What I am about to tell is very secret and goes no further then these boards as I'm sure several laws were broken in the process of this prank.
One boring nite my friends and I were watching TV when the movie "Cobra" came on. In the begining there were a bunch of guys clacking axes together for a gang ceremony. Now you have 8 guys in high school sitting in a living room with a little bit of cash in thier pockets next to thier car keys, knowledge of some of the back roads to the near by lake, nothing to do, and way too much time on thier hands. Not a good combanation.
I forget who it was but some one got the bright idea to do what those guys were doing on the movie because they looked awsome. Now you've just added an image of "cool" to that mix and things were starting to go together in a bad way.
We all jumped up and ran out the door and raced each other to the hardware store to purchase our axes for our trip to the lake. It was summer and the camp grounds were almost always full, and the moon was certainly full. Using a little traveled side road we managed to come about 1/8 mile from the camp grounds before we ran into a point where the road turned around on it's self. We still had enough sense to turn our vehicles around incase we needed to escape quickly. We hiked cross country to a spot over looking the camp grounds and got in a line and held our axes hig above our heads. We all let out a screech of insanity and began to clack the axes together, only to be hit bye a spot light on an SUV that we hadn't noticed 2 clacks into our stunt. Then the lights started flashing on the roof, it was a ranger and we were busted. We did what any teenage males who had lost all sense would do: we ran like the wind into the dark desert only lit by the moon light.
I've always been the "lucky one" and ended up getting the attention of the renager who was attempting to drive through bushes and washes. I've always been a tricky critter to catch in the desert terain, for some reason I'm dam fast on it and I can use it well, at least back in my school days. I ran like hell, using deep washes and ducking bushes to slow my pursures down. I used the vehicles speed against the rangers, hiding and letting them get out and start a foot chase to take off and distance myself. I play this game for some time and I was tiring fast, when the worst part of it happened. I came to a point where I had to make a blind jump over bushes, and when I did there was no ground on the other side. I fell and as I fell I got a view of where I was, a place where people had a tendancy to drown in the dat time and not be found. I hit the cold black water, though not before I took in a deep breath, and sank in as deep as my fall would plunge me into an inky tomb of water. Now most people would strugle and fight for the surface, wich would be all and good bt for one thing, wich way was indeed up? Something inside me told me to stay still, and let the air in my lungs save me. I floated to the surface, though I let out my breath as I could hold it no longer only 2 seconds before my out stretched finger broke surface. The current had carried me out of the cove a bit and I was closer to the other side so I had little choice but to go to the side I did not enter on. Never had i had such a hard swim and never had I been so fearful of the dark as I was surrounded in it in coutless depths on all sides. I collapsed when I reached the shore and weazed for a few minutes, btu something told me I needed to get up right then. I had no worries on being found, having so dramaticly covered my tracks while the ranger was in a wash. I had a new problem, there was a lot of dee black water between me and the truck that was my last step to safety and escape, I had no idea where I was really as far as finding a route. I did the only thing I could, I pulled the sharoening stone from my fishing knife (never visit the lake with out it) and used the tiny compass in the back to point myself in the direction of the road. I set out and had no further mishaps, though I was exhausted and by the time I reached the road I stumbled out onto the assphault. I was nearly struck by a small truck, I stared dumbly at the license plate for a few seconds before I realized it was MY truck.
One of the carless friends had gotten the spare key and was making his run to the city in my truck. He dragged me into the truck and buckled me in before he set out again and made the final escape from the botched prank. After that we decided "cool" wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
The final casualty count of our prank? Countless cuts and bruises, one badly scrapped knee with loss of pants life, and one spraned ankle. All of the others managed to make thier escape while I had my romp with the ranger. That pretty much was my right of passage to "manhood", quite frankly I think I could have done with out it *v*
Raust Shieldra
