Run: Day 3

Word Count: 18,222

Summary of Events:

DaNiel was seated in the living room trying to map out a route to Seattle on Ty's laptop, but the website wasn't loading nicely, so he gave up and was startled by Ty's strange mother, who wouldn't stop trying to get close to him, prompting him to hide in the guest room. Ty returned from having gone out and stolen some registered license plates for his grandparents' car and installed them before getting his mom to leave DaNiel alone and urging DaNiel to hurry up so they could leave; DaNiel protested a hasty departure, reminding Ty that all he was wearing was a pair of basketball shorts Ty had loaned him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Ty looked DaNiel over; from what Ty understood, outside of possibly underwear DaNiel was wearing nothing but those shorts. He had no shoes, no shirt, no change of clothes.

“Oh,” Ty said.

“Oh,” DaNiel said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t think about anything, do you?”

“I’m thinking about getting out of here,” Ty replied. “I bet that lady’s been all day looking for us, and who knows if she hasn’t found us and is just waiting for the cover of darkness to come over here and shoot us.”

“You’re thinking about as much as a chicken with its head cut off,” DaNiel spat.

“We need to get out of here,” Ty swore. “I’m trying to get us out of here.”

“Look, we need to get some stuff together,” DaNiel said. “We need to be a bit more prepared for this; we’re essentially making a break for it. People who break out from prison don’t exactly get the dynamite and run, they monitor guard movements, they pay attention to all the little details that will give them an advantage, we need to do that before bolting like a crazed horse.”

“So what are you saying?” Ty asked.

“I need clothes, we need to be sure we have enough gas to make it a long way, preferably out of state if we can, we need to have a route marked out of where we’re going, and we should stockpile some snacks so that we don’t have to stop for food too much along the way,” DaNiel replied. “In fact, I’ll compile a list.”

“How long is it going to take?” Ty asked.

“I don’t know,” DaNiel replied. “Why?”

“Well, we want to get out of here,” Ty said.

“You’re thinking of leaving tonight, aren’t you?” DaNiel asked.

“Yeah,” Ty replied.

“Nuh uh,” DaNiel replied. “We’re staying the night and leaving in the morning; we’ll look less suspicious that way.”

“Not everyone who drives around at night is suspicious,” Ty said.

“Old people driving around at night is,” DaNiel said.

“Everybody around here knows they’re dead,” Ty replied. “It’d be more suspicious for people to see the car moving. We’re better served to leave at night when everybody around here is sleeping. These are old people who have no jobs to go to for the most part, which gives them all day to sit around and look out windows. They’re going to see us, and they’re going to wonder what in the world is going on. We need to leave in the dark.”

“Predawn them,” DaNiel said.

“Twilight works,” Ty argued.

“No,” DaNiel replied.

“Yes it does!” Ty snapped.

“I want to sleep at night and drive in the daytime,” DaNiel said. “We are setting out predawn then so that we can drive all day before finding a place to sleep at night and picking up where we left off the next day.”

Ty sighed and sagged with frustration. “Why?”

“Because I’m the driver,” DaNiel replied.

Indignation rose in Ty, who swore at DaNiel before pushing to his feet and heading back down the stairs.