The Broken Date

^15^

Jack’s POV:

My nightmare---it’s come true!

There were two Marks, and they’re both coming after me.

But I’m not dreaming. This is really happening.

The two Marks are real.

The two Marks are coming to smother me.

I froze in the middle of the street. I was paralyzed by a blur of horrifying images, images from my nightmare mixed with what I was seeing now.

“Jack, stop! Wait!” the Mark running down the street yelled.

Suddenly two strong hands roughly grabbed my arms just below the shoulders. “Let’s go, babe,” a voice---not Mark’s voice---said, hot breath in my face. The two hands jerked me toward the back of the van.

The van door swung open. I tried to pull away. But he was too strong for me. “In you go.”

“No!” I screamed. “No!” but he was lifting me into the back of the van.

Struggling to get out of his powerful grasp, I turned and looked into his face.

I saw immediately that it wasn’t Mark.

It was another boy with raven-black hair. A boy with blood red eyes. And a deep scar across his forehead and down his cheek. And thin, cruel lips twisted up into an excited grin.

“In you go, babes.”

That voice. Yes. I recognized it. It was the voice from the threatening phone calls.

“Mark!” I screamed. “Mark! Help me!”

“Help! Somebody! Help!” I could hear Felix screaming from the school steps.

The screaming didn’t seem to bother the red-eyed boy who held me. He coolly picked me up and, with little effort, shoved me into the back of the van.

“Mark---”

The door slammed in my face.

I realized the engine was running.

I tried the back door. It was locked from the outside.

I turned to climb over the seat and escape through a side door. But I faced a solid wall. There was a steel partition between the trunk compartment and the back seat.

I was locked in. A caged animal.

This can’t be happening. This is another nightmare, right?

“Let me out!” I screamed without realizing it. “Let me out! Let me out!” I banged my fists against the front door. “Mark! Please!”

Was it the real Mark who had been running down the street calling me?

I turned and tried to force the solid back door open. I couldn’t budge the handle. The only window in the back door was a small oval one, too small to escape through.

“Somebody! Please!”

I heard the driver’s door slam shut.

A few seconds later I heard the tires squeal beneath me as the van pulled away.

“Ouch!” I was thrown hard against the back door. Struggling to get to my knees, I heard the engine roar as the van accelerated. “Hey! Stop! Let me out!”

Such foolish, futile screaming.

The image of the two Marks flashed in my mind.

Again, again, my mind recreated the scarred, grinning face of the one who wasn’t Mark.

The black wave of hair, that raven-black hair, the same length, the same color as Mark’s.

The van swerved hard, tossing me against the side. My arms ached where he had grabbed me so tightly and lifted me into this prison. My throat felt dry and knotted. I was breathing hard and fast. It was so hot back here, so hot and uncomfortable.

Where was he taking me? What did he plan to do? Who is he?

I began banging again on the steel barrier between me and the seats in front. “Stop! Let me out! Stop!”

A small door in the partition, a little bigger than a cigarette pack, slid open. I pressed my face against it and looked through.

He hand one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the back of the seat. He was wearing a gray T-shirt. An unlit cigarette bobbed up and down on the side of his mouth.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror and grinned, pleased with himself.

“I told you you wouldn’t get away,” He said, and swerved the van onto the freeway.

Word count: 685. Jjuydttctjkbuycxtyuuycc. I did it...next chapter coming out in about...two minutes. See I do keep my promises..