The Trip

              You have probably had a nightmare or two. I want you two think about what you would do if your nightmare become reality. It would be very scaring and probably upsetting for everyone. Let me tell you a story about my friends and I, and how we relived one of those nightmares.
         My name is Matt Starback. Winter was once again on its way. I think we were just starting the first day of September. We lived in Nashville, Tennessee, and I was turning eight-teen. It was a rainy and cold day and I wasn’t having a good day with my math teacher Mr. Chancler. He taught my geometry class and was probably the meanest teacher in the building. I totally forgot my homework at my house! I was mad, but when he announced a pop quiz I was irate. My friends were very mad too. I didn’t know a single thing on the test so I failed it big time. At lunch that day I sat down with my friends Trevor, Brandon, Levi, and Justin. Trevor was big and very strong with black hair and a lot of freckles. Brandon was very skinny and tall with black hair long hair. Levi was fit but not very tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. He liked to ride quads a lot. Justin had long dark hair and was short and had an anger problem. They were irate as much as I was because of how bad our school treated us. For lunch they gave us three chicken nuggets! I mentioned about getting out of this school and going to live in the mountains of Montana for a little while. After a long hard talk we decided that we would leave for Montana on the Monday of next week, so we could have some time with our families.
         I got off the bus that day and told my mom that I had to talk to her and dad tonight. My mom asked me what was wrong and I just ignored her and walked to my room. Later that night we all sat down at the dinner table to eat. Dinner was very quiet that night until I told them that my friends and I were going to Montana and living there for a little while. My dad was cool with it as long as I checked with them every month so they knew I was okay. I agreed to the terms and told them we would be leaving on Monday next week. I took my plate to the sink and came back to the table and hugged my mom who was in tears and then gave her a kiss and went to bed. I got up the next morning and took my mom and dad to the shooting range so we could sight in my rifle in. My dad and I got it all sighted in and I asked my mom if she wanted a shot. I finally talked her into it and she had at blast. I don’t think my mom or my dad wanted to leave, but I had to so I could go buy ammo for my gun. I couldn’t believe it was already Saturday night. I kept thinking to myself one more day, one more day, and again one more day. Just as I was going to bed I remembered what one of our biggest troubles would end up being. We needed a horse; every one of us needed one because I don’t think anyone wanted to walk up that mountain. So I called my best friend Trevor up and talked to him about going out tomorrow and buying horses. He thought it was a great idea so all of us went out on Sunday morning after church of course.
         It was finally Monday and I was hugging my mom as she held her tears back. The tears were too strong to be held in and they came out like a lions roar. I felt bad, but I would only be gone a little while. I talked to my dad a little while. He was taking me going away like he all ways did. He just acted like nothing was bothering him, but I knew it was. I gave them one last hug and I told them everything would be fine. If I only knew what was about to happen on the way there. I would have never gone up.
         We got in to the trucks and pulled away. Since I had the most time driving, I had the trailer hooked up to my truck as we pulled away with the horses. My truck was big and black. The lift kit I had on was 13 inches. That is illegal, but my parents don’t know.  My friend Trevor road up with me and we listened to his music most of the way up. His favorite song was something by a guy named Tyga. I bought walky-talkies so we could talk to everyone going. We weren’t on the road an hour when Brandon decided he was hungry so we stopped for dinner. I was so glad we stopped because I don’t think I had a longer car ride. I took us like sixteen hours to get across Montana borders. When we finally got to a camp site we parked our trucks got the horses out and fed them. While the horses ate we got everything ready and saddled them up. We then headed up the mountains singing the song Jeremiah Johnston went up to. Levi was talking about Jeremiah Johnston and the possibility of us seeing him up here. The funniest thing about that was Jeremiah wasn’t even real, it was just a movie. So we kind of chuckled to ourselves and joked around.
         On the way up not even twenty minutes went by and we saw a deer. That deer got out of the brush and scared the living daylights out of Justin’s horse. “Get the horse under control” Trevor said loudly. Justin took a very quick shot, but missed and hit a tree. It was just then we realized living in the mountains wasn’t going to easy at all. It was getting dark and we decided it was time to set camp. None of us knew how to make up a camp site though. Brandon and I went out to get fire wood, as Levi, Trevor, and Justin set up camp. When the moon was highest in the shy we figured it was getting pretty late so we decided to take the load of sticks to camp. On the way back we saw a mother bear with two cubs. Lucky for us we weren’t down from the bear or we would have had a big problem.
         When we got back there was a blazing hot fire, and there was four different shelters set up with the three boys working on the fifth one. We finally could go to bed and let me tell you I was as tired as a sloth that just ran a marathon. When I woke p the next morning I was the first one up so I decided to go look through the woods for where the animals bed so I could set some traps. I walked up the mountain a little ways but it seemed like the air was not even breathable. I walked down to get my horse, but the time I got down to the camp site I had to sit down because I was so out of breath. When I actually got my breath the others started to wake up so I waited for them and we went up together.
         We found a big field and there was a bunch of deer grazing in it. I shot at the closest one which was probably two hundred yards away. I dropped it! It went down faster than lightning. When we got down mountain we saw a huge bear eating the deer. Brandon ran after then bear firing one shot and chased it into the woods out of sight. We heard more shots BANG! BANG! BANG! Then the last sound we heard was the loudest yelp for help I have ever heard. We kicked our horses in the rear, and got to Brandon so fast it felt as if we were flying. Brandon was sitting there with the dying bear lying on the ground, and I large bite out of his right leg. He was crying as we ran up to him and put pressure on the bite. Lucky for Brandon we had some floss in Levi’s back pack so we could stitch it. The only thing was we couldn’t find was a needle. So I told Brandon we had a needle but it was really a small sharp stick. When he was finally stitched up I looked up, but the horses were gone. The only horse that was around was Brandon’s dead one. “This trip has turned into a nightmare” said Trevor. Trevor and I walked around, but it was so hard to breath. We would have had to look for the horses for nearly two hours. They were nowhere to be found, so we sat down next to Brandon who was crying because he was in so much pain. We had no idea what we were supposed to do. We were stranded in Montana without a horse, ammo or food. Someone mentioned about eating the bear and the deer. The only problem with that was we didn’t have a knife to cut the skin off with. So we all picked up Brandon and started to walk. None of us knew where we were going, so we just kept walking.
         We sat down at the end of the night and Trevor yelled aloud “I totally forgot guys, I can’t believe I forgot!” We had no idea what Trevor was talking about until he pulled a big bottle out of his pack. He had the label tore off and he told us it was alcohol. I didn’t want any because I knew what it could do to someone when you were that high up.  They kept yelling at me to take a drink. I didn’t want to do it but the pressure pulled me into it. The next thing I knew I was awake on the cold dirt. I had the worst head ache you could imagine. Brandon was asleep still; I don’t think he had any. The only thing I could think was what was that stuff, until I finally came to my senses and started to get worried. What if we couldn’t get out? Would we get hurt like Brandon did? As Trevor and Levi got up they seemed fine, but when Justin got up he didn’t look good at all. They asked me what happened to Justin, but how was I supposed to know? There was something wrong though, everything looked different. The bear was gone; we were in the woods a long way. The field that I shot my deer in was nowhere to be found. It was getting scary everything went wrong. Now we were stuck in the middle of nowhere without anything to help.
         When we all got our senses straight we started to walk. It might have been east, I was pretty sure it was east because we started toward the sun. The walk wasn’t bad though the morning, but when it got to be evening the air really thinned out. The worst part of it was as soon as the air thinned out we got to a hill. The hill looked bigger then Mt. Everest. It was so bad; we couldn’t walk twenty feet without having to lie down so we could catch our breath. We figured if we walked ten feet and stopped it would go faster than walking twenty feet and having to lie down because we were so exhausted. When we got up the hill we found another problem. A river was standing right between us and our way. We had no clue how we were supposed to get Brandon a crossed they river. Justin asked whispered to me asking me how we were supposed to get a crossed with Brandon. Everyone was asking me and I didn’t know what to do. That’s when the argument started.
         Justin said, “Just throw him down the river maybe he can swim since he is stitched.”
         “I want to just leave him so we can live and bring help,” said Trevor.
         Levi just wanted to go home, he was already getting in the fast moving water. That’s when I came up with the plan. I hollered “HEY! I got the perfect plan!” The plan was to get a lot of flat branches, tie them together to make a little boat. Then we can put Brandon on the small floating devise and swim a crossed the river pulling him behind us. It was the perfect plan. When we got into to the water and started to pull Brandon a cross we realized the water was moving fast and hard. It was pushing us over like a bulldozer. It wasn’t even the worst part yet. When we started toward the middle the water got very deep. So deep we couldn’t touch the water started to drag us with it. All of us yelling and screaming like someone would actually hear us. We were getting sucked under like boat in a whirl pool. We were going fast with the current and thought we’d just keep going until we get a place where the sand was high up. I started to think about my mom and dad while this was going on. I asked myself the question of the decade. Would I ever see them again?
         We were flying down the river when we came to a spot where the river was straight. Justin yelled, “Look at the big sharp rocks.”
I yelled to them, “Swim toward the edges get out of the current.” I wish the idea would have come to me sooner. We swam and swam as hard as we could. We finally got to the edge, but we forgot one thing.
“BRANDON!” Levi yelled.
         “OH MAN WE FORGOT HIM,” we all yelled at the same time. Just then he crashed in to the giant rocks and his floating devise exploded and then he got sucked under and dragged down the stream. Justin almost was in shock and could barely got out of the river. Trevor, Levi, and I got out and started to run down the bank leaving Justin lying on the ground. We ran as fast as we could, but there was so such sight of Brandon. I stopped and held Trevor back because he was about to jump in the river. He dropped to the ground crying and screaming. They knew each other since preschool. We walked back to Justin who was lying on the ground with a tar running from his eye. We all sat down and not even five minutes went by and we were all asleep because of how tired we were. When we all woke up we looked around. There was something different again, but this time it wasn’t our surroundings.
         “Where is Justin”, some asked. I couldn’t tell who said it, but they were right. Justin was gone, he was nowhere to be found. I got up and took a walk around. Justin was gone, how could he leave just like that? Why would he leave?
         “Do you think he fell in or was eaten by an animal,” Trevor asked me. Of course I was asleep to so I had no idea what had happen to him. When I came back I saw lying on the ground an empty bottle.
         “Is this what I think it is,” I asked.
         “YES,” yelled Trevor.
         “He is probably long gone now,” said Levi. It was just the three of us now. Losing all hope and will to survive we laid down. We woke up it was light out and we walked and walked. We hadn’t stopped all day. Walking though the dry deserts and the muddy terrain it was so hard to breathe. We came to another mountain, but this one was steep. It was so steep someone could hide something behind it. Just then we heard a voice yelling and screaming.
         “That’s Justin!” said Levi. Justin was lying at the bottom of the mountain.
         “What was in that bottle,” asked Justin.
         “You want the truth then hear it is I found some water at the beginning of the trip in a pound. That was all it was I promise,” Said Trevor.
“That was weird water,” said Justin. Trevor then apologized to Justin and we went on our way. Half crawling by the time we made it to the top Levi yelled.”LOOK!” He was right to yell a huge building of people. It looked like military officers. When we got down to the military base it turned out to be a hospital. When we saw the first person he yelled at some guy telling him we were the ones. He told us to come with him and we followed him in to a room. There Brandon lay all wrapped up in gauze and asleep. We told the man what happened and he ran to talk to someone and about ten minutes later he came back. He told us with great excitement that we would be going home riding on a helicopter. I thought to myself my question have been answered. We would be returning home. I wish I would have never got on that helicopter.