Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Twenty-Six: Dead Meat and Butterfly Kisses

Chip, Kai, and Finn slump in silence under wedges of moonlight. The only interruption comes every five minutes or so when Chip grunts a change of direction and Kai grunts back a 'Yep' or a 'Great' or a 'Got it.' The economy car squeals, saran-wrap whapping in the cracked windows. When Kai slips in The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack no one so much as twitches.

"Here," says Chip as rain pelts the windshield in a hurl of white streaks. Palm trees whip on either side of the gray craggly road, and out where the street disappears in the thick velvet mist, the sea billows. As per Chip's order, Kai swings the car onto a gravel path that leads into the dead, dark woods. 

Time warps in the stuffy car, the red numbers flickering before they turn, drawing to an agonizing crawl the deeper each miserable boy is dragged into the forest. Finn crosses his legs on the dash, thumping his heels, and Kai is so tense he won't even yell at him.

The Sleepover Ranch is a crumbling shack buried in untrimmed hedges and vines, lost in the  forest where Silver Dollar is less city and more of a dirty, mud-filled backcountry carved with puddly roads. The whitewash is peeling, the long, T-shaped home covered in a web of cracks, topped with a caved-in cinder roof. Three vans are parked outside. Finn narrows his eyes and scribbles license plate numbers on his wrist with a half-dry pink highlighter.

Mud sprays from the tires of a revving van that backs off the pebbled path, thrumming softly, the windshield-wipers beating the window. "Follow them," Chip says.

"Call the police!" Finn slams his fists on the dash. "Kai," he begs, eyes big and round, "please."

Kai turns up his nose and whips the car around. Another van revs up, flanking the boys, a flash of white in the whirling mist. Finn lunges over Kai, thrashing against his lap belt. Kai, helpless while he grips both hands on the wheel, cusses bitterly as Finn snatches the dying Nokia tucked above Kai's heart. He dials. The 911 operator is cool, her voice the steady type that oozes with quiet authority, the type you'd want telling you the fundamentals of CPR or to stay calm when you're bleeding out your guts. "911, what's your emergency?"

"Friend's been kidnapped." Finn crosses his legs, leaning back in the cracked leather seat. "Two of them, actually." He twirls a strand of bleached hair around his forefinger, his smile smug as he glances over his shoulder at an awestruck Kai. The vans brush Kai's car, crunching the aluminum with a shriek that drives a yelp from Chip.

"Alright, sweetheart, let me transfer you to the police department—"

The van on the right clips the passenger side with a rev of the engine. WHAM! Finn is sent screaming over the glove compartment, the airbags deploying a second too late. They hit him like pillows stuffed with concrete. Kai screams, thrown forward into the dash. Powder falls like snow from the popped bags. Finn chokes.

"Sir?" the phone buzzes, caught between the seat and Finn's knee. "Sir?"

Finn holds up his shaky hands, finding them pink, sore, splattered in a spray of warm blood. He touches the corner of his swollen lip, shuddering at the metallic ooze dribbling down his skin. "Kai. Chip?"

Chip groans. "I'm good."

Kai is slumped forward in the thick white plastic, his hair rusty with blood. "Kai!" Finn grabs him by the shoulders, his heart racing as he checks his friend's neck for a pulse. Fast and strong. He sighs as Kai wakes groaning in the deflating bubble-wrap. 

A triangle of vans has formed around the car. One swung in front, blocking all possible paths of escape. Another on their left, another on their right. A man in black glares at them from the driver's seat of the vehicle currently bashed into Kai's own.