that. We were young and stupid back then.” he patted my shoulder and gave me a small smile.
“Yes, we were,” I chuckled.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a loud bang, like an explosion. Our immediate reaction was to duck, thinking it was a gunshot. But then, something struck Ashton in his side. He cried out and grabbed his ribs. I looked to see his hands come away bloody.
Then I saw movement from below.
Declan stood below us, a gun in one hand and a large-serrated knife in the other. A sinister smile plastered across his face.
“You can’t run from me. Well, you can try. But I’ll always find you,” he taunted.
“Ash! Run!” I grabbed onto my best friend and pushed him forward. He held onto his side as we ran the rest of the way across the transparent bridge and to the office.
We made it to the offices just as Declan reached the stairs.
“Close it! Quick!” screamed Ashton. Declan continued shooting, but thankfully, everything was made of metal in here, so the bullets only ricocheted off the walls and the door to the office. We finally managed to bolt the door to the warden’s office closed as Declan reached us. And we locked him out once more.