The Car

Now, I'm an 18 year old guy who got his first job a couple months back. The job was pretty far away, on a sparsely populated island just outside of Sollenkroka. I must mention I live in Sweden, so some of the location names are gonna sound a bit weird. Anyways, the job involved teaching math at the local island school, since the island had a total population of 260 people and the school accepted pretty much anyone who'd like the job. It was pretty nice, at first. Considering the school only had 14 students, I got to know them all pretty well and developed quite a friendly relationship with them. Math was definitely one of my stronger subjects, so a job like this on a beautiful isolated island seemed perfect for me. After working there for a couple months, I eventually recieved an offer from my higher ups; free housing at the island for as long as I'd keep my teacher position. I needed somewhere to live anyways, as my parents wanted me out of the house, so this offer seemed unbelievable to me. I obviously accepted.

Now, the house wasn't anything special. It was a single floor house with about 5 rooms total, a small backyard and a driveway for eventual trucks. My nearest neighbour was about 500 meters away from me, so while we didn't live too close, it still wasn't so far that it felt weird. I enjoyed my new country life for a good 3 months, until the month of May arrived. A guy named Joel, who I had developed quite the friendship with over the past months, pointed out that I hadn't yet bought a Crescent quad with a tiny truckbed on front. At first, him telling me this was a little weird. "But Tom, I already have a perfectly functional Honda to drive around with. A quad would just be a waste of mo-".

Tom laughed me in the face. He told me only like 2 people on this entire island owned cars, and that in order to not be considered a total loser, you had to have a quad. Preferably with a truckbed that you could place your tiny dog on, so he could come with you for the ride. I didn't wanna seem like some weirdo, so I told Tom I'd be looking for some quads on Blocket. Tom laughed me in the face. He told me I didn't need to waste my time on rich people shit like the internet, and that I could just buy one from the local bike guy who had a whole bunch of them in his backyard. He sold em for around 500 swedish monies each, and they all came with a truckbed in the colour of your choice. This seemed too good to be true, so Tom ngave me the guy's number.

Later that night, I called him up to get some more info on this quad I was about to purchase. The guy sounded normal on the phone; he introduced himself as Karl-Göran, a middle aged man who was looking to sell his collection of Crescent quads. I told him I was interested, and we arranged to meet the next night so we could discuss prices and stuff.

Later that same night, when I was about to hit the hay, I could swear I heard something right outside my window. It sounded like...engines, of some sort. The noise continued for a good 10 seconds, before it seemed to take off and ascend into the unknown kingdom of the forest. My heart froze. That engine sound...it couldn't have been Karl-Göran, could it? He wouldn't show up to my house like this, not now. After an hour of paranoia and glancing over my shoulder, I got knocked out from exhaustion and fell asleep.

The next morning, I didn't think too much about yesterday night's events. I spent my saturday cooking up a kräftskiva for the party me and Tom were hosting tomorrow, and it occupied me for so long that I almost forgot about my meeting with Karl-Göran. I put on my green boots and my vindjacka, and went out into the darkness of the countryside. Karl-Görans house wasn't too far away, only about 1 kilometer. When I got to his house, I immediately noticed something was off; all the lights in the house were turned off. The lawn looked like it hadn't been mowed for at least a week, and no one appeared to be home. I hestitantly walked to the front door, and knocked carefully. No response. I decided to go around back, perhaps Karl-Göran was simply the kind of guy to not hear knocks on the door. When I got to the backside, I almost vomited out of fear;

In the garage, where Karl-Göran had claimed that the quad would be, there was nothing. Nothing. My adrenaline kicked in, and I ran as fast as I could back to my home. Just as I left the backyard, I heard a weird schreeching noise and what sounded like a man yelling something. I ran all the way back with tears in my eyes. Once I got home, I locked all the doors and called 112. I don't know what became of that crazed man Karl-Göran, but I moved away from that island as fast as I could and quit my job as a teacher. To this day, I don't wanna think about what would have happened, had I stayed there for one more second.

Karl-Göran, his wife, and his two kids were all hurrying home in their car, to deliver the brand new quad to their customer as quickly as possible. They were a bit late for the meeting, but they did their best to get there fast. The plan was to get home and greet the customer, while his wife set up the quad in the garage and made some final touches. However, when they all got home, they discovered something that they weren't expecting:

A man, running away from their backdoor like he was fleeing from them. Karl-Göran immediately assumed to worst, and called after the guy. They decided to not call the cops until they knew for sure that nothing in the house was stolen. Everything was in place, tho. When Karl tried calling his customer, who never showed up for the meeting, he got directly to voicemail. Oh well. Looks like that quad will be sold to someone else now.