I'm experimenting with my writing technique here. If you feel distant from the characters, that was done on purpose.
Pete Johnson stepped out of his house into the night air. Puffs of dark air gathered around his mouth as he exhaled long and deep into the night. His keys jingled softly in the silent night. Except for the ice cracking under his boots, the keys made the only audible sound. Both of the noises stopped abruptly though when he spotted a single orange light glowing softly at the end of his driveway.
He took a couple cautious steps closer. The silhouettes of two men materialized as he neared. One silhouette leaned against the mailbox, casually tossing around what looked like an iron pike pole. The other sat on the curb, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.
Pete took another step closer. "Who are you?"
Neither man answered. The one on the curb leisurely plucked the cigarette from his mouth and blew a steady stream of smoke into the air. Pete felt a flicker of real fear creep along the back of his neck. There were less than three feet of distance between him and these phantom shadows, yet because the nearest streetlight was a block down the road, he could not make out any specific features.
For what seemed like an eternity none of them stirred at all. The only movement in the night was a single leaf that drifted down from a nearby oak. Finally the man sitting on the curb turned his head sideways to watch the leaf's descent.
The man on the curb waited until the leaf landed to finally speak.
"Nice truck you got there," he said, almost conversationally. Pete noticed that his tone had the edge of a challenge to it, anger even. At the words, Pete turned and glanced over his shoulder at his truck; the pride of his young life.
It was a gray 1961 GMC Short Bed truck. The body was straight with chromed front and rear bumpers, and three-speed transmission shifts.
Pete shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Uh, yeah," he finally said. "I just put in a new dual exhaust with chrome exhaust tips." The figure sitting on the curb just nodded.
The figure on the curb, Soda, was reveling in the kid's obvious discomfort. He took a long drag of his cigarette and waited.
The kid repeated his question. "Who are you?" And once again Soda and Darry chose not to answer.
Soda dropped his cigarette on the snowy street and stood to his full height. He was satisfied to see the kid back up a step. Very deliberately he put out the ember with his foot. He felt rather than saw Darry step up beside him. The kid glanced nervously at Darry's rippling muscles. They were something people tended to shy away from.
Darry walked around the truck as if he were examining it.
"Nice," he commented. "There are many characteristics that distinguish it from others like it."
Pete felt his old pride stir within him. Soda noticed this. "It wasn't a compliment," he said with hatred dripping off his words. Soda was not as good at hiding his emotions as Darry was.
"The color of course," Darry continued. "Red squirrel tails hanging from the mirror; the chrome edgings- like you already said." Darry stopped as if he had just noticed something. He ran his finger along a dent near the hood. "But where did this come from?"
"Uh, I dented it a couple of nights ago." All of the sudden Pete knew that that was the wrong answer. The very wrong answer. Pete had an uncomfortable feeling in the back of his head that he knew exactly what this was all about. The expression 'an eye for an eye' wriggled into a niche in Pete's brain. His heart sped up with fright. He would do anything to be far away from these two angry men. But he had another feeling that they would find him wherever he hid.
"What a coincidence," Soda drawled, "Because it's taken us about that long to find this particular truck."
At those words, Pete's on-edge nerves got the best of him and he turned and dashed toward his house. Soda was at his side in an instant.
"Not so fast," he said as he grabbed Pete roughly be the shoulders and yanked him back around. "We have a little demonstration just for you."
Pete could feel his assailant's fingers digging into his skin. He had a feeling that those fingers wanted to be around his neck rather than his shoulder. Him and his feelings; Pete's subconscious chose this night to work in overdrive!
Darry continued on with his talk as if he had never been interrupted. "Looks to me as if it needs something." Darry paused a moment. "I know exactly what it is."
Darry raised the pike he was holding above his head and brought it down into the windshield with all his might. The sound of shattering glass jarred the night out of its former stillness.
Pete lurched forward in horror, but Soda stopped him with a well placed kick to the stomach.
That is how it went for the next couple of minutes. Darry would beat on the gray truck with his pike, while Soda beat on Pete with his fist.
Pete was no match for Soda physically, so every time Pete struggled or tried to fight back, Soda would simply restrain him and beat him harder. "Who the hell are you?" Pete would demand in his pain more than once, but his two attackers didn't seem fond of talking at all.
Lights began to flick on in neighboring houses as Pete's anguished cries reached out. Darry punctured one last tire as Soda placed on last punch. They were walking halfway down the road almost in an instant. The two figures disappeared into the night as quickly as they had appeared. And as he watched, Pete could have sworn that he saw sixteen year old boy with dark eyes laughing silently at him. But he always figured it must have been a figment of his imagination.
Pete and his family never found out who it was that caused such extensive damage, and his family never found out why. But Pete always had a sinking suspicion that he knew exactly why it happened. And for the rest of his life after that one night, Pete drove everywhere very carefully.