It was Chad's parents' anniversary, so they went out to dinner and left Chad at home. They told him he couldn't have parties or "get-togethers," as he usually called his parties, but said he could invite one person, but no more. So he called his best friend, Nick. They watched a movie, listened to music, did some homework and watched the news because there was nothing else on. There were a couple of stories that caught their attention: a shortage of cocoa beans, which means there will probably be less chocolate this Halloween, an orangutang who wrote his name using a tablet, strange stories of four people killed on separate occasions from Lookout Ridge leaving no evidence of what happened, and a snake discovered that may be a new species unknown to scientists. By the time they finished playing the X-Box, it was only a few minutes after 6:00. So they decided to go out and eat. They went to a fast food restaurant, but ate inside to kill time. When they were finished they sat in the car, not knowing what to do. Chad was sitting in the driver's seat of his new black 2002 Mustang that his parents had bought him a month after he got his driver's license. Nick, still 15 and without a license, sat in the passenger seat and admired the sun's glare on the smooth hood of the streamlined sports car. " suggested Nick. They lived in a small town on the edge of a valley right next to a small mountain range. The foothills had long roads that almost no one drove on. Everyone in town calls these hills “the hills.” Even though Nick hadn't the driver's license, he had the permit. "It's not like there's going to be anyone up there to... middle of paper...", it was his best friend hanging limp and lifeless. His clothes were torn and stained pure red. His right arm was bent in three different places and was tangled around another branch. His left arm was dangling and his left hand had almost no skin and was missing four fingers. And that left hand, without any explanation, was swinging back and forth, back and forth. There was no wind or anything to make his arm swing like that, and yet it did. And the only remaining finger reached the roof of the car. When the nail scraped the surface, it made the scratching sound Nick had been hearing all night. Terror pierced him like a thousand knives, piercing his soul and making him faint. The entire time he was outside, he dreamed of Chad's body hanging from a tree and his hand swaying endlessly, causing endless scratching..