We ran for maybe a few minutes, the crazy lady closely following, before we came across another highway packed with cars. We headed into one with its engine still on and music blaring on the radio.
"You have a driving permit, don't you?" Jeremy asked. "You drive."
"Well, I've only had it for a week," I protested, but I sat in the driver's seat anyway. Jeremy sat in the passenger's seat.
"Hurry up and drive!" Jeremy demanded. "The butterfly knife lady's gaining on us."
I put my foot on the pedals, then realized there were three. "Uh Jeremy, it's a stick shift. I can't drive a stick shift," I said.
"She's here!" Jeremy screamed. "Drive!!!"
The ignition was already on, and the car was in first gear, so stepped on the gas and we lurched forward.
"Told you that you could do it," Jeremy congratulated. Suddenly, the engine started groaning all weird, like it was broken.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Um, I think you're revving the engine," Jeremy said. "You've got to change gear."
I stared nervously at the third pedal. "Okay, here goes nothing," I said. I stepped on the pedal and tried to jam the gear stick into the second gear position as fast as possible. I was rewarded by this even worse grinding sound, and the car completely stopped.
"What'd you do!" Jeremy demanded.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I think the car stalled.
"Darn," Jeremy said. "Let's—"
Suddenly, the lady with the butterfly knife appeared at the passenger door. She stabbed her knife and shattered the passenger window, glass spraying all over Jeremy.
"Get over here!" the crazy lady screamed. I opened my door and shot out of the car.
"AH! Run, get out!" Jeremy screamed. He lept over the center console and ran after me.
We continued running until we reached an automatic Honda Accord. We hopped in and I immediately drove it off the highway. I tried to maneuver over the rocks and grass, but we hadn't picked an SUV or a truck, so there was lots of scraping and scratching.
"Um, is that smoke coming from the hood," Jeremy asked.
"Maybe…" I responded. I abruptly noticed I hadn't had my seatbelt on. "Wait, do you have your seatbelt on?"
Jeremy only had time to say, "You're going to ask me that now!" before I drove the car into a ditch.
The airbags deployed and I hit the exploding bag with full force. The windshield shattered and sprayed us with even more broken glass. I never had so much broken glass impaled in my face in my life. Good thing I was only driving at 15mph because of the rocks, or we both would have gone flying through the window, lying in broken heaps ten meters away.
"What was that?" Jeremy rightly asked. "Did we just crash again?"
I peeled my face off the deflated airbag. If I was angry before, this really made me mad. "Why are we still alive?" I demanded. "We've been in three car crashes within the last half an hour."
"I dunno, David, but we gotta get out of here," Jeremy sputtered. "There's a snake crawling through the windshield."
"Oh, shoot!" We both sprinted out of the car and ran toward the nearest road, which was less crowded than the highway, but still quite a problem.
"Get over here!" a scream echoed in the distance.
As if I needed my day to get worse. First, a car accident. Then, a crazy lady with a butterfly knife chased us into a car and attacked us. We crashed our third car and a snake chased us out of it. Now, we have good reason to think the crazy lady was on our tail.
"There's a car, just get into it!" Jeremy screamed. I hopped into the nearest gray SUV and made sure Jeremy slung on his seatbelt before I started the car. The key was still in the ignition as if whoever owned the car was sleepwalking.
I wove through the line of stopped cars, trying not to crash.
"Woah," Jeremy said as I touched the Mini next to us. "Try not to hit everything, please."
"Hey, I told you, I've only had my permit for a week," I said, scratching the Ford Taurus next to us. I drove haphazardly down the road, looking for Jeremy's exit. We really needed to get off the road.
"Take that exit. NOW!" Jeremy screamed. I cut three lanes and drove onto the ramp, nearly missing it.
Surprisingly, back in town, there were actually people driving in cars, albeit a lot fewer than normal. I precariously drive the familiar road to Jeremy's house, parking in the driveway.
"Alright, time to find out what in the world's going on," Jeremy said, hopping out of the car.
"Yessiree," I responded. I followed Jeremy to the front door, which was suspiciously hanging ajar. Sounds of baseball rang from the inside.
"Come on, let's get it over with," I say, tugging at the door and pushing Jeremy into his own house.
ns 18.68.41.148da2
