Dana

Chapter Two

I walked out of the house, the sticky note fisted in my trembling hand.

My brother hadn't picked up his phone and I kept dialing his number on my cell phone. I was close to hysterics deep inside. Way deep inside.

I felt lost and had no idea where I was going, the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach growing, spreading throughout my entire body.

My mind kept conjuring up horrifying images of every possible thing that could happen to my helpless mother out there.

She could be lying dead in some alley for all I know.

Stop it Dana! Stop thinking like that, she's probably just wandering around somewhere, lost and unable to find her way back home.

Oh God, she must be so scared. I couldn't imagine what must be going on in her head right now. She must be so confused, disoriented.

Shit, I had to find her.

This was the only thing that kept going through my head, over and over.

Only problem was; I didn't know where to start looking.

With unwanted tears burning at the back of my eyes, I broke into a run and made my way next door to our neighbor's house.

He was a weird guy and lived alone. I was weirdly fond of him, despite the fact that we'd never really talked much. Maybe it was because one of my earliest memories were associated with him.

I was only eight when one night I saw him sitting buck naked on his doorstep, his head in his hands, a yellow flyer covering his neder regions. Because I was an inquisitive child, he informed me of his predicament. How he had locked himself out of his house by accident and his friends had stolen his clothes at a party. Being the good neighbor that I am, I threw him my pink 'My Little Pony' bathrobe and watched fascinatedly as he called each one of his friends to cuss them out.

It had been years since that incident and we'd only spoken a couple of times, besides, I didn't think he knew about my mom. How she was. He was a total hermit.

I rang the bell and waited for him to open the door.

The door swung open and he was standing there, holding an overstuffed sandwich. I saw bits of food stuck in his scraggly beard and gagged inwardly.

"Um, hi," I started unsurely, "Did you by any chance happen to see my mom leave the house today, like during the morning?"

He took a bite out of his sandwich and chewed slowly. I started shuffling my feet impatiently.

"Yeah, I seen her." My head snapped up to see a distant look in his eyes.

Oh thank you, God! I was so relieved. It would be much easier to find her now, she couldn't have gone too far.

"Well? Which way did she go?"

"Uh, you mean the guys that she went with? They were on these totally rad motorbikes-"

My stomach dropped at his words.

"You mean to say she's been kidnapped?" My voice was hoarse.

"Hey, it didn't look like a kidnappin' to me, she climbed up on one of them motorbikes and I'm pretty sure I heard her laughin' too, and then they were all gone, faster than they came. Hell, I think they just took her out for a coffee, don't you worry she'll be back."

"Where'd they go?" I asked hurriedly, ignoring him.

"Well, they went that way towards the other side of town." He pointed with his finger to the northern side, where the abandoned church was. When I said abandoned I really meant neglected.