The Child (standard:Suspense, 16133 words)
Author: Chancey	Added: Aug 12 2006	Views/Reads: 4131/2415	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A child found on the road leads to question about who, or what the child is. It also leads to a very frantic escape and rescue.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

room where the big screen tv, the pool table and a couple of other 
large scale games where located.  He wasn't there either.  I peeked in 
the kitchen on my way through, he wasn't there either.  He must be up 
in his room, those were the only four places he ever spent any time.  I 
crept up the stairs, watching behind me the whole time for him to jump 
out at me.  On occasions, he had twisted my trick around to get me as 
well.  I made it to the landing, there wasn't a sound from below, but I 
could hear the television in his room playing.  He was probably in 
there.  I tiptoed down the hall with my back to the wall.  I was trying 
like crazy not to get caught. 

I could hear a movement in the room, as if someone had rolled over on
the bed, or stood up or something, and I thought, he heard me.  I 
suddenly jumped off the wall, flung the door open, and shouted 
"Booooo!". 

It worked.  At first, I got a thrill because I saw him sit bolt straight
up in the bed with an absolutely shocked expression on his face.  I was 
thrilled, afterall, I had never gotten him this good before, then my 
eyes focused in on a movement behind him, and there was Mattie, 
covering her chest with the blankets from his bed.  It was then that I 
realized that neither of them were wearing many clothing, if any at 
all. 

I dropped the gift I had brought for him and ran from the house.  I was
crying the whole way home.  It was a nightmare. 

Then there was other things I thought about to.  I thought about Wesley
from the school.  He was a wonderful person, but not really my type, 
however even before John and I had broken up, we had been good freinds 
and he had asked me out several times.  I liked him, and he made me 
feel wild, not safe like most of my previous boyfreinds.  I was 
wondering if I would ever find Mr. Right, as the old saying went.  My 
daydreams began now.  They were scattered and flighty, but it was 
better than staring at the miles of road stretching out before me. 

Chapter One 

I was daydreaming about being the only person on the face of the earth. 
Right now that was my dream.  No one else to hurt me.  No one else to 
cause me pain.  It had long since gotten dark, and there was no lights 
anywhere so it was easy to pretend the daydream was real.  The rain 
came down in torrents and succeeded in blocking out any light that 
might have come from houses within sight of the road and there hadn't 
been another car behind or passing me in at least thirty miles.  This 
was the stretch of road, the stretch that I always made sure I had 
enough gas to get through, the stretch that I prayed I never wrecked on 
because there was almost nothing out through here and my cell phone did 
not pick up.  Not to mention the fact that the place was the perfect 
setting for the "Texas Chansaw Massecre" movie.  I sighed.  The more 
freaky my thoughts got the less chance that I would make it all the way 
to the college without tilting my mirror down to see if there was 
anyone in the back seat of the car. 

I went back to at least decent daydreams.  Some were about Wesley, which
surprised me, because I wasn't even really into him.  I guess it was 
just the rebound effect, but he was certainly going to be glad that 
John and I were no more.  I would probably go out with him pretty soon, 
and now that my best freind and my boyfreind had both betrayed me, I 
didn't have any really good reasons to go back to my hometown.  I 
looked in my rearveiw mirror, there was still no one there.  I sighed, 
there never was down through here, it was like the most desolate peice 
of road in the world.  I turned my thoughts back to Wesley, and then to 
the guy that had been in my Sociology class last semester.  Maybe he 
would be a good candidate for a new boyfreind.  He was extremely 
handsome. 

Suddenly, something darted in front of my vehicle.  I slammed on the
brakes, but it was like the world was moving in slow motion.  The road 
was wet as well so it was a little slick.  It seamed to take forever 
before the brakes and tires actually started working together to get my 
car stopped, and when it did, it happened all at once.  They locked and 
almost as if in slow motion I spun around in a circle, first the ditch 
on the left hand side of the road and the dense coverage of trees 
immediately behind it gleamed to life, as if an angel had flown down 
and lit it up with heavenly light.  Then the road behind me reflected 
my headlights back on it's rain slicked surface, and finally, the trees 
on th other side of the road, and what looked like a stream somewhere 
not too far off the road.  Then, finally I was facing the same 
direction that I had been when I had first hit my brakes.  I realized 
that I had been holding my breath and let it out in a big poof.  The 
adrenaline was still racing all over my body, making me extremely 
jittery and shakey.  Tears came to my eyes, as a tremor ran through my 
body.  The whole thing probably didn't take but maybe one minute from 
beginning to end, but it felt like a year since I had been driving down 
the road.  Finally, I came to my senses enough to actually look out the 
windsheild to see if I had hit whatever it was I was trying not to.  It 
was at that point that I realized why I had kicked myself into 
overdrive to avoid the animal that had streaked out in front of me in 
the first place.  In my subcontious mind somewhere I had known exactly 
what it was I was trying to avoid, even though it had never crossed the 
conscious part of my mind.  Only six feet in front of my front bumper, 
there stood a child.  It was a little boy and he was only maybe five or 
six years old. 

He was soaked, but he did not seam hurt.  His eyes were wide, staring
straight ahead and not blinking.  His hair was a dirty blonde color, 
and his face was red.  It was January, and a cold rain was falling on 
top of that.  I shuddered in fear as a reached to open my car door.  
There was no reason for a child to be out in this weather.  It was 
abserd.  He wasn't even wearing a jacket, just what looked like PJ's.  
I wondered if he had run away from home or something.  I slowly got out 
of the car, and walked toward him, not wanting to frighten him anymore 
than was absolutely necessary.  Surely, someone would be looking for 
him.  I glanced both ways down the road, wondering exactly where the 
devil he had come from.  He had darted in front of me from accross the 
road on the other side.  I glanced that way too.  There were no house 
lights in sight, and I didn't see a flashlight which would be on if 
people were looking for him.  I also didn't hear anyone calling his 
name. Maybe they didn't know he was gone.  I closed the distance 
between him and my car rather quickly and knelt down in front of him. 

"Hi."  I said  "Are you okay?" 

He just stared at me. 

He was in shock, I thought, I have to get him into the warm. 

"Let's get into the car, it will be warm in there."  I slowly took his
arm and tried to guide him to the passenger side door of my car.  He 
followed willingly enough.  I opened the door for him and put him in.  
Then I walked to the drivers side and slid in slowly behind the wheel.  
I turned the heat up as I pulled my door closed.  I looked over at the 
little boy, he was staring out the window with the strangest expression 
on his little face.  It was kind of a strange expression.  Maybe it was 
even a little freaky.  I looked over at him, he didn't really look 
frightened, but I didn't want him to be anymore than he already was if 
he was. 

I reached up and grabbed my cell phone.  No signal.  There wasn't ever
signal on this road.  I put it back up and looked over at him.  "I 
think we should sit here and see if anyone, like maybe a policeman 
comes by.  Is anyone out looking for you."  He never acknowledged that 
I had spoken.  His eyes didn't even flutter my way.  That was strange.  
I was going to school to be a teacher, and most children would look at 
you if you spoke, even if they didn't say anything in reply.  Even when 
they were scared or upset.  I had a fleeting thought that maybe he was 
deaf.  I reached over and touched him, still he did not look at me, but 
I suddenly realized that he was soooo cold.  I gasped.  "Jeez, you are 
freezing."  I didn't have any clothing that were his size, but I wasn't 
too huge and although my clothes would hang off of him, they would at 
least be dry.  I rummaged around in my back seat.  One of my bags was 
back there.  It contained my night clothes.  I pulled out a pair of my 
teddybear pj's my mother had bought me for Christmas and asked if he 
would like to change clothing. 

Still there was no response.  I knew that he needed clean clothing
though, and so I took one of my towels out and helped him peel his 
sopping wet shirt off and dry off his chest.  Then I slipped my 
nightshirt on him.  I just wasn't going to change his pants, there were 
too many people out there now that could ruin my teaching career before 
it even started if I did that.  Parents that freak out over nothing and 
so on, but he reached down and did it himself.  I was a little 
surprised, it was the first time that he had offered to do anything on 
his own.  I handed him the towel and he toweled himself off, and then I 
handed him my pj pants and he pulled them on.  They were really not all 
that big in the waist and they had a draw string at the top, so I tied 
it as tight as it would go, and they stayed up.  He could probably even 
stand up and they wouldn't fall off now.  The shirt was a little long, 
but the pants were really long on him.  I reached down and rolled up 
the bottoms until they were just a little past his bare feet.  Then I 
reached back into a different bag and retreived my teddy bear blanket, 
and tucked it around him in the seat.  He still stared straight ahead, 
as if I wasn't even there. 

I grew a little disconcerted at this amount of silence from a child, so
I turned on the radio and pulled my car out of the middle of the road.  
Finally the child looked like he might be warming up.  I reached over 
and patted his hand.  It felt warmer than it had before, but it was 
still cool.  I sighed and tucked the blanket up around him a little 
tighter.  Then I looked out the window.  The child was still staring 
straight ahead and not speaking. 

I relaxed in my chair a little more and looked out my rear veiw mirror,
still there was not a car in sight.  I sighed and reached for my phone 
again to make double certain there was no signal.  There wasn't.  I 
dialed out anyway, just to see if on an off chance it would place my 
call through anyway.  No such luck.  I looked at my clock.  By now 
about thirty minutes had passed.  Garth was singing "The Thunder 
Rolled" on the radio, and my own thoughts centered on how ironic it was 
given the weather and the night so far.  The child was still staring 
straight ahead.  I wondered what I would do if no cars came by, as 
impossible as that sounded, I was beginning to wonder.  The rain was 
bad enough, but now I could hear thunder as well, and it seamed to get 
louder with each rumble.  Then lightning began to flash.  It lit up the 
sky brighter and brighter with each consecutive flash, and in this 
light, the child looked even more weird.  His eyes were what really got 
to me.  They stared straight ahead at nothing in particular.  Almost as 
if he were blind, but I didn't think that was what it was.  Otherwise 
he would have turned toward the sound of my voice and he hadn't.  His 
eyes were strange, weird even, and I found myself thinking creepy 
thoughts, along the lines of "The Children of the Corn" movies I had 
watched as a younger adolescent.  I wondered if he was going to 
suddenly jump up and attack me, kill me in my own car when I was simply 
trying to help him.  Then reality stepped in he was just a kid, just 
like any other, only scared.  Whatever had happened before he had run 
out into the middle of the road had scared him.  My mind raced, I 
wondered what could have possibly scared him bad enough for him to be 
acting like this.  I shuddered, I didn't think I wanted to know what 
had happened to him. 

The lightening split the sky open once again, and in the flash something
at the edge of the forest across the road caught my eye.  I looked in 
that direction.  There was a man standing at the edge of the trees, and 
he was approaching the ditch.  He was coming toward the car. 

I glanced over at the little boy.  He was looking out my window too,
staring at the man. 

"Do you know him?"  I asked. 

The boy nodded slightly, just once. 

"Is he your father?" I asked. 

The boy shook his head just once. 

"Is he looking for you?" I asked, thrilled to finally be getting a
responce. 

Once again the boy nodded, it was a very small nod, and his eyes never
left the man. 

"Do you want me to get out and flag him down."  I asked. 

He shook his head. 

"Well, what do you want me to do." 

"Go fast.  Go now.  Get away."  The boy whispered in the tiniest
quietest voice I had ever heard. 

I looked out the window, the man was now on the blacktop.  He would be
to the car in no time at all.  He was still coming, not rushing, just 
steadily approaching.  He was at the yellow line before I even knew it. 


"GO!" the little boy shouted, and I immediately hit the gas, but the car
was still in park.  I transfered my foot from the gas to the brake, 
shifted into drive, and hit the gas.  The man had started running when 
he had heard my engine rev, and now he was halfway across the lane next 
to us.  I blasted off the shoulder of the road and into my lane.  I 
caught a glimpse of the man, just as I took off.  His face was strange, 
paler than normal.  I don't know just different. 

I watched my rearveiw mirror and the man on the road.  He ran after me
for a few seconds, and then realized that I wasn't stopping.  Then he 
ran back off the shoulder of the road and back into the trees.  I never 
stopped. 

The boy was back to staring straight ahead. 

"Who was he?"  I asked. 

The boy did not respond. 

"You need to tell me who that was.  I could get in big trouble for
running, you know."  I told him.  Still no answer.  I drove.  I didn't 
ask again. 

The stretch was far from being over, still forty-five minutes at the
least until I returned to civilization.  Once there, I would 
immediately call the law and pray that I had not just evaded the boys 
parents.  It would be a true nightmare to have to explain a kidnapping 
charge to the school boards that would one day look into hiring me. 

The rain was still pouring down in sheets, and the thunder and
lightening had gotten worse if anything.  I kept driving, although it 
did decrease my speed a good bit.  I hoped that sooner or later the 
child would open up and talk to me.  I kept talking to him and asking 
him questions but he had went back to his blank stare and silence.  The 
lightning was still splitting the sky open as if it were a living thing 
and the lightning were trying to kill it.  My thoughts had turned 
slightly morbid as the night had gotten stranger and stranger.  I 
glanced sideways at the child again.  Still nothing, and when the 
lightning lit up my car again, I noticed his eyes again.  This was 
deffinately going to be one of those trips where I would look in my 
backseat.  After I looked away from the child, I could still see his 
eyes in my mind.  They stared straight, until I was sure his vision was 
blurry.  I shuddered inside myself.  It was unnatural and daunting to 
think of them.  I found myself once again picturing the Children of the 
Corn movies.  I could not think of anything except his eyes.  Why was 
it bothering me so bad.  I couldn't even put my finger on why they 
creeped me out so bad, but as I anilyzed my thoughts I realized that it 
was the way they stared, but it was also thier color.  They were a 
light shade of blue that looked lighter than normal in the light, 
almost milky.  Almost something else too, what else??  I couldn't 
figure it out.  Then it suddenly dawned on my what they were like.  I 
cringed.  Dead.  They looked Dead.  It was freaky when I suddenly 
happened upon the realization, and I looked over at him, to see him 
looking straight at me.  I almost jumped out of my seat. 

"What is your name?"  I asked. 

He did not answer, but he did blink, and I thought it was the first time
I had seen him do so all night.  In that second I felt like he knew too 
much, like he could see through my eyes and right into my soul.  Once 
again, a cold chill passed through me and I sighed.  It was awful to be 
this paranoid about a child.  The longer I was with him, the more 
frightened I became.  Not really of the little boy, but of the 
situation in general.  It had been only maybe fifteen minutes since we 
had screamed away from the curve of the road, away from the pale faced 
man, and still I had not seen the first car, nor road, nor house.  I 
had seen no one and nothing, and even worse, the rain was still falling 
down so hard, that I was afraid the road was going to flood, but it was 
a mountain road, and that was unlikely.  The trees loomed up on either 
side of my car and they lent themselves to the whole spooky scenerio, 
looking a lot like gigantic monsters from the land of the giants who 
ate bite-sized girls for snacks.  The swayed in the wind giving them 
the appearance of being alive and dancing some freakish "I'm going to 
eat you" dance.  The boy did not seam to notice the trees, nor did he 
pay a lot of attention to anything else in my car.  His dead, pale blue 
eyes just kept staring straight ahead at nothing at all. 

I turned the radio to a rock and roll station, the sad country songs
were even beginning to sound a little eerie and I was just waiting for 
some spook noises to come from that.  It was then that a light flashed 
in my rearveiw mirror.  I glanced into it and saw headlights. 

Headlights!  There was a car!  Someone to help!  Then I noticed that the
car was approaching extremely fast for the curvy, wet, mountian road.  
I had a bad feeling and decided that I wasn't feeling comfortable with 
the whole situation enough to pull this vehicle over.  I was still 
debating that as he closed the distance between us.  Then suddenly, his 
bumper tagged my rear end. 

"What the . . . !?!?!?!"  I shouted, as I heard the squeel of metal on
metal.  I started to swerve a little, as that happens on a wet road 
when someone hits you in the back.  The vehicle behind me didn't stop 
or slow and I suddenly realized that he had done it on purpose.  The 
boy was still staring at me.  I was guessing to see what I would do, 
but maybe he was wishing me dead, I didn't know.  I looked out my 
rearveiw mirror and saw that the vehicle was a truck.  An older one 
from the looks of it, but I could not see inside of it.  It was coming 
close to me again, and I realized that he intended on hitting me again. 
 I hit the gas and sped up.  I had a foreign car, but it would go with 
enough coaxing and I figured that I could possibly outrun the maniac in 
the truck.  I punched the gas even harder and my engine roared to life. 
 I put some distance between us in a really big hurry, but not enough 
and he was closing it in stroves when I slowed even a little, but the 
road was too wet for this kind of speed and it was scaring me.  Then 
suddenly, I saw the lights of yet another vehicle approaching me from 
the front.  I hoped the other vehicle would make him behave for at 
least a few moments, but to my absolute astonishment, the car veered 
into my lane.  When I tried to swerve away from it, he veered back into 
the other lane.  What were they, the friendly neighborhood killers.  I 
began  to shake, and decided that if I was going to die I would do so 
in my own lane.  The cars were both coming toward me now at an alarming 
speed.  I wasn't wearing a seat belt, neither was the boy.  We would 
both die for sure, then what?  What if I lived and he died, how would I 
ever explain that to anyone????  Yeh, by the way, there's this kid in 
my car, he's dead, and I have no clue who he is.  That would get such a 
great reaction from the cops, and everyone else.  I would be branded 
the child abductor.  I shuddered, and tears rolled down my face, his 
headlights were getting closer and closer.  Just as he was about to hit 
the front of my car, I jerked into the other lane.  I screamed more out 
of adrenaline now than fear.  The front car clipped the right rear 
bumper of my car and the back car the left rear bumper of my car.  I 
felt the car hesitate for just a second as I heard the rear bumper rip 
off.  Then the car lurched back into action as the other two cars hit 
each other head on.  Not hard enough to kill anyone, I hoped, but hard 
enough to slow them down.  I continued driving.  I wasn't going to 
stop, they were trying to kill me after all.  I hit the gas and kept 
going, for the second time in one night fighting off the adrenaline 
that had attacked my system.  I was beginning to feel utterly 
exhausted.  I looked over at the child, who had now lost interest in me 
and was staring out the window, once more looking at nothing.  Only 
about another thirty minutes now, until I returned to civilization.  I 
thought I could make it, if the losers in the two cars behind me were 
detained for a good amount of time.  My car was shuddering as I 
continued down the road.  It had been through a lot of abuse tonight, 
enough to at least knock it out of alignment.  I glanced over at the 
child again. 

"What is going on here.  Are those men trying to kill us?"  I asked,
knowing that fear was wrapped in my voice, and no longer caring if I 
scared him or not. 

The boy nodded slightly, only once.  He was answering me when he didn't
absolutely have to to survive. 

"Can you tell me your name?" I asked. 

The boy did not respond. 

"Did you know those men?"  I asked. 

He nodded but only once. 

"I stopped them good, huh?" I asked, proud in spite of myself.  The boy
faced me, the same dead blank stare. 

"They will be back", he whispered in a small harsh whisper. 

I looked at him.  "How do you know?" 

"They never stop." he whispered 

"Did they hurt you?"  I asked. 

"They hurt everyone, everyone else" 

"What do you mean?" 

But the boy did not answer.  He just stared straight ahead again, and
even though I had to try, I knew that he would not answer me again. 

"What do you mean?" 

And just as I suspected, he did not even acknowledge me. 

Chapter Two 

The boy was still sitting, staring straight out the window, and he
didn't look the least bit tired.  The further I drove, the more 
exhausted I became.  All the excitement had taken it's tole on me.  I 
thought about pulling over and taking a nap, but everytime I did, I 
imagined the boy was right and the people in the trucks would come back 
for him.  And me.  I continued driving, something that I would have 
never done had it not been for the situation.  I imagined that now I 
was about twenty minutes from civilization and I knew that I could make 
it that far without falling asleep.  I glanced out the rearveiw to make 
sure they weren't there, coming at me again out of the cold, pouring 
rain, and I slowly began to doubt my own sanity.  Surely this whole 
trip into the twilight zone hadn't really happened.  Maybe someone had 
put something into my drink and I was actually asleep at my home in my 
bed, but inside myself I knew that it was not true.  I knew that this 
was real, exceedingly strange and unbeleivable, but real.  Or maybe I 
was just crazy, that was what everyone was going to think when I told 
them this twisted story. 

I looked over at the boy again.  His lips were trembling, almost like he
was cold but I knew that he had to be warm by now.  Here it comes, I 
thought, now he is going to go stark raving mad and kill me as we sit 
here.  Instead, he did the one thing I never expected, he started 
bawling.  I pulled over to the curb, and reached over to pat his leg.  
He immediately reached out for me.  I felt horrible for thinking 
anything bad of him all of a sudden, and gave him a huge hug.  When I 
did, I noticed for the first time how thin he was.  He looked like he 
hadn't eaten in a decade.  I always packed some snacks for long road 
trips, because I was known to get a little hungry on the way.  I 
reached into the back of the car and pulled out a bag of potato chips.  
The boy took them when I offered and ate ravenously for a little while, 
then he put the bag down, and it was like the whole thing had never 
happened, he went right back to staring straight ahead, and not 
speaking.  Again, he looked creepy, and the change in him itself seamed 
creepy.  I reached over and buckled him up, then buckled myself up.  I 
then pulled back out into the road, still devoid of any vehicle (freind 
or foe) and any lights from a town or single home.  There were also no 
roads in sight.  I sighed and reached for my cell phone again.  As 
before, there was still no service.  Unfortunately, there was 
deffinately still rain. 

I pushed the gas petal in and slowly my car accelerated.  Once again, I
was heading toward civilation as fast as I dared to go, with the 
strange glass eyed child sitting in my front passenger seat.  The night 
was progressing slowly at best. 

I sitting in the seat musing about my unusual circumstances, when I saw
something in the road up ahead.  I could see a dark figured there, and 
at first I thought it was an animal, maybe even a bear, but as I got 
closer, I realized it was a man.  As I got even closer I realized that 
it was the same man who had been on the side of the road when I first 
found the child.  I could see his pale face first, and my first 
instinct was to run him over.  I knew that I could not do that though, 
I would have to go around him.  He was trying to flag me down, I knew 
it, but I would not stop.  I would not. 

He was standing on the yellow line, and I didn't know what he was going
to do when I chose to go around him, he might leap in front of the car, 
but I could not fathom him doing that, I didn't even understand why he 
was out there, it wasn't like I was going to actually stop for him.  
Maybe if the car and truck had not almost killed me earlier, and if the 
child was a little more sane, I would have.  Under the circumstances, 
this ploy was not going to work.  I glanced over at the boy, he was 
still staring straight ahead.  He made no acknowledgement that he even 
saw the man. 

I shrugged my shoulders and just as I got to the man, I swerved.  He
just jumped out of the way. 

What he had been thinking to try a stunt like that in the first place, I
would never know.  I continued down the road as if nothing happened.  
Soon, I saw the lights of a small town in my sights.  A town, finally, 
I reached up and unclipped my cell phone.  There was very little signal 
at best.  I lifted it up and dialed 911.  The phone rang once, then 
died.  I pulled it back from my ear and held it up.  There was still a 
little signal and the battery was charged full.  I tried again.  Still, 
it rang once then died.  I wondered if the problem were with my phone 
or the 911 phone.  I dialed my mothers house.  Once again, it rang once 
and died.  What timing for my phone to die.  I threw it into the floor, 
and continued to drive into the little town.  If nothing else, I could 
use a phone there and call the authorities.  This was the only little 
town for a long time yet.  It was another hour or two to the next town. 
 I had only stopped here once in all the time I had been in school.  I 
had stopped that time for gas, and the people here were freindly and 
welcoming.  It was just like the town I had grown up in, small and 
country. 

I glanced over at the little boy for the first time in a few minutes. 
He was no longer staring straight ahead, he was now looking at me.  
"How are you holding up?"  I asked him, wondering if he were feeling as 
strange as I was. 

He did not answer, but he continued to look at me with that blank stare.


"Well, I'm going to stop up here at this gas station and use thier
phone."  I told him, although I almost thought he didn't hear me.  He 
just looked at me with those same dead eyes. 

The gas station was just ahead.  I turned on my blinker and pulled into
the parking lot.  It was a small station with big glass window panes in 
the front.  It wasn't new, but it wasn't one of the really old mom and 
pop type places either.  I pulled into a parking place and put the car 
into park.  Then I switched off the engine. 

"I'm going to go inside and call someone to come and help us."  I told
him. 

"No", he said shaking his little head, still staring straight ahead at
me. 

"Now that is just silly, sweetheart, we have to get help."  I told him,
suddenly wondering about his mental stability.  If he thought that this 
was dangerous, I wondered if the man in the street had really been 
dangerous at all or if he was the little boys father.  I sighed.  I 
guess I would find out when the law got here.  After all, if I were the 
little boys mommy I would be willing to crash a car off the road to get 
my kid back.  I wondered how much trouble I would be in if that were 
the case. 

I opened the car door slowly, and the cold winter wind and rain hit me
like a thousand needles.  The temperature must have dropped since I was 
last out, or maybe the last time I was out I was just too scared to 
feel how cold it truly was.  I hugged my jacket closer to me and 
started toward the store.  The little boy stayed in the passenger seat, 
his eyes glued to me as I approached the store door. 

Suddenly, I felt as if I were being watched.  I turned to see if anyone
was behind me, but I saw no one.  Then it crossed my mind that this was 
a little strange too.  I saw absolutely no one.  Not a car, not a 
person, not a dog or cat.  I looked up and down the street, still no 
one.  I strained my ears, and I didn't hear anything either.  Not a 
person talking, not a sigh, not a baby crying nor a dog barking. 

"What in the world is going on here?", I mumbled to myself. 

"Just bad weather, no one want's to be out in this", I mumbled back for
my own assurance.  Then I turned to the little store again, and 
approached the door. 

When I got to the window, I peeked in.  No one was inside that I could
see, but there could be someone in the office.  I reached for the door 
and gave the handle a pull.  I unconsciously breathed a sigh of releif 
when the door swung open easily.  It wasn't locked, although I had been 
afraid that it was even though I didn't realize that I was.  Or maybe, 
I just didn't want to acknowledge that I was afraid of that.  I glanced 
back at the little boy.  He was still looking straight at me.  I gave 
him the biggest smile I could muster then turned and entered the store. 


"Hello", I gently called out.  I still saw no one.  "Hello, I am having
some problems, is there anyone here." 

No answer came back.  I sighed, then I walked over to the payphone. 
There was an out of order sign taped to the front of it.  I reached for 
the hand set anyway and put in my quarters.  I never got a dialtone or 
anything.  I tried to dial 911 anyway, but nothing happened. 

"Hello, I really need to use your phone!"  I said louder than before. 
Still I didn't get an answer.  I glanced out the window at the little 
boy.  He was still sitting in the passenger seat of the car staring at 
me.  I glanced up and down the road really quick and still saw no one 
around.  Where was everyone?? 

I walked toward the register.  Surely there was a phone back there
somewhere. 

There was a phone, it was on the back wall.  "Hello, I am going to use
your phone!"  I shouted once more.  then I walked around the counter 
and then behind it.  I picked up the phone.  For the third time, I 
heard absolutely nothing.  Not a dialtone, not a hiss of static, 
nothing.  It was like the phone had been disconnected.  Maybe the 
station was  closed.  I turned around and approached the office door, 
then I looked back out the window.  I couldn't see the child from 
inside the office, so I decided not to go inside.  I would simply go 
somewhere else and find a phone.  It couldn't be possible that all the 
phones in this town were dead, could it?  I looked around, the boy 
needed more food, something besides potato chips, and I was beginning 
to get hungry too.  I walked up and down the aisles.  There wasn't much 
besides junkfood in the little store, but I finally did find some bread 
and there was sandwhich meat in the fridge in the back, as well as 
cheese, and I found a jar of mayonaise.  Then I went to drinks section 
and got us some applejuice.  After I had gotten all I thought we would 
need for lunch, I walked toward the counter.  I had never been a theif 
and I wasn't about to start today.  I laid a twenty on the counter with 
a list of what I had taken, then I bagged it myself and walked back 
outside.  It occured to me that I should have just waited until we got 
to the grocery store on the other side of town, but somewhere inside 
myself I new that the impossible was possible tonight, and that no 
matter where we went, I wasn't going to find anyone, and that was only 
if I was lucky.  If I was unlucky, I was going to find someone who 
would try to (and probably succeed in) killing me and the boy. 

I pulled the door open once agian and went back outside.  The wind once
agian whipped around me and the pellets (which were no long rain, but 
ice) stung my face and my hands.  I felt like the whole world was 
against me.  I reached down and opened the car door.  The boy was still 
staring at me. 

"Told you so."  He said matter-of-factly.  It was the first time I had
heard him say something that was so age appropriate since I had picked 
him up forty-five minutes earlier. 

"Is the entire town like this?"  I asked. 

He nodded. 

"Are you from this little town?"  I asked. 

He nodded again. 

"What happened here?" I asked. 

He just stared at me.  His eyes were suddenly creepy again.  Dead.  I
sighed, no more for right now.  I turned the key in the ignition and 
backed out of the parking lot.  The ice was falling faster and harder 
now, and it was bouncing off my hood.  I was beginning to get even more 
nervous, I very rarely drove in ice, and if I got stuck out here, I 
felt that we would die for sure. 

I put the car in drive and pulled out of the store parking lot. 

Chapter Three 

I glanced both ways, more out of habit than anything else.  There was
nothing coming in either direction, and although I would have been glad 
if there were when I first arrived in the small town, I was glad now 
that nothing was.  If there had been, it would have been rather likely 
that it would have been the bad guys.  I wasn't sure when I had started 
thinking of them as bad guys, but I had.  Now I was hoping that I 
didn't see anyone, even though that thought should have been 
irrational.  When the entire last fourty-five minutes had been 
irrational, rational had become irrational by now, and irrational no 
longer existed.  I didn't really know if that made sense to anyone 
else, but to me it was perfectly logical. 

I looked into all the windows and shops and up all the alleys on my way
throught the small town.  I saw no one.  The vehicles were all still in 
the driveways, but no one was about.  Then the flurries started.  The 
boy didn't seem to notice and no other children came out of the houses 
to see the pretty pristine white flakes falling to the ground.  If 
anyone had been in the town, surely this had drawn them out.  I also 
saw no lights on anywhere in the town, and if the truth were known, I 
was just ready to get out of there.  I drove, although slowly through 
the remainder of the small town, and then continued past the city limit 
sign, still not having managed to get any help or even let anyone know 
that I was alive. 

I looked over at the little boy after we drove out of the town.  He was
still staring straight ahead with the same dead eyes.  I sighed and 
continued.  The snow was falling heavier every minute, and it was the 
first time that I could remember not taking delight in the snow.  I 
turned the radio back on looking for any kind of connection to the 
outside world, even a small one to let me know that normal still 
excisted.  The radio blared to life and "Redneck Woman" came pouring 
out through my speakers, once again, normality returned to me however 
breifly.  I fished my cell phone back out of the floorboard and tried 
to dial out again.  Still, I got nothing.  There wasn't even a little 
signal now, and I truly wondered if there ever had been or if I had 
just lost my mind altogether.  When I began wondering that, I also 
started wondering if the town had been a figment of my imagination.  
Maybe, just maybe I was loosing my mind, which was almost, but not 
quite, as scary as the actual reality of the whole situation.  Then I 
glanced in the floor and saw the things I had bought for lunch.  I was 
a few minutes out of CreepoRama town now, and I decided that it was 
time to eat.  I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and put the 
car in park as I switched off the ignition. 

The boy looked at me with his dead eyes.  I looked back at him.  "Well,
I'm hungry, I think it is time to eat some lunch."  I realized that it 
was something that a rational person would say as soon as I said.  A 
rational person in an irrational situation.  The boy continued to stare 
at me blankly.  I reached into the bag and got out the makings for the 
sandwhiches.  I used a plastic spoon from my glove box to spread the 
mayonaise on the bread and I made two turkey and cheese sandwhiches.  I 
handed the boy his.  I took a bite out of mine.  I hadn't realized how 
hungry I was until I tasted the fress bread and turky.  The boy ate his 
as well.  When we were both done I glanced over at him again, and 
realized that he was beginning to look a little more normal now.  Just 
a little, but it was better than nothing.  His eyes didn't seam quite 
so glazed anymore, although they still looked dead, and his skin wasn't 
quite so pale as it had been.  I smiled at him.  "How are you feeling 
kiddo?". 

He just stared at me, but I thought that I saw a little something
different in his eyes this time, perhaps a memory, or a feeling, but at 
least not quite so blank as they had been before.  I smiled even 
brighter at him.  Then I turned the car back on. 

I glanced both ways as I pulled out off the side of the road.  There was
still nothing coming, surely that was a good sign.  There was no way 
that both towns were like that one had been.  I drove on with country 
music blaring once again.  Trisha Yearwood was singing "Daddy-Long 
Legs", then Toby Keith was asking "How do you like me now?".  I finally 
switched it over to a differet station.  Then I finally turned it off 
altogether. 

It seamed as if I had been driving forever, but when I glanced at the
clock I had only pulled away from the pull off spot about ten minutes 
earlier.  Time was acting strange today, or so it seamed to me. 

Suddenly, the truck was behind me again.  I looked in front of me to see
if anything was there, but the car had not come back into play yet.  I 
felt the adrenaline coming back again as the truck pulled up close to 
my back.  The boy was once again staring at me. 

The truck hit the gas hard and hit my back end once again.  I hit the
gas, but couldn't go anyfaster because the truck was hooked to my car.  
I swerved, but he didn't come unhooked.  I rammed the gas, but he was 
still hooked.  Suddenly, he hit his brakes.  I screamed.  He was trying 
to stop us!  If he got us stopped he would kill us, I glanced over at 
the little boy in the seat next to me, there were tears streaming down 
his face, he was terrified.  I suddenly wished they would just kill me 
when I got out of the car, and not put me through the things they had 
put the child beside me through. 

Then the adrenaline and my logic took over and I hit the gas.  I heard
my tires squealing under me as they tried to take off.  Then, the car 
suddered violently and I heard the scream of metal ripping as I jerked 
free of the truck.  I kept the petal pushed to the floor and the car 
took off like a scared deer.  I sighed and once again let out the 
breath I didn't realize I had been holding.  I continued looking back.  
I could tell the person in the truck was trying to crank it, but it was 
resisting.  It would shudder, but then it would die once again.  Once 
again I sighed, releived that he would be a minute before he could come 
back after us.  The snow had now gotten pretty deep off to the side of 
the road, but the road was still fairly clear.  I continued driving, 
faster than I should have been driving.  There was a curve to the left 
coming up, and I sped around it, and there not ten feet in front of me 
sat the car.  It was a light colored foreign model, and the engine was 
idling.  There wasn't any time to dodge him, and he gunned his engine 
just as he saw.  We slammed into each other hard.  I was suddenly glad 
that I had buckled the kid up earlier, even though I had forgotten to 
put on my belt after leaving the desolate store in the abandoned town.  
There was a moment of utter shock as I felt my car come to a sudden 
stop.  My airbag exploded into my face and I felt my lip bust open in 
the middle and my nose shot sudden pain into my forehead and then went 
totally numb.  I heard grinding and crashing from in front of me and 
then felt rather than saw the dash coming in at me.  My whole upper 
body was just one huge throb from the airbag.  Then I felt the car 
tilting precariously.  The next instant I felt my self flip, but I knew 
that the car was flipping not me.  I lifted off the seat, almost as if 
I was levitating, and the roof of the car dented in, giving me a rather 
nasty bump on the head, the the car flipped again and righted itself. 

I was dazed.  The adrenaline was still there, but it was like it didn't
know what to do with itself now, and I didn't know what to do with it 
either.  The bump on the head had knocked me a little off my rocker, 
and I was trying to find my logic button, but couldn't.  Somewhere in 
the back of mind, the events for the last few hours were playing over 
and over agian in my head, as a warning to me that this could get a 
whole lot worse if one of those things outside caught us.  Also there 
was a picture in my mind of a child with dead eyes, which called to 
mind the memory that he was inside the car with me.  I used all the 
energy I possessed at that instint to turn and look for him.  he was 
still strapped to his seat with a cut on his forhead and a bloody nose, 
but other than that looking the same.  His eyes weren't quite the same 
though.  he looked terrified, and now he was bawling, and to my 
surprise he was praying. 

"Our father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven . . . ." and on and on.  
I started mumbling the age old prayer myself without even realizing I 
was doing so, but as it gave me courage and stregnth, I began acting 
instead of just watching.  I reached out and detached the boy's seat 
belt, then I reached back and grabbed a flashlight, then my phone, but 
that was all I had time for I was sure.  I reached out and grabbed the 
child by the front of his shirt and grabbed my door handle.  I pulled 
violently and nothing happened.  For a moment, I thought that my door 
was jammed, but then I realized that it was locked.  I pushed the lock 
up button, and then pulled the door handle, I had to force the door 
open, but it did finally creak open.  I drug the boy out of the car and 
carried him under my arm like a sack of potatoes while I ran toward the 
edge of the trees.  The trees branches were already frosted white with 
snow and the ground was beginning to turn white.  I was afraid that if 
I didn't get to moving fast there would be an obvious trail for the 
maniacs on the road to follow. 

Once, I was under the semi-protective boughs of the pine trees, I parted
two just enough to look back at my car.  There was still no sign of the 
two people in the vehicles at the top of the hill we had rolled down 
recently.  I guessed that the man in the truck must have been checking 
on the other driver.  I knew that we couldn't stay here, even though I 
would have liked to have seen what the other driver looked like just in 
case I ever got the chance to accuse him in a court of law. 

I took the child by the hand and took off on foot, away from my car and
away from the two scary men on the highway.  The last thing you are 
ever supposed to do if there is an accident is leave the scene, but I 
was pretty sure that the police would understand this time if I didn't 
stick around.  The boy was still not wearing any shoes, and now walking 
through snow had to be pretty rough on his little feet.  I knew that 
were a long way from the second town, but we probably weren't more than 
a few miles from the first town, and maybe it was even closer in a 
straight line.  I lifted the little boy and began carrying him back the 
way we had already come in the car.  I was hoping that this would fool 
the would-be attackers because only an irrational insane person would 
go back into a town they knew was empty, but there I could possibly 
find the boy some better clothes, as well as maybe a vehicle.  I might 
as well, after all, add grand theft auto to my kidnapping and leaving 
the scene of an accident charges.  I quickened my pace with each step 
but the cold and the weight of the child made it difficult to get 
anywhere fast.  Under the cover of the trees there wasn't any snow, so 
we left no overtly visible tracks, but I was also trying to be careful 
not to leave prints in the mud or dirt or anything else, because if the 
bad guys figured out that we were going back to the desolate town, they 
could probably follow us there, and that would be no good at all.  I 
continued on my way, careful to avoid any visible tracks and also 
careful to avoid making any loud noises. 

The boy looked up at me, but he didn't say anything.  His eyes had lost
a lot of the blank look they had had when I had first picked him up.  
They didn't look dead like they had to begin with.  I continued 
walking.  It was uphill and downhill, and neither were easy with the 
cold and the weight of the child.  Soon enough, I had tuned out the 
pain in my legs and arms, and practically everywhere else from the car 
accident and then from walking with so much weight for so long.  I had 
some injuries from the wreck, but nothing like I could have had.  I 
didn't think anything was broken, and I was pretty sure that nothing 
was bleeding bad enough to kill me.  The knot on my forehead hurt like 
the dickens, but I didn't think that I had a cuncussion.  Finally after 
I had been walking in a straight line for about fifteen minutes, I 
veered over, trying to find the road again, because I didn't think I 
could find my way back to town without it.  I walked diagonally to save 
time, and it took about ten minutes for the road to come into veiw.  
There was no cars still, and the snow was coming down even thicker than 
before, but the wind had stopped and the world around was still and 
quiet.  I thought that I could even hear the snow falling to the 
ground, but I heard no human noises at all, and I hoped that that meant 
we weren't being followed.  I continued on, within sight of the road, 
but hidden behind the first layer of trees as much as possible.  I knew 
that my tracks would be more readily visible, but I was hoping that 
they wouldn't look this way for us.  I didn't try to keep from making 
tracks like I had before, besides it was snowing hard enough now that 
visibility was greatly decreased and whatever tracks I had made were 
being filled in rather quickly.  I continued walking as fast as I 
could, but not running, I needed the energy and strength to run in case 
they found us and I had no choice.  Right now I needed to save that 
energy.  The boy had at some point closed his eyes and gone to sleep 
since I had been carrying him, and it made it a lot easier to tote him. 
 Not to mention that it was probably doing him worlds of good.  I 
walked maybe another fifteen minutes all the while worrying that the 
child would freeze to death, then I saw the "Welcome to Evergreen 
Hills".  The little town wasn't far, in fact we were almost there.  I 
continued walking until I emerged from the trees and came to the 
highway.  I sat the boy down on the side of the road, praying that the 
truck wouldn't show up again, and went back and drug a pine bough over 
our tracks.  The boy and awakened while I had been doing this and was 
looking at me suspicously. 

"Why are we here?", he asked.  "This is a bad place." 

He was calm, but you could see that he was very scared.  "I don't think
they'll look for us here, at least not right away.  Besides, you need 
some more clothes and a vehicle would help us out a great deal, and I 
think I can find one here." 

"Yeah, maybe."  He said with a sigh. 

"Look, when we find you some clothes and get a car, I want you to tell
me exactly what is going on here.  You look a lot better and you are 
able to speak, so I think that I have a right to know why I am now 
running from two crazy people."  I told him, in fact I almost demanded 
it from him. 

He just looked at me, and I wondered if her were going to lasp back into
silence, but we didn't have time to talk right now, right now we needed 
to get him some clothes and get us a car and some supplies.  This time 
I didn't have any money to leave, so I guesed this would be the first 
time I ever stole anything.  I lifted the boy again and carried him 
toward the town. 

"Okay, you told me you lived here before, where did you live?" 

The boy lifted his hand and pointed at a small white house by the
laundramat. 

"Okay, they might look there for us first if they come back, so are
there any other houses we could go that might have clothes your size." 
I asked.  He pointed at a brick house a little further away.  "Okay, 
that's where we are going to go".  He looked back at his recently 
abandoned home with forlorn look of longing.  I picked him up again and 
carried him toward the brick house at the fastest pace I dared to take, 
keeping to the backs of buildings where my footprints would not be 
easily seen.  If they were seen, we could be followed to anywhere we 
could go. 

We arrived at the backdoor of the brick house faster than I had thought
that we would, and I reached up and knocked on the door.  I wasn't 
really expecting an answer, but you never know about the Twilight Zone, 
sometimes it is rational, sometimes it isn't.  No answer came.  I tried 
the knob, not really expecting that to work either, but it twisted 
easily in my hand, and the door swung inward.  I reached back for the 
boy's hand.  He took my hand and we stepped into the house. 

I had thought that there were no lights on when we had went through town
the first time, but the kitchen light was on in the back part of this 
house, and I was glad, because it was at least dusky dark outside now, 
and I wouldn't have been able to see much without some light.  It was 
also warm in the house, which surprised me, although I can't say why.  
More than likely no one had come and turned everything off when 
whatever happened had happened.  It was probably exactly the way it had 
been the last time the family who lived here had seen it.  I looked 
around the homey little kitchen. 

The floor was blue tile, as were the bottom half of the walls.  The top
part of the walls were blue dotted wallpaper with ducks bouncing across 
it.  A very cheerful kitchen.  There was a stove, a fridge, and a table 
with four chairs in the middle of the room.  There was a terrible oder 
coming from somewhere though, and at first I couldn't place where 
exactly it was originating from, but I realized soon enough that it was 
coming from the trash.  I walked toward it, rather scared of what I 
might find.  When I looked into the bag though, there was only garbage, 
what looked like leftover food from weeks ago.  There were maggots 
climbing in and out of an old rotting hamburger that looked at least 
four or five weeks old.  I almost gagged, but didn't.  I took the boys 
hand and walked out of the kitchen.  The large door led to the living 
room.  It was also done in blue.  There was a long blue suede couch and 
two matching recliners around the big screen television in the center 
of the room.  There were two coffee tables, one on each end of the 
couch, and there was a callage of pictures on the wall.  I looked at 
the pictures.  I guessed that they were the family whose stuff we were 
getting ready to borrow.  The mother was tall and dark headed with a 
little extra weight on her, but not much.  The father was graying at 
the temples, but also tall.  He was muscular looking, but not heavy.  
The two children were small, the oldest about the same age as the boy 
with me.  The little boy looked a little like the boy with me too.  He 
had the same light blue eyes and dark hair, the little girl was maybe 
two or three with the same dark hair and light blue eyes.  Her hair was 
curly and it lay across her face in little ringlets, they were a 
beautiful family.  I wondered ominously where they were and what had 
happened to them.  The boy was also staring at the family portrait, in 
a rather forlorn way, and I realized that I really didn't think I could 
handle knowing what had happened to them, as apparently he knew 
already.  Around the corner in the living room, there were a set of 
stairs leading up, I decided that the bedrooms would probably be up 
there and followed them.  The boy stared at the portrait for a few more 
seconds and then followed me up the steps.  When we came to the second 
floor landing, there were four doors off the main hall.  The first 
bedroom belonged to the parents.  There was a kingsized bed and a huge 
oak dresser as well as two other doors, one to the bathroom and one to 
the closet I assumed.  We continued.  The next door belonged to the 
baby, it was all decorated in mauves and pastel colors, and there was a 
toddler bed against the far wall.  It was realitively clean, but 
several toys were strewn accross the floor.  The next door belonged to 
the little boy.  I pushed his door all the way open and saw the child's 
room.  The bed was made with a tonka trucks bedspread, there was also 
tonka truck curtains and other things in the room.  There was picture 
of the boy on the wall over his bed.  He was wearing a baseball jersey 
and a cap with a bat in his hands.  I guesed little legue or teaball.  
Again it struck me how much he looked like the child with me now. 

"This isn't your house, right?" I asked, the uncanny resemblance
becoming too much for me.  The boy shook his head.  I went to the 
closet that had belonged to the little boy and opened it up.  There was 
a heavy winter jacket as well as several pairs of shoes inside.  The 
little boy took off the clothing I had given him in the car and was 
standing in the middle of the room naked when I turned around.  I 
walked over to the dresser and found him a pair of dry underwear, socks 
and pants and as soon as I did I tossed them over to him he put them 
on.  Next I went back to the closet and found two shirts for him to put 
on, he did so quickly.  As a second thought, I went back to the drawers 
and pulled him out another pair of pants and socks.  He put those on 
quickly, layering himself up.  Next, I found a pair of snow boots in 
the closet and tossed them to him, he also put those on.  The winter 
coat was the last thing I pulled out of the closet, until I saw all the 
toboggans and stuff on the top shelf, then I pulled out a toboggan and 
a pair of gloves for him as well. 

Next we went back down the hall to the parents room, where I took out
some of the previous female owners clothing, and layered myself as 
well.  I also found a toboggon and gloves there.  Then I went down to 
the kitchen.  I opened some of the cabinets and took out some more 
food, it would soon be dinner time and I was beginning to get hungry, 
my long walk had turned up a ferocious appetite.  The food we found 
consisted of an assortment canned items, a couple of packs of crackers, 
some noodles, and some frozen dinners.  I quickly put two of the frozen 
dinners into the microwave and heated them up, then we ate them.  I 
thought that throwing them in the trash might give our trail away, but 
it wouldn't be long now until we had a car again and were headed in the 
opposite direction, back toward my home.  There I knew we would find 
help.  We gathered together some of the crackers, and also some of the 
sodas I found, then we headed out to the garage.  I loaded all that I 
had found into the car and then slid in behind the wheel.  The little 
boy climbed into the front seat and put on his seatbelt.  I reached 
down to turn the car on, but the keys weren't in the ignition. 

Keys are never in the ignition, I moaned out loud, "I should have known
better."  I felt under the seat and in the console, "Do you know where 
the keys might be?"  I asked the boy.  He shook his head.  I got out of 
the car and went back into the house.  I looked on the cabinets and in 
some of the kitchen drawers.  I didn't find them.  I went into the 
living room and looked on the coffee table and in thier drawers, still 
no keys.  It was then that I glanced out the window and saw the snow.  
I could not beleive that it had snowed that much since we had been 
inside the house, then I realized that we had been there a whole lot 
longer than I though, and I knew that we had to hurry, not only that, 
but now we weren't going to be able to take a car, we needed four wheel 
drive.  There was also a truck in the garage and I said a quick prayer 
that it would be four wheel drive, and as I did so, I glanced back at 
the garage door, there hung a whole set of keys, probably one for both 
of the vehicles.  I ran and grabbed the keys and then went out the 
door.  I moved the boy over to the truck as fast as I could, then I hit 
the button to lift the garage door and slowly backed out.  I made sure 
to close the garage door back when I was out.  I backed it around and 
pulled onto the main road with some sort of pride that I had     gotten 
this far alive.  I drove down the little street, until it turned into 
the road I had driven in on, now almost four hours ago.  I drove on, 
the boy was so quiet that it took me a minute to realize that he was 
even around.  When I did, I also realized that he looked normal again.  
Well almost, he was still skin and bones, but at least he didn't look 
so strange anymore.  I continued down the road and the barage of things 
I had been wondering all night suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. 

"All right, are you ready to answer some of my questions now?"  I asked.


"Sure."  The boy replied. 

Hey that was really good, it would be the first time since I met the kid
that he had spoken normally. 

"First of all, what is your name?"  I asked. 

"I am Cole.  I am six years old and I am from Evergreen Hills."  He told
me. 

"Okay.  Now, what were you doing in the middle of the road, where I
found you?"  I asked. 

"I was running away."  He answered. 

"Running away from what?"  I asked. 

"Them.  The ones who chase and hurt everyone." he said. 

"Do you know who they are?"  I asked. 

"I know thier names, but I don't know where they came from.  I think the
grown-ups did."  He told me quietly.  "I think the grown ups knew a lot 
about them.  The two men are called Dr. Green and Dr. Burten.  The 
women, there are a lot of them, but I haven't seen much of them in 
several weeks, are Julian, Kristen, Joy, Tamera, Myra, Rachel, 
Michelle, Erica, and McKinley.  They haven't been around in a long 
time, I think the two men chased them too." He told me solemnly. 

"Why do the men chase the grown-ups?" I asked. 

"They chase the children too.  They chased me to the road.  I am the
only one they didn't catch I think."  He said. 

"Why do they chase people?"  I rephrased. 

"I dunno.  I never see the end of the chase, just the beginning, which
is how I know to run.  It is how I know that I am being chased.  They 
chase them, sometimes lots of them at a time, off from here.  I don't 
know why, but once you have been chased you don't come back.  I thought 
it was like freezetag at first, but them no one came back.  My daddy 
was in the first group they chased.  They chased him out of the house 
in the middle of the night and we watched him and a bunch more people 
chased right out of town, but not on a road, just into the trees.  That 
first group didn't run really fast,they just walked like, but they were 
behind them, telling them to hurry, that it was time."  he told me. 

"Time for what?"  I asked. 

"I don't know, he never said.  I just know that they never came back. 
Then they came back and got another group.  It took a long time to get 
to the kids.  We were last.  They chased groups of us at a time.  
Teenagers went first, it was one of them that got away and actually 
came back.  She ran until she couldn't run anymore and when she got to 
the home where we all were, she was tired and hurt looking.  The women 
were still here then.  She told us all to run from the two men, that 
they had bad intentions.  The women told her to calm herself that that 
was nonsense, the Doctors were good people here to help us.  It scared 
all the children anyway, but the women said it would be fine, but then 
they started dissapearing too.  One at a time, we would wake up in the 
morning and another one would be gone.  Then finally there was no one 
but us, and we were locked in where the women had taken us when our 
parents were chased.  It was the church, but there wasn't any food at 
the church, and we were all so hungry, that when they came back for us, 
no one much felt like fighting them, so we all just followed along.  
Then I saw your lights and I snuck away.  I snuck because I didn't want 
to have to run.  When you almost hit me, it was loud, the screaming."  
he said. 

"What screaming,"  I asked.  I didn't remember any screaming. 

"The screaming from your car.  It screamed and I think that they heard
and then realized that I was gone.  Then I climbed into the car with 
you, and we've been chased ever since." 

"Well now we are going to get away, and they won't be able to find us." 
I told him. 

"I think that they already know where we are headed, they seam to know
everything.  I don't know."  he said. 

"So if all the adults knew the men, where did they know them from?"  I
asked. 

"Oh, they have been around the town for as long as I can remember. 
Since I was just wee tiny and I think even before that.  I'm not sure.  
They were always there.  I don't know why, but they lived at the office 
in town.  Always, we went to them once a week for check-ups."  He said. 


"Once a week, huh?  I bet it just felt like that.  Usually Doctors
appointments are like once a year or six months."  I said.  Kids were 
known to exaggerate. 

"No, it was once a week, I'm certain.  We went on every friday, after
school and daycare.  All the adults went on Mondays, teenagers went on 
Thursdays and babies went on Wendesdays.  I know because there was one 
on every day for us."  He said. 

"What did they do when you went?"  I asked, knowing that check-ups were
never that regular, but he sounded so sure. 

"First, they took our blood out of our arms."  he said holding his
little arm up high to show me.  Sure enough there were little scars all 
over his arms.  "Then they sat down and asked us all sorts of 
questions.  Then they weighed us and measured us and looked at our ears 
and noses and mouthes."  He said. 

"What kind of questions did they ask you."  I asked. 

"Questions about how we were feeling, if we had been acting and
performing normally, if we had felt strange.  If we were angry or sad a 
lot.  They also always asked if we had any headaches.  I never had 
headaches.  I had stomach aches and sore throats and runny noses, but I 
never had headaches and they never cared about any of the other stuff.  
They also asked us if we could spell our names and where the capital of 
certain states were.  We never knew if we got those questions right or 
not, they never said."  He finished. 

"Can you spell your name?"  I asked. 

"Sure, C-O-L-E  G-A-B-L-E   H-A-R-R-I-S-O-N and the captial of Georgia
is Atlanta.  Everyone knows that."  he said. 

"That is really wonderful Cole.  You are a very smart boy." she told him
with a smile. 

"The capital of Russia is Moscow and the capital of America is
Washington, D.C.  America's first president was George Washington and 
he signed the declaration of independance.  America got her 
independance from England.  Now England is one of our allies.  The 
weather here is temperate most of the time with cold winters.  My 
mother's maiden name was Thomas.  My last name is Harrison.  Lizards 
are reptiles, but frogs are amphibians.  Frued beleived in the id, the 
ego, and the super-ego, and that every thing in life was sexual based.  
Agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces and arachniphobia is the fear of 
spiders.  Sir Isaac Newton stated that objects in motion tend to stay 
in motion until acted upon by an equal or greater force, he also 
discovered gravity.  Thomas Edison invented the first telephone, and 
Euclid came up with the euclidean formula for geometry.  We were taught 
all of that in Kindergarten.  In daycare we learned our letters and our 
numbers and by the time we were out of daycare, when we were four, we 
were adding and subtracting large numbers, multiplying and dividing, 
breaking codes and making systems of numbers, and we knew the history 
of the civil war.  It was all very interesting really.  Some of my 
freinds were not as smart as me, but they had other talents.  I have 
some other talents, too, but not like some of my freinds." he said in 
one big whoosh. 

I just gasped.  "What do you mean, talents?"  I questioned, awestruck. 
It was unfathomable that a child of only six years should know all 
that.  Most children had probably heard it by this time, and maybe one 
or two of those facts had stuck with them, but not all of them.  She 
looked at him, a little nonplussed by the whole exchange. 

"Talents, I don't know, that is just what the Doctors called them.  We
all had some talents, the doctors called them unexpected a lot when we 
were tiny, I remember one time I did something special I guess, and Dr. 
Green said, "Well, now Cole, can you tell me how you did that?"  When I 
told him that I didn't know he called over Dr. Burton and said, "Look 
at what Cole did, that is a whole new unexpected talent."  and Dr. 
Burton told him, "Yes, they have all been showing a great many 
unexpected talents."  I didn't really understand what they meant, but 
now I guess I sort of do, but I don't know why they call them talents." 
Cole told me. 

"Well, what do you mean by talents, what is it, exactly, that you can
do?"  I asked. 

"I can't do a whole lot.  I can move things sometimes, with my thoughts,
and I can heal minor injuries, but nothing like the rest of the 
children." he said, "The children who were not smart in school had huge 
talents.  My freind Jacob, it was his house we were at, he could talk 
to people in their heads from far away.  Sometimes, he could make them 
do things, but mostly he could just talk to them.  We never told the 
Doctors that he could because we were afraid of what they might do with 
him and his talent.  Some of the children with talents the doctors 
really liked went away and never came back.  I think that they were the 
first to go into the trees." he said. 

"What about your talents, what can you do?" I asked him, remembering
when I felt that he could read my thoughts. 

"I can move objects across the room without touching them, but they
don't dissappear, some of the kids could make them dissappear and move 
at the same time as they move them.  I can heal small wounds and talk 
in my mind and hear what other people say in their mind.  I can make 
things happen sometimes, like snow and rain, or make it quit doing 
either, but only if it is not very much, or if the chances of it were 
good anyway.  It's kind of a conditional thing."  he said.  "I can't do 
anything phenomenal like what some of the other kids could do.  Suzie 
can fly!  I wish I could do that!  Bradley can talk to animals, and 
Joey can see things on other planets.  Leanne can see through things, 
like walls and stuff.  Some of the other kids had really cool gifts.  
Then there was Henry.  Henry was different and scary.  He was mean, 
like horrible mean.  He used to kill Bradley's pets all the time, then 
one day he got really mad and killed his little sister and his parents. 
 He also killed one of the Doctors, and this was before we were even 
out of daycare.  The doctors name was Ramsfeild.  I don't remember him 
really well, all I know is that he was killed the same way the animals 
were, and the only way we even knew that it was him was because we 
could talk to him in our minds, but he couldn't talk back." 

"So basically, you read his mind, and he didn't know that you could do
that."  I asked him. 

"Yeah, I guess so.  I know that you knew when I was trying to read your
thoughts, but with us it is different, so many people can that it isn't 
a strange feeling anymore.  You are not used to, and you haven't had it 
happen to you very often so you can feel.  I am sure that it is not the 
first time you have ever felt that way.  A lot of normal people have 
these abilities too, although not in the same way, and not in the 
numbers that we had them.  We were different.  Now, most normal people 
don't even know they have the gift because it is so rare that coming in 
contact with someone else to communicate with is almost impossible.  
Sometimes it happens, but generally neither person knows it."  He said. 


"So you are different from normal people, and you realize this, but do
you know why your different."  I asked him.  This was the first time 
that he had put himself and his freinds in a different catagory from 
other people and she wanted to know what he knew about the differences. 


"Well, I know that we all looked alike."  he said. 

"Who looked alike", I asked. 

"All of us children.  My baby pictures and Jacob's baby pictures, even
Henry, all of our pictures look like the exact same child.  My big 
sister is a girl, yet if you hold a picture of her and a picture of me 
up we look exactly the same.  Jacob's little sister looks just like me, 
and my sister and his sister look exactly the same.  I don't know how 
they told us apart in school, or anywhere else for that matter.  The 
parents all look differently, but all the children in this town are 
mirror images of each other." he said. 

"How could that be?" I asked dumbfounded. 

"I have one more gift that will maybe help you." he said, "If you will
open yourself up.  You wouldn't open up in the car, so I couldn't see 
what you were thinking, or talk back to you.  My gift is not strong 
enough to override anothers will not to converse or work with me, but 
if you will, I will show you what they were doing in Evergreen Hills."  
he said. 

I was nervous about doing so, but I took his hands anyway, and just as
if I was transported to that time, I was suddenly standing beside him 
in a small classroom.  He smiled up at me as a half dozen two to three 
year olds rushed into the room.  He pointed at one little boy and 
pointed at himself.  All the children looked alike, exactly alike, the 
girls hair might have been a little longer, and they had a little more 
of a girlish face, but identical to each other and almost identical to 
the boys.  Then everything started flashing by, and he was leading me 
into an office where a large man in a white lab coat sat staring at a 
computer.  He pulled me over behind the man so that I could see the 
computer screen.  The screen was blue with white type, at the top was 
printed "Project 259/Genetics Engineering".  Then there was a list of 
names down from it.  Cole's name was halfway down the list, his age was 
listed as four at the time.  The ages on the computer screen ranged 
from one day to fifteen years.  The man had a folder on his desk he 
opened, and I looked at it, it was a file for Henry Robuck, and it was 
thick.  Suddenly, the phone rang.  "Yes, we are taking care of him as 
we speak . . . . . no sir, we have gone through too much to terminate 
the whole project . . . . yes, sir, I understand."  the gentleman 
stated on the one end of the conversation.  "Yes, sir, they will all be 
annihilated." 

The gentleman scratched his head as he hung up the phone.  Then he
slowly pulled out a manual from the desk drawer.  The book was titled 
"Emergency Proceedures for Project 259"  he quickly leafed through the 
book until he came to a page titled "Total Termination".  There it 
listed gas chambers and lethal injections.  I gasped, they really were 
planning on killing everyone that knew about project 259.  Cole took my 
hand again and the man at the desk immediately dissappeared and we were 
not longer even in Evergreen Hills, we were in an apartment in the 
suburbs of some large city.  There was a gentleman, a lady, and the 
same gentleman who had been on the phone earlier, only now he looked 
much younger.  The lady and man were listening raptly to the Doctor (at 
least I was assuming he was one of the Doctors). 

"Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, we will be considering you for the final drawing
of families into our plan.  As I have said before it is a wonderful 
opertunity considering that you are sterile and will be able to have no 
children of your own.  The way our program works is that you will be 
relocated to a small town away from the public for the most part, and 
in that town you will raise your children with our top notch teachers 
and medical personel.  The other families in the town will be going 
through the exact same things that you are going through, as they will 
be other families we are inducting as we are inducting you.  We will 
engineer the children to be special with extreme intelligence, and you 
will be responcible for raising them.  Your income will be provided for 
you for raising these exceptional children.  Basically, raising your 
family will be your full time job.  We will provide you with a home, as 
well as your income, and it will be free to you for the remainder of 
your life, and of course your children and their children will always 
be provided for.  There are certain sacrifices that you must make for 
us too, I am sure you realize.  First, and foremost, you must move far 
from your family.  You may still keep in contact with them and even 
visit them, but you must never speak of the project or the way you came 
about your children." the man said. 

"Doctor Burton, we would be extremely delighted to participate in your
study, especially if it means acquiring children.  The adoption route 
is so expensive, and it has become overwelming clear that we will never 
have any of our own." Mr. Harrison said. 

Suddenly, the shifted and I was sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle
again.  We were parked on the shoulder of the road, although I didn't 
remember parking the SUV.  Suddenly, everything made so much more sense 
to me, even though his visions had been dijointed and in no order at 
all.  Apparently, they had drafted parents for their children, children 
that they engineered, and then given the parents everything for taking 
on the responcibility of raising the children.  Then they had tried to 
keep them fairly isolated from the world at large, and when a few 
things began to go wrong, they decided to kill them all.  Wonderful, it 
really was a sadistic thing, and the obviously would not hesitate to 
kill anyone in their way.  I shuddered, it was very scary to be faced 
with your own mortality.  If I could only get back home, my parents 
would be able to help figure out what was going on and what to do about 
it.  I pushed the gas to the floor and continued straight out of town 
and back toward my own home. 

To my surprise and immense releif, no one came after us, I figured that
they had broken both of their vehicles in the wreck with my car 
earlier.  I drove for the hour and a half it took me to return to my 
home, and I pulled into the driveway, helped Cole out of the passenger 
seat and rushed in to see my mother.  She was sitting on the couch when 
I walked in, and when I told her my story, she immediately got on the 
phone with the police department.  Before I could so much as count to 
ten, there were more cops at my house than I had ever seen in one 
place.  Soon, after hearing my story, they called in a national 
security team of some kind or another and then we all returned to 
Evergreen Hills in a convoy of sorts.  The press was not invited.  Once 
we arrived in Evergreen Hills, we went straight for the Doctors office. 
 The police made sure the area was clear before they went into the 
office.  Once they did, they found the two good Doctors dead inside.  
Only Cole could identify them, and he did.  Both had committed suicide, 
they had injected themselves with a lethal substance.  I did not know 
the name, and if I had, I am not sure I could have pronounced it.  We 
went through the whole town, the police, myself, my parents, and even 
Cole until he grew exhausted and fell asleep in the back of my parents 
car.  All the houses were desserted, all of the offices and even the 
school was desserted.  It was unreal, just a ghost town with two 
corpse.  After Cole had been asleep for a while we ventured into the 
woods in roughly the place that Cole had described them chasing 
everyone too.  It turned out there was a path there hidden by the 
evergreens bows.  We followed it, leaving my mother in the vehicle with 
Cole, and a few police officers were left as well to guard them.  We 
walked, my self, my father, and an entourage of cops, until we came to 
a huge building.  We opened the doors of the building and found a slew 
of adult corpses.  In back rooms we found more corpses, still most of 
them were adults.  I didn't have the stomach for it, so I went back 
outside, vomitted, and then made my way back to my mother and Cole. 

When all was said and done, five hundred fifty-two bodies were found in
and around that building.  They were all the adults, children, 
teachers, and nurses from Project 259, with the exception of one.  Cole 
was still alive and well.  My mother actually adopted him, and he 
became my little brother, unfortunately, as it is so normally true when 
people mess with things they can not control, the project wasn't 
perfect and never had been, because Cole was not right.  He was 
brilliant, and he grew normally, but when he was merely sixteen 
something inside him seamed to snap and his health began to drastically 
decline.  It was on the eve of his seventeenth birthday that we lost 
him.  I don't think that I ever had been or ever will be again, as 
close to another individual as I was to Cole.  I loved him very much 
and because of the people who made him, he went through some of the 
most horrible situations.  Now he rests in Heaven where nothing else 
can hurt him or make him sick. 


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