“She’s just unconscious,” Addison told Grayson, “We’re OK. We’re all going to be OK. This is probably just some stupid prank, and it will all be over as soon as whoever’s up there has had some fun. Hell, we’ll probably end up on Youtube or America’s Funniest Home Videos at the end! I’m sure we’re just blowing things out of proportion because we’re scared. Crazy shit never happens to people like us, you know? We’re going to come out of this fine. We’ll probably laugh about it somewhere down the line! Don’t you think, guys?”
The boys were silent, and Addison felt their scared, skeptical eyes on her face. She knew too that what she said was probably bullshit. More likely than not, they were in serious trouble right now. She silently cursed herself and her friends for being so stupid, leaving themselves vulnerable in the deserted night like they had. After so many carefree years of tempting the fates, they were finally going to pay the price. Perhaps even the ultimate price, if the fear in Addison’s gut was to be trusted. She realized with a jolt that she probably would die with these people, her friends.
Well, she thought, I couldn’t ask for better company.
They raced along for what seems like a day, a week, a month. Time ceased to have any meaning as they jostled along, taking turns falling into light slumber. Anna’s condition only worsened, the pain escalating into a constant state. They each had their time to cradle her, to tell her that everything would be OK. Her leg, she said, was throbbing, each bump in the road a knife into her flesh. The limb must have been broken, or at least fractured.
As the minutes and hours surged onward, the conversation between the friends ceased. There was no energy to be found for speculation, condolences, or petty fights. Even hot-headed Charlie lost steam for his outrage against Addison. There was nothing between them except a heavy silence that had descended upon the backseat. One by one, they began to realize that they were facing mortality that evening. How could a night that began so innocently, in such easy spirits, turn out to be so horrific? Each of the friends wondered and hoped independently that they’d fallen asleep on the beach and were dreaming. But in their hearts, each knew that everything happening was as real as could be.
Addison was at a loss. Why had this happened to them? They hadn’t been doing anything wrong that night, but even if they had, it wouldn’t have explained this surreal turn of events. Who in the world was up there, driving the van? Who had gone so far out of their way, past the limits of the law, to apprehend her and her friends? Surely, none among them had any enemies. They were just a few college kids, and had never hurt anyone in the world. So why were they being so brutally punished? Was this a prank? Or was it a death sentence?
Eventually, they stopped even thinking about possibilities, or even hope. As the void of empty time swallowed them up, it was all each of them could to do to let their bodies and minds go absolutely numb. Even Anna, in her pain, seemed to lapse into a state of unfeeling. It was the only way they could preserve themselves, and their sanity, in the face of such horrific odds. It was like falling asleep, only instead of dreams, the friends found emptiness instead. It was still preferable to fear.
From deep within their individual trance-states, the friends felt something miraculous and terrifying. The constant motion that they’d been riding for who knew how long was changing. What was this sensation, they wondered? It was like that horrible moment for ocean liner passengers when the engines, so ubiquitous and ever-present, stop short. That’s what it was, the realized. The car was finally slowing down. Incrementally, their velocity began to decrease, the friction between the car and road shifting. But if they were slowing down, that meant that soon they’d be meeting their abductors.
This knowledge shook the friends from their waking sleep and back into each others’ arms. They huddled together in the darkness, limbs thrown and hooked around each others’ bodies. As hard as they could, they struggled to become one, united against whatever aggressor was on the other side of those van doors. Despite their exhaustion, their fear, the inevitability of their fate, the friends did their very best to remain united to the very end. It was the only thing that they could do. In that moment, in that horrible moment, they were the world to each other, the most important and only thing that mattered.
As they clutched at each other, bending their bodies to cover Anna’s whimpering form, they felt the van grind to a halt beneath them. They swayed as the breaks were applied, drawn along with the inertia of the vehicle, that motion that had carried them god knows how far away from home. Addison could hardly remember what that word meant, “home”. Surely, she’d known of it before, but she couldn’t for the life of her place it within the same realm that she currently occupied. Too much had already transpired, and she knew that it was just the beginning.
A heavy silence, deeper than the one they’d been cloaked in all this time, began to suffocate the friends. Without the roaring of the engine, the ambient sound of paving racing so close to their bodies, every sound they made was amplified. Every sniffle, every sigh, every moan rang out in the van like a symphony. But from the front of the van, and around it, there was no sound to be heard. Pure, crisp, deep silence. It was far more terrifying than any loud, shrieking cacophony could have been. The suspense, the anxiety, were unbearable to the friends.
Finally, a rustling sound from beyond the van asserted itself in the silence. The friends tightened their grips around each other, drawing in like a single organism. The rustling congealed into footsteps, and many of them. All around the van, they could hear people assembling. It was just as with their abduction in that faithful old car of Anna’s, where they’d just been enjoying each other without a care in the world. How ridiculous it now seemed to take advantage of freedom so callously. How shameful to take freedom for granted and still be hedonistic little freeloaders with one thing on their mind.
But the thrust of self-criticism was cut short in their collective mind as the lock clicked in the van door. Their eyes shot toward the spot where the sound had emanated from. There, a crack of light, or of a paler shade of dark, ripped open the blackness. The crack grew into a chasm, which became a gulf. It wasn’t bright beyond the door, but anything was brighter that pitch darkness, and the friends squinted toward the point of entry. They needed to see what lay beyond and were terrified to know once and for all.
No one spoke, beyond that threshold. The friends could sense people standing all around them, but nobody budged from their places around the van. The suspended moment stretched on, excruciatingly. Finally, a dark mass, a body, made its way closer toward the friends. They recoiled collectively, scampering toward the back of the van. This mad dash incited the worst sound any of them could have dreaded to hear: a single, barking laugh. This was sport to whoever was beyond the van, and that was something to be feared, indeed. The laugh spread from one figure to the next, until a chorus of voices rose up in laughter all around them.
Riding the waves of laugher, the figures closed ranks. They climbed up over the lip of the van and took hold of the friends, tearing them from each others’ embrace. A dozen people at least fell up the foursome, wrapping limbs from limbs, prying the friends from each other. In their weakened states, they could do little to protest. They were carried away, each alone, out of that horrible van. Addison felt four sets of hands grasp her body, hoist her into the air. They were carrying her away. As she cleared the van, she looking up and caught a brief view of the sky.