“There is a shit ton of cars here?” Matt hobbled behind us. “How the hell are we going to figure out which car he is in?”
“He is in a yellow Mercedes. It can’t be that fucking hard!”
We scattered throughout the junk yard, periodically yelling at each other, letting the others know where we were and that we were ok. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had somehow put my friends in this situation. After all, I had been the one to tell Aron to hit the road. He was full of himself and dragging the band down. The band had done really well after he had left. We said it was just artist differences. That we couldn’t agree on the band; I had thought it would be best. Not to soil his good name and show that we were the better than him, that we could move on.
Just then I heard George’s voice, yelling firmly over the sound of crushing cars. “Hurry! I found him!”
Within seconds we were all standing at his side, following the line his finger traced to Dylan’s resting place. The yellow car sat quietly on top of two other cars. It was a little beaten up but still in moderately good condition. I relaxed, if only for a second, at the thought that Dylan would be the easiest to get to and was still ok.
“Dylan!” Matt called. They had been friends the longest and I knew that he was hurting the worst out of all of us.
There came a loud bang and the recognition of his friend’s voice. Matt and George ran to the car, Jorel and I following close behind. George was the most athletic out of all of us and began his daunting crawl up the pile of cars. Hanging from the Mercedes’s bumper, he tried feverishly to pull the trunk of the car open. Dylan, all the while, banging on the inside of the trunk.
“It’s fucking locked. Find me something to pry it open with!”
Jorel was a few steps ahead of us, digging through the trash looking for anything that could be used to pry the car open. We each wrapped our hands around some sort of car metal and returned to the car stack, hoping that at least one of them could be used. But to our surprise, George had crawled through the window of the car and was sitting in the back seat.
“I need something sharp! Gonna go through the interior of the car.”
In response, Jorel ascended the mountain with his piece of scrap metal in hand and before long was pulled through the window of the car. They worked diligently on the back seat, pulling foam and leather free and throwing it either behind them or out the window. It was excruciating from the ground, knowing that there was no way to help and that Dylan’s safety rested on the shoulders of two of your best friends.
But within a few minutes, Dylan was pulled free from his prison and sitting in the seat between Jorel and George. They looked as if they were breathing a sigh of relief, as they pat his back and congratulated him on remaining so calm. Though I knew Dylan was anything but calm.
“You guys alright?!” I called from my vantage point on the ground. But that was when I heard the sound of a crane moving towards the yellow Mercedes. The metal on metal sound as it clamped down on the sides of the car was nauseating. I was numb with shock; the words choking in my mouth. The car was hoisted over our heads. Jorel slammed the piece of metal through the back window as glass shattered over my head. We had come this far, I knew that my friends weren’t going to give up this easily.
