Chap. 1
“Ryan, don’t shoot me!" Ryan looked at the other person on the couch in his living room. It was his neighbor, Michelle, who also happened to be the person holding the other controller. The two had known each other since they were born, and had grown up right next door to each other. Their parents joked that the two acted like siblings. The thing was in public people thought the two were related.
Ryan was tall, had a muscular body, and black hair. Chelle was tall, about a foot shorter than Ryan, but she was a little bit stronger. Her hair wasn’t quite black, but was more of a dark brown.
Living right beside each other, the two spent a lot of time together. Though they never openly discussed it, they thought of each other as a couple, and so did everyone at their school. The kids knew that to mess with Chelle, was to mess with her boyfriend, the star running back of the football team. To mess with Ryan, well that wasn’t heard of.
"Well, do you want to get killed by me or the enemy sniper in that tree over there?"
"What?" The view on Chelle’s side of the screen whirled around. Instantly her gun fired, and the sniper fell, dead. "If you knew he was there, why would you shoot me?" She moved the hair out of her eyes.
"Killing you is more fun, ’cause you get ticked." Ryan smiled sheepishly. He knew she wouldn’t be mad, because she would switch to a rocket launcher, and then Ryan would be dead.
But instead, she did something different. Chelle pushed pause on the controller and turned to Ryan.
"We’ve played video games all day. You want to go outside?"
"And do what?" Ryan asked, running his hand through his hair. It was something he did when he was thinking.
"I have a surprise for you." She pulled Ryan up off of the couch, and covered his eyes with her hands. Carefully she guided Ryan out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the front door.
"This better be good. Your hands smell like that coconut butter crap..." Ryan muttered. He sounded mean, but he was smiling. This was going to be good. Ryan’s parents were both lawyers, so there was always a lot of money, and Chelle’s were doctors, so they had money too. Their parents sometimes surprised the kids with things out of the blue. One time Ryan had come home from school, walked in the house and had come face to face with a new computer.
"Okay, stop, and open!" Ryan opened his eyes. In front of him was a go-cart. It was bigger than regular ones, and the motor looked like it could run a semi. The roll bars over the top looked flimsy in comparison to the rest of the machine.
"Whoa!" Ryan stared open mouthed. "What’s the occasion?" He asked.
"It’s a beautiful day, and we should be outside." Chelle smiled, and picked up two helmets from the seat. One was pitch black, even the visor. The other was a dark red color, with a clear visor. She popped the red one on her head, and flipped open the visor.
"It only fits one person at a time, so I’ll go first, and then you can go, ’kay?" she asked.
"Yeah, that’s fine with me..." Ryan muttered, rubbing his hands through his hair. He had seen go-carts before. He’d even driven one at the track, but it hadn’t been fast enough for his taste. Just then Chelle started the engine, and it roared to life.
"Isn’t it a bit loud for the city?" Ryan shouted over the growling. Chelle smiled, flipped down her visor, and shook her head. The go-cart roared again, and then shot out of the short driveway, down the street and out of sight. As the rumbling grew fainter, Ryan walked over to his family’s garage and took out a screwdriver. He smiled to himself. It went fast, but not fast enough.
After getting the screwdriver, Ryan sat down on the lawn and waited for Chelle to get back. He didn’t have to wait long. Within five minutes the cart came hurtling around the corner, and came to a screeching halt in the driveway.
"So, do you think you can handle this?" Chelle said, hopping out of the cart.
Ryan smiled and hopped onto the seat. It was the same basic design as other go-carts. A wheel to steer with, and two peddles down by the feet. He popped on his helmet, and pushed the visor down. Holding the brake down with his foot, he pressed down on the gas.
"Yeah!" he said, though he wasn’t sure if Chelle had heard him. Ryan took his foot off of the brake, and the cart shot forward with a mighty roar that was dampened by the helmet. He gunned it, and soon the house disappeared.
With houses racing by, Ryan felt free. He loved speed. All the houses that went by were identical, and Ryan knew that if he hadn’t lived there all of his life, he would get lost.
After a few minutes, when he was sure that the cart was out of earshot of Chelle, Ryan pulled over to the side of the road. He jumped off of the seat, and went to the motor, which was still giving off dying growls.
Ryan had always wanted to be a mechanic. He even had a knack for it. Just by taking a quick glance at something he could fix it and know how it works. And right now he was looking for a small part that made a big difference. This part is called a governor. The governor is a little piece that monitors a vehicle’s speed. If the vehicle is going too fast the governor kills the power. Ryan didn’t want that to happen.
With one motion of the screwdriver, the governor fell into his outstretched hand. Ryan smiled and put the little piece in his pocket to reattach later. Just as he was standing up to get back into the driver’s seat, a vision flashed in front of Ryan’s eyes. It showed him lying on the highway, his arm bent at an awkward angle. On top of him was the go-cart, overturned. It seemed to be pushing down on the injured arm.
Ryan shook his head, and the image dissipated. He was constantly having weird things pop into his head like that, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. Climbing into the seat, Ryan jammed his foot down on the gas. The floor shook beneath his feet. He smiled to himself, and took off down the road.
Soon there were no more houses flying by. They were replaced by rows and rows of corn and beans in fields. Both were just little sprouts, so it was too early to harvest.
So far Ryan counted himself lucky he hadn’t passed any cars yet. The road was usually covered with the farmer’s cars looking for mushrooms and asparagus in the ditch next to the road. But, of course there was that one farmer who came looking on a motorcycle.
No sooner had he thought those words, then Ryan saw the motorcycle on the road, covering the lane he was in. Ryan was going too fast to stop, so he swerved. As the bike sped by, Ryan felt the right side of the go-cart lifting off the ground.
Oh, God, please no! he prayed to himself. Ryan tried to put the cart back on four wheels by tipping himself over to the other side, but it didn’t work. The cart flipped, pinning Ryan’s arm to the ground under its roll cage.
At first, Ryan didn’t notice anything wrong. He was just wondering why he couldn’t stand up. Then he looked over at his left arm. At first all he felt was numbness when he saw little shards of white poking up between the pink and red, but then the pain started rolling over him in throbbing drifts.
"Ahh!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. There was nothing else he could get out. As his cry echoed throughout the fields a head poked up out of the ditch on the right side of the road.
"What are ya makin’ all thi noise for, son?" the man said in a heavy southern accent. Somewhere in the back of his head, Ryan remembered hearing something about the farmer, Mr. Smith.
"Holy... Okay, just hold on." Mr. Smith reached into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a cell phone. Flipping it open, he dialed three numbers, "Hello? Yeah, 911, I’m going to need an ambulance pretty damn quick." Ryan didn’t hear the rest. The darkness creeping in on the edge of his vision muffled it.