Chapter Thirty Two

By Chris Fulmer

Kevin's house loomed before him. He smiled to himself. He'd made it home. He bounded up the driveway to the front door. Pulling his spare key out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

"Mom, Dad, I'm home," he called out. There was no response. He shrugged; after all, it was quite possible they were stuck in L.A. or something and... But just then, from the top of the stairwell, there came two deafening gunshot blasts, and in a flash, two bodies tumbled down in front of Kevin. He gasped in the utmost horror; both his parents had been shot through the head!

"No, please, no!" he cried, shaking their bodies. There was no sign of life in them. "Don't leave me!" he pleaded them, "Not now!"

"Don't worry kid, 'cause yer next!" came the short bad guy's sadistic voice. He and his tall partner somersaulted down to where Kevin was standing, machine guns in hand. Kevin took off running as they began firing mercilessly after him. "Ya can run, kid, but ya can't hide!" yowled the tall one in delight.

"Yes I can," Kevin said to himself. He'd spotted the broom closet just around the corner; if he reached it fast enough, he'd be in a blind spot where they couldn't spot him.

He ran for it as fast as he could and dove inside, closing the door behind himself and leaning hard against it.

"Where'd he go now!?" the tall one yelled in frustration.

"You go this way, I'll search upstairs," ordered his partner.

The sounds of their footsteps tapered off. Kevin breathed a huge sigh of relief; he'd outsmarted them again. This feeling was short-lived, however, for when he turned around, he found himself not in the broom closet, but in a large canyon that looked strangely familiar. Puzzled, he reached back to the door, only to find it no longer there.

Now worried, he called out, "Hello?" hoping someone friendly would respond. There was none. Just then a low rumbling, also very familiar, began. Kevin looked upward toward the top of the canyon, where it seemed to be coming from, and saw with horror a giant wildebeest stampede heading straight for him. Somehow he'd ended up in the middle of The Lion King! He shrieked and took off running as fast as he could up the gorge. From now on, he told himself, he'd cut back on movies before going on vacation.

"Go ahead, run little prey, there's no escaping this rush!" came Scar's voice from somewhere behind the stampede, followed by the insane laughter of hundreds of hyenas.

Kevin looked around frantically for an escape--any escape. The leaders of the herd were almost on top of him now. As with the wolves last night, his legs couldn't go any faster, but he had to. Finally, short of ideas, he simply dove behind a large boulder...and found himself falling down a long hole toward seemingly the center of the earth.

After what seemed like an eternity, he crash-landed on what turned out to be his own bed. Dazed, he looked up at the hole he'd fallen down--only to see it too had disappeared suddenly. He did, however, see a more gruesome sight--his siblings stuck up on the wall, blood dripping everywhere, as dead as his parents. Screaming, he dove under the bed--and jumped back inches from the edge of a deep pit with something eerie-looking at the bottom...

"So, ya like our handiwork, kid?" came the short bad guy's evil chuckle from right behind him. Before Kevin could react, the two of them had shoved him into the pit, exclaiming, "Happy landing, kid!" Kevin grabbed onto a vine about halfway down.

Feeling a brush of heat, he glanced down to see the object at the bottom--near clearly visible as a coffin with his name on it--open up in a violent explosion of flame. Panicked, he scrambled up the vine as fast as he could. The flames leaped high and brushed against his feet.

"Oh no ya don't, not this time!" yelled the tall bad guy. He and his buddy lowered their guns down the pit and shot Kevin a dozen times before he get out of the way. He moaned in agony and released his grip on the vine, falling down toward a fiery grave....

Kevin jerked up in bed breathing heavily. It had all been nothing more than a bad nightmare. He saw the sun shining through the window and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"You OK there, Kevin?" came Danny's voice from his right, "You were convulsing pretty bad there."

"Yeah, I'm fine now, just a bad dream," Kevin said, taking deep breaths.

"Good, because we've got a big problem," Kayla said, sounding panicked, "Skylar's gone!"

"Where?" Kevin asked. Owing to how he and Skylar had been at odds all yesterday, he really didn't consider this too much of a tragedy.

"I don't know, sometime in the night when we were all asleep."

"Well I'm sure he's just fine, anyway, we don't really need him to get where we're going, not after how he nearly got us locked up all the time yesterday," Kevin said quickly. He slid to the floor. "Come on, we'd better get a move-on if we want to get closer to Chicago today."

"But Skylar could be in trouble, and he might need us!" Kayla protested.

"Kayla, don't take this the wrong way, but he's been nothing but a nuisance to both you and us," Kevin told her. "We're better off without him, honestly."

"But he's like a brother to me!"

"Oh come on, what has he ever done nice to you?"

"Kevin, PLEASE let's find him!" Kayla pleaded him. Kevin looked deep into her eyes, which were being torn up with tears. He felt ill inside, like he was the Grinch taking presents away from an innocent Who child. "Come on Kevin, where's your Christmas charity?" a voice in his head screamed at him. "Oh all right, we'll go look for him," he said in resignation.

"Thank you," Kayla hung her arms around his neck.

"I think I can see some footprints out in the snow," Danny said, looking out the window.

'Which way are they headed?" Kevin asked him.

"Toward the woods to the east...at least I think it's the east."

"Let's go have a look then," Kevin waved for them to follow him downstairs. Once outside in the snow, he examined the footprints thoroughly. Apparently Skylar had been hoping to make a quick jaunt through the woods to a town or something--if Kevin's logic was correct--but from his first impression of the woods, it would be a long jaunt, and judging from how cold it had been last night, it was quite possible that Skylar had frozen to death in the woods. He was ready to tell the others of the unfortunate likelihood of this, when all of a sudden Kayla screamed, "THERE HE IS!!!" Kevin, who had been lost in thought and hadn't noticed anything else around, became aware of a police siren wailing nearby, and, looking up, noticed in a split second Skylar's face plastered against the side window of a police cruiser roaring by on a road he hadn't even noticed the night before just inches away from where he was standing, screaming something Kevin couldn't make out. In that split second, he also noticed the expression on Skylar's face: pure fear and distress. Once again, his heartstrings were tugged at as the cruiser roared off down the highway. For a moment he was quiet. Then came the words he'd thought he'd never say in such a situation: "FOLLOW THAT CAR!!!"

"How?" Danny inquired, "There's no way we'll be able to catch him on foot!"

Kevin saw a truck coming at a rather slow rate of speed. "Everybody jump like a kangaroo for the back of that truck!"

"But Kevin..." Kayla began. Kevin knew he didn't have time to hear whether her comment would be positive or negative; the next car might not be for another half hour or so. Taking her hand, he dashed for the back of the truck and took the biggest leap he could. He hit the side of the rear bumper hard, but managed to grab on to it.

"Wait for me!" screamed Danny who missed his mark and hit the road.

"Grab on!" Kayla extended her hand toward him. Danny poured on the afterburners and just managed to grab a hold of it. Kevin groaned under the added weight but somehow managed to pull them all into the back of the truck, whose driver apparently hadn't noticed them. "Let's hope this is the last time we have to do something like that again," he said after a couple deep breaths.

"But what if this thing isn't going where they're taking Skylar, Kevin?" Danny inquired.

"I don't know, I'm making this up as I go!" Kevin told him. "As long as we hear the siren, I think we'll be fine." He slid down against several sacks filled with produce of some kind. Having seen the expression on Skylar's face moments before had instilled in him some kind of burning desire in him to get his comrade in youth out of custody. He didn't know why he now suddenly felt sympathy toward someone like Skylar who'd treated him with at best grudging acceptance since they'd first met yesterday morning, but he wasn't about to argue with his instincts. Not now, anyway.