Taken

Chapter Six--DENNY

          We had been walking for a while, en route to Oklahoma City, when all of a sudden the wind started to pick up.  I didn’t think anything of it except that it might mean a storm was coming and that it was annoying me by blowing my hair around. Eventually, though, a haze started to settle over the forest.

          “Is that smoke?” I asked Jeremiah when Haven started coughing.  I picked her up.  “Stick your nose in my jacket.  It may be stuffy, but at least it’s better than breathing this air.”

          She did as I said, as always, and Jeremiah started to head towards the thicker smoke.  I followed, reluctantly, and began to cough a little too.  “We are seriously going towards the fire?” I asked-slash-choked out.

          His face was in his shirt so he didn’t answer, and finally we came to the tree line where we could see the fire.  It was another cabin, and it was billowing out loads of thick black smoke.  A van was parked towards the edge, by the mouth of a gravel road, and the license plate read GOTCHA.  A black van. 

          Jeremiah almost stepped out of the trees when a couple soldiers came around the side and headed to the vehicle but I stopped him.  They were dragging a man by the arms and he was clearly unconscious.  They flung open the doors and threw him in.

          An adult…GOTCHA? An exchanged glance confirmed that I knew Jeremiah and I both knew this could mean finding our parents.  If these were the people who took them, then they were most likely going to the same place.  We both took off in a sprint at the same time as the van peeled out and headed back where they came, but Haven was still on my back so I started to lag behind.

          “I can run faster than you!” Haven insisted so I put her down and found out she wasn’t lying.  She kept up with us well as we flew down the road behind the van.  We didn’t care if they could see us now or not, we kept running, but we didn’t have as much endurance as the vehicle.

          It wasn’t long before they were out of view and we came upon a deserted highway.  I crumpled to the ground in a heap of utter despair.  Everything drained from me at once and I felt like I was hurtling back into my earlier state of hopelessness.  All willpower to stay sane melted away and I began to sob uncontrollably.

          “Oh, Denny,” Jeremiah sighed, running his hands through his shaggy hair.  “Denny, Denny.”  He came and sank to my level, cradling me in his arms. “It’s going to be all right…I’m not leaving you, I’ll always be right here with you…I love you so much, never forget that.  Oh Denny…”

          He wiped the tears from my face and cleared his throat. “Please, stop crying, I promise…” I promise…what? I never found out. I was asleep in no time.

-

          I woke beside the fire.  Haven was curled into me, snoring softly, and I glanced over to Jeremiah, who had a small block of wood and was now chipping at it with pocket knife.  

          “What are you doing?” My voice came out in a croak and he looked up, startled.  Then he grinned.

          “You sound funny Denny-bee.” If it was the day before, I would have laughed and blushed at my old nickname.  Not now, though, not when I was so down in the dumps.  He sensed this, and his face fell.

          “I was hoping it would be a surprise,” he said.  “Since your birthday is coming up and all… I guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

          I didn’t say anything; instead my mind was still far off in the land of memories.  I realized for the first time how much my parents were a part of my life.  Every time I closed my eyes, I could see their smiling faces.  The time I first rode my bike without training wheels, when I kicked my first soccer goal, every time I got home from school.  They were always there, and I hadn’t noticed until they couldn’t be at all.

          I closed my eyes now, not because I was tired, but because I didn’t want Jeremiah to see me cry again.  I hated falling back into a dark pit I couldn’t get out of, tumbling through that black hole that seemed to suffocate you every time you tried to breathe, tried to live.  I wanted my parents back, and most of all I wanted my life back.

          “This really sucks,” is all I said.

          He looked taken aback.  “Well, I mean, I could make you something else…”

          “No, no,” I said, after realizing he still thought we were talking about the carving.  “It’s not about that.  It’s about our situation.”

          “We have to make the best of it, I guess.” He looked up at me then back at the tiny sculpture.

          “What do you mean?”

          “I mean…” He paused, hearing a noise off in the distance.  “All this.” He motioned to the forest buzzing around us, noises that would have scared me a few weeks ago but hardly fazed me now.  “We have to live in the moment, not dwell in the past.  We are trying to find them, Denny. That’s all we can do.”

          I nodded and closed my eyes tight again.  My parent’s faces were there and I could almost hear my mom telling me I could do it, just keep going.  I knew then that wherever they were, I’d have to have some determination to get there and moping around wasn’t helping anything.  So as I drifted off to sleep, I made a promise to not be depressed anymore, because it wasn’t going to get me to my parents. And that was all that mattered to me right then.