3
He looked around when he could. He didn't see anything coming up, or coming down. Barely ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes had passed since the last time they shot fired at them. Oliver just breathed calmly. It looked like he was in a traumatic state. He hoped he didn't fall into a comatose state. But that was too silly, even for Richard.
"I'm sorry I didn't do anything," Oliver said, finally.
"It's okay. What could you do? They were shooting at us with those…you know."
"I could have grabbed the gun and shoot at them," he said, knowing they wouldn't have done much, but it was the thought that count.
"It's all right, really. Just tell me where we should go from here."
"Take a left when the hills clear down. There's no road there, but I know it leads to the forest, where it brings us close to my house."
"You sure?" he asked.
"Yes, I am."
They kept on going, as the lampposts began to have distance from each other. One came in a second, the other five, then ten, then twenty, then a minute, maybe. Then nothing, really; it became just pitch-black darkness. Richard was about to turn on the truck's headlights, but Oliver told him not.
"We can't let them know where we are. Just trust me when we go along the road."
Richard saw black at first, but then he saw a small little light. When he was getting closer, he saw that it was a lamppost.
They made it to the turn, where the right had lampposts lights close to each other, showing a clear path to home…
He turned left, when he knew that this was what he was told to do. He had to trust him.
The drive seemed to go on longer than it had to. They drove for a while, but kept going straight, while Oliver told him to wait when it was time to turn.
He waited for a while, and then he saw something. It was to his right and noticed the sky, and something blocking downwards. Maybe they were the trees. The dark sky interested him. It seemed to be blue, like light was shining down on them. He didn't turn until he told him to.
Then, he did. But when he did, they fell down harder with a bumpy road, where Oliver told him to now turn on the headlights, but only low beam.
Many trees seemed destroyed and very much seemed dead and skinny. He didn't think much about the forest, but clearly there had to be more than this. The light around the trees seemed more midnight blue, while it was clear it was the nighttime. But he noticed that the more they drove across the trees, the road seemed more bumpy and crooked.
"Why is the road like this?" he asked.
"Those are dead trees," he said. "This isn't the first time, man. It's the second time, but I did the same mistake like last time. All I want you to do is trust me when I say I need you to do something."
"You know I have been doing what you told me to do, and look what's going on. But who were those guys?"
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe nothing."
"That wasn't 'nothing,' Oliver. That was something. This is more than I can even handle. I know my limits when to quit, and I should have done that when I started up this car in the first couple of seconds."
"Look, just relax. We'll be all right. We just need to get back home, and leave Elmore."
"That simple to you?" he asked.
"Yeah, I planned this beforehand."