It was muggy night in august and summer was nearly over, my best friend Aubrey and I needed something to do. We were sitting on my floor thinking of things we could possibly do, rather than sitting in another night. As we were discussing our options my phone rang, it was our friend Brent. Brent was going to be hanging out with two other of our guy friends and he invited Aubrey and I over. Aubrey and I got ready and my mom dropped us off a Brent’s house. My mom was in a rush because she had to go somewhere else so we got dropped off 15 minutes before we said we were going to be there. After my mom drove away Aubrey and I realized no one was home at Brent’s, so we called him. Brent said that he had to go pick up Jake and Chris and he’d be home in about 20 minutes. With nothing else to do, Aubrey and I decided to walk around his neighborhood to pass the time.
It was around 8:30, but it was summer so it was still lit dimly outside. We wondered around, talking and laughing when a mini van full of boys around 18 years old drove by us. Now, kids like to joke around so sometimes people yell stuff, or honk, when they pass you. So when the boys yelled something we couldn’t quite make out, out the window to Aubrey and I it wasn’t really something unusual.
Then another boy yelled, “Hey cutie,”
Before they were out of sight one boy yelled one final thing, “Hey girls want to come to a party with us?” And before their van rounded the corner Aubrey was yelling back.
“Sounds like fun,” she screamed and waved at them. Of course Aubrey was only kidding; we weren’t planning on going to any party with these boys. But with only their tale-lights visible rounding the corner, she didn’t think it mattered to joke back. That’s when it happened. All we heard was the squeak of a fast breaking car and then, we watched the van start backing up. The van handn’t even made a complete turn toward us yet and Aubrey was sprinting in the opposite direction like her feet were rockets. I stood there in shock for a few seconds before I realized I was standing alone, and the van full of those boys was heading my way, and then I turned and took off behind Aubrey.
We ran along the side of the road for a while until Aubrey made a turn into someone’s backyard. Both of us slowed to a jog and ducked behind a bush, peering out into the street.
“Well, that was scary,” Aubrey breathed, catching her breath.
“You’re telling me, maybe you shouldn’t talk to strangers!” We both laughed a little and then Aubrey’s face got pale and her eyes widened. She was looking over my shoulder, at something beyond me. Cautiously, I turned around and saw what scared my best friend. There was the van, parked on the street just 10 yards from where we were, and there were the boys stumbling out of the car and into the yard. Again the fight or flight instinct kicked in and we both took off running, further into people’s yards. This neighborhood is a ‘rich’ neighborhood so all the houses are huge, with giant plots of land, and most back yards are filled with trees and ponds, so it’s more like woods that we were sprinting into. Jumping over braches and sticker bushes we forced our way into the underbrush, neither of us willing to check behind us. Once were we in the thick of it all we stopped. Aubrey leaned forward and rested her hands on her thighs, catching her breathing in short bursts.
“Are they gone,” she asked me.
“I don’t see anyone,”
“Yeah I doubt that they’d chase us all the way through here,”

“That’s what I was thinking, should we walk back out the way we came or..”

“Maybe just cut through the rest of these yards and we should come out by Brent’s street I think,”
The next voice we heard cut through the air and froze s both in place.

“We see you,” a deep voice yelled. I couldn’t place exactly where it came from, but I knew it was too close to us.
Aubrey squinted into the trees were we had just come from, “there!” she shrieked pointing a finger into the dark. Then I saw about five figures clumsily making their way towards us. Again Aubrey and I took off, we came out of the foods into a big open field and to our right we saw a big pond and bushes lining the outside out it. Clearly, we think alike because we both ran toward the pond. Aubrey climbed practically into one bush and I did the same. Huddling close to each other we tried to breathe quietly and we watched the boys come out of the woods. They were at the bushes pretty quickly and once they were within a few feet of where Aubrey and I hid, I could smell the alcohol on them.
“Come out pretty girls, I thought you were coming to a party with us,” one boy slurred.
“Yeah, don’t play hard to get, no one likes that,” another adding kicking at a bush only 3 feet away from us. Then they were in front of our hiding spot. Aubrey crinkled her nose to the smell of the alcohol and we both receded into the bush as far as we could covering our mouths to quiet out breathing. The boys only lingered for a moment, and then they were stumbling away from us, back where they came, still looking, but we were safe.