Stranger Yet

Chapter 1: A Closer Look

Ayra woke with a start. She had had the same dream again. The one that felt real, but she knew it couldn't be.

A large heavy knife was slammed into her hand by a giant of a man she knew in her dream to be her father. Electric blue eyes full of sorrow pierced her green ones. Her hands were small; the hands of a child. The knife looked wrong in those hands. She frantically tried to give the knife back to the man. She could never use it- she could hardly even hold it!

"Emmaleine, take it! I need you to help protect yourself as much as you can!" Em relented. "Get into the cubby." He pointed to the small hole in the wall, the one hidden carefully behind the green loveseat, "Do not come out until you hear the people move away, and then run as far and as fast as you can in the opposite direction." Before Emmaleine could do as she was told, the man dropped down in a crouch and pulled her into his strong arms. His thick black beard rubbed painfully against her cheek. "I love you, always." She hugged him back tightly.

The sounds of the mob got louder. So many people who wanted to hurt her family.

He let go of her and was gone in a flash, out the door and towards the crowd. She could hear her daddies' shouts as he left.

"You think you can handle what I am? What, with your GUNS?" He taunts and laughs. The sound of cracking bones echoed in her ears, followed by deep, guttural growls, moving quickly, farther, and farther away.

The sound of guns firing off and people yelling followed in pursuit. But not everyone followed her daddy. A few tore through the house looking for the rest of the Dire family. Once they were done searching the house, they moved on to the back yard and out towards the lake.

Em's tears were silent. She had been trained for this; her training was barely enough, but it kept her from weeping loudly, like she so desperately wanted to. She waited until she couldn't hear the bad people anymore, and crept out slowly, crawling her way to the door.

The wooden floor creaked softly beneath her. An alarm, no matter how quiet, for her pursuers to follow should they be near enough to hear it. It made her wince.

The fear was almost too much to cope with.

It was darker inside than outside. The full moon shone in a bit through the window, but that dim light through the dense vegetation surrounding the house was barely enough to see by. The light switches wouldn't turn on even if she had wanted to try. Her daddy had cut the wires so the lights couldn't be used to find her. No lights to guide the bad guys to her location, no lights for them to see her by.

Emmaleine moved towards the red door, the one that led to the back porch; the bad men had left it open. She slid out through the open door, but her soft, feathery black hair caught on the splinters of the door frame as she passed through and she gasped when it yanked the hair from her scalp.

"Has the little pup come out to play?" A sing song voice cried out; excitement was evident. This was a sport for him. "We have been looking for you! We were so worried about you, you know?!" Timothy Jones mocked. Timothy was Sammy, her used-to-be-best-friend's, daddy. She looked up right as a light shined into her eyes. Covering her eyes from the light, she darted down the porch steps and to the left of the men rushing towards her, towards the woods beyond them.

There was a path that led to the boat dock by the lake, and she knew if she could reach it, she could hide underneath the dock. It was her best hiding spot when playing with her big sister, Meredith. She had never been found when she used it before.

Laughter rang out behind her. They were enjoying this, and that made it even more terrifying. They were much bigger and stronger than her, but she was fast, and limber, and she knew a shortcut that was easier for someone of her size. She split from the path and darted between thick spruce trees, and leafy maples. She leapt over bushes and brush and scraped her tender skin on sharp branches as she ran. She could hear them struggling through the thickest of it, but always, they were near. she feared they would catch her.