Wooooooooooooosh. The car almost flew over a hole in the pavement. I look out of the window, trying to figure out where we were, but I couldn’t recognize any of the surrounding landscape. The area was totally unknown to me. All I could see around us were trees and more trees, which seemed to rush past us and become a blurry green stain, as Jesse hit the gas, ignoring the horrible condition of the road.

“Jesse, slow the fuck down, would ya? The holes in the stupid road are making my brain a fucking mess, dude.”

“Oh, surprised you have one.”, our ‘driver’ grinned, teasing him. “You sure that’s your brain in there, Gabe? ‘Cause I’ve always thought you’re full of shit.”

“Literally or figuratively?”, Jack chuckled.

Jesse threw him a look in the mirror. “Both? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, that’s not the point.”

“But it iiiiis!”

“Shut up, Jack.”

“Shut up, Jesse!”, Gabe tried to catch up with the conversation again.

“Shut up, Gabe!”

“Shut up, Kellin!”

“Heeeey, I didn’t say anything!”, I laughed and punched Gabe’s shoulder lightly. He was sitting next to me, so hitting him didn’t cost me much effort.

“Shut up, all of you!”, Jesse’s smile faded slightly, now trying to look threatening. However, I knew he was just joking around. We all were.

A shoe flew across the van in Jesse’s direction, but it missed, hitting Justin, who was sitting on the passenger’s seat next to him, instead.

“Oouch! Hey, who threw that?”, he turned around and looked at us, rubbing the back of his head.

“Well, use your deduction, Sherlock.”, Jack grinned at him. “Look at the shoe. Whose shoe is that? Obviously Kellin’s sneaker. Therefore, he was the one who threw it. Here, I got it. Easy-peasy.”

“Nooo, it was Gabe!”, I objected. “It was Gabe, I swear, and this is not my sneaker, my sneakers don’t even look like that!”

“They do, because I say so.”, my friend, and at the time our honorable rhythm guitarist, crossed arms.

The wheels jumped over another hole, making the whole van creak and squeal like an injured whale. It was quite old, we borrowed it from my dad for our first tour. The Good Ol’ Lady, that’s how he liked calling the poor half-broken vehicle. I wished Jesse didn’t force her to hurry so much, her engine was now hissing like a choking snake, leaving a thick cloud of strange dark smoke behind us. Inhaling some of that smoke was a horrible idea, it was from that kind of toxic thing that made the animals lose consciousness, the flowers turn black and the birds fall from the sky, minus their plumage. Shortly said, we all tried to stay away from her tailpipe while the engine was working, to protect ourselves from suffocation. Anyway, she was quite useful for us right now. Otherwise we’d have to rent a van, and that cost money. Too much for us to afford.

I stared out of the window, leaning my forehead against the cold smooth surface. Our first tour… That would be really exciting, if it wasn’t an epic fail so far. We played once, but the show was horrible – the sound was bad, my microphone wasn’t working properly, and the crowd was too small. Things went worse when someone threw a bottle at me and yelled that I scream like a little girl and I should get off the stage. My voice had always been a problem for me - it was so high that it was often considered as “girly” or “gay” by the others. I tried not to let this discourage me, though. I had to fight for my dreams, and it wouldn’t be a real fight if I didn’t get hurt along the way.

I blinked, my mind shifting back from my distant thoughts to reality, just in time to duck as the same shoe mentioned above flew over my head.

“What was that for?!”, I blinked, hesitantly sitting up again, cautions, afraid I might receive another flying object in my direction. This didn’t happen though, it seemed I was safe for now.

“Sorry.”, Justin giggled. “I was aiming at Gabe.”

“Why me?!”, the man sitting next to me gasped. “What did I do?!”

“You’re just being annoying as hell, Gabe, you deserved it.”, Jesse kept teasing him, but now there was this slightly irritated note in his voice, which showed he’s soon to stop joking and get seriously angry. And I knew none of us wanted this to happen.

“Shut up, all of you!”, I interrupted them, chuckling. “Jesse, where’re we goin’?”

“What do you mean?”, he glanced back at me.

:”Well, I don’t know, man.”, I looked out of the window again. “It looks like… nowhere. This isn’t even a proper road, it has more holes than it actually has asphalt. And where are the other cars? Where are the oil stations? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure the last one we saw was quite a few miles back.”

My friend rolled eyes, forcing Good Ol’ Lady to take a sharp turn, avoiding a pit, so deep that if there was a contest for a biggest hole, it could easily beat the moon’s craters.

“I’m taking a shortcut. I’m sorry the road is shitty, it’s not like I’m the one who made it like this.”, he frowned.

“Okay, okay, alright. I don’t know, it just seemed like we’re lost to me.”, I waved my hands in the air, to show I surrender. “But okay. Lead us.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”, he murmured.

I looked out again, watching the green of the woods mix with the grey of the way. There was this slight hint of worry I felt deep inside my guts, but I ignored it. It was stupid, there was nothing to worry about. Everything was normal, everything was fine, nothing could go wrong. And still, there was a quiet voice somewhere in the back of my mind, whispering that if something bad happens at a place like this, there would be no one to help us. Annoyed, I rubbed my forehead, wishing I could hit that stupid voice with a shoe too, which today seemed to be the solution of everything, according to my bandmates.

We spent a few more hours in teasing each other and singing along with the radio, when suddenly we heard a scream, a desperate, hopeless scream caused by metal scratching metal, a scream of a Good Old Lady dying. Our stupid van stopped in the middle of the road with one final “Puffffff.”, letting out a tiny toxic cloud in the air. A minute, full of confusion and a lot of “What the fuck happened, man”’s, as well as more than one or two “It was your fault, Jesse, you jerk!”’s, followed. I perfectly knew what happened – it was just a matter of time for the dumb vehicle to fall apart, and this moment had finally come. It just happened at the wrong place.

“Guys, guys!”, I yelled, trying to get their attention and make them shut up. “Listen! It’s okay, calm down, it’s just the goddamn van again. We simply need to fix it, like we did in Florida.”

“Yeah, but back then the van wasn’t that old and it wasn’t that shitty, and we were drunk.”, Justin reminded me.

“Still. We can do this. Or we can simply call for help.”, I shrugged.

“Let’s try to do it by ourselves first. If we can’t, then we’ll call someone.”, Jesse decided, then opened the door and, waving his hand in front of his face, trying to get rid of the smoke, went out.

The others were still too excited to follow him and help him, but excited in a good way, they seemed to pretty much take this for an adventure. And so did I, in fact, but the worry in my chest remained. I didn’t like the place, and I didn’t like the fact that the Good Ol’ Lady decided to stop working here, in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t seen an oil station for hours, and when I thought about it, I remembered I hadn’t seen any cars either. The whole area was, like, deserted, too deserted. There weren’t empty packs from chips and cigarettes or nylon bags scattered around the road. It was clean, quiet and empty.

Deserted.

I pushed that thought away, deciding I can’t let it scare me, and went out after Jesse. Up in they sky the sunlight was going red as the sun was about to set soon. The air was fresh (if we don’t count the gas, released by our broken van) and cold, but somehow unpleasant, piercing my skin like needles. I inhaled, letting the typical smell of forest – of leaves, bark, flowers, dirt, and slowly rotting plants, which were soon to turn to more dirt – inside my lungs. The odor of nature came in such contrast with the one of the city that I was used to, that it almost suffocated me. But there was something else, something different. Everything seemed kind of… sharp. The shapes, the colors, the sounds, it felt like they made all my senses scream. I blinked, to chase away the strange feeling and walked to Jesse, who was now checking the engine out.

I sighed. We had a lot of work to do…

* * *

I furrowed eyebrows against the map, then, after a minute, I drew a mark with a sharpie at the place where I had approximately calculated that we must be.

“Okay.”, I spoke up. “That’s us.”

Gabe glanced over my shoulder.

“It looks like a cross to me.”. he objected, a small smile on his face.

“It’s us.”, I insisted, trying not to giggle.

“But, but it’s a cross.”

“It’s us, Gabe!”, I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “It’s a mark showing we’re here.”

“I know, but it’s a croooooss.”

“No, that’s not us, it’s you guys.” Jack grabbed the sharpie from my hand and drew a dot next to the cross. “And that’s me, and I’m away from you, because I’m ashamed of your stupidity.”

“Oh?”, I raised an eyebrow sarcastically. “Our stupidity? And how come you’re different, hm?”

I poked him and he gave me a silly grin.

“Because I’m cooler than you.”, he declared.

“Jack cooler than me? Are you fucking kidding me?”, Gabe gasped, pretending to be scandalized. “Ha. Hahaha, haa, haa, haa, haa. Hilarious.”

“Stop it, you two.”, I interrupted them. “Listen. So, that’s us. We’re somewhere here. Now, here”, I drew another mark, “that’s the closest piece of civilization around, a small town a few miles away. Problem is…”

“…to get there we must go through the woods.”, Justin finished instead of me, watching the map.

“Right.”, I nodded. “It would take us a few hours, maybe four or five.”


“It’s gonna get dark soon.”, Gabe frowned, now serious. “Don’t you think it’s pretty dangerous to cross the forest at night? Because, you know… wolves, wild animals, stuff like that…

“We can sleep in the van tonight, and leave in the morning.”, I shrugged. “That’s, I think, the best decision.”

Jesse approached us, with the expression of a very pissed off bear.

“There’s no signal here. No signal, no Wi-fi, nothing.”, he frowned.

“Well, how did you expect to find Wi-fi in case there isn’t even signal?”, I tried to joke, but he wasn’t in the mood for this at all.

He ignored me and kept complaining.

“I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m tired, I’m bored and people are gonna wait for us and wonder where we are…”

“There’s a half burger left inside, if you wanna eat so badly.”, Justin shrugged, but he got ignored as well.

“Hey, Jesse, we can call for some pizza!”, Gabe chuckled. “I bet it will take them a few centuries to deliver it here.”

“We can’t call anyone, don’t you realize that?!”

“We know.”, Jack sighed. “That’s why Kellin here’s workin’ on a plan.”

“We’re gonna go through the woods to get to the nearest town and find help.”, I explained quickly.

“Well awesome, let’s fucking go, then. I can’t stay a minute more at this fuckin’ place. C’mon.”

He took a look at the map, then grabbed his bag and headed to the forest. Gabe looked at me, his eyes widened a bit.

“Weren’t we gonna stay in the van for the night?”

“Yes, we were, and we will.”, I turned to Jesse. “Hey, Jesse, get back here! Hey! Get back here, you jerk, we’re not leaving yet!”

He turned to look back at me. “Hell yeah we are. I told you. I’m not staying here. You stay if you want to, but I’m outta here.”

“What? No… No, come back here, what are you doing? Jesse! Je-”

I sighed and gave up, when he showed me the finger and disappeared between the trees.

“…Come on, guys.”, I rolled eyes. “Let’s find him and bring him back before he does something dumb. I know he’ll come back sooner or later, he’s not that stupid to stay in the forest at night all by himself, but still. We better drag his silly ass back here.”

I glanced up at the sun, which was now almost hidden behind the highest trees, coloring the sky in crimson, drawing bloody red scars on the fading blue surface.

I didn’t know that yet, but this was going to be the longest, most horrifying night in my whole life. It had started. The beginning of the end.

END OF CHAPTER 1.

Notes

Yeah, I do realize PTV aren't in this chapter. Don't worry, though, they will make their first appearance a few chapters later!