Sam and Colby: The Penitentiary

62

"Can you stand?" I asked about fifteen minutes later. I did my best to clean out the deep gash on Ray's leg and gave him enough food and water so he'd be fully conscious and not so fatigued.

"Yeah. I think," Ray said. I held out my hand and he took hold of it, then helped him stand up. He wobbled for a minute, struggling with his balance. He leaned his back against the cold stone wall of the cave and focused on his breathing for a few minutes before fully standing up on his own with sufficient balance.

"He's fine. So what are we doing with him now?" asked Blaze.

"We're putting him somewhere he'll be found," I said shortly.

"Then why the hell did you just fix his leg?" asked Jake.

"Did you want to carry him somewhere?" I asked.

"Oh. No," said Jake.

"Yeah," I said.

"What, I have to stab him again when we leave him in a good spot?" Blaze asked.

"Yes. Or I'll do it," I said. That wasn't really true. Punching someone was one thing, but I could never stab a human being.

"Fine. I'll do it," Blaze mumbled.

"Perfect. Now where should we put him? We need somewhere that hasn't been checked yet but will be soon," I said.

"We could put him on the side of the road in Coalfield. That town is probably the next stop for the police," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, we could put him in one of those shallow ditches on the side of the road or something," said Colby.

"I'm literally right fucking here," Ray said.

"We're aware. Shut up," Corey said. "She fixed your leg enough for you to walk but we all know that any of us could take you down easy right now. Not to mention that there's six of us."

Ray glared at Corey, then looked back and forth between the six of us before seeming to accept defeat.

"Let's get this bullshit over with," Ray grumbled. Jake roughly grabbed one of Ray's upper arms and tugged on it, pulling Ray toward the entrance of the cave.

"So where exactly are we going?" asked Jake.

"Might as well take him back down to Coalfield where we were. Stick him on the road by that patch of bushes we his in while you went into town to fetch the paper," reasoned Blaze.

"Sounds good to me," said Sam.

"Let's do it," agreed Colby.

We started yet another trek through the mountainous woods, moving a lot slower than before since we had to partially drag Ray along with us. The sun had set soon after we left the cave, so we fumbled through the darkness while listening to Ray grunt in pain every few minutes.

After what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than thirty minutes since it was only a two mile hike.

"There's the bushes," Corey said, pointing ahead to the patch of brush we'd tucked ourselves away in.

"Okay, let's drag him out to the road. Put him on the side, make it look like he had to claw his way out from the woods," said Blaze. Jake and Colby moved their grips from Ray's upper arms to his hands to drag him through the final patch of dirt belly down so it'd look like he'd had to claw his way onto the street.

"It's, like, a ten minute walk to town from here," Jake said. "A car will drive by soon enough."

The guys plopped Ray down onto the cement, making sure he wasn't in the middle of the road but was sticking out enough so that a car would be able to see him and hopefully stop or swerve around him without killing him.

"Hey, Ness, what happens if he does die?" Sam asked.

"I... I don't know," I admitted.

"And how do you think going back will work? Do you think we'll make it back to our year and it'll be August? I wonder what will happen if we've just been... missing for that long? How do you think the other guys and girls are feeling about this? What if they've been waiting for us? What if we've been declared dead? What if they think we left them? What if the police have been looking for us? What if it's been long enough that the police already gave up looking for us? What if—,"

"Corey! Shut the FUCK up!" I screamed. All of the guys jerked their heads up and looked at me with wide eyes. "What! I don't need him sitting here telling us how terrible things might be! It doesn't matter what happens when we get back unless we actually make it."

"Okay, what year exactly are we talking about?" Blaze asked. "I still don't really buy into this."

"No, she's not lying," Ray grunted from the side of the road. He would have gotten up if Blaze didn't have one of his feet pressed down against his back.

"You're telling me you believe this whole time-travel thing?" Blaze asked.

"No. Well, I didn't. But she knows things she shouldn't. Remember how she killed everyone with the Superbowl bets? It's cause they've seen it before. They're from the 20's. The two-thousand twenties," Ray said.

"Are.... Really? Like you're telling the truth right now?" Blaze asked.

"Yeah, dude. Why else would she choose to deal with me long enough to make this escape? She could have used anyone for bait or to find a way out but she knew my plan would work. She knew when it was planned and the number of people coming with me and the exact way I was going to escape," said Ray.

"Hm," Blaze said shortly.

"Guys! Move! Car!" Colby suddenly yelled. We all looked up to see a car speeding toward us down the road.

"Shit," Blaze whispered. He stomped on Ray's head, not enough to kill him, but just enough so he wouldn't be able to get up and run with proper coordination. We all dove into the grove of bushes again and held our breaths.

"Come on, come on, pull over," Sam muttered under his breath as the car got closer.

"Oh no," Blaze said.

"What?" Corey asked urgently.

"He's moving," whispered Colby. We all looked out at the road to see Ray, still on his stomach, using his elbows and knees to army crawl further into the road. After making it out a few feet, he relaxed his body and laid flat.

"NO!" I screamed.

"What? What's he doing?" asked Jake.

"He's trying to kill himself!" I yelled.