Kevin looked behind him and noticed that he, Samantha and Jansin were caught in the middle as well. There must have been thousands of men, lab technicians, scientists, and foot workers, all determined to capture their fugitives. To Kevin, they even looked like evil angels, swarming down the hill in relentless numbers. They were closer to the group now, which Samantha and Kevin had decided not to join, because they were in too much shock to move. Kevin could see that AJ had tried to dodge the men and women, but was seized by his arms and thrown heartlessly to the ground moments later. Eventually, everyone was pinned to the ground.
Kevin looked behind him once more only to become face to face with a woman in white. He was then seized and placed on the ground in a sitting position. Kevin was given the chance to place Jansin on the ground before he was seized. One of the guards, which looked much like the leader, stepped out of the circumference of people. His followers came right behind him and the strange thing was that they were all carrying white blankets. Kevin strained to remember the meaning of this, because he vaguely remembered someone telling him a story about it.
The lead guard approached Jansin and knelt beside him. “Here are the blankets you requested, sir,” he mumbled, while lifting Jansin into his arms.
“Thank you. Now give me a minute before I tell you to do what I told you to do.”
“TRAITOR!” Kevin screamed, “YOU FILTHY ROTTEN SKANK! YOU BASTARD! I TRUSTED YOU!”
“Kevin,” Jansin said calmly, “do you honestly think I’d do this to you after all you’ve done for me?”
“Well, that’s what it looks like to me!”
“Let me explain. See, while I was in captivity, I wasn’t just rotting away. Apparently you’ve forgotten that I’ve done this so many times, it gets to be routine. And I know all about how my sister escaped, and at what times, where she’s gone: I sneaked into Robyn’s office on several occasions to check to see what my sister was doing.
Anyway, I knew that the last place she could go through was the vents, so I let her. Meanwhile, I was becoming friends with these guards; it wasn’t that hard, I just explained that if all of them side with us, then we could all go. Majority rules. The only bad part was that you guys knocked out some of my guards and on our way out we had to give them treatment, but that’s okay.”
“But how are all of you going to escape unnoticed?” Kevin asked
“Easy, we placed bombs strategically everywhere, and set them so that we’ll be miles away before anything happens. Besides, Robyn thinks that all of her people are after us. She never goes out of her agency, only Ash does. We’re going to blow both of their sorry asses to hell.”
“But what’s with all of the blankets and needles?”
“Kevvy, do ya remember the little story I told you when we were supposed to be at the hotel?”
“Story? Hmm…” Kevin strained to remember.
**********************************************
“Hey guys, what do you want to do know?” Nick’s eyes flashed brightly in the dark hotel.
“I know something we could do that would really freak all of you out,” Jansin smiled evilly in the dark.
“Oh come on, what could you possibly do to scare us?” Kevin folded his arms stubbornly
“It involves leaving this hotel.”
“I’m game for a GNO,” Brian whispered.
“What’s GNO?” Nick asked.
“Guys night out.”
“Except it won’t involve hookers, alcohol, poker, or anything like that. Just a creepy story. Can’t let you guys have too much fun, you have a show to put on tomorrow.”
The guys put on their shoes and jackets and took off out of the hotel. They never really appreciated how wonderful walking late at night was. No one was around for miles, just the hint of light from street lamps that was cutting into the night sky. They had decided to stop in a small town before heading on in hopes that there would be fewer fans outside their door in the early morning.
Nick noticed that Howie was being very quiet that night, too quiet for him. So he sneaked up behind him and gave a sharp tug on his hair.
Without turning around, Howie grumbled, “Cut it out, Nick,” and proceeded walking.
But Nick was unfazed. He tugged twice more on Howie’s hair and then darted beside Brian to make it look like AJ did it.
“What the hell AJ! Lay off!” Howie whipped around and scolded him. “I didn’t pull on your goddamn hair!”
“Hey, I didn’t do anything, D. I’m clean!”
“Howie are you PMSing tonight or something?” Nick shouted from beside Brian.
“It was you, wasn’t it? I knew it!” Howie tackled Nick playfully from behind and started to tug his hair.
“How do you like that, huh, huh?”
“I’m innocent! I’ve been walking, ouch, beside Brian, ouch, the whole time!” To punish Nick a little more, Howie walked behind him the rest of the way there and pulled on his hair every so often.
They were so busy entertaining themselves with their little game that they didn’t notice where Jansin had brought them. They had walked down an empty highway and had stopped on a turn. Brian looked down from the highway and started to get dizzy. A tumble downwards would be a long and frightful journey. Jagged rocks lined the “ditch” along with many trees and bushes that protruded from the ground. A small flow of water, smaller than a creek, journeyed through the forest, it’s noises rippling through the forest like little ocean waves.
Jansin noticed that Brian was looking away and put his hand on his shoulder. “You only have to look a little farther, I promise. Look at the very bottom.”
Brian followed Jansin’s finger farther down the ledge. He strained his bright blue eyes in the dark of the night to see what he was told to see. A second later, light favored him and shone on the object. It was a car. A brand new car turned upside down at the bottom of the cliff. Brian forced himself to look farther down, nearly losing his balance in the process. Then he saw more cars. It looked like a junkyard full of cars in fact. Except they were all brand new, slightly dirty from the ground, but new. And they were all turned upside down.
“How can a car drop that far and not have a single scratch, that makes no sense!” Kevin questioned about what he had seen.
“There must be some kind of a path or something…” Howie said.
“No, there’s no path, unless you use bungee ropes to get down, there’s no other way.” Jansin grinned then held a flashlight to his face. “Are you ready for this?”
“Ya can’t scare us!” AJ exclaimed, with a tad of uncertainty in his voice.
“Okay, well since this was on the news, it was must be partly true. Anyway, here’s the story. A guy and his wife were driving down this road coming back from some kind of a party. The guy claims he didn’t drink, but I’m not sure about that, especially if it was a good party.
Anyway, at this very turn, the guy stops his car. The wife, who was sleeping at the time, asks him why he stopped. And the guy goes, "There’s a naked woman standing in the middle of the road." The wife looks for herself after arguing with her husband about fantasies that don’t involve her and there she is. She’s just standing there, looking so sad.
So the guy gets out of the car, of course the guy gets out, she’s naked for Christ’s sake. Well, he goes up to her and asks her what she’s doing.
“I’m waiting for you to rescue me,” she said, “I’ve been waiting so long.”
And the guy goes, “Are you a virgin?”
Jansin stopped at this moment because the guys had broken out in fits of laughter. “It’s not supposed to be funny! Oh well.”
“So she looks at him really strangely for a moment, and then continues. She’s like:
“No, I was driving here and my car along with my whole family skidded off the edge. My clothes got burnt off, I’m lucky to be alive, but my family still needs your help. Please, they’re still alive, I need you to get me a phone so that I can call an ambulance. Please.”
The guy is paying so much attention to the girl that he doesn’t notice that his wife is screaming at him. He turned around just in time to see his old beat up Ford take a plunge down the cliff, with his wife inside it. The guy turns around to face the woman and she says: “You’re next,” then throws him off the cliff.”
Chapter 20 and Epilogue. Last chapter!
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