By: Levi Blackman and Step Moody:

It was dark and scary night. We were so far away from home, and everything was very unfamiliar. The part town we were in was horrible. Were we going to make it home alive? That was the questions bouncing off our temples. Sweat pours from our forehead and we moved fast fearing the darkness that quickly fell on our two man work group.

The House was spooky, much like this one.

We wanted to get out.

The beast, or wait, was there really a beast, or was it just some drug induced ghost. Large groups of people, ape like in manner, were everywhere. I tried everything to distract the trip, including reverse psychology- on myself that is. What if it was me that was the ghost? Well then there was nothing I could do about it at this point, I thought, so I decided to divert my attention to something more relevant. The window had to be boarded. It was my job… my duty… my function…

Sometimes people’s lives become destroyed in a manner that causes them to forfeit their form of shelter. I work for someone who works for someone who works for someone who comes and steals the homes of those who have had a series of unfortunate events, and are now too low on cash to hold up the fort.

This structure used to be someone’s place of shelter. The spot on earth they came to after a long day at work. Now we had to make sure that the weather and other people didn’t destroy the house through a broken window on the side.

A car pulled in front of the house and slowly came to a stop. We were in the grass drilling a bored with an old fashion hand crank drill. We tried to focus on our work, but could help looking up now and then to see if the car would turn on us. It felt as if any moment the car would become some evil force, something that might fun us town.

This town just felt off. Something wasn’t right about the people who lived here. All the streets had strange names and went in all directions. Our sense of direction got turned around over and over and we spent hours driving around trying to find our way through the maze.

Someone on the cell phone tells us that a storm is headed our way; a bad one that will cause us trouble driving. We had already been through one storm already and another just seemed exhausting. We hurried and tried to get the job done.

Wall after wall kept getting in the way of us leaving and the sun started to fade quickly. The drill broke, and it looked hopeless. The hole in the 2×4 still had about halfway left to go before it poked through the other side.

We struggled and struggled pushing ourselves, telling each other that it was important that we finish what we had driving hours to do. We have to keep our responsibility, and finish what we had agreed to finish.

We finally got the holes drilled, and we went to the broken window. Using a lighter, we looked inside, and called out to see if anyone was home. Our calls were greeted with an eerie silence. We looked at each other, and one of us headed in, while the other stood outside. We secured the window, and in a frightened panic, left the house as quickly as we could.

Then it started rain, and the long journey home started.

It was one of those rains that just keep pounding down on the car. Each strong gust of wind and rain was strong enough to rock my little black Neon and cause us to slightly swerve into the next lane. Our visibility was about 4 feet in front of the hood of the car. The white lines of the road appeared suddenly out of the blinding rain, and disappeared quickly underneath the car. They were the only solid thing in front of us, and they keep us alive.

Then like some miracle, the clouds cleared, and a crystal night greeted us. The ride after that seemed a bit relaxing, and we made it home, just like we had planned.

Home again, home again, Jiggety Jig.