In the Dark

|Chapter One|

We moved from a big city to a small town in the northwest. My parents thought it would be safer here, but look where it got me.

My name is Hailey and I'm 13 years old. I have grown up with parents who are overly protective and always are lecturing me about how unsafe the world is, and how evil really does exist. I quietly listen as they lecture me and I appear to be obeying them, but I really just think they are too old to even remember what it is like to be a teenager. But sometimes I have to admit I find myself worrying about predators kidnapping me late at night especially when I think I hear noises outside my bedroom window. Maybe it's just the corrupt things they put in my mind to scare me so I will stay at home more often, but I'm not really sure.

I live in this really cool house that looks more like a huge tree house surrounded by a dark forest. I have two soft coated wheaten terriers who are two cute to be scary to intruders, but they do have a mean sounding bark. They bark at every sound in the night when the coyotes howl in the forest, but somehow they forget to bark when our jeep is broken into in the front driveway. As unpredictable guard dogs, I know they aren't going to protect me if an intruder ever breaks in my home. I don't know why I worry as much as I do about bad things happening, but I do think it's not the normal kind of worries a 13 year old should be having. Sometimes it's even hard for me to go to sleep at night. I try to remind myself that I'm safe as long as I'm at home and my parents are here to protect me.

Every day, it was the same old thing. Getting ready for school, going to a long boring day at school, then coming home and doing homework, then going to sleep. Then, I got a weird feeling that I never experienced before. You know that feeling where you feel like someone is watching you? Well, I felt that.

Slowly, I got up from my bed and looked out the window. It was pitch black. I couldn't see anything at all. Maybe I was just imagining things.

I heard a sound. It sounded like someone was rubbing their nail against a chalk board.

"Mom, is that you?!" I shouted.

No answer.

I grabbed the home phone. I don't have my own cell phone because my parents keep telling me I'm too young. There better not be some creep near my house because the police wouldn't come. See, since I don't live in the city, if I ever called the police, it would take them almost an hour to get to my house and they would only send a sherif. Don't ask me why I'm living here. I don't see how it's 'safer' here when the police wouldn't even come.

I dialed my moms phone. Where is she?

No answer.

That's right, I just remembered she told me she was going on a date night with dad tonight. What a great night to leave when your daughter (me) is hearing sounds.

I heard it again. That sound. What was that? My dogs just started barking very loud. Great, I left them outside. Mom is going to kill me if she knows I forgot to bring them in at night.

I grabbed my sandals and opened the back door. I shouted their names.

"Buddy!" "Binky!"

I grabbed a flashlight from inside the house and went outside again. It was pitch black. I looked around. I couldn't find them anywhere. Where did they go?

I went deeper into the forest, looking for my dogs. Finally, I think I see them. They are near a tree barking at me. I walked towards them. Luckily, I found them. I grabbed them by their collars.

"Hailey?" I heard a voice that came across like a whisper.

"Mom?" Was that her? She wouldn't be out here in the forest. She was on a date night with dad. Then who did I just hear?

I felt a sharp pain on my head. I took one last glance around me. My dogs were running away towards the house.

I couldn't stay conscious for long. What was that? I felt myself getting sleepier.

"Why, aren't you a pretty little thing. I got a good one."

Then, everything around me collapsed into darkness.