Bald Surpise

• Zoe Lankowski, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

The soft light of Amy’s phone illuminated the dash of the old red pickup truck that she and her friend were currently in as Sally, Amy’s longtime friend drove through the eerie night time silence of the desert. About 7 hours ago they passed a gas station. She was, back then, wondering why she even agreed to go on a road trip, and now she was definitely sure that she should have said no. Currently, the only form of entertainment was her phone screen that displayed her wallpaper, her cat in a green dinosaur costume. Her left hand hung out the window, feeling the slightly cold breeze, wearing her famous blank expression, staring at the stars. She hadn’t had reception since they passed the ‘Welcome to the middle of Nowhere’ sign. Time seemed to be at a standstill and the truck was the only thing actually not trapped in the time freeze. Sally had been driving for what felt like forever, she kept glancing at Amy and noticed that she had begun to fall asleep, her phone sliding out of her hand and bouncing on the dash before hitting the floor, thud. Sally felt her own eyes start to droop as she took another swig of the ‘5-hour energy’ emergency bottle in the glove box.
Out of nowhere an old brown van, that must have been at 3 kilometers away started racing down the road at 100 kilometers per hour, only slowing down once the red truck was about 100 meters away, with neither of the girls noticing. Suddenly the red truck swerved and plowed down a large cactus that exploded upon impact. Amy woke up as she hit her head on the dash with such force that she was knocked out and blood poured out of her nose. Sally screamed, jolting out of her 2 second nap as she whacked her head on the old vinyl head rest, with a water bottle and half eaten meatball sub hitting the windshield. Once she recovered and opened her eyes she opened the door. The damage was pretty bad. A smashed headlight, probably the cactus’s fault. Smoke poured out of the front bonnet. How am I supposed to fix that? I’m not a mechanic! Sally had been standing in the ditch that her ‘borrowed ’pickup truck now sat in. No way to move that. Walking backwards she was surprised to then fall back down as she hit something. Rolling over in pain, having landed on a stray cactus limb she let out a blood- curdling scream. “Wh-Who are y-you?” with no weapon she felt hopeless. There now was a very tall, bald man in his late 20’s early 30’s grinning at her like a mad man from the top of the 1 deep ditch. Tha-that's not possible. H-he can’t be real. I haven’t seen a car since that weird, brown van at the gas station. Oh wait… she looked over his shoulder, only to see an old, brown van with peeling paint…