Light Speed Travel

I wrote this story and my mom thought I should post it.

Short story       Light Speed Travel   by Grant Keller

I am Evan (ee van) and it is the year 2507.  I would like to tell you my secret. Just to let you know if this story gets really weird, don’t freak out.  Just remember this story takes place in a place I call home, “Ukraine”. 

When I was in the eighth grade, it would have been 2410, after school I liked to hang out with my friend Paul, at my dad’s amusement park, where we would tinker with stuff or ride the rides. We were in the tinkering shed, where they put stuff that they didn’t need anymore, looking at old peaces of junk and scrap metal.

“Hey Paul,” I said.

“What,” asks Paul?

 “Look at this old water gun.”

“What?” Paul says now sounding really confused.

“Never mind,” I said, and we both start rummaging through the junk again.

“Hey boys,” said my dad. “I got the Light Speed rollercoaster working again.” We both start running over to my dad.

“Evan get that nest you call hair out of you’re eyes,” my dad teased.  I roll my eyes, he knows I like to let my hair grow out before I cut it.

So, we all start walking down the park roads when we see Mile High, it’s a ride that shoots you up a mile, and down a mile, in 16.8 seconds and you do this twice. Just past Mile High is Death Valley, it’s a ride that’s like a huge bowl.  You sit down in this huge ball, and you and you’re friends roll around trying to hit the other four balls that are rolling around with you. Finally we come to Light Speed, the four-person ride, that is connected by two cars. It broke when someone put a penny on the track and the car jumped and shattered the bubble like casing that covered each car. Without the casing every time it passed you you’re ear drums would shatter and you couldn’t hear for the rest of your life. You go around the track, just under light speed, 124 times until you stop.  This is done in three seconds. The cool thing about it is you go so fast that when you’re done your hair is straight back and the person is still tense like they are still riding it. So as we were getting in Light Speed, there seemed to be something different about the ride.  We were facing backwards.  It started going, slowly getting faster and faster, then boom we were gone, just me and Paul. 

“Hey Paul, Paul where are you?“ I yelled.

“Over here,“ Paul yells back.

“Wow, I think Light Speed jumped the track again,” I said, a little quieter now.

“No this looks like the old photographs your dad showed us, the ones of the land before your Great, Great Grandpa Jim bought it to build his amusement park,” Paul said.

 I slowly nod in agreement.  “I bet it was because the cars were backward and so we shot back in time.”

“Hey, hey you kids!”  Someone interrupts.

We turned to see who was yelling.  As we turned around we saw a man coming toward us and a huge helicopter hovering a bit behind him.  I mean huge, you know the ones with two propellers that would carry troops and tanks to battle. We notice a rope drop from the helicopter and it looked like the man approaching us was carrying a gun.

“Hey, what are you boys doing out here,”

“Sir,” Paul begins.

“No matter, come with me we only have so long till the rest of the Natzi’s come.”

“Um,” Paul begins again.

“Never mind, come on, come with me,” says the tall army man.

So we follow the man to the rope. He jumps on and starts going up. I jump on after him and then Paul.  Paul and I slowly made our way up, the driver starts to go again so of course we start to hurry up. I then through my legs over the side of the helicopter and help Paul get up and on.

About ten minuets later Paul and I were sitting on these boxes in the very back of the helicopter. Then bang, the helicopter sort of jerks around until the pilot took control again.  Then we make a sudden drop down and to the right, heading straight for a tall Mesa. A huge explosion and every box, chair and everything else start flying everywhere in a frantic mess. I was suddenly thrown out of a window onto hot sand. Then it all went black.

“Hey he’s awake,” someone shouts.

“What,” I say “ow,” my arm was all bandaged up and in a sling.

“Hey Evan, you flew out of the helicopter and on to the shattered glass after the helicopter hit the mesa,” said Paul.

“Oh, that’s nice,” I say finally after regaining some of my lost sight.  I notice that there is a fire going and about ten yards in front of me is the smashed helicopter that is half on and half off this cliff that we were stranded on.

“Hey Evan, I can see Light Speed with these binoculars,” Paul whispers.

“Ok.  How is that going to help us”?  I ask.

“Well, if Light Speed crashed and if we could fix it, maybe we could send ourselves back to the theme park.”

“Well that might work, hopefully we won’t have to fix it.  We don’t have any tools,” I say.

So about an hour later we go into the tents that are dressed in camo, brown and black with dark brown to try to blend in with the surroundings. We go into a small tent that has two sleeping bags and a flashlight in the middle.

“Night,” says a solder.

I try to ask him who he is and where we are, but he just shrugs his shoulders and I realize he doesn’t understand what I am asking him, so we go to bed.  About four in the morning we hear screams, running, shouting, and explosions.  We both jump up and get outside.  There is a huge fight of brown men against men in green uniforms.  We weren’t getting into any fight so Paul and I run and jump on to this four wheeler and Paul presses down on the gas and we shoot like missiles out off the mesa.  We head straight off the side of it and when we hit the side of the mesa we start going almost straight down, we hit the bottom and start going towards where we last saw Light Speed. Then we heard another engine other then ours and shooting.  There were four or five solders, dressed in green, in a long black vehicle and they were shooting and yelling at us. Well Paul floors it, and the four-wheeler starts hitting 60 to 75 but Paul didn’t slow down until we were right next to Light Speed. We both jump out when bang bang bang Paul flops to the ground.

“Paul are you ok?” I yell.

“ No, I got shot in the foot get me out of here,” he gasps.

I grabbed him and drag him about two feet and I do my best to throw him on the back seat, he starts buckling himself in when Light Speed turns on and starts to go. The green people turn around and start fleeing, unluckily Light Speed was facing them and the mesa. So it starts to go faster and faster then boom sand went every were and then we were on the tracks of the roller coaster Light Speed. In 2485.

The first thing we saw was my dad, standing by the exit.

“Hey dad!” I shout.

“Hey boys, how did you like…” he couldn’t finish the sentence because I grabbed him.

“What are you doing?” dad asks.

“Hugging you,” I reply.

“Why?” dad replies.

“Um, um I don’t know why, um I missed you,” I say.

“On one ride?” dad says.

I look over to Paul and whisper, “Paul, I don’t think my dad realizes we were gone.”

“No, I don’t either and look not bullet holes,” says Paul.

“Well, our adventure will be a secret then,” I say.

“Yes, of course it is,” Said Paul.

That was the biggest adventure of our lives and yet we have lived our lives like it never happened.  We did switch the cars on Light Speed before someone else tried to ride it.  Then Paul and I wrote a book and it was a hit seller, off the shelves, about ten million copies sold. Only now, Grant, by favorite brother, am I sending you the real story. J