"In Pursuit" by Kelsey Surmacz
We approached the ninety, peeping our heads slightly around the concrete corner, our fingertips sunken into it, vertically, all thirty. My heart thumped, pounded right out of its protective cavity as I glanced upward, checking to see whether or not Sarah and Jeremy were ready.
“Ready,” Sarah assured me, and with that, we tiptoed down the stretching hallway and toward the anterior of Chase. We were always four of the very last students to prowl the school before the late bell, so unless a situation would arise in which a figure of authority was lurking about, this should have been quite simple.
With Jeremy leading the way, we crept up behind him, Jeremy hesitating for a brief moment to allow time for me to cut in front of Chase. I brushed Chase’s shoulder “by accident” as I slid by him, and he quickly glanced over to see what had happened.
“Sorry,” I said with suggestive charm, turning around to gaze into his gleaming hazel eyes, attempting to ensue a sexual lure into him. He said not a word, only maintaining his fixed pupils upon me. Before I could see if Chase would edge in on my waiting lips, Jeremy pulled the trigger and injected the anesthesia into the left side of Chase’s neck. He fell into the safe of my arms, and, as gently and gracefully as humanly possible, I dragged him by the shoulders into the nearest closet before anyone could notice the stir.
After several sweeping punches by Jeremy and painful nail gashes by Sarah, Chase opened his eyes for light, only to find darkness surrounding him. I could feel another huge blow to his gut, and his pain echoed in my resonating chambers as the torture became progressively worse.
“What do you want from me?!” Chase bellowed in agony as Sarah’s long, penetrating heels violently stabbed his midsection.
“What do we WANT from you?!” Jeremy repeated forcefully. “We want you to take Peggy to the prom, that’s what!”
“No! No, you can’t make me do it!” Chase asserted. “Jus-Just p-please, let me go!”
“Not until you agree!”
“I won’t!”
Sarah laughed sarcastically and bitterly. “We could do this all day.”
“Never!”
“Alright, then, have it your way,” Jeremy finalized as he polished the blade of a brand new machete. “Never, that is.”
Chase’s bewildered expression turned desperate, as his already-bulging eyes protruded even further from their sockets. “No,” he pleaded. “No, no, please! NO!--” Jeremy’s blade swung down along the plane of Chase’s neck, then a deep, loud, desperate cry, one last attempt at life--
Peggy Sue gasped for air as the sound of a hand pounding down on the surface supporting her head startled her, bringing her back to reality. She looked around the room and quickly to her right, to see her classmate and best friend, Sarah, looking down at her.
“Peggy!” she started, “Get your head off your desk and help me out with this project. It’s due Monday, and, well, it’s Friday...”
Peggy sighed deeply as she reluctantly used all of her strength to sit upright. “I know,” she started, “but there are more important things going on.”
“Like what?”
“Like, you know, PROM.”
Sarah opened her mouth to say something, pointing her index finger as well, but she thought briefly and transitioned, still pointing. “Yes, you are right,” she confirmed. “Gotta set your priorities, right? So, who you thinkin’ about askin’?”
“Well,” Peggy began sheepishly, “Right now, only Chase.”
“Chase?!” Sarah refuted in disbelief. “Chase? Peggy, he’s, like, the alpha male of our school. Are you out of your mind?”
“I don’t think so!” Peggy commented, slightly animated. Before anyone could let any more words trickle from their mouths, their “other best friend,” Jeremy, chimed in.
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