I.
There were five of them in total. Teenagers. They rode in a battered up old Chevy, some of them back in the tailgate, their hands raised up in the air and shouting at the few cars that drove past them, not a car in the world but themselves and the life they were living round them.
The road ahead was dark and lifeless. Not even a deer was out at that hour. The headlights were on but not the brights, and that was the way most of them liked it. They liked the thrill of the night, the chance that at any moment maybe some silly deer would come along, and they’d hit it and fly off of the road, or that some car might swerve into the other land and hit them head on, sending all of them out into the darkness and space beside the road. They thought of death and it didn’t scare them.
They were driving toward the lake, an hour away from where they lived, but the drive was pretty and the lake even prettier. It was where all of the kids would hang out, any time of the year. Where they would spend nights getting drunk, and swimming, having sex, and all the other things that happen at a lake far away from home. It was a safe haven for kids like them, to have fun and to live. There was no such thing as fear there.
The five of them were meant to meet their other friends at another lake house up beside the lake, a small trailer just on the outskirts of a grove. They’d been there before; they knew the way in and out. It wasn’t just a matter of getting lost. They knew the way. They were sure.
Just as they were about to make the turn on the road that led up to the trailer house, a tire on the old Chevy blew out, sending them to the side of the road, stranded.
They had no spare tire. No pump. They had no choice but to hitchhike, and they walked, it would take them all night to get there in the dark. Maybe until morning.
“Well, what are we going to do?” One of them said frantically.
“I don’t know.” Someone replied.
“We can’t spend the night out here. We have to find a place to lay low at least.” The driver said.
They stood in a circle beside the truck thinking about what they could do. There was nothing for a good few miles down the road.
“Can’t we just walk and see what we find?” One of them asked.
They looked at each other and nodded.
Then one by one, they began to walk down the road in the dark.
