Shadows in the Dark (11 page)

I decided that, instead of walking
next to the highway, I should hitch a ride. Sure, it’s not the
safest thing. But I can take care of myself, considering what I can
do.

Before sticking my thumb out at
the side of the road like a bum, I looked back to see how many cars
were driving past. Not a lot, but not a little. Sighing, I stuck my
thumb out and walked backwards.

For the longest time, people just
stared at me and drove past without a care in the world. Now I knew
what it felt like to be a hitchhiker. Let me tell you, it’s not the
best.

An hour past and no one had
stopped to hitch me a ride. People nowadays are jerks, huh? I
understand stranger danger, but come on! Really? An
hour?

I started to sweat as the sun had
just started to hit its highest point in the sky. My legs were on
the breaking point of snapping. My arm was getting tired from being
stuck out for as long as it had been. I was about to give up. But
as I turned forward to give up the whole hitchhiking thing, I heard
the sound of a car pulling up behind me.

I turned around, only to see a car
parked right there, a nice, old lady sitting in the driver’s seat
with a big smile on her face. A huge smile appeared on my face.
Finally. Someone with feelings.

I walked over to the passenger's
side and knocked on the window. The old lady opened the window with
the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. She gave a small wave, and I
waved back.

“
Need a ride, miss?” she asked. I
nodded my head, still having that stupid smile on my
face.

“
You’re the first person to even
consider it since I started doing this over an hour ago.” The lady
gave me a sympathy filled look and shook her head.

“
Oh,” she said, “that’s horrible.
Here, hop in. I’ll take you anywhere you want.” I opened the door
and sat in the passenger seat. The instant cooling of air
conditioning made me feel amazing. My legs thanked me as I finally
got off of them.

“
You have no idea how much this
means to me, miss,” I told her. She giggled a little.

“
You’re just a little girl,” she
said. “You seem like no danger at all.” I scoffed to myself. If
only she knew what I really was.

“
I don’t really have a certain
place I want to be,” I said. “I just want to be anywhere but here.”
I saw her smile from the side of my eyes.

“
Ah,” she said.
“You’re one of those people. I used to be like that.” She drove
back onto the highway and drove off down the road. “Don’t worry.
You’ll see where you want to be really soon. Same thing happened to
me.”
I couldn’t comprehend how nice this woman was. Why can’t everyone
else be like her? I looked out the window as we drove down the
road, me knowing nothing about where she was going. But it didn’t
bother me. Like I said. Anywhere is better than here.
The woman turned on the radio and started listening to some talk
show. It kind of made me laugh a little. For a while, we had small
conversations every few minutes. She seemed like a really good
person, not mentioning the fact that she had picked me up off the
road without knowing anything about me.
She tried to learn more about me, and I had no problem answering
her. I just left out the big stuff. Like how I can move things with
my mind. Yeah, it’d be smart to leave that out.
“Where are
you
going?” I asked her. She smiled at me and sighed.
“Well,” she said, “I’m like you. I’m just out for a drive. Then I
just happened to stumble upon you, and now I’m going where you’re
going.”
“So, you’re just driving for the hell of it?” I asked. She smiled
and nodded her head. I liked this woman. She seemed like someone
who just does what they want.
After ten minutes, we ended up driving through a small town. The
old lady sighed and looked over at me.
“It seems I have to stop for gas. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I said. She pulled into a small gas station and
stepped out of the car. I stayed seated, watching her as she walked
into the gas station and paid for one of the gas pumps. I looked
over and noticed that the side of the town led to the woods.
I started looking and watching animals poke their heads out and go
right back in. It was kind of adorable. One deer stepped all the
way out and looked around. It stayed on the borderline of the
trees, staying out of the road. Then its ears perked up and it
looked back. It scurried away and vanished into the trees. What
scared it? There were no cars in sight. Then, two kids walked out
from the trees and looked around.

Both of them looked beat up. One
of them had cuts on his face, while the other had some bruises.
What were they doing? Then I noticed something. One of them was
Luke.
What the hell was Luke doing walking out of the woods? Why was he
all the way out here? I stepped out of the car and watched as Luke
and his friend crossed the road and walked towards the gas station.
Luke seemed paranoid, looking around every few seconds. But his
friend seemed pissed, looking like he was trying to ignore
everything Luke was saying.
When they got to the other side of the road, Luke finally noticed
me standing by the car. His facial expression quickly changed from
scared to shocked. He seemed just as surprised as I was. He left
his friend and quickly walked over to me. His friend stared at him
confused, then saw me. Then he just seemed to get annoyed.
“Karen?” Luke said as he walked over to me. “What the hell are you
doing here?”
“I could as you the same thing,” I said. “What happened to you? Why
were you in the woods?” Luke looked over at his friend who had just
walked up and looked at me.
“Well...” Luke started. “It’s a long story.” His friend tapped his
shoulder, and he turned around. His friend sighed.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Umm...” Luke looked at me, then back at his friend. “This is a
girl from my school. Her name is Karen.” Nick was about to say
something to me, but Luke pulled him over to the side and said
something to him. I looked back to see what the lady was doing. She
was standing at the doors, watching me and smiling.

“
You never
answered me,” Luke said as he walked back over to me. “What
are
you
doing
here?” I crossed my arms and gave him a straight answer.
“I felt like running away. I didn’t feel like staying where I was.
So, now I’m here, watching you walk out of the woods with cuts on
your face and Mr. Bruises over there.” His friend smirked at me and
patted Luke on the back.
“I like this chick,” he said. “Hey, you seem a little shaken up.
Why?” I looked at my reflection in the car window. I did look
shaken up.
“Well,” I said. “I was at a diner, and as I was leaving, a guy
chased me. But I think I imagined it. I haven’t slept in a while.”
His friend looked at Luke and back at me.
“What’d he look like?” Luke asked. I started tapping my foot,
trying to remember anything about him. But all I could remember is
that stupid hoodie of his.
“Don’t know,” I said. “He was wearing a gray hoodie and had the
hood over his head. I couldn’t see any part of his face.” Luke’s
eyes widened, along with his friend’s. They both looked at each
other, looking worried.
“Did the guy do anything weird?” his friend asked. I sighed and
kind of scoffed.
“As I was running away from him, his footsteps seemed to get
louder. A lot louder. It felt like they were in my head.” Luke
stiffened up. “It hurt a lot, and I toppled over and covered my
ears. But I could still hear it. The footsteps finally stopped, but
when I looked up, he was gone.” Luke’s friend ran his fingers
through his hair and scoffed. Luke leaned against the car, seeming
as though he was in disbelief.
“Karen,” he said. “Can you... do anything? Like, anything
different?” They both stared at me.
“Umm... what do you mean ‘different’?” I asked. His friend sighed
and looked around.
“Different,” he said, “like this.” He walked over to me and stuck
his hand in front my face. At first, it was weird. Then, before I
knew it, a flame appeared out of nowhere in the palm of his hand. I
gasped and backed away, staggering and grabbing the hood of the car
for support.
“How did you-”
“We’re different, Karen,” Luke said. “Nick and I both.” The kid,
Nick, closed his hand, making the fire disappear. “Yesterday
morning, in the town on the other side of the woods, the guy you
mentioned attacked us. He was different too.” Nick shoved his hands
in his pockets.
“We feel like he attacked us because we were different,” he said.
“So, Karen. Are you different?” I looked around, then at them
both.
“I... uh...” I gulped, not really sure what to say. “I can... I can
move things with my mind.” Nick smiled, but Luke stared at me,
wide-eyed.
“Well, what do you know,” Nick said. “We found someone with
Telekinesis.” I looked at Luke. He was still
staring at me.
“What can you do?” I asked him. Nick looked back at Luke, but Luke
didn’t reply.
“Mr. Luke,” Nick said, “can shoot lightning from his hands. It’s
pretty badass.” He leaned against one of the gas pumps. “I, on the
other hand, can make fire appear out of thin-air.” He displayed it
for me one more time, making a flame appear in his hands, then
making it vanish.

“Luke?” I said. He sighed.
“Can you control it?” he asked. I sighed a little.

“No. Not really.
The only times I can recall doing it were when your dumb girlfriend
pissed me off.” Luke got wide-eyed again. “Yeah, the whole
‘floating cheerleader’ thing was me. But it was an accident.”
“Well,” Nick said, “from past experience and from what you and Luke
told me, anger seems to be one gigantic trigger to our ‘specialty’.
Luke and I can control it. So, I’ll just say this. All you have to
do it
focus
and
stay calm.
If you freak out, you won’t be able to focus and your ability
will lose control.”

“So,” Luke said. “Are you going to
come with us? Or are you going to stay with the old lady over
there?” He pointed at the gas station doors and I looked back. The
lady was still standing there, smiling and watching.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It
depends on where you two are going.” Luke and Nick looked at each
other and shrugged.

“We don’t really
know either,” Nick said.

“Well,” Luck started, “I really
feel like finding this ‘hooded guy’. I want to know what he’s up to
and why he’s following us.” Nick nodded his head.

“Now that I think about it, so do
I.” They both looked at me.

“So, Karen,” Luke said. “Are you
in or out?” I looked back at the lady, and she was already waving
her hand at me, saying goodbye. I smiled and waved back at her. She
walked off farther into the gas station, leaving my sight. I then
turned around at Nick and Luck and smiled.

“I’m in.”

.....

Karen

I didn’t know if
going with them was the smartest thing. But it felt right. They
were like me. Well... not
completely.
But they were “special”.
I wasn’t completely used to it, but I was getting by. As we walked
through the trees, back to where Luke and Nick came from, they
didn’t really talk. It was just silent almost all the way
through.

Even when they did talk, they
didn’t talk about our “specialty”. They talked about normal teen
things. Like friends that they left behind, or old memories with
family. They acted as though nothing had ever happened.

Nick looked up at the sky and
sighed.

“Looks like it’s gonna be dark
soon, and it’s still a pretty long way to where we came from.” Luke
sighed in frustration, knowing what Nick was going to say. “We’re
gonna have to sleep out here. It’s too dark once the sun goes down.
We won’t be able to see.”

“But,” I said, “can’t you make a
fire that would lead us the way?” Luke scoffed.

“Can’t take any
chances of being seen, apparently,” he said. “Get ready to have the
worst night of sleep that you will ever have.” Nobody said anything
after that. We just kept walking for as long as we could. Then, the
sun was close enough to being gone.

Nick sat against a tree and
offered to take watch. Luke slowly laid down in the dirt and turned
to his side, attempting to sleep. I looked around and found a nice
enough patch of grass to lay on, awkwardly laying on my back as I
stared up into the sky. I laid there for a while, watching the
sunlight drift away like an ocean shore and see the stars slowly
become visible in the night sky. That’s where I drifted off to
sleep.

I didn’t remember having a dream,
or let alone cared. When I woke up, it was dead silent. I slowly
sat up from the patch of grass, and saw that I was alone. Luke and
Nick weren’t anywhere in sight.

I quickly stood up and looked
around, but I couldn’t see anything. A thick fog had surrounded me
and made it nearly impossible to see ten feet in front of me. Then,
I heard a twig snap from behind me. I quickly turned
around.

“Hello?” I called out. “Luke?
Nick? Are you there?” For a second, no one answered. But a familiar
voice made me relax faster than anything.

“It’s okay, Karen. It’s me.” From
the fog, Anna walked out and stopped a few feet away from me,
smiling an adorable smile.

“Well,” I said, “I left. Now what
do I do? Where do I go now?” Anna giggled.