The doors weren’t shut and we weren’t buckled as we sped down Saint Joe Avenue and to our house. It was about three maybe four hours earlier at 11:30 when my sister came unlocked my door and came into my room still in her pajamas. 

  “You better be ready in five minutes we’re leaving,” she demanded. I wish I would have known with those simple words, this would have been one of the most terrifying days of my life.

I immediately got my purse and got my shoes on. So I went and told my younger brother, Kieffer, younger sister, Emmy, My mom, Carley, and my stepdad, Tim, to say bye.  My sister yelled at me that I better be ready right now if I wanted to go. So after I was ready I waited for five minutes for her, she still wasn’t ready. I walked into her room to ask when she was going to be ready, she was still fixing her hair and putting on lipstick. I asked her when she was going to be ready and she threw her black keys with the buttons rubbed off at me and I knew she wanted me to start her car. Her car is a goldish color and is held together by black ducktape and you have to pull the passenger door really hard to open it. So I went outside and started her car because she parks it on the side of the road and it felt like 5,000 degrees outside and 1,000 inside the house. I went back inside after that to grab my drink and told my mom and stepdad bye again and went to sit in my sister’s car and wait so her car didnt get stolen. The second I was ready before her I should have known something was weird that day.

About 5 minutes later my sister came outside and walked down the driveway to her car. Our driveway is really steep with cracked concrete and weeds growing out of the cracks. When my sister got in the car we called my other sister to see if she wanted to go with us. Of course, she said, “yes who wouldn’t want to go with me”. We headed the way where she lived at then was about 10 or 15 minutes away. So after Kara hung up Kelcey gave me her phone to play music. We drove for a little bit and hit a huge pothole and my sister screamed a bad word. Then we got to my sister Kara’s house about three minutes later, and she was in the shower, so we picked the lock and went in. . So we went in sat on the couch, and waited when she finally got out we all started exacting the leftover Christmas candy and I drank all of my sweet tea. When we had to pick the lock something that should have hit us today would end up being pretty crazy. A few minutes later we got in the car and left. We didn’t have anything to drink so we went to the gas station on Saint Joe Avenue and grab three different bottles of Smart Water. 

We were close to Krug Park so we just drove over to Krug Park. We sped through a couple of times and annoyingly honked through the tunnels. We were going through again when we decided to stop and go down to the water to look for rocks. We got down to the water and almost got attacked by an all-black snake about 2.5 feet long. So we ran over to the gazebo area to look at the flowers. Then we were looking at flowers we found a bulb to the Christmas light they display and it now lives in my sister’s car. When we were in the gazebo which used to be wood with the stain faded off and we just recently repainted/stained red and reading the names carved into the wood, a dark gray truck stopped, the windows were down and an older Mexican guy probably in his forties was staring and smirking at me and Kara. He was wearing a black shirt and dark blue sunglasses. After we walked away the truck drove away and we ran to tell our older sister. 

She said, “It’s fine since he left he’s probably just a weirdo.” 

We then started walking the trails and looking at plastic bags, old fast food cups, shiny wrapper, and little chunks of what used to be objects. We found a couple of cool rocks, one of them was kinda clear and purple and the other was an almost perfect heart. We got distracted looking at the Christmas light we found when the sun was reflecting off of it. While looking at the rocks and nature around us I completely forgot what had happened.  When we started walking away my sisters and I found even more rocks. When we started heading to the car my sisters handed me the rocks because I was the only one with pockets. So we started walking the path back to the car.

Fast forward about 10 or 15 minutes we were almost to the car and were just coming out of the clearing of the trees. When we were almost there Kelcey found another rock she liked and gave it to me. When we made it out of the trees there was an old red and off-white car was going through the tunnel and so we waited a second before going then we walked on the outside of the tunnel to go to the car. 

When we made it to the outside of the tunnel and started walking towards the car the gray truck pulled in crooked and blocked my sister’s car in the parking lot. When we saw the gray truck this time there were two people. My sister ran to get in the car because the driver’s side was blocked and Kara and I were sitting on the passenger side. Before we could even shut the doors or buckle my sister started trying to back out but the truck backed out toward us at the same time. When I realized what was going on I went numb and didnt know what to do as I started to feel tears fall on my hand that was grasping the sharp pointed rock on my sister’s floorboard. The truck was less than a foot away from us and still backing up. My sister started backing out and there was a gray minivan and a yellow car behind us waiting for another parked car to pull out. When the two cars continued driving another car came through the tunnel and stopped to let us out. There was a black car parked on the other side of us and she could barely pull out between the truck and the car. Right after we got out the truck tried to pull out but a blue SUV was right behind us and the truck wasn’t able to get out without hitting them. 

My sister sped out of the park as fast as possible so the truck couldn’t catch up to us. On the way home, we were scared of every truck and thought we were being followed. We went straight home and my mom and stepdad were mad we didnt call them. 

My stepdad said, “You should have called me I would have been there in less than 5 minutes”. When I made it home I had mascara all over my face and had to lay down because I thought I was going to puke didn’t go to the park for weeks after that. Now Kelcey and I have an alarm device and when the string is pulled it makes a loud noise, with a flashlight on it. Now when we go we always drive through a couple of times to know who’s there and what cars are around. I didnt think I had to pay attention so much driving and looking around until now. I now know the little moments you think will be fun can change in the snap of a finger.