Goner

Chapter Three~ The Day After Dawn

     Adria woke up the others. "Hey, guys I made you some breakfast if you would like some help yourself." They got up and got a serving and sat back down. Tyler looked at Nial and started to talk. "So what's the plan now, we escaped but they have to be looking for us?" Nial looked at him. "Two of us will go into town and see what is out there for us and get some more food and stay here until it's safe."
"How is this safe?" Said Layne confused. Adria looked at him and said reassuringly, "We won't be here for long we will just be here until we find out more information on you guys." "No longer than that I promise guys, we will get out of here," Nial said. "So who's going to town?" Said Tyler as he looks to see who was going to volunteer. "Well, I will go with Layne, if you up to it?" Nial said looking over at him. "Yeah, I'll go with you but, what do we do to make sure that we don't get caught?" He said wondering what we are going to do. Nial looks over at Adria to see if she has an idea. "I still have some of my dad's old clothing if you guys want to borrow those." She said as she stood up. Nial looked over to Layne and they both agreed.
They walked upstairs and she handed they her dad's old clothes and they changed. "You two just look like gentlemen." She said as they walked downstairs. They both looked at each other and laughed. "Now Tyler and I will fix up the house while you two are gone, and don't take too long you don't want to worry me." She said concerningly. "We won't take too long we promise," Nial said as they walked out the door.
It takes them an hour to reach the town after looking for it forever. Nial looked at Layne, "Just stay near me and we will be fine." Layne looked at him and said, "Yeah, but what are our names?" "I say, James and Theo?" I said happily as they walked into the town. "Stay with me ok?" Nial said as he looked at Layne. "Yeah, got it." He said as they started walking into town. "So what all are we going to get here?" He said. "Some groceries and watching the news and maybe some new clothes," Nial said as they walked into the closest diner. The tv was on. A lady walks up to them. "Pace's diner, how many do you think will be joining you today?" Nial looked at her. "Uhhh, just us two ma'am." She looked at them with a smile. "Ok, you two can follow me right this way please." They followed her to their table.
"What can I get you two to drink?" "We will both take root beer," Nial said nicely. She walked away. "Several kids escaped the Pediatric psychiatric center from what they say was a power outage, some of them were found but many have been said to be on the run. If you see any of these kids around your area please call the number on your screen." said the news reporter. The lady brought them back their drinks and they ordered their food and the other food as well to take home.
10 minutes later...
"Ok Layne we can't stay here any longer, sorry," Nial said as they got up to go pay for their food. "Well, you didn't stay long?" Said the cashier. "Yeah, we have somewhere to be," Nial replied as he paid for their food. "Y'all have a great day now." Said the cashier as they walked out.
"Ok so now it's time to go get groceries and then go home," Nial said as they walked across the street to go to the store. Nial handed Layne the list of groceries that they needed to get and started walking around to find them. They started finding things but there was this man that kept following them around. Nial thought that they were fine at first but then he started to get suspicious. So he took Layne to the bathroom. "Hey, why are we going in here?" He asked. "I saw someone that kept following us, so I decided to go in here for a minute," Nial said as he started to have a panic attack.
"Hey, dude we're going to be fine," Layne said as he started to rub his back. "Nothing is going to happen to us ok? Just breathe." He said. Nial started to calm down. "Ok, let's keep shopping and get out of here," Nial said as he started to calm down. They continued to get the rest of the things that they needed and headed to the checkout. "Did you find everything, ok guys?" The lady said to them. They both nodded. "Good, that will be $87.43." She said. Damn, that's a lot of money but it will last us for a good time... Nial handed her the money. But all of a sudden that guy was standing next to them. They grabbed the groceries and left, they started to walk back to Adria's house.
Then all of a sudden someone grabbed Nial's shoulder. "Hey!!!" He said and then it was that guy. He looked at Nial and said. "I know who you are."Oh no we are going to have to go back!!!! What do I do?  "You do sir?" Nial asked. "Yeah, you used to work at the old store down the street, uhh what was it called again... Oh!!! It was called Frankie's." He said. "Um sorry, sir but you've got the wrong person," Nial said with relief. He looked over at Layne and he was flushed pale. "Oh sorry for the inconvenience, you just look like someone I used to know. You the old brain get in the way sometimes." He said. They started to laugh. "Well, you have a great day you two." He said as he walked away.
     "We-l-l-ll that was close." Said Layne nervously. "Ok let's get back before Adria starts to worry," Nial said as they walked back. They finally got back as if it felt like years to get back and it was nighttime. "Thank god, your back. I was starting to get worried about you guys." She said as they walked into the abandoned building. "Yeah, we got stopped by this older guy." Said Layne. "What happened?" She said as she started getting the groceries out of the bag and started to cook supper.
     They told her everything. "Well, that would have scared all of us if we would have been in that situation." She said. "Now you guys go upstairs and get changed while I finish supper." She said as they got up to go upstairs. They changed into some of the clothes that Adria laid on the floor. They went back downstairs to the room smelling like chili. "Smells great in here Adria," Nial said. "Thank you, now eat up." She said as she handed all of them a bowl.
30 minutes later...
     After what seemed like hours of laughs and a good time they finished eating. Nial got up and started washing the dishes with the distilled water that they picked up from the store. "Thanks," Adria said with a smile. "No problem it's the least I can do, after all, you did do all of the cooking," He responded. "Now you go get changed yourself." Sue walked upstairs. The guys helped him dry the dishes off and put them away.
      "Alright time to hit the sack, I'll blow out the candles and will be up in a minute, who's taking the first watch?" Nial said. "I guess I will since I slept all night," Tyler responded. "Thanks," Nial said as he started walking towards the kitchen candles to blow them out. He walked around the house blowing out all of the candles and started to walk upstairs. Finally, I can get some sleep, I'm ready for this today was a long ass day and tomorrow will be even longer...
     Then the front door opened. Who the fuck could this be, shit I thought this was abandoned...  He quickly ran upstairs to the rest of them. "Someone just came in the front door," I said. Adria looked at him. "Who the fuck could be here I'm the only one that knows that this place is still in good enough condition to run it, here follow me this way." She said as they walked into a room and shut the door. She stood at the door to see a light coming up the stairs. She looked at them. "Ok don't do anything I will handle this." She said as she grabbed a bat that was next to the stairs. "When I walk down the stairs you guys stay up here, but if you hear anything that makes me sound in danger someone come help me." Nial looked at her. "Ok," He said.
     "On the count of three. 1... 2... 3..." she ran down the stairs and they stayed put, It was silent. There was no noise or anything. Nial walked down the stairs. A man was standing the with a candle in his hand just looking at her in shock, then they all knew why when he said, "Adria what are you doing here?""Who the hell are you? and how do you know her?" Nial said confused. Adria turned around "this is my dad." She said. "What the fuck, look we can't be here if he even knows we are here anywhere we came from," He said as he started to pack his shit up. "Look he's fine he's not going to say anything Nial." She said looking at him. "The guys and I can't take this kind of chance, we can't go back there who knows what the hell would happen to us," He said starting to freak out. "He could go say something to anyone and we end up back in there." Adria walked over to him and touched his face. "He's not going to do anything ok? You're going to be fine." He took her hand off his face. "No, we can't risk it. Come on guys we are leaving I thought we could trust another member but I was fooled." He said as he grabbed his stuff and walked out.
     She ran after him. "Wait please don't go, he won't say a word he wasn't the reason I was in there he tried to stop them." She said as she started to cry. He continued to walk. "Look he can help us out of this situation and we can get back to our normal lives." He stopped dead in my tracks and turned around. "Back to our normal lives.... are you kidding me? Do you think that three guys could ever go back to our normal lives? We were thrown in there for a reason our families thought that we were batshit crazy and we needed help. We are now nothing to them. You might be able to go back to your normal life because your dad is here, but the three of us, we will always be on the run." He said and waved at the guys to continue walking with him.
     She stopped and turned around and went back to her house. "Well, where are we going to go now?" Tyler asked. "I don't know yet, all I know is we need to go back home and figure this shit out," He said as they continued to walk. Of course, I trusted someone again and we got into a stupid situation. Why do I always do this to us? Why do I always have to be this fucking dumb? "Hey, dude are you ok?" Layne asked him.
Nial didn't even realize that he was next to him. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just put us in that kind of situation again and I hate when I do it. I'm sorry guys." He said as he looked down. "Dude we all do that sometimes you were just trying to find us a way out, cheer up the main thing we have to focus on right now is like you said getting back home." He said with a smile.
Yeah now, where do we go to stay and how do we get home... "So how much money do we got?" He said as he looked at them. They put it together. Layne counted it all up. "There isn't much but it might be enough for a hotel." Shit, we forgot the stuff we bought at the store great. "Well let's keep walking, Layne and I went to a town close to Adria's house earlier they had a hotel there," He said as they continued to walk.
After what felt like days they made it to the town. They walked to the hotel and walked in. Nial took a look at the time it was 12:51 p.m. They walked up to the lady and asked for a room. The room ended up being $80. Which was a lot of our money but not all of it. They began to walk up the stairs and then all of a sudden a car pulled up and Adria got out of the car.
What the hell was she doing here? First, how would she know where we were and second I told her to leave us alone... "Hey guys you go ahead and go to our room I'll be up in a minute," Nial said. They both looked down and noticed who was there and continued walking up the stairs into our room. He walked down the stairs up to her. "What the hell do you want I told you to leave us alone I can't trust you anymore Adria." "Look I know what you said but you guys can trust my dad he can get us the hell out of the mess that your families put you in." She said. "You might be able to get out of the situation you got put into but we can't, we are forever alone together with no one to care for us." She looked at him. "My dad and I can change that for you Nial." She said as she grabbed his hand. He pulled away
"No, I don't need you living on the run like we have since we were 10. You can settle down and have a life with your dad, you guys can't fix what we did." They both looked at each other. But what other options do we have.....