Storymania - Speechless Vacation by Jeremym Kipp

Speechless Vacation
Jeremym Kipp

It was a sunny afternoon on the first weekend of summer. Though I guess weekends don’t matter anymore, its summer baby! A couple of my friends and I were gonna go up to the mountains for 4 days, 3 nights on a wild party camping extravaganza. Pure fun, is basically what was doing, to kick off our summer and the celebration of finally finishing high school. It was me, Mark, John, Vincent, and Lucy. We were gonna head up to the dunes in about half an hour, just had to do some last minute shopping.

“Alright, finally heading out, this is going to be freaking awesome!” Exclaimed John, while we were heading out of the store parking lot. It was a four hour drive to Vincent’s cabin to where we were staying. Driving was the worst part, anything could go wrong while driving, but as long as my friends were making some commotion, it would fly by fast.

So far we’ve been driving about 3 hours, I am wiped out. “Lets make another quick pit stop, I got to stretch my legs, and I’m kind of hungry. I saw a sign a few miles back of a gas station coming up. So I say we stop there for a few,” I said, the ones who were awake agreed. I pulled into what looked like an abandoned shack, though it was the only place on this whole road for the last 20 miles that actually looked like a gas station. I pulled in and was about to ask if anybody needed anything when I noticed that everyone was asleep. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, don’t leave without me,” I whispered, with a grin on my face. I walked around for a little to enjoy the scenery of the vast plains and to stretch out my legs to prepare for the last 45 minute drive until we land at the cabin. I walked into the shack hoping to find a small bite to eat, only to come across old packages of beef jerky and peanuts. Holy crap, this place is crusty, I thought to myself. I walked around some more only to find shelves filled with dust. I couldn’t tell if this was a real store or really some abandoned shack. “Um, is anyone here? Hello?” I said. I stood there for a few minutes hoping that my call would be answered.

I stepped outside and was about to get one more glance at the view and head back to the car when I heard a cough, “hello? Who’s there, what you want?” A raspy cold voice said behind me in the shadows of the shack. I turned around to see a middle-aged gray haired man walking on a cane coming out of a doorway that I didn’t even notice. I was standing there speechless, not just because there really was some guy in this place, but that this place was actually in business. “What you want, you got any tongue boy?” The man said.

“I, uh, was-“

“Yo Tony, how long you been here? Got any food in there, I’m starved,” said a voice behind me, I turned around to see Mark getting out of the car with John and Lucy.

“Tony is it? I’ll be remembering that,” said the man behind me. I turned around and the man was gone, back into the shadows of his shack.

Mark, John and Lucy walked up, beside me. “Damn, Tony, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost. You wanna switch with someone for driving time?” Lucy said.

“No, no I’m good I just-“ I replied but was cut off by John.

“Well no shit Lucy look at this place, I’d be a little freaked out also. Man this place is crusty! Looks like, shit, yea like shit.” John laughed, he and Mark walked around the few shelves and went back to the car. I stood there with Lucy for what seemed like an hour, I was just staring into the dark little shack, still a little stunned about what the man said.

Eventually I caught notice of Lucy staring at me, and she said, “you sure you’re alright? I’m fine with driving if you want a break, I mean you have been driving for like a day it seems like.”

“No, I’m totally fine, I was uh, just hungry. Kind of disappointed that there was no food here,” I said. I could tell that Lucy wasn’t buying the whole story, but there is no way I would tell Lucy, she gets way too freaked. Then I said, “come on, I’m fine. Let’s get a move on it, and party it up.” We both walked back to the car. I started it up and was turning out of the dirt lot when I saw the same man in my rearview mirror walking out from the shack. I turned onto the road and the man started jogging towards the car. I took off and eventually the man faded away with dust and he disappeared.

“Alright take a left at the next road and follow that for not even a mile then it should be the old log cabin on our right,” said Vincent.

“Man am I relieved, I’m sick of driving I can’t wait to get there, pop open some beers and relax, maybe I’ll take a little nap,” I said. But right after I said that a sound making a galumph galumph noise occurred. “Shit! We have a flat tire!” I yelled. I pulled over and we all got out. It was the back right tire.

“Ahh man, we were so close, the cabin can’t be no more than half a mile away. Now we gotta take all our stuff out and pull out the spare. Fix the car, put all our shit back in,” whined Vincent. I looked at him with a sarcastic sympathy. We all pulled out our stuff and the spare out with the tools. “Well I’m gonna take my stuff and walk on to the cabin, catch the scenery you know? Sorry, but you know I am no good with mechanics. I’ll see you guys up there, don’t take to long.” Said Vincent, and patted me on the back then walked off. He’s right, he is no mechanic, but now I find him to be lazy. Though if he is lazy, why would he walk to the cabin?

“Crazy Vincent, come one lets get this crap done with so we can finally relax and party,” I said. The others agreed and started to help me take off the flat tire. When we took it off I inspected why it was flat and found a small but sturdy little knife sticking into it. Peculiar, only way this would be able to take out a tire is if it was dug in the ground with the blade sticking up. I shrugged off my curiosity and went back to helping put on the spare tire.

We finally got the car fixed and all our stuff repacked into the car and started taking off towards the cabin. There was one problem, the only one who knew exactly what cabin it was, was Vincent, and he took off. We drove into the first cabin hoping that it would be the right one. John and Mark got out to go see if anyone was there. They knocked on the door and out came the guy who owned the crusty old shack. I froze as I saw him, I could hear Mark and John explaining themselves to the man and the man responding, but while the man was answering them he was looking directly at me. Never taking a second to look away or even blink, and neither did I.

Lucy was tired of waiting, and yelled out the window, “Come on guys! Leave the guy alone its not Vincent’s cabin.” I noticed that when Lucy said Vincent the man at the shack or is now at this cabin turned around to look in his place and turned back around with a slight look of pleasure.

Mark and John got back in the car and John said, “weird guy, but the man said that there was a cabin about a mile or two up so lets hope that’s it. And if it is, were definitely going to see Vincent walking all by his lonesome.” Lucy, Mark and John all laughed at the image of Vincent trying to hitchhike. I turned back up to get a look at the guy but he was gone, but his door was still open. I turned around and again looked back at my rearview to see the man standing there again holding something behind his back. I sped up and turned to take a quick glance out the window. As I was about to take a right off the cabins driveway onto the road I saw a glimpse of a black object from my window. I slammed on the breaks and got out. I ran towards the object to find a pack scattered around with clothes and other things.

John came upon it yelled, “Holy shit that’s Vincent’s pack! Where the hell is he and what happened?” He picked up the pack and found that the straps had been ripped off and the bag was slashed open and most of all it felt damp. John dropped it to find his hands red. Right then we all knew, he was gone, and we knew who did it. Mark and John started running up the driveway towards and the man was running down towards them. John and Mark halted ready to take the man out but right as they were about to clash into each other when the man pulled out a machete and slashed open Johns side and slash off Marks left shoulder. They dropped and screamed, the man kicked both of them in the face and the screams slowly went out. I stood there in lockdown from the adrenaline while Lucy was screaming. I caught my breath to find the man running towards us. Lucy grabbed me and pointed towards the car. We bolted and got in, I started it up and saw the man in my rearview about two feet from the back of the car. I hit the gas and turned back on the road. It seemed like for hours that Lucy and I were screaming until I heard galumph galumph. Before I knew it the car was fishtailing along the dirt road. I tried to gain control but it was too late, it hit a slight ditch and the car tumbled onto its back. I wasn’t quite knocked out when I realized that the car was upside down, and to find Lucy smashed against her window, dead. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt, were the last thoughts that ran into my head before I went totally unconscious.

“Wake up boy,” said a raspy echo in the dark. “Wake up boy,” the echo said. My vision slowly came into view. The only thing that I could distinguish was a dimmed lantern. I could see a shadow moving back and forth behind the light. “There you are, feeling well? You didn’t answer me last time, I suggest you do this time boy,” said the shadow with a raspy voice. I knew who it was but I could barely keep my head up and there was no way I could talk. I fell back into a daze and the man lunged at me saying, “Oh no you don’t boy. Wake up!” I felt a sharp pain in my arm and I was suddenly well awake. I looked at the pain in my arm and saw a hand holding a blade that was stuck halfway into my arm. I was in total shock, I tried to scream but all that came out was a slight squeal before the man clasped his hand over my mouth. I tried to fight him off but it was no use, I was tied down to a chair. The man came to my ear and whispered “that’s not the answer I was looking for, but I’ll take it, and you shall remember it, for it will be your last. I’m not going to kill you since you were the only one who didn’t insult my shop, but I still need to make sure that you won’t go running your mouth.” He drew out another blade from his back pocket and wrenched open my mouth. He jammed his hand in my mouth and ripped my jaw open, I could feel my cheeks ripping. He took my tongue and sliced it off. He took his hands from my mouth and I saw my tongue on my lap, covered in saliva still curled up in a shape as if it was hiding from something. I looked up and tried to scream something, anything to divert the pain, but no sound came. The raspy voice spoke again saying, “What’s wrong boy? Cat got your tongue?”