My name is Patrick. Hello. No last name that I can tell you. No address that can be given out. No city, state, school.. none of that. I wish more than anything that I could tell you, but I can't as long as I value my life. What I'm doing now is the only alternative to being dead, or worse. What's worse that death, you say?
Not up, yet..
They are. They can make you wish for death, wish it would come and save you from the torture. They're a species of aliens invading the earth. Now, before you say I'm crazy, read my story. It will all be explained soon.
It was the last day of summer vacation, and two of my best friends, Tom and Nick, and I were going to enjoy it at all costs. Well, at the cost of a whole lot of junk food and a dozen rented videos. We were having a party over at my house that night, and now that the day was fading into the evening, I needed to gather up the participants. I was walking to Tom's house first.
Tom and I have been best friends since the age of five when he moved in four houses down. Judging from our personalities, you'd never guess we were friends. Tom is an eternal joker, and I'm a more serious kind of guy. It seems Tom's mission in life is to annoy everyone in the world out of their minds. He's rather good at it, too. There's nearly nothing he isn't capable of turning into a joke of some kind.
I walked into Tom's yard and looked up at his house. Typical suburban situation, nice identical rows of homes with two floors, a garage, and even complete with a white picket fence. Well, dull white with specks of brown, from Tom's sometimes insane interest in pyrotechnics, especially when combined with soda. Don't ask me. He says not only will they surprise you, but they leave you with a nice sticky residue after they go off. Oh, joy.
I looked further up to his window, where I could see the back of his head, doubtlessly playing his recently purchased PS2. I scowled, thinking about how I wouldn't get my Gamecube for a couple weeks, yet. I took a breath and hollered up at Tom to get his behind outside before he messed the whole thing up, duly adding that he seemed to mess everything possible up. Tom noticed, and opened his window, and in a whiny voice complained that, "Messing stuff up is my job!"
I shook my head. "Tom, just get down here. We have to go get Nick, too." His reply came in the form of a pillowcase full of junk that he would somehow need flying out the window and toward my head. Catching it deftly in the temple, I fell over just as Tom left the front door, laughing. "Good catch, Pat. Very good catch." I snorted, getting up, and quickly threw his bag back at him, getting him off guard, and sending his stuff flying across the yard.
I grinned. "Good catch yourself." Tom sighed, and gathered up his stuff, and joined me on the sidewalk leading away from his house. "Right. Now do we really have to invite Nick?" I groaned, having heard this enough in the last few days. "Tom, we already invited him. And besides, what do you have against him?" Tom considered in a faux thoughful look, "Hmm.. it couldn't be because he's rather stuffy and boring.. no, no.. couldn't be that.." I shoved him playfully. "Yeah, just because he doesn't like blowing stuff and/or small animals up means he's boring." "Heyyy..." Tom defended, "I told you, I didn't know his cat was in that box. And besides, it was a good one, seeing him lick the stuff out of his fur for the next few days."
I shook my head at Tom, as we got close to Nick's house. Nick was a year younger than Tom and I, but we'd all been in the same loose circle of friends for years. Tom wasn't anyway near as close to him as he was to me, and picked on his a bit, but in the end we were all friends. Nick was a quiet, shy type of guy, but also the kind of guy who would support a friend through anything. And although Tom didn't admit it, he had a playful side, and had been known to set up practical jokes with a mutual friend of ours named Bruce. But after Bruce moved away last March, Nick had been a bit more quiet than usual, as he was rather good friends with Bruce.
I made Tom go up to the door and get Nick, just to see the fake pained look on his face, and rested on Nick's fence. The late August air was still thick and humid, but not as hot, considering it was nearly 8 PM. I'd wanted to start the sleepover sooner, but both Tom and Nick's families had kept them home for dinner, and besides, they were lazy. I stretched a bit in the waning sunlight. As Nick walked up, with a small backpack with stuff in it, he smiles, and gazed up with me or a second. "Hey! A shooting star!" he pointed, as the speck of light flashed by. It seemed like a good omen for the whole thing.
I had a small feeling that something wasn't right, but shook it off. Soon we'd be having over at my house and joking and having fun. What could go wrong? Life was good.