Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34190740-20180105153335

 A lot of people have gone missing. None have been found, besides me. I’m the only one who’s ever escaped the grasp of the garbage man. My name is Sam Peterson, the only survivor.

It started with the growth of missing people, people of ages between 2 years old to 95. So many people were given up on and were assumed to be dead. It was sad really all those innocent, young, kind people. My neighborhood started not going outside at all. The neighborhood was just so empty. Even the animals were gone, just leaving this sad, sad place.

Even though no one came outside, did not mean no school. Many of the kids thought it was “disrespectful” to the ones who died, but were obviously just trying to escape school. School still felt wrong, it was the empty seats which were, of course, most of them. I didn’t think much of it, not because I didn’t care, but I just didn’t want to think of it, how I could go missing. I just sat there doing my work as I was supposed to. I was just a normal nerd, I had almost no friends, good grades, glasses, and the list goes on, pretty much forever. We had a math quiz. I was nervous, but I don’t know why exactly. It was just a feeling of dread. After was done We went out into the hallway. It made me think of my friend, Jack.

Jack was my best friend. Jack and I race down the street on our skate boards, doing all kinds of tricks.

“This is awesome! Woo Hoo!” We were yelling at the very top of our lungs.

We dodged trees and jumped over fire hydrants. We were having so much fun. I was thinking on how to go faster when, bam! I smacked a tree. I got up and Jack was gone. I bled from my nose and forehead and went home.

I’ve always thought about what I was doing that day my friend had gone missing.

My life was simple, until after the last day of school, the day I encountered the garbage man. I was simply walking home. I saw what I thought was a normal garbage man and waved.

“Hello kid” He said with a wide grin.

   I looked around, it was silent, and empty. All I could hear was the garbage truck. Every time I saw the neighborhood like this, I became disappointed, and sad. I started whistling to raise the volume a little bit. I grabbed my phone to take a picture of the dreadful place. I took the picture and felt uneasy after seeing such a bright light in such a dark area. I turned around and then, bam! I fell to the ground. I looked up and saw this man, a garbage man. He picked me up and threw me to the ground. I felt my brain break through my skull. I screamed in pain. The man grinned and pulled out a rolled-up garbage bag from his pocket. I watched in terror as he unrolled it. After that he started to shove me into it. I screamed and squirmed to try and run away, run away back home, the home that I missed and wanted to see again, along with my family. I tried to crawl, but he just dragged me right back in. After getting me in, the garbage man tied the bag up, leaving me in there to just rot like a pig.

“Let me go!” I screamed.

He was dead silent.

I tried to rip the bag, but I was too weak. The garbage man soon grabbed what I assumed to be a long, rusty, sharp nail. He drove it through the bag, piercing my left eye. I could feel my own, warm, red, dripping blood on my eye and cheek. I held my eye, I was crying and screaming harder now, which I think annoyed him, so he grabbed a broken bottle and, once again, drove it through the bag, this time all over my face. He twisted and moved around the bottle which was deep in my face. I was feeling the same feeling as my blood all over my cheek, but all over my face now. I was starting to black out when the garbage man knocked me out before I could. I still, to this day, don’t know what he smacked me with, it was not his hands.

I woke up. I was drowning inside the bag. I noticed that I was at the bottom of a lake with a rock weighing me down on top of me and the bag. I tried to wiggle from under the rock, but with no luck. I thought about my home, and my family. I wasn’t going to let myself be given up on, so I lifted the rock with all the strength I had. I thought my mussels would explode and the rock would crush me like a bug, but finally, I got out. When I got to the surface, I notice that it wasn’t water, it was smudge. I then noticed the piles and piles of bodies and blood-soaked garbage, I was at a dump. I got to my feet and felt happy that I was able to even stand up again. My left eye was dead though and I couldn’t see out of it. My eye wasn’t my big concern though. My clothes were ripped up and I was very cold. I walked up to a body that looked the freshest and noticed that it was Jack. Jack was later identified to be a victim who survived, that the garbage man thought was dead, but was crushed by a garbage truck, in fact, after the garbage man kills his victims, he puts their garbage wrapped body into the garbage truck and crush them while inside to bring them to the dump. I don’t know why I wasn’t crushed, but that didn’t matter, I had to get out. I walked around. I was stumped on what to do. I thought I was going to certainly die when, bam, I was whacked in the head again, by the same man. He had a dirty bottle in one hand, and a broken baseball bat in the other. I screamed as he tortured me. It went on for hours.

I tried to crawl as he pounded me with his blunt baseball bat.

“Have mercy” I barley choked.

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">He grinned, and I heard those words.

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">“Why should I? Sam"

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">“Let’s get dirty”

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">I was crying and begging. He went for the last hit that would’ve killed me if not for the garbage truck that came to dump some garbage. I raced to it and leaped on top of it.

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;"> “What are you doing kid!?” The driver asked.

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">I told him exactly what happened. The garbage man was racing to the truck. I dove in the truck and I watched as we drove away, as the garbage man watched me, and I saw him, just looking into his eyes told me, he was going to be back. Of course, I haven’t seen him since that day.

<span lang="EN" style="margin:0px;line-height:107%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif;font-size:12pt;">I’m twenty-five now. I’m wealthy and happy with how my life has grown, from a victim, to a legend. I want to say thank you for all the support given to me by everyone after this experience. Even though the garbage man is gone, I still stay inside when they come pick up the garbage <ac_metadata title="The Garbage Man"> </ac_metadata>