Free High School Hangover by Stephanie Hale

awake. Everything is pitch black, not at all like the bright fluorescent lights from my bathroom dream. I have no idea where I am and I’m terrified, especially when I realize the only thing I carried over from my dream was an excruciatingly full bladder.
    I try not to panic but my head is throbbing, making calm thinking impossible. Where am I? What time is it? I don’t remember falling asleep. Am I at Erika’s house? But I’m not in a bed. I’m not even lying down. I’m propped up against something hard. My butt is vibrating, there are all kinds of muffled sounds around me, and I feel constricted. I think somebody has me in a strait-jacket, but then I move my arms and realize it’s not a strait-jacket after all. Slowly, I realize I’m moving. Rather, whatever I’m in is moving. I must be in somebody’s car, on my way home from the party. But it’s so dark. It reminds me of the haunted house Erika talked me into going to last fall. I cover my face with my hands anticipating something spooky is about to pop out at me.
    After a few seconds, nothing grabs me so I spread my fingers a little but I still can’t see anything but darkness. Tentatively, I reach my hands out in front of me, but there is nothing but air. A tiny sliver of light is peeking out from beside one of my legs and I put my hand out to grab it. My fingers grip a flashlight and the relief of being able to see again has the unexpected benefit of lowering my heart rate from dangerously-close-to-a-stroke down to a more manageable killer-headache-from-hell level.
    I massage my forehead with one hand while using the other to shine the beam of light around. Instead of the house of horrors I expected, I am surrounded by mountains of cardboard boxes contained in a larger metal box. My ever-so-helpful memory immediately accesses a story I read once about a girl getting kidnapped and held in a storage container never to be heard from again until her bones were found ten years later. I mentally cuss my brain for conjuring up that memory, but not how the heck I got in here. A soft whistling noise dangerously close to my side makes the hair on my arms prickle. I aim the flashlight directly at it.
    The light illuminates black patent leather dress shoes, black dress pants, a white dress shirt and black jacket. A kidnapper in a tuxedo. I try to remember what Leo was wearing last night in hopes that I really ended up in some strange place with him. I vaguely remember him wearing shorts, but maybe he changed. Please God, let this be Leo.
    Waking up somewhere strange and not having a clue about how I got here is not okay. This is exactly why I knew going to that stupid party would backfire on me. I’m completely stalling because I don’t really want to see the face of the sleeping tuxedo wearer. What if it’s some nut job wearing one of those Scream masks? I will completely lose my overflowing bladder all over. I ease the light farther up, holding my breath. The beam glows over a familiar silhouette, sleeping peacefully, looking angelic even though he probably has horns under that mop of curly hair. Startled, I drop the flashlight and it starts to roll away from me.
    I scramble to pick it back up quietly, not wanting to wake him up. I flash the light back over his face to be sure I didn’t imagine it, careful not to put it right in his eyes because I’m not ready to deal with him yet. He’s wearing the most ridiculous black top hat, and I hate how cute he looks.
    How in the world did I end up stuck in the back of some sort of vehicle with Jack McAllister? He must have drugged me. Okay, maybe not drugged me because Jack doesn’t do drugs, but maybe he told me there was a hurt puppy in the truck and I climbed inside and then he shut the door and trapped me in here. It’s the only logical explanation.
    I move the light off Jack and toward the back of the truck to see if I can possibly escape before he wakes up. It probably isn’t the best decision, since we are