Chapter Four

Ponyboy's POV

I pumped my legs faster as I ran down my neighborhood street. I could feel sweat running down my back and neck, I could feel it sticking to my thighs. I started running every day since Johnny went missing, the sweat and the exertion was what I needed to try and shake things off. Five times around the block was my usual errand and I was finishing my fifth when I noticed something coming from the top of the trees behind my house.

There was a murky black cloud emerging and looming over the woods behind my back yard. I thought that was weird. Could there actually be forest fires in Tulsa? I started to walk toward the foliage of thicket behind my house when I saw Steve and Sodapop sitting on the front porch.

"Were ya goin' Pony?" Soda asked, smiling at me as always. I didn't reply, just motioned for them to follow me. They both look confused but they got up and started to walk with me.

I knew I might have been over reacting but I was curious and I didn't like that smoke. I knew if I didn't go and investigate it would pollute my mind just like it pollutes the sky. I pushed branched out of the way as my feet crunched leaves and broke twigs as the smell of burning debris hit my nostril. I started to quicken my pace toward the smoke. I didn't like that smoke. I didn't like it at all.

As I got closer and closer the consistency of the mysterious smoke thickened and the smell got stronger and I could hear the crackled of burning wood. That's when I realized this was a man made fire which made me even more apprehensive than before. Why would someone want to start a fire out here? I walked faster as my curiosity heightened and my dislike for the strong black mist grew. My sixth sense told me to run back and get more help, somebody stronger than me but something else was pulling toward the mysterious crackle faster and faster until I could see bright orange. The flames whipped out with lethal strength in multiple directions. The fire jagged hazardously down the forest floor about five feet wide. My stomach turned into ice as I took in the burning blue and angry red of the inferno in front of me.

I heard footsteps and motioned for Steve and Soda to hide behind the bushes I was at. That's when I saw them. Two tall men. They were thick with muscle, wearing all black and ski masks. One walked in front of the other, holding a chain that was dragging something small and limp on the ground, the one behind was kicking it. I could hear them laughing hysterically. Loud, ugly, guttural laughing that made me feel nauseous. They took the dark object to the flames the man from behind gave it one last kick before the other man yanked the chain up pulling the dark lump off the ground by the neck. And there it was…!

"No…" I could vaguely hear Soda and Steve gasping next to me but it could've been my imagination. I don't exactly remember what happened; I was almost unconscious but still awake.

"No…No… NO!" Every vein, artery and capillary inside of my body seemed to explode and freeze as my heart turned into the wings of a humming bird inside of my chest. My muscles tensed painfully as fire rippled up every ligament and tendon in every joint of my physiology as they locked then sprang. I pounced out of the bushes and into the inferno with fury I didn't know any being on earth was capable of. My senses were working overtime and my feet were moving fast than ever before as I ran across to the other side of the fire.

I heard the faint clanking of Steve and Soda's switchblades being acquired and the devil holding the leash that was strapped onto my everything proceeded to drop my world into the fire. The blood curdling screams that filled the air in the next second seemed to ensue the shattering of my life in the feeble battered hands of the agonized creature emitting those desperate, pain induced noises. Battle cries erupted around me when I saw my brother and his best friend attacking the two demons and stabbing at them before those two monsters had a chance to realize what was happening.

I ran to the flames and leapt in, not caring what happened anymore, just wanting to make the angel stop screaming like it was. The fire seemed like ice when it licked my forearms and wrapped around my calves. I reached out and grabbed the small being; whose cries had quieted grimly in the middle of everything, and ran. I ran back to the clearing of my back yard with the lethal strength my endocrine system still pumped from my pancreas to every nook and cranny it could cram itself into. I ran past the screams that told me to wait or stop to the old Chevy truck parked out front. I yanked the front door open thanking God that the keys were still in the ignition. I slide in, laying Johnny's head in my lap, making the pick-up roar to life.

I didn't care I was driving illegally, I didn't care I was running red lights and I didn't care that loud sirens screamed at me from behind, following me. All I cared about was the boy lying in my lap who was fighting for life but also unconsciousness, hardly achieving one and wishing for the other. There was so much pain he was in, I knew, he hoped for the darkness that would stop it all but he couldn't seem to catch it.

Johnny's eyes rolled around in their sockets. "Ponyboy?" How he knew it was me I didn't know, he just did.

I pushed blood matted hair off of his forehead, taking in his appearance. Looking at him I wondered how he had survived. There were bloody cuts in patterns all over him, the left leg of his pants was charred and there was so much more I couldn't name. "Yeah Johnny, it's me. You're gonna be okay, I promise."

I say this loud enough for him to but it's like he doesn't hear me, he just continues to stare off into space and whisper my name like a chant. "Ponyboy… Pony… Pon-y…"

I look down at him and seethe. Sodapop and Steve better have killed those sons-of-bitches who did this to my Johnnycake!