Chapter 5

“What do you suggest we do first?” Chris asked, keeping his eyes on the road. “Do you think we should tell the cops first about the psycho or do we go there ourselves and jump on him?”

“How we gonna do that, we don’t even where the heck he’s hiding?” Justin replied.

Chris thought for a moment, “Ok, how about this? We go to Eagle Rock Hill, and see what we can find, then maybe one of us would go to the police station, you know, split up and stuff.

That may be a good idea, but I’m not so sure, we have to be careful.” JC added.

“Come on Jace, its five against one, what could go wrong? Besides, we have Joey so he can sit on him.”

They all laughed for a moment, but saw that JC had a worried look on his face.

Joey placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Jace.” He told him quietly, “Everything is gonna be fine okay? I already told you, we all told you, this was something that happened unexpectedly, when we get to Eagle Rock Hill, we would see what we can find.”

JC nodded slowly, and then they all continued to drive away in silence.

About an hour later

The guys saw an old sign that read “Eagle Rock Hill”, Chris turned on the right signal and headed into the long and winding road.

“This is so creepy.” Lance spoke, his voice just above a whisper.

“The weird thing is, during the daylight hours, it doesn’t look like this.” JC asked, looking out the window at the cold lake and the trees looked as if they were dancing under the moonlight.

They reached the end of the road and stopped at another sign, saying “Welcome to Eagle Rock Hill Recreational Area.” and into a clearing complete with picnic tables, restrooms, BBQ grills, and vending machines.

“Chris, you should turn off your lights.” Justin whispered.

Chris agreed, and turned off his lights, the night was clear, not a cloud in the sky, just a moon. They opened the windows to see what sounds they would hear, just a few crickets and other animal sounds.

Just then JC yelled “Stop!” which caused Chris to stop his brakes suddenly.

They all turned around to face him, he was pointing at something just a few miles down the empty parking lot.

“That’s my father’s car.” JC choked out.

The guys turned back to the direction that JC was pointing at, and sure enough, it was his father’s car, parked in the parking lot.

Without thinking, JC opened the door of the SUV while it was in motion and stepped out the vehicle.

JC! Hold on! Wait a minute!” Justin called out to him and ran after to him.

“Stop! Leave me alone, I have to know if there inside! I have to know if they’re okay!”

“Shh, not like that!” Justin struggled to get ahold of JC, he placed a hand over his mouth, with Joey’s help, he managed to get JC back in the SUV.

Justin and Joey let out a whoosh of air and gave a glare at JC.

“Jace, don’t do that!” Justin said.

“What if it was a trap, what if the psycho had some sort of weapon or something? You just don’t go out there and open the door of that car.” Joey explained.

“We have to do this quietly okay, or we are never gonna make this plan work, you understand?” He continued.

“He nodded and said he was sorry.

“Now, let’s try this again, Chris, turn your lights back on to see if we can see anything in that car and shut it off quickly.”

Chris turned the lights back on again, they all looked at the parked car, it was empty, just a few rags and a blanket.

“Turn it off now guys?” Chris asked, looking behind him to see if any cars were following them.

“Yeah go ahead.” JC told him.

They drove around the empty parking lot for a while but didn’t see anything suspicious besides the car, just then they spotted a giant rock at the end of the parking lot, it was hidden between the shrubs of trees. From a side view, the giant rock had an opening and a light was seen inside.

“Chris, you should park right here and we should step out to have a look.” Lance added.

They all agreed and parked within distance from the giant rock, they got out of the car being careful not to slam the doors, and they quietly headed to the giant rock. When they arrived there, they could clearly see that was a cave, a long cave, they could see a dim light in the distance.

A heavy silence fell towards the cave, and the dim light seemed to get brighter and brighter with every step they took, none of the guys said a word, until they reached the end of the cave.

They stopped for a moment, and could clearly see Karen and Roy, both tied up together, and the Thomas guy was sitting down by the fire, carrying a bag of something, he was opening a can of beans and boiling them in a pot, he was singing a song to himself about being rich.

“If that wonderful boy of yours doesn’t show up with my bag of cash, after I finish having my lovely dinner, I’m gonna become very angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry.” The man snickered to himself.

Chris let out a gasp which could clearly be heard in the cave’s echo walls.

Thomas jumped at his feet and looked into the dark cave, “Who’s there!” His voice, rough and menacing.

The guys backed against the cave’s murky wall and Chris pulled out his can of mace ready to aim it at Thomas’s face.

“I know I heard someone!” He shouted. “Is that you JC? Do you have my money?”

JC started to cry silent tears to himself;

Just then, Chris jumped from the spot he was hiding and came face to face with the man, he took his mace can out and sprayed it directly on his eyes

The man let out a scream and toppled to the floor.

Then the rest of the guys went to go untie Karen and Roy, they didn’t say a word. Joey and Justin kept an eye on Thomas to see if he was gonna get up, he was still screaming in pain trying to rinse out his eyes.

After successfully untying them, they managed to get Karen and Roy out of the cave, they didn’t look back, and headed into the empty parking lot; they all stopped when they saw red and blue flashing lights coming into the park.