The Road Trip

By Bradley J. Park

BOOM! An oil truck exploded underneath the van, as it was flying mid-air. It landed, crushing a man dead. The people inside the van were 3 guys named A, B and C, and they were on the run from the cops. A exclaimed “WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?!” “I don’t care, just DRIVE or something!” B exclaimed. “Don’t I get a say in this?!” asked C. “Shut up!” yelled B, as he slapped C in the mouth. He was about to beat C up, but A yelled “OH MY GOD, A DEAD END!” A couldn’t hit the brakes, because for one, they were broken, and for two, the cops were right behind him. The trio was thinking of what they were gonna do, when CRASH! The van had slammed straight through the dead end sign, but there was nothing deadly awaiting them. The cops were still on their backs, though. The trio all breathed a collective sigh of relief, when A noticed another sign that read “CANYON JUST UP AHEAD”. "A CANYON?!” A yelled “A WHAT?!” exclaimed B and C. Yet another sign was there that read “WARNING: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER DRIVE HERE”. It was right on the very edge of the canyon. Unfortunately, A, B and C could not heed the sign’s warning, and CRASH! The van went careening off a canyon, the cops following close behind. Now, to understand why all this happened, let’s go back to a few days ago, on a cold November day. It was rainy out, so A, B and C were sitting down on the couch and watching TV. “Hey, A, why do we only use the 1st letter of our names?” C asked. “I dunno, maybe just poor writing? Anyways, I’m gonna go play some computer pinball.” A said, getting up to turn on his desktop computer. When he turned it on, he noticed an email from someone. He clicked it, and saw a link that read “CLICK NOW TO GET NMORE MONEYY!!” “Whoever wrote this really ought to work on their typing skills.” A muttered to himself. He was about to delete the email, when all of a sudden, he noticed the cursor was slowly moving towards the link. “What the-?” He tried to move his mousepad, but it was no use. A notification popped up that said “THERE’S NO USE IN TRYING.” “Guys?” A asked. “I think my computer’s not working-” CLICK. An array of obscene imagery and noises filled the computer, each appearing on the screen at a seizure-inducing speed. A tried to unplug the computer, but the plug electrocuted him pretty badly. He fell to the floor, and yelled “WHAT KIND OF VIRUS IS THIS?!” As A got up, a notification popped up on the computer amidst all the chaos. It read: “YOU CAN’T TURN THIS OFF.” Another notification popped up that read “I WILL DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER.” The computer screen started glitching out, as smoke started coming out of it. A garbled notification popped up that faintly read “5.” A, realizing what was going on, yelled “GUYS, THIS THING’S GONNA BLOW UP!” “4.” “What thing?” B asked. “THE COMPUTER!” A yelled. “3.” “THE WHAT?!” exclaimed B. “No time to explain, just GO!” shouted A, grabbing B and C. “2.” A ran to his room, carrying B and C. He locked the door behind him as he entered his room. “1.” In his room, A proceeded to throw B and C to the corner of the room. He went up next to them, and curled up into a ball. They heard an audio file play from the computer.. It said “GOOD BYE.” BOOM! A bright light flashed from behind the door, smoke filling the room slowly. “Thank God this room has a fire escape,” B said, opening a window. “Come on, we’re getting out of this place.” He climbed out the window, but the fire escape was the apartment next to the trio. He fell 9 stories down, broke his leg on the fire escape, and landed in a dumpster. A and C climbed out the window, grabbed onto the fire escape, and walked down the fire escape, unlike B, who was sobbing in a dumpster. A and C jumped down from the ladder, and landed safely, unlike B, who got out of the dumpster. “You guys, I think I broke my leg,” B whined. “Can you guys carry me to the van?” “Yeah, why not?” answered A. Now A and C were carrying B to the van. When they got there, B yelled “Shotgun!” and dragged himself to the front seat. A got in the driver’s seat, and C was sitting in the back. “Where are we going, anyway?” asked C. “To that computer repair store in Canada.” “Why in Canada?” C asked. “Because the ads say it’s the only store that can repair a computer like the one we had.” “Well, then maybe I should go get the computer, or what remains of it.” C said, getting out of the van. After a couple hours, C returned with the remains of the computer, and put them in the trunk. He got back in the back seat, and the boys started driving off. A turned on the GPS, and typed in “Hard Drive Repairs”. “Sounds like the repair store only repairs hard drives.” B said. “Not just hard drives,” A answered. “The place claims to repair everything computer related.” “Alrighty then,” B said. “Let’s get going!” And with that, the trio was off on their quest for computer repairs. After only, like, 10 minutes, C asked “Where’s the nearest McDonalds?” “C, it’s only been 10 minutes, can’t you wait?!” B replied. “Okay, no need to yell…” C said. 10 minutes passed, and C asked “Where’s the nearest McDonalds?” again. “For God’s sake, C, it’s been 20 frickin’ minutes! Just WAIT, will you?!” “Okay, okay, jeez!” 10 more minutes passed, and C asked again, “Where’s the nearest McDonalds?” “I’LL KILL YOU!” B yelled, as he jumped into the backseat to beat C senseless. He was strangling C against the window, when A said “Hey, look, a McDonalds!” The van pulled up to the drive-thru, as the boys ordered their food. When they were done ordering, they were pulling up to the pick-up window, but a car was right in front of them, and whoever was inside had quite the order, because his order had taken up his entire backseat. B sighed, and muttered to himself “It’s one of those people…” He stuck his head out the window and yelled “HEY, STUPID! JUST TAKE YOUR DUMB ORDER AND LEAVE, YOU’RE HOLDING UP THE WHOLE LINE!” “Now, what did you say to me?” growled the person inside, as he stuck his head out the window, revealing himself to be a member of the police force. “Oh, God…” muttered A. “Come on, we're taking our order from inside.” he continued, turning the van around. The van pulled up to the parking lot, and the trio ran inside, snatched their order, and threw their money at the cashier. The boys ran back to the van, but the van was already surrounded by cops. “OH, WHY ME?!” B shouted, causing the cops to notice them. “THERE THEY ARE!” shouted one of the cops. “GET ‘EM!” another one screamed. The trio got in the van and drove off, as bullets flew everywhere. “Dear God, we just wanted some ‘Mickey D’s’, and now we’re getting screwed over by the police force again!” A said to himself. “Just shut up and drive!” B yelled, but unfortunately, they were driving on a folding bridge. “OH, DEAR LORD!” A screamed as they drove up the bridge. There was a noticeable gap halfway between the bridge, because, well, it folded in two. “WE’RE GONNA DIE!” the trio all shouted, as the van flew off the bridge. They shut their eyes, and accepted their fate, feeling no ground under them. THUD! Suddenly, they felt ground under them. “Is this heaven?” B thought to himself. “Nah, there’s no way I’m going to heaven.” B thought to himself, realizing he wasn’t dead. “Wait, WE’RE ALIVE, GUYS!” B shouted. “How did you not know we were alive until now?!” A replied. “Let’s ignore that for now, we’ve got a bigger problem right now.” C said. B looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the cops were still hot on their trail. Multiple cop cars fell from the sky, shooting at the van. One cop jumped out of the car, and landed perfectly on the roof of the van. “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME WAS THAT?!” B asked, when the cop opened the door on his side. “GUYS, HELP ME!” he yelled as the cop attempted to drag him out of the van. The cop took B’s seatbelt off, and yanked him on top of the van, while B cried for mercy. The cop was now beating B with his nightstick while yelling obscenities, when A jumped up onto the roof of the van. “Go back in the van, I’ll deal with him!” he shouted. The cop proceeded to attack A, while C drove the van. B proceeded to crawl his measly self back down into the van, and after a good 7 hours of hearing them fighting, A jumped down back into the van, one of his hands stuck in the handcuffs. “Man, it’s dark out now,” A said. “Wanna stop at a motel?” “As long as it’s not one of those really sleazy motels,” B answered, “Those places will be the death of me.” “Well, too bad, because we just parked at one.” A replied. After checking in, the boys sat down on their beds, C sitting on the floor due to the lack of a third bed. They were watching South Park, when their show was interrupted by a newsflash. “BREAKING NEWS! Three fugitives have been found hiding out at one of those really sleazy motels!” “Oh, not again…” A muttered to himself. “COME ON OUT, YOU CRIMINAL SCUM!” the news-guy suddenly yelled. “Oh God, what do we do?!” C asked. “I dunno, I never got involved in this stuff.” B replied, when he heard A yell “WE SURRENDER!” He ran outside, ready to slap some sense into A. When he got outside, he saw A waving a white sheet of printer paper, which had several bullet holes in it. He grabbed him and yanked him back inside. “A, what do you think you’re doing?!” B asked, about to pummel him. “I was just surrendering, because we were surrounded-” “THAT’S WHAT FIRE ESCAPES ARE FOR!” B yelled. “Now come on, we’re using the fire escape.” The boys snuck out from the fire escape, and jumped in a bush. “Now, we gotta get to the van without the cops noticing.” said B, when a light shone on the bush they were hiding in. “Well, the cops noticed, so now we gotta get to the van without getting shot.” B said, knowing for a fact that he and the rest of the boys were screwed. “I say we make a break for it, and just run to the van.” A said. “You know what, forget it. Let’s go with A’s plan.” B said, and with that, the boys were manically running to the van as fast as they could. “GET IN! GET IN, I SAID!” B yelled as he opened the van. When they were all in the van, they zoomed off without care about the speed limit, or how many pedestrians they hit. At around 3 AM, the boys managed to escape the cops. They managed to drive across 7 states somehow, and were now in the middle of nowhere. A turned on the GPS, and saw that he and the boys were about 1 ⅛ days away from Canada. The cops were no longer on their backs, or so it seemed. The trio was driving atop a bridge, an oil truck underneath it, when they heard the faint sound of a helicopter. C looked out the window, and saw a bunch of helicopters from the police flying after them, as though they had 5 stars in GTA. A missile was shot at the van, but luckily, A noticed, and swerved the van away from the missile, and now we’re back where the story started. BOOM! As the bridge blew up, sending our boys flying, it also blew up the oil truck beneath the bridge. When it landed, crushing a man dead, A exclaimed “WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?!” “I don’t care, just DRIVE or something!” B exclaimed. “Don’t I get a say in this?!” asked C. “Shut up!” yelled B, as he slapped C in the mouth. He was about to beat C up, but A yelled “OH MY GOD, A DEAD END!” A couldn’t hit the brakes, because for one, they were broken, and for two, the cops were right behind him. The trio was thinking of what they were gonna do, when CRASH! The van had slammed straight through the dead end sign, but there was nothing deadly awaiting them. The cops were still on their backs, though. The trio all breathed a collective sigh of relief, when A noticed another sign that read “CANYON JUST UP AHEAD”. "A CANYON?!” A yelled “A WHAT?!” exclaimed B and C. Yet another sign was there that read “WARNING: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER DRIVE HERE”. It was right on the very edge of the canyon. Unfortunately, A, B and C could not heed the sign’s warning, and CRASH! The van went careening off a canyon, the cops following close behind. “WE’RE GONNA DIE!” B yelled. C replied “Hey, at least we have each other as we-” THUD! The boys were, luckily, not dead, but they had landed on a glass bridge that someone built on the canyon. As the cops fell off the canyon to their dooms, A drove away, as the glass of the glass bridge broke underneath him. Missiles flew down, attempting to hit the van, but due to the breaking glass, the missiles flew right into the canyon. One cop decided to jump onto the missile, and he jumped off, leaving the missile to fall. He grabbed onto the backseat of the van’s door handle, and proceeded to open it. Firmly grabbing C by the arm, he tried to drag him out of the van and throw him to his doom. The cop jumped in the car, and started to beat C with his nightstick. A turned around to see the cop beating C senseless, and jumped to the back with intent on beating the cop to a pulp, B grabbing the wheel now. After about an hour or two of random, unexplainable events, the van somehow found itself on top of a plane. A and B have successfully fended the cops off, so that was a relief, but then they heard the sound of several parachutes opening. It was the entire police force from their hometown. B looked at A and asked, “It’s the 3 of us against them. I started this whole mess, so you wanna get in the van, or you wanna help me fight these guys?” In response, A pulled out a pocket knife. B took that as a yes, and our heroes charged at the horde of policemen for the final battle. A was busy putting that pocket knife to work on the cops, while B was punching and kicking the cops off the plane, until he knocked one cop off the plane, and he landed right in front of the cockpit. After the plane swerved around a bit, the cop entered the van to perform a sneak attack on C. When B turned around and saw the cop attacking C, he told A to handle the rest of the cops while he beat this one cop to a pulp. He grabbed that scumbag, and yanked him out of that car, but not before slamming his face against the window a few times. After that, he saw that A was being overpowered, so he threw the cop aside and returned to beat those cops senseless. C ran out of the van, and up to A and B. “GUYS!” he yelled, instantly getting their attention. “WE’RE IN CANADA!” “Are we?” B asked, as he looked down. “Yes, now get in the van!” C replied. In the van, the boys looked at the GPS. “I’ll be darned, we actually ARE in Canada!” B shouted, when a bunch of cops jumped onto the van. “Looks like there’s no other way but down…” C stated nervously, when A drove off the plane as quickly as possible. After a few hours of falling, the boys closed their eyes, and heard a THWUMP! They opened their eyes, and saw that the van had fallen into a tree. They got, or to put it more accurately, fell out of the van, and saw Hard Drive Repairs right in front of them. “Oh, my God, we made it…” A stated, his eyes filling with tears of joy. B got the computer out of the trunk, and with that, the boys ran to the store. When they got inside, A handed them the absolutely obliterated computer. “Sorry, we only fix hard drives…” the lady at the register told them. B looked at A with a smug “I told you so” grin, as A fell to his knees in despair.