“Stop the vehicle or we will call in reinforcements!” The deep, sinister voice echoed in my ears, and it drove my mind to the point of insanity. I could feel my brain slowly losing grip on reality, as everything turned into a spinning vortex around me.
I can’t do this. A nauseous feeling had made its way into my stomach, and it began to erupt out of my throat in a chunky, hot mess. I could feel the warm, aqueous vomit begin to drip down my legs, as it foamed into a puddle in my lap.
I looked forward and glanced into Hunter’s eyes that were filled with a mindless terror, as Ethan throttled the truck up above one-hundred miles per hour.
“Do you even know what the fuck you’re doing?” Hunter spoke in a frantic, scared-shitless tone, and his hand tugged my arm desperately as if he was trying to pull me into the front seat with him. That would be pretty fun actually. There was a sudden surge in my legs to leap forward into his arms. I could die while giving a boy a lap dance. Certainly not many people can say that.
Hunter and I had never referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. It wasn’t that we were against the term, it just didn’t seem to fit for us. Teenage couples were supposed to go out on dates, watch movies together, and go to prom. Hunter and I didn’t do any of those things. Honestly, we both just confided in each other; our relationship is like a mutual consolation.
“Yes,” Ethan snapped back, like it was the most preposterous thing in the world to say. “Of course I do!”
I felt like yelling out, “Bullshit!” but the amount of anxiety and terror coursing through me would inevitably cause the words to spill out of my mouth in a garbled mess. Before our entire lives, which were already pretty trashy, completely went down the shitter, Ethan had just gotten his driver’s permit, and had had it for no more than two months. He barely knows how to drive this vehicle, never mind being able to operate it at speeds upwards of one-hundred miles per hour!
There was a desperate, frenzied urge inside of me to rip the steering wheel out of his hands and take control of the truck, but then there was the whole other issue of me not having a clue as to what to do. Most people didn’t even attempt to get their driver’s licenses anymore; with the prevalence of self-driving cars, that skill was now almost irrelevant. And on top of that fact, there was the reality that after the Great Crash, barely anyone could afford to pay for the leases on cars, and for the gas or electric to run the vehicle. That’s why the road that zoomed by us on either side, was almost completely empty of cars—and devoid of light. The lamp posts flickered on and off sporadically on the sides of the road, and the buildings that we passed were all boarded up and pitch black inside.
“We are headed down!” Ethan hollered, and immediately took a sharp right turn.
My body was sent flying into the door of the truck, and the constant barrage of bullets raining down upon us stopped momentarily. The tears in my eyes obstructed my vision and turned everything around me into a blackish haze. There was a shiver that rocketed up my spine, the second I ran my hand over the cushioned seat and the number of bullets holes, pierced through the fabric. We are dead. The thought echoed again in my head. We can’t escape this; we don’t have that power.
I winced as the truck began to fly down a rather steep hill and slam into the more level ground with a jolt. My entire body shook in unison with the frame of truck that vibrated madly as it splintered dozens of rocks in half beneath it. The coarse dirt grinding beneath the tires, created a discordant noise that reverberated in my ears like the sounds of all my happiness in the world getting blended into a horrible shake, where they would dissolve into mush forever.
My body and muscles vibrated so much, that I thought my entire body was on the verge of exploding under all the pressure. The numbing terror inside of me, was so intense, that I could literally feel it seeping out of my pores in cold sweat and emanating from my airways in hot breaths.
Before my mind could enter a sort of nirvana-like state with the anxiety and despair flowing through my veins, a sharp pain suddenly erupted from my right shoulder. I closed my eyes and let out a frantic, agonizing scream, as the red pain began to ooze out of my shoulder, emanate throughout my body, and bleed through my eyes. I felt Hunter’s warm hand graze my shoulder, and then I felt another sharp stab into my skin as Hunter pulled out a metal shard stuck into my shoulder.
“Shit!” The bellow was a combination of the release of some of the anger, fear, and torture bundled up inside of me. The amount of physical pain, which still didn’t compare to the permanent trauma inflicted from emotional pain, I was currently going through was so intense that it actually desensitized my entire body. My nerves were beginning to rapidly die off in my shoulder as the pain swathed over them, and drowned their helpless bodies in a sea of red. The blood foamed out of the bullet wound, that just chipped the edge of my shoulder, and began to drip onto the seat of the truck.
“Natalie!” Hunter cried out, with a shocked, petrified look on his face. His initial reaction was to rip off his shirt and tie it around my shoulder to restrict the blood flow to my arm and stop the bleeding. Hunter was pretty much the best first-aid kit known to mankind. His rich, blue eyes acted as great ice packs, and his ever-dispensable shirt was versatile as a bandage, gauze pad, or tape.
“Get ready!” Ethan narrowed his eyes forward, the look of determination inside of them, brighter than ever. His leg looked so tense that it was about to snap from the force of him slamming on the gas pedal. He had sent the car rocketing across a rocky, dirt field, and I could see his narrowed eyes focused on the row of apartment buildings towering above the barren desert ahead. What the hell is he doing? I may have been delusional at points, especially when the emotions raging inside of me had begun to take over my entire body, but I tried not to be plain, outright dumb.
This, Ethan’s desperate attempt at evading the all-powerful government, was about the most vacuous thing I had ever seen him attempt to do. He is just delaying the inevitable. I could feel a burst of adrenaline, along with anger, course through me, which helped to block out the throbbing pain in my shoulder. He is just making what could have been a quick ending due to an explosion, drag out into a long, torturous death.
I dared myself to look behind, and my eyes were instantly blinded by the spotlight that was still trained on our truck. I shifted my body so that I was laying down on the floor, with the two seats acting as shields from the fusillade of bullets that continued to penetrate through the truck.
As the buildings drew closer up ahead, I could feel the warm hand of death grasp my other hand. He was ready to take me with him. He was ready to let me burn in a fire of eternal hell. And although there was a part of me that wanted to stay on this earth and continue to endure the never-ending pain and suffering, all in pursuit of the ever-scarce happiness and love that we humans seem to be so addicted to, I could feel my muscles suddenly relax and welcome the energy into my body.
“Ethan,” Hunter said, tears in his eyes, his voice cracking with desperation. “Just stop! Just give it up!” The intensity with which Hunter spoke was all visible on his beautiful face, but barely audible above the roaring of the engine, incessant pounding of the machine-gun fire, the blare of the megaphone, and the deafening pulsing against the inside of my head.
The truck bucked forward once again, as the tires made the transition from the rough dirt back onto the still-coarse, cracked pavement. I glanced out the cracked window of the truck, and through the tears in my eyes, could see people glancing up at the government helicopter in horror, from their perches inside the many abandoned, and now rotting apartment buildings.
My body was once again thrown to the side as Ethan jerked the truck madly to the left. I could see it in the determined, frankly insane gleam to his eyes, that he was headed somewhere, and intended to be stopped by no one.
Hunter, who still held onto my hand, grabbed onto Ethan’s wrist with his other hand, as Ethan attempted to complete another sharp right turn. The spotlight from the helico
pter veered off the back of the truck, and the firing of the machine guns suddenly silenced in my ears. Ethan continued to complete a succession of wacky, always nauseating turns, which caused the helicopter to follow us in a drunken pursuit from up above.
“Helicopters have a large turning radius!” Ethan screamed, glaring at Hunter out of the corner of his eyes. “I know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Well, I don’t. This erratic, larger than life game of cat and mouse seemed hopeless and inevitable that the tiger-like cat in this scenario would pounce down upon the tiny little mouse that our car represents. But being the ignorant, desperate fool that he was, Ethan persisted on forward, pounding down on the gas pedal with his eyes focused on a large, modern, glass apartment building, that was the center piece of the skyline of downtown Scottsdale.
I looked up at the helicopter, that almost seemed to flop around in the air, to try and keep up with us. I could hear the angry, robotic voice yell through the megaphone that ground reinforcements would be called if we did not surrender in sixty seconds.
Shit! An absolutely mind-numbing, bone-chilling fear instantly overcame the anger inside of me, and began to blast through my veins with unrivaled intensity. It felt like a beast suddenly being woken up inside of me and then pinching at my every nerve, so that the sensation of pure terror could be felt in shockwaves radiating down from my spine. They could blockade us. They could kidnap us. An even scarier reality than the idea of being absorbed by death itself entered my mind, and I found myself wanting to jump out of the truck and beg for one of the machine guns to shoot me as a result. They don’t want to kill us; they want us to surrender. They want to take us to one of the Government Cleansing Facilities, and torture us for the rest of our lives.
I don’t think I can say that I have ever wanted to die more, than I did in that moment. I could feel my whole body begin to surrender, as death himself sucked all the life and energy from my bones, and tore the will to live from my mind. The adrenaline had left my veins, and in its place, more pain and defeat corroded my entire body.
“Yes, do it, Ethan!” I yelled out madly, the paranoia, and anxiety beginning to take over. I raised my head to look forward at the large glass skyscraper that our truck was now suddenly headed straight toward. Yes! I felt my body jolt forward with the surge of excitement and joy being released inside of me. I could feel a calming aura preside over my nerves as I came to the realization that in just a matter of seconds I would finally escape the burden of this world, and be free from the torture of wanting something that I would never get back. Now I could feel my body enter a state of euphoria as it came closer than ever to the one thing it truly wanted. My arms opened up, welcoming its warmth. My throat burned from my screams of pure joy and insanity, as I closed my eyes waiting for my final moment to be over.
I don’t want anything else from this world, except for the freedom to leave it. I don’t want anything else from this life, except for it to be over! There was a psychotic, truly frantic shrill that roared from my throat, as the building stood just hundreds of feet in front of us. The new sense of freedom that felt so close I could touch it, was like the freedom of looking out an airplane window and glancing down at the entire world below you. But unlike the freedom of soaring above the earth in a plane, or the freedom of being able to escape reality with the help of a pill, death was a permanent escape.
I closed my eyes once again, hoping that when the car connected with the building that it would end my life, and all the pain and misery, in the quickest way possible. There was suddenly a deafening, screeching noise that rung in my ears, and I wondered whether this was part of dying. Am I dying right now?! I was too scared and unwilling to ruin the moment, to open my eyes, but I was surprised at the sort of numb feeling that encompassed my entire body. There was no pain, except from the dull throbbing in my shoulder, and everything around me seemed ominously still.
Then I could feel my body jerk forward as the truck came to a slamming halt and a deafening explosion rang in my ears. I expected to open my eyes and see nothing but blackness. I expected to open my eyes and be free from the body that chained me to this earth. But instead, I opened my eyes to the chaos and pain of reality. Shards of glass began to literally rain down upon the car, and I heard the truck door open as Hunter slid his hands beneath my shaking body.
No! No! I flailed my body around frantically. I began screaming frenetically, and clawing back desperately to be adjoined with the flames that had swathed over the upper half of the glass building. Tears began to pour down my face, as the anxiety inside of me caused my every muscle to tense and relax sporadically. I felt Hunter hold my body tightly, and begin to run with me in his arms like a ginormous baby. I tried desperately to get him to drop me, or to get him to throw me back into the flames, but his arms restrained me from the freedom of death against my will.
I looked up at the only light that pierced through the darkness all around us. The black government helicopter had crashed into the side of the building, and was now being charred by the angry flames that surrounded the explosion. Pieces of metal and glass continued to fall onto the truck and street below like a hailstorm from the depths of hell.
I could feel the nervous, petrified stares from the hundreds of homeless people, who sought out for shelter in the rows upon rows of foreclosed stores and empty apartment buildings.
“Ah!” A wild scream reverberated from my throat with so much force that it caused my entire body to shake. The shock from losing death, which had felt so close, still had a numbing affect over my entire body.
I could feel the cooler, more musty air hit me, and I knew that we had entered an abandoned building of some sort. I could smell the mold festering on the walls, and the metal pipes rusting over. But nothing matched the putrid smell of the pain and devastation corroding my insides, and literally rotting my life away.
I closed my eyes and tried to trick my mind into believing that this was somehow death. The zombie-like grunts and moans from the people we passed as Hunter carried me up flight upon flight of stairs, made it sound like we were walking through hell. But life like this was worse than that.
Finally, I felt Hunter place my body down onto the torn-up, crusty carpet and wrap his arms around me. Tears began to seep out of my closed eyes, as the sadness sweeping through my body drowned out the raucous sounds coming from outside the room that we were in.
“Natalie.” His voice sounded almost broken as it whispered into my ears. “It’s all gonna be okay. I promise.”
I wanted to sputter a weak no, but my throat was too dry and cracked from all the screaming to even croak out the word. I just found it easier to close my eyes, relax my body, and pretend that I was dead. Maybe if I tried hard enough, not only the feeling of being dead, but the reality of being dead, would absorb me. Maybe if I wished hard enough for the pain to go away, the suffering would somehow be alleviated from my body.
Death, can you hear me?! I helplessly called out in my mind. Death I want you to take me with you. I want you to end all the despair. I want you to crush this endless pursuit of happiness. I want this life to end. I want to die.
Chapter 13
I finally woke up, the rays of morning sun piercing through the tears in my eyes. My shoulder still throbbed with pain, without me even having to move it. There was a thin, hardened layer of blood that covered my entire shoulder, and there was a slimy, red residue that blanketed the skin around my shoulder, and had even dripped on the floor to form a puddle.
Shit. The atmosphere was ominously quite; so silent that I could hear the low wheeze of my breaths. I didn’t die. I could feel the energy in my mind still trapped inside this body, trapped inside this hellish world.
Get me out! There was a voice screaming inside my head, and I could feel my body jerk erratically, as the monstrous amount of emotions exploded inside of me. The physical pain throughout my entire body from the bullet wound in my shoulder paled in comparison to the agonizing emotional torture. It was o
ne thing to know that a wound would take weeks, maybe even months or years, to heal. But there was at least some comfort for the physical pain in knowing that there was medication to help block the pain out, and bandages to help stop the bleeding.
But the burden of the emotional devastation, and the burden of the emotional abuse that my mind has endured, will never go away. Drugs can offer your mind a temporary escape from the pain, but that’s all it ever is; temporary. There’s no medication that can heal emotional wounds, there’s no magical pill that can somehow alleviate your brain from the weight of reality. At the end of the day, no matter how hard I tried to forget about it, I was always stuck living with myself; and stuck living my sad, sorry life.
I tried to force my body upward, but my shoulder was too weak to help push my upper body up, and my stomach has always been a piece of loose skin. Screw this! Tears started to pour down my face in frustration, blurring my vision and the image of the torn-up, white ceiling above.
All my muscles began to shake like a drum head after being hit, constantly switching from being tense and relaxed. I felt Hunter’s body shift next to mine, and I turned my head to the side, where I could see his blue eyes flutter open.
At first, he looked at me with this really cute expression, where his eyebrows were narrowed and his lips formed a half grin. I could almost see him wondering how the hell he was sleeping next to me, and how I had gotten my right arm covered in blood. But then I could see the grin on his face instantly disappear, as the events from the night before came to the forefront of his mind. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but his voice broke with emotion before he could finish. He shifted even closer to me, and wrapped his arms around my dirt- and blood-covered body.
He was silent for a moment, and I could feel his arms position my body upright as the warm energy from his body emanated into mine. His body was tense, dangerously tense, almost like a wind-up toy. And with every second that I waited for him to release the pressure inside of his veins, and let go of all the emotions that he was harboring in him, everything continued to fester into an icy liquid that had since frozen his entire body into place.
Control Freakz Page 19
