Everybody took off fast again, I couldn't tell who was who anymore, but I saw Jeff up ahead waiting for me. Grinning, we ran together, crossing the street. The thing about this checkpoint was that it's a straight shot down from the store's checkpoint the to the library's one. This meant we had to stick to one side of the street and try and find creative ways to get there. We were on the right side of the street, the same side I use to walk to the library often from my house, as I pushed the walk button. Nearly everyone ran even though it wasn't time to go, including Jeff who looked behind him as he ran realizing I wasn't with him anymore. Tyler stood with me, waiting for the signal to cross and then we did. Tyler was way faster than me so I slowed down to a walk, as I saw everyone turn into the parking lot of a dental office to try and hide behind the building and find another way. I understood, the chasers would be coming now. I sped up a little more as I saw Jeff standing by the office waiting for me. We all stood behind the building for a minute, and then half of the group took off back around it and down the street, leaving Tyler, Jeff and I. Tyler ran over to a wall at the end of the parking lot and hopped over it, and Jeff and I followed. Jeff gave me a boost and I slid over the wall, causing Tyler to remark that I was better at climbing walls than tress. Hardly. I had help. We continued on in this back way, Jeff helping me over any walls we got to. Then we got to a street with a series of apartments. We couldn't go through the apartments so we were going to have to go back out to the main road. Suddenly, a car turned into the street. We all dashed for cover. Five minutes went by. Ten. Finally, Tyler and I came out and realized that Jeff was gone. Had he been caught? Or had he simply taken off again?
We called for him for a bit, and wondered if we were being set up for a trap. Either way we had to move, so we made our way back to the main street. We ran from bush, to building, to empty parking lot, and etc. Tyler now helped me over any walls we got to, including a chain link one. The second chain link fence we crossed had tiny barbs at the top. They were spaced out however, and didn't look too dangerous. Not wanting to chicken out I said I could handle it so Tyler helped boost me up on top. My jacket got caught right away, as did my pants. Figuring the best way to get uncaught would be to make a sudden move over the edge, I did my best to pull away and go over the side. As I pulled away, I felt my pants get uncaught, but my jacket didn't. My feet hung just above the ground on the other side as I held on to the top of the fence. The friction of my turtle neck against the jacket caused the two to be stuck together, and both were pulled up to just below my bra-line. I was held there comically,my midriff showing right in front of a shocked Tyler, who covered his mouth to hide the fact that he was laughing. I'm sure I turned very red as I tried my best to free my jacket from the fence. When I finally did, I dropped to the ground, got up and immediately pulled my shirt and jacket down as Tyler hopped the fence, trying to make me feel better by saying that it was a difficult fence. Indeed.
We continued our way, hiding in bushes and behind buildings whenever we heard a car, until we got to the railroad crossing. There were walls all along the wide sides of the track, so I followed Tyler as we tried to find a sneakier way to get to our destination. The track was on a sort of little hill over here, surrounded by pebbles and rocks that led down into tall grass and weeds. We got down to the bottom of the ditch going in our direction and saw that the wall was much taller than we had anticipated from on top of the little hill. We climbed back up the hill. Tyler ran on the side of it in the shadows, but knowing my clumsiness I stayed on top. Unfortunately, I was directly in the light when we heard a girl yell, "There they are!" Headlights down on the main street were parked, and a girl was getting out of the passenger side. Tyler ran like heck back the way we had just came and I ran down the hill and dove off into the tall wheat-like weeds.
"Were they there?" another female voice asked. "Yeah, but, I don't want to go down there alone," the original one said. I realized that they had nowhere to park, and it was a pretty sketchy place for a girl to go alone. Did this mean that they would leave? Was it a trap? If it was, I figured I should just get out and say that Tyler hopped a wall and that I couldn't follow. At least then he would make it. But I waited. As nervous as I felt there, it was actually kinda beautiful in the grass in it's own way. The lights made it look blue, green, gold and purple. I wished I could paint or take a picture of it. I lost track of time. I wanted to text Tyler but I was afraid he would believe I was tricking him or leading him into a trap. It was probably only around ten-twenty minutes when I heard rustling coming from the direction Tyler had ran off to. He called me in a whisper and asked if I was alone. I said I was and caught up with him. We walked down the track in the direction he had run off to but never found a good spot to hop over. Too many tall walls, security cameras and construction. Defeated, we walked back, knowing we only had about ten minutes left to get to the library. The tracks were pretty close actually, and we dove from bush to bush as we ran to the corner. Tyler told me to hide in the bushes as he pushed the button for the crosswalk. Then the walkman appeared and we both ran across the street, hardly believing we had got that far. We went behind these huge bushes to the right side of the the street leading up to the library parking lot until they to too thick to hide behind. We were now mere feet away. The parking lot was within sight. There was a group of people waiting for us, and a car. We froze. Two people got out of the car along with Jeff. Nathan, the two guys from earlier, and others however were cheering us on. Tyler took off like a bullet and made it, I ran, tiredly, waiting to be tagged, but then the two guys jumped in front of Jeff and the others and played keep away as I crossed the line of the parking lot. Everybody cheered. It was pretty amazing. High fives all around. During that last run to the parking lot I had felt and heard my cell phone fall out of my pocket but had kept going anyway. Laughing, Nathan and a couple others helped me find it, and I put it back together and back in my pocket. Everyone laughed and stood around for a few minutes until Nathan said it was time for the next round. He asked if I wanted to be a passenger. I hesitated. Tyler then said I didn't have to be if I didn't want to since I had been caught so quickly in the first round. Nathan agreed with Tyler and before I knew it, before we had another minute to rest, we were off again.
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