For the time that he lost, he could never calculate as the car finally stopped as the only objects that kept him for company is the white lights of the brakes that burned on over the plastic cowling before the lights ceased and the car died. Dan is curled in a position in the trunk of the car, waiting for the next thing to happen when the doors open upon the car with a couple of scraps happening on each side of the car, followed by the scuffing of feet impacting on the ground with pebbles making popping sounds with the feet coming to the base of the deck lid.
For what Dan knew where they were going by the shifting gravitational pull of the car, he knew the place when the car stopped as he thought of the place being Stanton Grove, the place where all dreams of childhood are explored and all dreams of nightmares that are born in the Grove of stories that Dan does not want to repeat from word-to-mouth. He waited for the light to come through the cracks as Dan Horlicks caught the glimpse of a spider making a web in the frame of the car. Where the spider came from, he didn't know when the deck lid opened, revealing the face of Weston Vunne and his other two cronies that is standing around in an odd half-circle, touching the deck lid like the edge of the table waiting for dinner scraps upon a long and important meal.
"I hope I didn't rattle your brain out of your pan," Weston shifted the weight upon his feet with his eyes looking rather cold.
"You seem quite delicate. I should have placed a strap back here to hold on but what the hell, bruises do have a stretch to heal." Weston smiled in eerie praise as the masochistic one by the name of Noah Walker brought a comb out of his back pocket, tending the cowlick on the top of his head.
"So what are the results on the little pipsqueak?" Noah cleared his nose with the awful sound sucking in his nostrils.
"Are we going to tool him over?"
"Yeah, let's do it!" The idiot boy by the name of Shade Brinkley nodded his head like it was going to fall off his pivot. His father beats the crap out of Shade a lot for reasons of him being around him. Daddy likes to take the drink to the point that it almost makes him happy to beat his idiot boy for the rest of his life. He felt crazy happy and violent when he is drunk.
"Let's give him a pressure cooker of an ache!"
"Nah that would be too easy; say, let's tie him up against the wood and have the birds knock his noggin for a while."
Dan couldn't say anything as he heard the sound of the bird call's outside the trunk of the car and the circling of clouds that are shifting with the wind in the blue sky above. He remembered the girls getting to safety and that is not half bad. It would be better for someone to get away from these cretins and that made Dan feel a little better.
Weston dropped into the trunk and pulled Dan Horlicks out of the coolness of it, dropping him onto the deck as Dan made a hoof from his mouth as he swore he could feel the bone on his upper leg cry out the pain-stake chorus. He looked at the clearing of Stanton Grove as the tree line held nothing but empty beer cans, dried up condoms, and little piece of paper that have weathered from the rains that made the point of pens wiped clean from the paper that is nothing but sludge, nothing but passing notices that cannot be rewound again from who was here before.
"Hey, he looked like he peed himself Weston." Noah Walker knelt down, tisking his tongue as he touched his knees with his hands.
"What a shame for this to be."
"Well, he does have needs to be punished so punished he shall." Weston grabbed him as he noticed that the air around him feels a little stale, like the musty smell of an attic before the knot string is pulled so the ladder can appear from the ceiling. It is the smell where the living is warned and where there are notices that should not be entered without a strong stomach to see what is to be concluded on the other side of those trees. The sounds of the wilderness frittered to the frequency of his hearing, becoming disorienting when he dropped his hands upon his ears, hoping for the pain to go away as Shade looked at him with his smile turning into a form of desperate calculation that is proven to the question that he is about to ask.
"What is the matter, Wes? You didn't take your migraine pill today?"
Wes doubled over behind the back of the car as his eyes clenched closed, trying to focus on where this blaring whine is coming from when everything bleached into white as his eyes surmised to it, becoming consciously aware of the events that conspired in his senses that are dulled and controlled, weighted and sceptered into a void that he dared utter not go in the depths of his own mind.
"Where are my keys?" Weston spoke in a dull tone, like he was in a trance when Shade wondered if he can touch him. The last time he did that was the time he landed on his back as Noah watched all of it, knowing that it was a mistake to do that in the first place when Noah backed up a little, feeling the same sensation of what Weston is going through in his mind now. Then Shade went through the same pause in general.
What in the name of god is going on? Dan dusted off the ground, meeting his knees like the angels lifting him up from the depths of hell that he was about to subdue as Weston looked like a guy who is slapped by his own mother.
"My keys," He said dumbfounded, swaying a little as Noah looked at him like he just found out the question of life from sleep that he awoke just minutes ago. Stay tuned
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