Hitchhiker

It was Halloween night and there was no school considering that it was a Saturday. Halloween falling on a Saturday only meant that kids were getting into all kinds of trouble, staying up late, and eating too much junk food, enough junk food to make them sick for a couple days. My friend Jasmine invited me to her Halloween party that she was throwing, she was a fairly popular girl at school. Everybody knew her, she was just friends with everyone. I knew her by association but we’ve talked a little. She also invited my boyfriend Marco. The whole school kind of knew that we were dating, it was just one of those relationships. We’ve been together for about a year and a half. It’s been the best year and a half of my life. We were friends before we started dating, we’ve known each other since we were little and if we ever broke up we promised we would stay friends no matter how bad it got. For the Halloween party I dressed up as a Rockford Peach from the movie A League of their Own and Marco was dressed as a La Dodgers baseball player so we were semi-matching. I wanted To add a little life to the character so I rubbed dirt on my face and dress. I let my long blond hair fall down to my shoulders with my pink cap sitting on top of my head. Marco always looked handsome but he was even more handsome when he was wearing a baseball uniform. Marco is mixed between Mexican and European which left him really tan. He had short black hair that drove me wild to touch. His hair was so soft it was like a cloud. He was sort of popular at school, he got most of his popularity from being on the varsity baseball team. Dating Marco got me a little popularity too, but most of it had come from being on the school softball team. We were sophomores in high school still clueless on what we were going to be doing for the rest of our lives. We left the party a little earlier than planned but that’s just because we wanted to hangout with just the two of us. Marco convinced me to go through the woods behind the house. The woods always creeped me out, you couldn’t see past five feet, it was always dark in there whether it was day or night. The woods was its own little portal. Vines hung from the trees, some were green vines but most were just brown. Nobody took care of these woods so the brush was overgrown and there was no path, its been here for as long as I can remember. They are most definitely older than me and my grandma combined. The tree branches swayed with the wind blowing to the east. It was a little cold on the walk home, thankfully I brought a jacket to keep me warm. A chilling breeze swept by me and I wrapped my jacket tighter around my body. I sent my mom a text that I was on my way home. I noticed that something seemed strange about the route we were taking, it just didn’t feel familiar, it was like we were getting deeper into the woods instead of out of the woods. It was probably just my head trying to trick me and make me scared. I turned to Marco.” These woods feel like we are entering a horror movie.” I said. Marco laughed. “Relax, it’s only because it’s dark. You watch way too many horror movies.” I chuckled at the trueness of comment. After about five minutes we were getting nowhere, it felt like we were walking in circles. “Marco, are we going the right way?” I asked. He nodded. “I’m pretty sure babe, I know these woods like the back of my hand.” He said. I’m pretty sure he has explored these woods inside and out considering it’s basically his backyard. There were times before we started dating that he would guide me to one of his forts that he made with his friends. They would never allow me in because of their no girls policy which I always found stupid. I hung out with Marco and his friends all the time but his friends explained how they couldn’t make an exception for me. I continued on and didn’t worry about it, I had to trust him. I lost all bars on my phone all of a sudden and I started to get a little nervous. I couldn’t text my mom. Marco noticed I was getting a little antsy and grabbed my hand. “Relax, we are going to be just fine. You’ll only lose connection for a second.” I heard shuffling and the crunching of leaves behind me and quickly turned around to see what it was. We heard a girl laughing in the woods. “Oh no, she’s here,” Marco said. I could see the fear in his eyes. “We have to go, now.” He started to run and dragged me along with him. “Who’s here?” I asked. “An old friend of mine and she is not happy.” He said running faster. “Why isn’t she happy? What did you do Marco?” “I might’ve abandoned her but we can’t focus on that now.” He said, pulling me along. “Abandoned her!” I stopped which pulled him to a halt. “We have to keep moving, why are you stopping?” He pulled my arm forward but I stood still standing my ground. “You aren’t going to abandon me right?” I gave him my puppy dog eyes. “No, never.” He scoffed and brushed his nose. I wasn’t convinced with his answer. “We need to split up.” He said. “What! Split up! Bad things happen to people who split up.” I said, I was starting to panic, it was becoming harder for me to breathe. “I just want to keep you safe Jaylen.” He said and brushed his nose. The shuffling got closer. “Run that way, and I’ll distract her so you can escape.” I ran as fast as I could, but as I continued running it seemed that I was getting more lost.“ I need to find a road.” I said to myself. I kept exploring in the woods but I felt like I was getting nowhere. It started getting darker and I did not want to be in the woods after dark. “Marco?” I called out. The shuffling was surrounding me and closing in on me. The wind picked up and blew leaves in circles around me. “Marco this isn’t funny please come out now I’m scared,” I said looking around me. “You're scared?” I heard Marco’s voice echo around me. The voice laughed and started to close in on me. It came in all directions. No matter where I ran I couldn’t escape the laughing. “My poor little Jaylen is scared, soon you’ll have something to be scared about.” I kept backing up trying to escape his voice. I saw Marco emerge from a cluster of trees in front of me. “Oh there you are Marco!” I ran to him but his face looked sinister. He just kept walking towards me so I started to back up. Once Marco got close enough he pushed me, I put my back foot down but I tripped on a log and rolled down a hill. I could feel sticks scratch my arms and legs. Everything was going too fast. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. I eventually got stopped by a tree and hit my head which knocked me out cold. When I came too it was a little lighter than when we left the party. I checked my phone to see that my screen was cracked but luckily it was still working. It was about 5:00 in the afternoon. I got up and stumbled a little, my vision was a little dizzy and my head hurt really bad. I started walking and did my best to pick the sticks and leaves out of my hair. After what felt like an hour I finally saw a park that looked familiar. I was finally somewhere at least. I called my mom to see if she could pick me up there. But she couldn’t because she said she has never heard of the place before and wondered how I got there. “I don’t know I got lost in the woods.” I explained “Well, just hitchhike or something or ask a friend,” she said. “MOM! I’m not going to hitchhike that’s the ultimate stranger danger.” “Ok then ask a friend or something I just want you home for dinner, ok?” “Yes, mom.” I called every single one of my friends(which is not that many) but none of them were able to, they said they never heard it. I looked around for anything that seemed familiar but not even the street names were familiar to me. They were so weird. I went on and tried to find a*****e or a gas station. I saw a gas station but while I was walking there the houses were greyish it seemed like a dull version of our actual world and different names. I got inside and looked around. I looked in the candy section because who wouldn’t look there and there was a candy called Swix. “Is this like a Twix bar.” I said to myself. I bought one and it was exactly like a Twix bar but a different name “Weird.” I said. This lady walked into the gas station and she looked like my mom but wearing grey. So I screamed “MOM!” “oh sweetie how did you get in here I thought I left you at your party.” She said, turning to me. “Yeah mom you did but it ended,” I said. “Well that’s a short party,” she said. “I guess time flies when you’re having fun.” I shrugged. “Fun?” My mom looked at me weird. “You didn’t tell me you were going to have fun at the party. You strictly said no fun. I’m going to have to talk to Jasmine’s mom.” My mom grabbed my arm and dragged me outside with her. “Jaylen Roonie Gibson. You’re telling me you had fun?” I nodded slowly. She rolled her eyes. “ You know we can’t have fun. I don’t want you to get caught by the Boisers.” “The Boisers?” I asked, confused. “Have you hit your head? You know you can’t get caught doing anything fun by the Boisers.” She looked at me like I was crazy and I partly felt crazy at that moment. “Actually mom I did hit my head back there in the woods.” I said rubbing the back of my head where I felt a tender bruise. “Why were you in the woods? Were you with Marco?” She asked. I nodded. “Yeah, we were going back to my house to hangout and Marco took us through the woods because he said there was a shortcut we could take.” I explained. “Well where is he? Is he coming over?” She asked looking around the gas station. “Oh no, I actually don’t know where he is.” I just remembered that Marco was with me. I also remembered that he pushed me which caused me to hit my head against that tree. “Well, that’s a bummer. Although he has been acting strange lately.” “Yeah, he has.” Marco has been acting weird for a couple of weeks now. I thought it was just a phase that he was going through. “So who are the Boisers? Are they like the fun police?” I asked. “Yes! You know this! What do they teach you at school?” I shrugged. “Stuff about World War 2.” My mom covered my mouth and looked around. “You shouldn’t be learning stuff like that in school, I’m going to have to talk to your teacher about this.” I raised my eyebrow and shoved her off of me. “You are being so insane today.” She looked at me with disbelief. “I’m the one being insane? You’re the one who acts as they’ve never been here before, and where did you get that color from! I thought I took all the color out of your closet.” I raised my eyebrows. “I have never been here before and what did you do to my closet!” This was getting out of hand, she definitely can’t see my purple phone case. I made sure to tuck in my phone in my pocket so that it was out of sight. “That’s it, young lady, you’re grounded!” She yelled and dragged me towards the car. “Grounded! For what?” I asked, trying to pull out of her grip. “For sassing me that’s what. You just broke about half the rules here.” “Rules what rules, like the constitution?” “You know they don’t like us mentioning that Jaylen.” I was so confused about why I was not allowed to mention that constitution, it gave us our freedom and independence that we have today although it seems like I don’t have any freedom right now. I got into the car and saw that my dad was in the front seat. “Dad? What are you doing here?” “Hey Jay, what do you mean what am I doing here? I’m always in the car with you.” “Why?” I asked, putting my seatbelt on. My dad turned to look at me with his eyebrow raised. “What do you mean why? I have to, it’s the rules.” There he goes with the rules again. “What are these rules you guys are talking about?” “I’ll give you the rule book when we get home because clearly you need a refresher.” My mom said. My dad turned back to mom and raised his eyebrow. “She’s being unusually weird today. I’m gonna have to take her home to make sure she stays out of trouble.” My mom said starting back up the car. On the ride home I looked out the window at this strange world. There weren’t parks where there should have been, and there weren’t any movie theaters or bowling alleys. Just boring old work buildings, one next to the other and all grey. Everybody wore gray, gray shoes, gray shirts, and gray pants. This one lady had on a gray sweater with gray pants and was walking her gray dog. “This place is strange,” I mumbled. “What do you mean honey? It’s always been this way.” My dad said. “Uh, nothing dad.” I didn’t want to get into any more trouble than I already was so I just kept my mouth shut until we got home. When I walked in all of our furniture was grey, our couches, chairs, rugs, wallpapers, All of it. My mom stomped over to our grey bookshelf and took out a chunky packet and threw it at me. “Now go to your room and reread the rules to refresh your brain.” I walked down the hallway to my room and when I walked in it was exactly the same except it was grey. “Why is everything grey?” I asked myself and fell onto my bed in frustration. After about a couple minutes of thinking everything through I decided to look through the rule book. Quarter County Rule #1: No fun is allowed. Laughing and playing are not permitted. Rule #2: Dancing is banned. Rule #3: No color that permits expression shall be worn or seen by others. Rule #4: No one is to learn about the past Rule #5: Both parents must be in the car at all times whenever one of them goes somewhere. Rule #6: No form of affection such as kissing, hugging, or holding hands shall be tolerated. There was like ten pages of this crap. Suddenly I heard my door creak and I saw my cat come in. “Binx!” I called out in surprise. “At least something is normal around her.” I picked up my cat and kissed him on the head. “Hi baby, how are you?” Binx meowed in response. “Aww, you’re a good kitty.” I put the cat down and watched him take place in his special chair that faces out towards the window, he even has his own blanket. Binx is so spoiled, he’s never had to work for anything in his life. He loves the fire as well, every time we turn it on he lays right in front of it all sprawled out on the floor. He looked so cute sitting there watching the birds I decided I wanted to take a picture of him. I reached for my phone in my jacket pocket and realized that it was missing. I patted myself down searching frantically for my phone. I finally concluded after searching head to toe that my phone was lost. I groaned and punched my bed in frustration. “Why!” I yelled. Everything was spiraling down hill. I yelled into my pillow and it almost concluded in me crying. A couple minutes of laying there became boring. I started to get up when I heard buzzing. My bed was buzzing. “Where are you, you little devil?” I said, searching for my phone. I threw all my covers off of my bed leaving a mess on the floor. I eventually found my phone under my mattress. My phone had a grey phone case, big shocker. The case was the same case I had except it was a different color. I had the same phone too, a 7SE. I looked at who called me and saw Marco’s name on the screen.