THRILL RIDE: By John Kujawski
Friday, January 6th, 2012Lisa told me she’d take me on a thrill ride. This was something that I looked forward to and I couldn’t wait to find out what she had in mind. Of course, I had ideas of my own and I decided our best bet would be a day at Six Flags. I figured a few roller coaster rides would make for a fun afternoon but Lisa was bored. She didn’t want quick turns and steep hills. She wanted a real thrill.
Of course, it was a thrill just being out with her. I was pretty happy about the whole situation. Lisa was so pretty that when we stood in line for the rides that day it seemed like people around us literally shook at the site of her. She was a blonde woman whose looks did more than just kill. Some guys I knew literally felt feelings of torture when Lisa walked past them because they knew they’d never find the courage to speak to her.
I can’t say that I was really afraid to talk to her but of course, I met Lisa on the internet. She had this really cool website that featured old movie posters. Mostly they were of werewolves, and a few other monsters, but it was all fun stuff. When she agreed to meet me in person she let me know right away that I looked like a needed to eat an extra meal a day and I was more quiet than she expected.
I’d say she was quite a loud woman, herself. Sometimes she’d whisper softly but usually all sorts of loud sounds would come out of her mouth and her laugh would really carry as well. She joked that it was funny I’d only seen her when she looked pretty and she said I’d be horrified if I saw her when she wasn’t. She would always seem happy in some sort of strange way after telling me things like that.
I suppose I should have been concerned because Lisa didn’t smile when we left the amusement park. She was real quiet and never said a word as we walked through the parking lot and found her car. At one point, I think she even yawned. It was a big yawn, too and she made some sort odd noise after she did that. It was loud and savage enough that I think some of the other people in the lot probably heard it. She quickly unlocked the car door like she was in a hurry and climbed in the drivers seat. I got in on the passenger side and we tore out of the area without looking back.
Lisa insisted on driving and it became clear before long that she liked traveling fast, perhaps for the excitement of it all. We cruised onto a gravely Missouri road and we were really flying. I watched Lisa as her right foot hit the gas pedal. She put plenty of strength into it and had us going up to ninety miles an hour. She grinned with her thin red lips as we sped along.
I realized right away that it was getting extremely dark out and we didn’t have our car lights on. Luckily, I had my seat belt strapped in but Lisa didn’t hook hers up. I looked out of the window on my right side and it seemed like the tires of her grey Toyota were kicking up gravel and dust at an amazing pace.
Things picked up considerably before too long and I didn’t say a word. Lisa pulled into the left lane, going against the traffic. We nearly drove into a pick-up truck before she pulled to the right at the last second. She did the same thing with another car, almost hitting it and then veering off just in time. She never slowed up and we swerved all over the road just as if it had been completely iced over.
Finally she drove onto the grass, rolling us into a wooded area before she stopped the car. It only took us a minute to get there but it was dark and we were sitting in the car surrounded by trees. Even as I looked up at the sky, focusing on what now looked like a full moon in the night, I wished I wasn’t in the woods and the light from the moon didn’t seem like it would be enough to make the area seem less creepy.
I looked at her like she was crazy but Lisa just stared at me. Her eyes no longer looked the same, nor did her face. She made those same crazy sounds with her voice that I heard many times before but now they were louder than I ever remembered them being. It wasn’t like she was taking the form of a monster. She was more like an animal in the shape of a wolf, much like the pictures from the books she collected. I knew right then and there that the thrill ride was about to begin.
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©2011 John Kujawski
John Kujawski has interests that range from guitars to the Incredible Hulk. You can listen to him on the weekly podcast at www.comicbookshowdown.com or read his music articles at www.nighttimes.com He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and still lives there to this day.
