Status: Finished; working on the sequel
In The Dark
Chapter Seven
I run to the window and nudge the curtains aside, just in time to see about seven black vans with police lights on top, turn down onto our street, and slow down again stopping about five yards from our house.
Dad jumps up and grabs something from underneath the sofa. A black pouch. Small, but somewhat heavy. He hands it to me, and I can tell he’s trying not to scare me by looking panicked. He looks between Lana and I his face tense.
“Kyra, Lana, you have to get everybody out of here. Go through the back door, and just run until you find someplace where you can hide.” Reaching into his front shirt pocket, he extracts a piece of folded up paper. He gives it to me. “Do not lose that. Read it when you get somewhere safe.”
He hugs me hard, one good squeeze, and then pushes me toward the back. When I don’t move, he practically screams at me, “GO!”
Since Lana looks freaked out also, I take the lead. “Come on people! Follow me!”
I sprint down the hallway, and out of the back door as fast as possible, only stopping once to make sure that everyone’s following me. We run through the shrubs and trees behind the house, keep going past the highway road, and into the woods. Man, I’m glad that it’s still light outside.
When we get far enough, I stop and do a head check. Ninety-six kids all in all, Wow, that’s a lot. Then I remember the paper dad gave me. I open it. It reads:
283-586-9837
Call this number at sunset.
We love you. Everything is going to be okay.
Lana reads it over my shoulder. “With what phone? We don’t have a phone.”
That brings my memory back to the pouch. I take it from Lana and open it. It’s a cell phone. Huh. “Okay. So we do have a phone.”
However, the sky is still as blue as can be. Just great. What am I supposed to do now? I’m in charge of all of these little kids, and a bunch of older kids, neither of which do I know at all…
“Climb up into trees and wait. Find the ones with the biggest branches and tell everyone to climb into them.” The voice.
{Are you serious? I don’t know how to climb trees. Nor do I want to.}
The voice doesn’t answer me back, so I feel compelled to listen to it. I face everyone and cup my hands around my mouth.
“Can I have your attention please? Until sunset, I have been… advised, to have every one of you hide up in the trees. Find the trees with the biggest branches. I want two to a branch okay? All of you older than me get someone younger than you and find a branch for you two. Find your trees now!”
They’re too scared to answer me, so everything gets situated quickly.
Making sure that everyone’s up and comfortable [as comfortable as possible sitting on a tree branch can be anyway] I look at the sky. Still bright blue. Just great.
Now I try to climb our tree. Lana is already up there, and she giggles while watching me. “Well excuse me for not ever climbing a tree in my childhood,” I snap irritably.
“Just focus, and use the pads of your fingers. They stick; it’s cool.”
Sighing, I follow her instructions, and am able to climb up without too much trouble. Her expression gets serious when I sit next to her on the thick branch.
“What’ll happen to our parents? Will they get in trouble? I hope they’re okay.”
I sigh. I really don’t know what to tell her right now. I want someone else to tell me. Lana bites her lip and looks away, knowing not to ask again. I lay my head on her shoulder and she hugs me. We stay like this for a good while before I hear it.
A noise. I stiffen. Sensing it too, Lana gets quiet.
… Footsteps. I put my finger to my lips, signaling all of the kids to be quiet.
Looking down, I’m not surprised at all to see the men from before [the ones in lab coats] patrolling below. This time they have security personnel with them. In addition, the security personnel have tazer rods.
Feeling her move, I glance over at Lana. Scared to death, she is slowly inching her way to the end of our branch. Seeing her almost at the end now, I start to reach over to pull her back, when I hear a bloodcurdling scream from below.
I look down to see one of the little girls being jerked down out of her tree. Leon is with her, so he jumps down after her, but one of the guards hits him with the end of a rod, and I hear the electricity crackle as he flies back, unconscious before he hits the ground.
Without thinking, I leap down out of the tree. “Let her go!”
One of the men turns to me, and I see an ugly bruise on his chin. “Oh! I remember you. So sorry about your face; I didn’t think my shoe would do that much damage. But you did deserve it.”
He sneers at me, not trying to be nice. “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re able to run those tests on you. You though, I’m afraid, won’t be alive to know the difference.”
As if on cue, one of the guards steps forward with a rod. I look at the little girl one of the men is holding. She looks so small and helpless, and scared to death. I glance at the rod being aimed at me, wanting to take it and smash it into all of them at once.
“Use your powers Loli,” says the voice, “don’t think, just defend and attack.”
Nothing the voice has told me has ever failed before, so I listen.
I run forward again and when the guards thrust out their poles toward me, I grab them, not thinking about the consequences.
Instead of getting the same shock that Leon got, it feels like I’m actually absorbing the electricity.
I squeeze the poles, and watch in amazement as they seem to backfire on the guards, and they go flying backwards. I throw the poles to the ground, where they burn a bunch of leaves to crisp black chips.
Smiling, I face the other men. I can see the electricity and hear it crackling around me. How many volts did I take in anyway? Oh well. I guess I can give them one more chance.
“Are you going to let her go? Or are you going to be stupid and get hurt like your friends over there? It’s your choice.”
This time, they set her down carefully, and run, their guards trailing after them.
I go to the girl, kneeling down in front of her. “Are you okay sweetie? Are you hurt?” I’m concerned.
Her face goes blank, and I step back. Her eyes… They’re black from the pupils out to the rims of her eyelids. Does that sound creepy to you? Well it’s even scarier to me, as I’m here.
Her hands start to shake, as if she’s having an attack of some kind. The black start to spread outward from her eyes, to her whole body. It looks as if she has been burned black. The way she is not even blinking, tells me to back up.
She walks over and puts a hand on a tree to steady herself. The spot where her hand is turns black, and spreads, slowly, all the way up the tree. As the tree turns black, all of the black drains out of the girl’s skin.
When all the black is gone out of her and into the tree, she falls to her knees, looking extremely drained of energy. The tree looks dead. I poke it quickly with a finger and the whole thing falls over without any protest.
Gaping, I look down at the girl. She has closed her eyes and is sleeping. A hand closes on my shoulder and I grab it, spinning around and flipping whoever it is over my shoulder.
Ryan hit’s the ground hard. I stare down at him in mortification. Oh no. “I’m so sorry, Ryan! I’m too jumpy right now. I didn’t even hear you climb down.”
He picks himself up and I brush all he leaves off him. He rubs his arm, looking at me in amusement. “I thought I got enough of this when I broke your cell phone. You’re not going to rest until you dislocate some part of my body are you?”
I cover my face with my hands. This is so embarrassing. Ryan picks up the girl, surprisingly gentle and hands her up to some girl in one of the trees. Then he turns to see about Leon, who is still unconscious.
His hands hover above Leon’s head for a few seconds, and Leon opens his eyes and sits up. Just like that. What on the world? Ryan doesn’t look surprised at all. Did he do that? Did he mean to do that?
“Ryan?”
He looks up.
“Did you mean to do that?”
He doesn’t answer, but helps Leon to his feet. Then he climbs back up into his tree. What… how rude! Forget him then. Then he jumps back down, landing almost on my head. However, I lean back in time.
“Yes I did mean to do that,” he says, looking unhappy. “I might have forgotten to tell you about my healing powers. I’ve always seemed to have them though. That isn’t something that just started or anything.”
“Then why didn’t you heal me when you found me,” I almost scream. “I could have been healed before the doctors had to look at me.”
He shrugs, “I can only do it sometimes. It comes and goes.”
“Then how did you know that it would work with Leon?”
Another shrug. “I didn’t. But it was worth a try. And it worked so…”
I can only stare at him, my mouth sagging open. How could he have hidden this from me? I should have been able to know. “Fine,” I say back, turning my back on him, “whatever. I don’t care what you hide from me.”
“You didn’t ask,” he says to my back. “It’s not like I lied or anything, it just never came up.”
I continue walking, coming to stop underneath Lana and our tree.
Looking up at the sky, I’m relieved to see traces of purple in the darkened clouds. Sunset. Finally.
I take out the cell phone, and the slip of paper dad gave me, and dial the number, smiling up at Lana to let her know I’m okay. She looks worried.
No one is picking up. Is this a wrong number? I cannot deal with a wrong number right now. Finally though, someone picks up, but nobody says anything. I hear breathing though.
“Hello,” I ask in irritation. Whoever is on the other end sighs in relief.
“Kyra.” It’s Michael. I smile, so happy I could cry.
“Are you okay, Kyra? Everyone’s with you, right?”
“ … Yeah.”
I hear some talking and rustling and then my dad is on. “Kyra honey are you okay? Is everyone okay?”
“Yes dad, everyone’s fine.” Lana is suddenly next to me, her face relaxed again.
Dad says something I cannot make out to someone, maybe Michael, and then comes back. “Kyra? Listen to me very carefully. Right now, you’re the leader. You are responsible for all of the kids with you. Even the older ones. I am back at home, but you cannot come back. It’s far too dangerous.”
I say nothing, and he continues.
“Do you remember that park we used to take you to when you were little? The one with all of the animal statues?”
“Yeah… but what-”
“You need to go there. Take all of the kids there okay?
My mind feels like its spinning. “Take the kids to the park? To do what, play on the monkey bars?”
He sighs, acting ever so patient with me. “No… When you get there, there will be a truck, an eighteen-wheeler. It will have the name N&T on it, but that is not a real company; it is just a cover up. Really, it’s your transportation to the secret facility you’re supposed to be going to.”
He pauses to let this sink in, and then continues.
“You are to meet an adult there that will take charge of everything. Whatever happens past that point I have not been informed of. So just be careful, and stay on alert. I love you, we all miss you, and we’ll be in touch soon.” He hangs up.
I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a few seconds before bursting into tears and burying my face in Lana’s shoulder. She stumbles a little under my weight but quickly regains her balance and holds me tight.
She leads me away from everyone else until they are no longer in earshot. “What happened? What did they say?”
I sob louder, not wanting to tell it to anyone, but then decide against it.
“It was my dad… he-he said that I had to take all of the kids to the park.”
“To do what, play on the monkey bars?” Lana sounds so incredulous that I laugh a little bit.
“I know right? That’s what I said too. No, he wants me to… meet some 'adult',” I make air quotes around the word adult, “who’s supposed to take over from there. I’m glad ‘cause then I wont have to take care of all of this by myself.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m not. Not anymore anyway.”
It’s true too. I stopped while I was telling her about it. I pull away from her shoulder and she pulls out a tissue from her pocket [I didn’t know we even had pockets] and wipes my eyes for me.
Then I smooth my hair out and turn to go back, Lana follows me. Ryan is the first to come up to me when we get back. “You okay?”
I brush right past him, still somewhat angry with him for keeping his healing power secret from me.
“Alright everybody! Down out of the trees! Let’s go people, we don’t have all day! Hurry up!”
They all scramble down out of their trees, no one thinking that I’m boring and one guy even falls. The kids all burst out laughing, abruptly stopping when I give them a deadly glare.
I start walking and they follow me, the older kids laughing and gossiping, all while looking in my direction. I roll my eyes. I don’t have time for this crap right now. I am too fed up. Therefore, I settle for talking to Ryan, Lana, Jenna, and Leon. Treyvon is hanging back talking to some girls who seem to be practically worshipping him, and Leon is starting to look a little jealous, so i'm sure to keep them all busy by talking.[color]
Dad jumps up and grabs something from underneath the sofa. A black pouch. Small, but somewhat heavy. He hands it to me, and I can tell he’s trying not to scare me by looking panicked. He looks between Lana and I his face tense.
“Kyra, Lana, you have to get everybody out of here. Go through the back door, and just run until you find someplace where you can hide.” Reaching into his front shirt pocket, he extracts a piece of folded up paper. He gives it to me. “Do not lose that. Read it when you get somewhere safe.”
He hugs me hard, one good squeeze, and then pushes me toward the back. When I don’t move, he practically screams at me, “GO!”
Since Lana looks freaked out also, I take the lead. “Come on people! Follow me!”
I sprint down the hallway, and out of the back door as fast as possible, only stopping once to make sure that everyone’s following me. We run through the shrubs and trees behind the house, keep going past the highway road, and into the woods. Man, I’m glad that it’s still light outside.
When we get far enough, I stop and do a head check. Ninety-six kids all in all, Wow, that’s a lot. Then I remember the paper dad gave me. I open it. It reads:
283-586-9837
Call this number at sunset.
We love you. Everything is going to be okay.
Lana reads it over my shoulder. “With what phone? We don’t have a phone.”
That brings my memory back to the pouch. I take it from Lana and open it. It’s a cell phone. Huh. “Okay. So we do have a phone.”
However, the sky is still as blue as can be. Just great. What am I supposed to do now? I’m in charge of all of these little kids, and a bunch of older kids, neither of which do I know at all…
“Climb up into trees and wait. Find the ones with the biggest branches and tell everyone to climb into them.” The voice.
{Are you serious? I don’t know how to climb trees. Nor do I want to.}
The voice doesn’t answer me back, so I feel compelled to listen to it. I face everyone and cup my hands around my mouth.
“Can I have your attention please? Until sunset, I have been… advised, to have every one of you hide up in the trees. Find the trees with the biggest branches. I want two to a branch okay? All of you older than me get someone younger than you and find a branch for you two. Find your trees now!”
They’re too scared to answer me, so everything gets situated quickly.
Making sure that everyone’s up and comfortable [as comfortable as possible sitting on a tree branch can be anyway] I look at the sky. Still bright blue. Just great.
Now I try to climb our tree. Lana is already up there, and she giggles while watching me. “Well excuse me for not ever climbing a tree in my childhood,” I snap irritably.
“Just focus, and use the pads of your fingers. They stick; it’s cool.”
Sighing, I follow her instructions, and am able to climb up without too much trouble. Her expression gets serious when I sit next to her on the thick branch.
“What’ll happen to our parents? Will they get in trouble? I hope they’re okay.”
I sigh. I really don’t know what to tell her right now. I want someone else to tell me. Lana bites her lip and looks away, knowing not to ask again. I lay my head on her shoulder and she hugs me. We stay like this for a good while before I hear it.
A noise. I stiffen. Sensing it too, Lana gets quiet.
… Footsteps. I put my finger to my lips, signaling all of the kids to be quiet.
Looking down, I’m not surprised at all to see the men from before [the ones in lab coats] patrolling below. This time they have security personnel with them. In addition, the security personnel have tazer rods.
Feeling her move, I glance over at Lana. Scared to death, she is slowly inching her way to the end of our branch. Seeing her almost at the end now, I start to reach over to pull her back, when I hear a bloodcurdling scream from below.
I look down to see one of the little girls being jerked down out of her tree. Leon is with her, so he jumps down after her, but one of the guards hits him with the end of a rod, and I hear the electricity crackle as he flies back, unconscious before he hits the ground.
Without thinking, I leap down out of the tree. “Let her go!”
One of the men turns to me, and I see an ugly bruise on his chin. “Oh! I remember you. So sorry about your face; I didn’t think my shoe would do that much damage. But you did deserve it.”
He sneers at me, not trying to be nice. “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re able to run those tests on you. You though, I’m afraid, won’t be alive to know the difference.”
As if on cue, one of the guards steps forward with a rod. I look at the little girl one of the men is holding. She looks so small and helpless, and scared to death. I glance at the rod being aimed at me, wanting to take it and smash it into all of them at once.
“Use your powers Loli,” says the voice, “don’t think, just defend and attack.”
Nothing the voice has told me has ever failed before, so I listen.
I run forward again and when the guards thrust out their poles toward me, I grab them, not thinking about the consequences.
Instead of getting the same shock that Leon got, it feels like I’m actually absorbing the electricity.
I squeeze the poles, and watch in amazement as they seem to backfire on the guards, and they go flying backwards. I throw the poles to the ground, where they burn a bunch of leaves to crisp black chips.
Smiling, I face the other men. I can see the electricity and hear it crackling around me. How many volts did I take in anyway? Oh well. I guess I can give them one more chance.
“Are you going to let her go? Or are you going to be stupid and get hurt like your friends over there? It’s your choice.”
This time, they set her down carefully, and run, their guards trailing after them.
I go to the girl, kneeling down in front of her. “Are you okay sweetie? Are you hurt?” I’m concerned.
Her face goes blank, and I step back. Her eyes… They’re black from the pupils out to the rims of her eyelids. Does that sound creepy to you? Well it’s even scarier to me, as I’m here.
Her hands start to shake, as if she’s having an attack of some kind. The black start to spread outward from her eyes, to her whole body. It looks as if she has been burned black. The way she is not even blinking, tells me to back up.
She walks over and puts a hand on a tree to steady herself. The spot where her hand is turns black, and spreads, slowly, all the way up the tree. As the tree turns black, all of the black drains out of the girl’s skin.
When all the black is gone out of her and into the tree, she falls to her knees, looking extremely drained of energy. The tree looks dead. I poke it quickly with a finger and the whole thing falls over without any protest.
Gaping, I look down at the girl. She has closed her eyes and is sleeping. A hand closes on my shoulder and I grab it, spinning around and flipping whoever it is over my shoulder.
Ryan hit’s the ground hard. I stare down at him in mortification. Oh no. “I’m so sorry, Ryan! I’m too jumpy right now. I didn’t even hear you climb down.”
He picks himself up and I brush all he leaves off him. He rubs his arm, looking at me in amusement. “I thought I got enough of this when I broke your cell phone. You’re not going to rest until you dislocate some part of my body are you?”
I cover my face with my hands. This is so embarrassing. Ryan picks up the girl, surprisingly gentle and hands her up to some girl in one of the trees. Then he turns to see about Leon, who is still unconscious.
His hands hover above Leon’s head for a few seconds, and Leon opens his eyes and sits up. Just like that. What on the world? Ryan doesn’t look surprised at all. Did he do that? Did he mean to do that?
“Ryan?”
He looks up.
“Did you mean to do that?”
He doesn’t answer, but helps Leon to his feet. Then he climbs back up into his tree. What… how rude! Forget him then. Then he jumps back down, landing almost on my head. However, I lean back in time.
“Yes I did mean to do that,” he says, looking unhappy. “I might have forgotten to tell you about my healing powers. I’ve always seemed to have them though. That isn’t something that just started or anything.”
“Then why didn’t you heal me when you found me,” I almost scream. “I could have been healed before the doctors had to look at me.”
He shrugs, “I can only do it sometimes. It comes and goes.”
“Then how did you know that it would work with Leon?”
Another shrug. “I didn’t. But it was worth a try. And it worked so…”
I can only stare at him, my mouth sagging open. How could he have hidden this from me? I should have been able to know. “Fine,” I say back, turning my back on him, “whatever. I don’t care what you hide from me.”
“You didn’t ask,” he says to my back. “It’s not like I lied or anything, it just never came up.”
I continue walking, coming to stop underneath Lana and our tree.
Looking up at the sky, I’m relieved to see traces of purple in the darkened clouds. Sunset. Finally.
I take out the cell phone, and the slip of paper dad gave me, and dial the number, smiling up at Lana to let her know I’m okay. She looks worried.
No one is picking up. Is this a wrong number? I cannot deal with a wrong number right now. Finally though, someone picks up, but nobody says anything. I hear breathing though.
“Hello,” I ask in irritation. Whoever is on the other end sighs in relief.
“Kyra.” It’s Michael. I smile, so happy I could cry.
“Are you okay, Kyra? Everyone’s with you, right?”
“ … Yeah.”
I hear some talking and rustling and then my dad is on. “Kyra honey are you okay? Is everyone okay?”
“Yes dad, everyone’s fine.” Lana is suddenly next to me, her face relaxed again.
Dad says something I cannot make out to someone, maybe Michael, and then comes back. “Kyra? Listen to me very carefully. Right now, you’re the leader. You are responsible for all of the kids with you. Even the older ones. I am back at home, but you cannot come back. It’s far too dangerous.”
I say nothing, and he continues.
“Do you remember that park we used to take you to when you were little? The one with all of the animal statues?”
“Yeah… but what-”
“You need to go there. Take all of the kids there okay?
My mind feels like its spinning. “Take the kids to the park? To do what, play on the monkey bars?”
He sighs, acting ever so patient with me. “No… When you get there, there will be a truck, an eighteen-wheeler. It will have the name N&T on it, but that is not a real company; it is just a cover up. Really, it’s your transportation to the secret facility you’re supposed to be going to.”
He pauses to let this sink in, and then continues.
“You are to meet an adult there that will take charge of everything. Whatever happens past that point I have not been informed of. So just be careful, and stay on alert. I love you, we all miss you, and we’ll be in touch soon.” He hangs up.
I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a few seconds before bursting into tears and burying my face in Lana’s shoulder. She stumbles a little under my weight but quickly regains her balance and holds me tight.
She leads me away from everyone else until they are no longer in earshot. “What happened? What did they say?”
I sob louder, not wanting to tell it to anyone, but then decide against it.
“It was my dad… he-he said that I had to take all of the kids to the park.”
“To do what, play on the monkey bars?” Lana sounds so incredulous that I laugh a little bit.
“I know right? That’s what I said too. No, he wants me to… meet some 'adult',” I make air quotes around the word adult, “who’s supposed to take over from there. I’m glad ‘cause then I wont have to take care of all of this by myself.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m not. Not anymore anyway.”
It’s true too. I stopped while I was telling her about it. I pull away from her shoulder and she pulls out a tissue from her pocket [I didn’t know we even had pockets] and wipes my eyes for me.
Then I smooth my hair out and turn to go back, Lana follows me. Ryan is the first to come up to me when we get back. “You okay?”
I brush right past him, still somewhat angry with him for keeping his healing power secret from me.
“Alright everybody! Down out of the trees! Let’s go people, we don’t have all day! Hurry up!”
They all scramble down out of their trees, no one thinking that I’m boring and one guy even falls. The kids all burst out laughing, abruptly stopping when I give them a deadly glare.
I start walking and they follow me, the older kids laughing and gossiping, all while looking in my direction. I roll my eyes. I don’t have time for this crap right now. I am too fed up. Therefore, I settle for talking to Ryan, Lana, Jenna, and Leon. Treyvon is hanging back talking to some girls who seem to be practically worshipping him, and Leon is starting to look a little jealous, so i'm sure to keep them all busy by talking.[color]
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