The Secret of the Hidden Briefcase

Chapter Seven: Wait, you recognize...

"Run, Jayden!"

Jayden ran, as fast as lighting, away from the cougar. She was running down to the stream, getting ready to jump in when she figured out that the big cat was no longer chasing her.

It was probably a mama. I probably got too close to her kittens, and she was just trying to protect them, thought Jayden.

She decided to find the others and sure enough, they were running after her. They almost had a three-way collision. "Watch where you're running, Jayden!" yelled Ryder.

"I was kinda busy just getting chased by a giant cat that could have mauled me. I wasn't thinking too much about anything else." replied Jayden, also yelling, still in shock that she made it out of that situation alive.

Once they all caught their breaths, Ryder and Jayden started laughing. Alex joined in on the laughter a minute later, which resulted in them all doubling over in laughing fits.

"You know, that is probably not the worst thing that has ever happened to me. My brothers have done some stuff that was pretty closely ranked to what just happened. And speaking of my brothers, we will NOT mention this to them. They would never let me live it down."

"You know, I don't think I even want to know all the things your brothers have done to you." Said Ryder.

"Yahh. Trust me. You really don't want to know."

She did not want to bring up any of the incidents, but she especially did not want to bring up the indoor monkey bar incident.

So, when she was about three years old, her brothers were five and six years old, the boys decided that they needed to play a joke on their little sister. The boys gathered in a circle and talked about ideas. Eventually they came up with one and decided to put that plan into place.

So, her brothers went into her room and got her up. Then, they put a pair of underwear, their underwear, need I say, onto her little head and then they clipped the second pair of underwear, on top of her clothes, to a monkey bar, only 3 feet from the ground, and they started swinging her around.

They did that for 5 minutes before the underwear ripped and poor little Jayden came crashing down. The boys were then singing Humpty Dumpty while Jayden was crying when their dad came out. He asked what happened and then he scolded the boys and sent them to time-out.

Let's just say actions speak louder than words, and her brother's actions proved a lot to her. Besides, that was definitely one of the worst things her brothers had ever done to her. And she was fairly sure that if Ryder ever found out, she would never hear the end of it and she would then be tortured for it, even more than she already was by her brothers, for the rest of her life. So she was not going to let that happen.

She still had not gotten her brothers back for that prank but she sure was scheming up ways to do exactly that. She had many different ideas but none of them seemed anywhere near good enough to get her brothers back for their sick joke. But just like Kelly Clarkson's song, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." And if that was true, then she would have to be super strong by now.

She and her brothers were never told what happened to their mother. Their dad doesn't like talking to them about her. He only said that she was walking on the streets of gold, which could only mean that she was in Heaven, so she had to be dead. Oddly though, Ryder and Alex both don't have their mothers anymore either. And each of their dads basically said the same thing as hers when the boys ask what happened to their moms.

Eventually, they were sure that their dads would come around and tell them exactly what happened to their mothers. But they figured that it hurts their dads just to see their mothers in their teens every day. So that has to be practically unbearable. No wonder their dads don't want to talk about their mothers.

As the boys looked closer at the dog, they saw that it did not have a collar or any identification of any sort. That means that it was either a stray dog, a lost dog, or a dog that was born in the wild. They decided that they would keep the dog with them for now and when their "mission" was over they would try to find an owner or keep him. For now, Jayden decided to call the dog Pounce because of the way it was so silent when following them and because of how it pounced on top of her.

Since they had already hiked pretty far and it was starting to get late, they decided that it would probably be best to start heading back to the tent, and make a quick pit stop at the river so that they boys could wash the dog off while Jayden went a little way away and washed herself off.

Once they got back to the tent, they decided that they needed to check on the cameras. When they checked the cameras and the video feed, they saw some sort of movement. It was a big movement, not something that most animals could make.

As they looked closer, they saw that they were completely off on their guessing skills. It was not a squirrel or even any type of four-legged animal. The movement that they saw was an honest to goodness person. The figure looked like a man, from what they could see, which was only the back of the person and the shoes. 

The person in question wore a forest camo sweater, black gloves, leather boots, a black beanie, and what appeared to be fluffy socks. He started walking away but turned around, looking like he heard a noise. He looked straight at where they were. 

The trio all ducked simultaneously, trying to stay out of the man's line of sight. They wanted to be able to spy on him without him noticing, so that maybe, just maybe, he would do something that he wouldn't do if someone was watching, like plant a bomb or something. 

"Hey, does that guy look familiar to you at all, Alex?" asked Ryder.

"Actually, now that you mention it, yeah, he does look kinda familiar to me. I just can't place him." replied Alex, growing frustrated at the last sentence.

"Wait, you guys recognize him?" Questioned Jayden, managing not to look at Ryder with disgust but instead to look at him with some sort of interest. She was now very serious but quite curious.

"Kinda, Jayden. We sorta recognize him but we can't figure out how and we can only see his back." Replied Ryder.