Photographic Evidence

Chapter Three- Crap, this is bad

Okay readers, I apologize. I haven't updated this one in a whole 6 months! I've been really busy testing for the end of the school year, and doing whatever I did all summer long. I promise to work on this book more! The shoutout for this chapter goes to Sapphire! You know who you are, my pinteresting canadian buddy!

I was deathly scared. I peered out the window again. The big black pickup truck was still sitting in the empty lot across the street from my house. The guy inside the truck looked towards my house, and I ducked my head. I had barricaded all of the doors, ducktaped the windows shut, and prayed he didn't have an axe. Or a blowtorch. Or a sonic screwdriver. Or a lightsaber. Or a wan- okay, I was getting out of hand. Sure, just cause my mom was at the grocery store two towns away (apparently the one here wasn't good enough for her!) and the guy who we'd seen at the cove and who'd come sneaking around in his truck asking my blabby neighbors who I was and where I lived was right outside my house ready to pound his way inside and strangle me, after retrieving my camera's memory card, didn't mean I needed to panic. Oh, who was I kidding? I was definitely panicking! I had called Kyla three times already, giving her updates. Her response had been so much noise that I had to take the receiver away from my ear until she calmed down.

Looking out my window one more time, I crawled into the walk in closet in my parent's room. I climbed up onto the wide shelves, and sat on the top one, my head almost bumping the ceiling seven feet off the floor. This had been my hiding spot from anything bad when I was little. Whether I saw a spider and freaked out, to playing hide-and-seek with my family, I felt safe up here. I had a granola bar in my pocket, and an old water bottle from when I was 5, but that was it. I didn't know how long I would have to stay up here, and I didn't know if I was overreacting or not. I just knew that I was scared. I had my cell phone with me, and was texting Kyla constantly. I don't know how long I stayed up in that closet, but I heard the front door open after what had to have been hours.

"Karlie?" I heard a familiar voice call into the house. "Where are you?" I sighed with relief and got down from my perch. It was my mother, finally home from the grocery store. I peeked out her bedroom window and my stomach immediately lost almost all the anxiety. The truck was gone. I was finally safe. The man had finally given up on me, and was going to live with his actions. I was no longer in harms way.

Looking back on that, I could say that I was stupid, naive, and even go as far to say that I was a pure idiot.

Walking out into the kitchen, I called back to my mom.

"I'm coming! Hey, what's for dinne-" my words were quickly cut off as I saw my mother standing in my kitchen. But she wasn't alone. She was struggling, her hands tied with rope, and a kitchen knife to her throat. A man stood next to her, holding the knife. He had a wicked grin on his face, and that was the moment that I knew I was the biggest idiot on the planet. It was the man after me and my camera. He hadn't gone away. He had kidnapped my mother to get to me.

Call me chicken, call me scared, call me a baby, I don't care. I did the one thing that I hoped desperately would work. I put my hand on my pocket to make sure my camera was still there, and I ran. I ran straight out the back door, hearing footsteps pounding after me. When I reached the gate of the fence surrounding my house, I didn't even bother unlatching it. I stood on the bench and hopped over it. My neighbor, Mrs. Prewett, didn't have any kids, but had an old grumpy cat who just happened to be prowling along on her side of the fence. I quickly stepped on his tail and ran faster, making the cat bolt and the man trip over him. That gave me a little more time. Oh, why hadn't I notified the police sooner? I was only 14, this couldn't be happening to ME. I was scared out of my wits, mind, everything you can be scared out of. And the worst part was, I was getting tired. I couldn't keep running forever, and I knew that he could run a lot longer than I could. How was I supposed to get away? As my sides ached and my breath caught in my throat, I realized; I wasn't.