Chapter 1
“Do you know what's worth fighting for when it's not worth dying for? Does it take your breath away, and you feel yourself suffocating?” -21 guns by Green Day
“Another moment in this stupid town and I think my head might explode,” Keira sighed as she took her gum out of her mouth and stuck it on the back of the wooden fence we were sitting around. I sat on top of the fence, staring down the road, just waiting for a car to come, to show some small sign of life in this dead town. Keira was sitting on the dirt, leaning against the fence, and Timothy was standing next to her, his arm leaning on the fence. Nate was standing on the edge of the road throwing rocks across and seeing how far they would go, and Queen was laying sprawled out in the middle of the road, her arms and legs spread, without even the smallest worry in her head that she would be run over. Not in this town. By the adults, our little group was known as the rebels. In other terms, we were the kids who couldn’t care less about school or jobs because we knew that no matter what we did, we would end up just like our parents, and everyone else in this town: either stuck here living off cheap paychecks and neighborly affection or in some big city way far off, homeless and hopeless. Every other kid knew that it was going to be the same for them too, they just denied it. But everyone knew it. Being born into this town was like being born into the servant class in medieval times: you were stuck there, and that was that. No questions asked. The end. “I think we covered that, Ginger,” Tim growled in his ever-present deep, throaty scratch of a voice. It was like someone had ripped the vocal chords out of a crow and T.I. and combined them together to make the song that was Timothy. “Shut up, freckle-face, like you can talk.”
“Oh, right, ‘cause your skin is so perfect!”
“‘Cause I said that, right!”
“Would you guys just shut up,” Nate groaned, picking up another handful of rocks. “You know what I think?” Queen asked as she lifted herself up on her elbows. I winced, “Jeez, Queen, don’t asphalt burns even hurt you a little bit?” Queen glanced at her elbows, “Oh, huh, I’m bleeding.” Keira and Timothy rolled their eyes in unison and Nate smiled at his strange-but-appealing girlfriend. “Well, anyway, I think we should all go on a trip. It’s summer vacation, what are we all doing staying around here like we’ve got nothing better to do with our lives?”
“There’s two weeks left of summer, Queen, and it’s not like we can exactly plan some elaborate trip in two minutes and then just drive down in a couple hours. Do you forget that we live in the middle of nowhere?” I asked. Queen rolled her eyes, “Who said it has to be elaborate?” she muttered as she lay back down on the asphalt, frying her face in the late-afternoon sun. “With five people driving at least nine hours, I’d say it’s pretty elaborate.” Queen blew a huge bubble with her gum and popped it carefully, pulling it back into her mouth with her tongue, “So we ditch the freckle twins,” she said. “Hey!” Keira and Timothy called out in unison protest. Nate laughed and continued to toss rocks over his girlfriend and onto the other huge, dead grassland that lay on the other side of the road. I spit on the ground and said, “Sorry, Queen, but I don’t think that plan’s gonna work out too hot.” Queen sighed, “Fine.”
“Well, at least we have some newbies coming,” Nate said, trying to cheer up his cry-baby, “maybe they’ll make things slightly less boring. I hear they have a couple sons, one our age and one a little older.”
“There’s some new doomed souls coming?” I asked, “How come nobody told me this?” Keira looked over at me, “You didn’t know?”
“Um, yea, actually, I did. I just felt like saying I didn’t for kicks.” Keira raised an eyebrow at me and I slapped her shoulder, “Of course I didn’t know, idiot! Who are they?”
“All we know about them is their last name. Dimpens.”
“Dimpens?”
“Yup.”
“That sucks,” I said with empathy. Nate laughed, “Tell me about it. Hopefully they’ll wear it well.” Queen popped another bubble and we all fell silent as a rush of wind swept over us and something strange came out of the distance. “Is that?” Nate asked, stepping slightly closer to the object, as if that slight change in distance might prove it to be wrong. Keira stood up,“No...”
“It couldn’t be...” Timothy said, walking next to Nate. I jumped off the fence and walked next to the four of them, all of us staring in disbelief. Queen watched us for a minute before finally saying, “What?” and sitting up. Just as she did, the truck was suddenly coming right towards us. Nate grabbed her arm and pulled her quickly off the road. We all jumped back in surprise as the truck drove past us. “A truck.”
“Oooh. I just figured it out. It must be the newbies.”
“Oooh,” we all said in unison, except Queen, who was staring at Nate in disbelief. He looked at her, “What?”
“You waited until I was just about to be killed to pull me off the road?!” she screamed. We all widened our eyes and looked over at them. Nate blinked, “Oh. Uh. Sorry?”
“You better be, you idiot!” she screamed. And with that, she moved back to the middle of the road and lay down again. We all looked down at her in complete shock, and Nate burst out laughing. He ran over to her and kissed her before laying down next to her on the road, gripping her hand in his and putting them on his chest, still laughing. Queen looked at him and just shook her head, closing her eyes again and gazing up at the sky. “Well, that was sufficiently weird,” Keira said, sitting down against the fence. Timothy sat next to her, “I’ll second that.” I looked down in the direction the truck had gone and wiped the sweat of the late-afternoon sun off of my forehead.
© 2010
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