Another Episode

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Another day of hell, and by hell I mean school, although it would be more accurate to just go with hell. Patrick wasn't one to be rebellious usually, so you could say that slight knot in his stomach and the doubtful thoughts in his mind were out of fear of what Ms. Zina and Mr. Rosher would say about his "unexcused absence" yesterday. I guess he was considered a "goody goody" but really he wasn't, he spent most of the time not doing homework, not listening in class, not bothering to bring supplies, but yet he still couldn't help but feel a little guilty for ditching. Sighing, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a random striped tee, then following the other mediocre morning rituals, I'll spare you the boring details. The drive to school was eerie, to say the least, the usual crowded streets and intersections of Chicago were almost creepily empty. The only car on the street was a shiny, silver car, which sped through a redlight continuing to sped off down the side road that- as far as Patrick knew- only lead to a vast open field.

Shaking off the slightly odd feeling of deja vu, he turned the corner sighing and pulling into the dreary school parking lot. Seeing the usual sea of cars was almost a sigh of relief after the deserted main roads. But after parking and walking in the creepy, deserted feeling has once again revealed itself. The halls were empty. Not a soul to be found. Patrcik walked through the halls cautiously, over-reatcing thoughts running through his head, maybe they've been captured and taken somewhere, maybe we're in a lockdown, maybe their all dead (well that wouldn't be too terrible) he thought. But after scanning through all the upper halls and peeking in every classroom for fifteen minutes to just find more emptiness, he finally got the idea to call someone, which really should have been an idea fifteen minutes ago. He punched in Joe's number since it was the first name in the "Most Recent" list and took a deep breath, putting the phone up to his ear. It rang twice....then dropped. It didn;t even go to voicemail, just straight up stopped. Maybe his phone's just off, Patrick thought, and decided to call his only other friend. After clicking Brendon's name and putting the phone up hopefully to his ear, the same thing happened; one ring, and then silence. It was almost as if the whole human race had just disappeared, as if life had just hit the pause button for everyone except Patrick....well Patrick and whoever was driving that silver car from earlier. 

After walking back down the deserted hall, Patrick sighed and decided to try to call one more time. But since neither of his friends picked up, it was time to do the loser thing, and call his mother. After clicking "Mom" and placing the phone once again up to his ear, he intently listened.

ring.... well there's one

ring.... two, well that's better than the previous two calls

ring... three, ok, making progress

ring..... four, hurry up mom

ring.... any time now!

"You have reached the Stumph household, sorry we were unable to answer your call, leave a message and we'll get back to you!" Patrick's mom's cheery voice echoed through the phone. Sighing Patrick left a short message, "Hey mom, could you just call me back when you get this," Patrick sighed, starting to feel a little hopeless and hung up the phone. There was really no point in staying in the deserted, empty school, so Patrick made his way down the main hall and back out into the still oddly packed parking lot. If there were all these empty cars, where were all their drivers? 

Pulling out of the parking lot, Patrick debated weather to go home and try sleeping off this weirdness or to drive around more to see if he could find anyone. Curiousity always kills the cat, and instead of turning right on Hampden St. and heading back home, he took a left and headed the complete opposite direction of the comfort of home. He drove down the empty street before coming up to the small street in which the only car (well moving one that is) he'd seen that day had turned down. After mentally arguing with himself for about two minutes he shrugged and turned, speeding down the street, which looked more like an alleyway than an actual street. After a few minutes of driving down the excruciatingly long alley way, it turned and lead into a small, rundown parking lot. This wasn't the place Patrick had originally thought it was and a rifh of fear instantly ran through his veins. This place looked like every run down alley way where the killer pops up and stabs the naive victim to death in movies. Greasy puddles in the small lot, broken concrete bumber blocks, crumbling dirty, brick walls, and eventhough it was 8 in the morning, the sun was not to be found back here, as if a giant roof was lingering over this small parking lot. As creepy as it was, there was another car in the lot, and it was exactly the car Patrick was looking for. It was too dark to tell if there was anyone in the car or not so taking a deep breath and cutting the engine Patrick decided if there was anyway to figure this out, it would be to go investigate. 

Taking cautious, small steps towards the car, Patrick approached the window and to his disappointment was met with an empty driver's seat. It looks like the whole world really has just strsight up disapperared on him. Standing in confusion and hopelessness, staring around the eerie lot. A small outline on the brick caught his attention. Baby-stepping over to the brick wall Patrick ran his hand over the brick, surpised to find what appeared to be a small handle on the bottom of the door. Patrick tried turning the handle like any sensable person does to door handles, but it didn't bundge. On furhter examination, he discovered a key hole and came to the conclusion this hidden door was indeed locked. Sighing, he walked back to his own car, plopping down in the seat, head on the steering wheel in dismay. Sure he wasn't one for being social, but he had never realised being in a world with no people would be even worse than the world full of people.

He sat up again, staring over at the silver car and instantly the terrible deja vu from this morning returned, it seemed like he'd seen this car before. He got out and walked over to the silver hot rod once again, walking around behind it. That's when he noticed the plate "NUrDrms" and it all made sense. This was the car he had seen when he ditched class yesterday. This was the car with the charming, stunnin, almost hypnotic man driving it. And instantly, he knew he had to figure out where the driver had gone. He had to be somewhere, he had to be. He's not sure what made him do it, but he tried opening the car door, and to his upmost surpise, it was unlocked. He climbed into the driver's seat of the silver car and looked around. Not a single thing seemed out of place, there was no trash, no random papers strewn across the floor, no old McDonald's cups in the cupholders from last week, like what could usually be found in young guy's cars. The only other option to rumage through any stuff was the glove box, so that's exactly what Patrick decided to do, and after digging through some random recipts, something looked promising, a small, rusty, antique looking key. It was really worth a chance, so he decided to get back out and attempt that "door". After a few minutes of fumbling around with the key, it slipped into the key hole, and actually turned. The door making a loud clicking sound in doing so. He tried the doorknob once again, and this time it turned. The door creaked open, and a pungent, rough scent of what seemed to be chemicals wafted up to Patrick's nose, causing him to take a step back. Coughing at the horrendous smell, Patrick finally took a step forward into the darkness beyond the door, it was pitch dark and completely silent. Clearing his throat, Patrick gathered up enough confidence to speak,

"H-hello? Anyone here?"  There was a long, tense, silence, before Patrick heard a soft, shufling sound a little off to his left, and then a voice in reply,

"Finally....I've been waiting for you...."

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A/N: Thank you all for reading! In honor of this new book, I want to recognize you awesome, active readers more! So from now on the FIRST COMMENT-ER (it has to be a real comment not just nonsense) will get the next chapter's DEDICATION :) One rule, you cannot have two dedications in a row, you can definitely have more than one, just not two chapters right in a row. Sound good? Good. LOVE YOU GUYS! Vote and Comment maybe? <3