Crazy Dangerous Read Online Free Page A

direction.
    I knew where I was. About three-quarters of a mile from the edge of town, maybe half a mile from where I’d left my bike. If I could jog it, I ought to be able to get home before dark.
    I took a look at my hand. The sight made my heart sink. My palm was red and swollen. There were black marks on it where the splinters from the railroad ties had buried themselves deep. Even worse, there were two or three big old chunks of wood in there, one end protruding out of the flesh, the other visible under the skin. I knew I ought to hurry and get out of there fast, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to leave those big splinters in there. I grabbed the end of one of them and drew it out, grunting with the pain. I grabbed hold of another, then another. Lines of blood began streaming down over my hand.
    By now I’d recovered my breath and was ready to start running again. But before I could, I heard an engine.
    There was no mistaking that sound, that aggressive unmuffled roar. That was Jeff’s red Camaro, coming after me.
    There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I couldn’t get back up that hill into the woods. So I just took off, away from the direction of the noise, toward town, toward home.
    I ran as fast as I could, but I was flagging now, really low on energy. The engine quickly got louder behind me. I glanced over my shoulder.
    Yeah, there it was. A flash of sunlight on its silver fender. Then another flash, and I saw the fire-engine red of its hood.
    I tried to put on some speed, but I was practically staggering now. What was the use anyway? Even at my fastest, I couldn’t outrun a car. Behind me, the red Camaro gave a guttural roar of acceleration. In another moment, the sound dropped to a guttural hum and the car was right beside me.
    I turned to it. Harry Mac’s face was grinning at me through the passenger window.
    In pure panic I tried to get away, to dash into the woods to escape. It was no good. I got about two steps up the dirt slope and fell—collapsed, really. I slid back down over the bed of fallen pine needles and dropped onto the road’s sandy shoulder. I knelt there, panting, exhausted.
    The Camaro stopped. The doors opened. Harry Mac and Ed P. got out. One of them grabbed me under one arm, the other grabbed me under the other. They hauled me over to the car. They hurled me into the backseat. They got in, one on either side of me. They shut the doors.
    Jeff was at the wheel. He hit the gas. The Camaro roared and took off again. Jeff gave the wheel a hard twist and the car pulled a great big Huey, turning full around. Then it headed back in the direction from which it had come—only with me inside now.
    If you have never been in the backseat of a Camaro, let me tell you: the legroom is nil, zero. I had to bend my legs so much, my knees were practically in my teeth. Also, there are only really two places to sit back there, one on the left and one on the right, and I was sitting in the middle. The lumbering Ed P. was pressed against one shoulder, and the enormous Harry Mac was pressed against the other. There was no room to move, so all I could do was sort of press my arms close to my sides and make myself small. Oh, and by the way? Ed P. and Harry Mac smelled like old socks.
    I was nervous. All right, I was scared. I didn’t know where we were going or what they would do to me once we got there. Whatever it was, I didn’t think it was going to be too good.
    I heard Jeff snicker. He looked up at me in the rearview mirror as he drove along the winding forest road. I could see his weaselly eyes reflected in the narrow strip of glass. “We got you now, don’t we?” he said slowly. “We do got you, sure enough.”
    “You got me, all right,” I said. “So what are you gonna do with me?”
    “Why do you ask?” said Jeff, and this time, all three of them snickered. “You’re not scared, are you?”
    “Oh no,” I said. “Why would I be scared of a nice bunch of guys like you?”
    I