Gone (Parallel Trilogy, Book 1) (3 page)

I pulled the object out of the cupboard and turned toward the meager light coming in from the small windows on either side of the front door and confirmed my suspicions.

“Yes,” I whispered. “A lantern.”

Next, I needed to find some matches. I set the lantern on the table and turned back to the wall of cabinets and drawers. Handles along the drawer fronts made the drawers easy to pull open. Removing my gloves to better feel, I reached toward the open drawer. Fearing spiders might be hiding inside, I stopped and leaned down, then blew a puff of air into the open drawer, hoping to scare off any insects. A cloud of dust went up my nose and I coughed. Pointing one finger downward into the drawer, I quickly touched the bottom of the drawer before pulling my hand back. Nothing bit me so I reached my whole hand inside and felt around. Small, hard pellets were sprinkled in the bottom.

“Eww, mouse droppings.”

Swallowing my disgust, I ventured farther. Cobwebs caught in my fingers and I had to force myself to keep exploring. My fingers reached all the way to the back, but found nothing. I pulled open the second drawer and carefully explored it. Just as I was about to give up I felt a small box. I lifted it out and held it close to my face. Matches! A smile lifted the corners of my mouth as I slid the box open and pulled out a tiny stick.

I brushed the match against the rough side of the box and was rewarded by a bright flame. Carrying the burning match to the table, I used it to help me examine the lantern. It looked like it was in good shape, although it was coated with a thick layer of dust. I was suddenly grateful for the many times the power had gone out and Dad had made me learn how to light the lantern.

The match burned out and I picked up the lantern

First, I gently shook it and heard liquid sloshing around, confirming the presence of fuel. Then I pumped the knob to force the gas to fill the line. Last, I lit another match and inserted it through the small opening at the base of the glass, lighting the fragile mantle that hung inside. It caught and I withdrew the match before blowing it out. Then I turned the knob on the lantern to release more gas, brightening the flame.

Calmness washed over me as darkness fled. I lifted the lantern by the handle and explored the room. It was a little smaller than my bedroom, but less cluttered. Along one wall were the cabinets, where I had found the lantern and matches. In a corner sat a rocking chair that looked like it had seen better days. Against the opposite wall sat a bare cot. But the item that made me close my eyes in anticipation was the wood burning stove squatting on the floor in the far corner.

Carrying the box of matches with me, I walked to the stove, set the lantern on the floor and pulled on the cast iron door. The hinges creaked and I frowned when I saw nothing but a few cold ashes scattered at the bottom of the stove. I looked on the far side of the stove and smiled when I saw a small stack of wood in a neat pile. Old newspapers lay next to the wood.

Who does this place belong to? I wondered. I didn’t really care—I was just grateful it was here.

I had seen my dad build fires in our fireplace many times and figured it couldn’t be that difficult to get a fire going. After placing a few logs in the stove, I scrunched up some pages of the newspaper and pushed them under the logs. I lit a match and held it to the edge of a newspaper, which quickly caught fire, but the logs remained stubbornly unlit. Stuffing more newspapers into the stove didn’t seem to help like I thought it would.

Sighing, I stood and picked up the lantern, then began a careful search in the immediate vicinity of the stove, looking for something that might give me an idea. Finally, I found it. A fireplace poker.

I set the lantern back down and used the poker to move the smoldering newspaper around. Gently blowing on the embers as I added a few more newspapers didn’t give me the result I’d been trying for and discouragement began to get the better of me.

Dad made this look so easy. Picturing him lighting a warm fire in our living room fireplace made me suddenly miss my family. As I thought about their reaction to finding me missing, I didn’t feel good anymore; not even when I thought about Mom. I felt guilty and wished I had a way to let them know I was okay.

I wondered if they would call the police and have them out looking for a boy named William. I felt stupid for the lie I’d told Amy and wished I would have thought this through.

Well, I’m stuck here for now, I thought. I’d better deal with it.

I turned my attention back to the wood-burning stove. The newspapers had gone out completely. Using the poker, I pushed them to the back of the stove. This time when I wadded up the newspapers, I made sure to do it loosely. Repositioning the wood, I carefully placed the newspaper around and under the wood before lighting another match.

As the flames from the newspaper licked the firewood, I held my breath, afraid the logs would still refuse to burn. The flame seemed to shrink and I quickly added two more newspaper wads, which helped the flames grow. Suddenly I heard crackling as the logs caught fire.

Relief pulsed through me as the beginnings of warmth emanated from the stove.

Soon the chill began to seep from my body and warmth took its place. I fed more logs into the fire and made sure they were blazing before closing the door to the stove. Dragging the cot close to the heat, I took the space blanket out of my backpack, along with the water bottle and a granola bar, then sat on the cot and wrapped the blanket over the lower half of my body.

Now that I could focus on something besides building the fire, I munched on the granola bar and thought about my parents and how frantic they must be by now. Running away didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore and I wished I hadn’t been so impulsive.

That was one thing Mom always accused me of—being impulsive.

“You’re always jumping into things without thinking,” Mom would say, shaking her head. “Why don’t you think things through once in a while?”

I frowned as I thought about Mom picking on me. She never seemed to pick on Amy or my two younger brothers. Maybe it was because I was the oldest. Mom thought I should act like a grown-up all the time. It just wasn’t fair. I hadn’t asked to be born first.

Then I thought about Dad. He would be worried about me being out with some boy, assuming Amy told him. But what if she kept her promise and didn’t tell? What if they figured out that I ran away? Dad would be worried about me out in this snowstorm. Would he go out in it to search for me? Of course he would. What if something happened to him? It would be my fault. Guilt pounded through me as I pictured him searching and searching for me.

“What have I done?” I whispered. I stared out the small windows on either side of the door but could see nothing in the darkness.

I would go home as soon as the sun came up. Maybe I’d even get home in time to catch the bus to school.

The thought of home and family made me feel better. All I had to do was follow my purple markings on the trees and I would be home.

I set the water bottle on the floor and curled up on the cot. The space blanket had done a good job of warming me up and I tucked my arms underneath it. Sleep came quickly, but during the night I woke to a violent crashing sound. It was too dark to see what had happened, but my heart raced until I realized I was okay. I climbed off of the cot and felt my way to the lantern. It had gone dark and when I tried to light it I found the mantle had burned out and I didn’t know where to find a replacement.

The room had become chilled and I realized the fire was nearly out. I added some wood and blew on the embers, which flared up into small flames, licking the dry logs. To my relief, soon the fire was going again. I thought it strange that despite the brightly burning fire, the room seemed to be as cold as ever.

Knowing there was nothing I could do until morning, I lay back on the cot and tried to sleep. 

A few hours later bright sunlight streamed into the room, waking me. I stretched and yawned, then sat up on the cot. The fire had gone out, which was fine since I was planning on leaving as soon as I had a snack. Glancing toward where the sunlight shone in, I saw that a large tree had fallen on the roof, right above the door.

Obviously, that was the large crash that had woken me. The door bent at a weird angle and the windows were shattered, their small openings allowing snow to filter through. Walking over to the windows, I peeked through the space where the glass should have been and saw the snowstorm had stopped, although there appeared to be at least a foot of snow on the ground.

I turned the doorknob and pulled, but nothing happened. I yanked on the door as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t budge. I pushed against the tree but it was wedged in tight and didn’t give an inch. 

The blood drained from my face as I realized the reality of my situation. I was trapped. The windows were much too small to crawl through, even if I did want to risk slicing my body with the broken shards of glass, and I couldn’t see any way through the tree.

To keep the panic at bay, I began pacing the room, trying to come up with a solution. I walked along each side of the room, occasionally pounding on the wall to see if there were any weak spots where I could break through. The walls were solid wood.

I decided to try to find a tool or some object to bang against the wall to try to punch a hole in the wood. Ransacking the small room, I looked for anything that would do the job. I wasn’t having any luck, but then looked at the cot where I had spent the night.

Maybe I could break off one of the legs and use that to make a hole in the wall. I turned the cot over, its legs sticking up, and sat next to it. As I twisted the leg this way and that, trying to break it off, I felt something on the floor jabbing my leg. There was just enough light coming into the room for me to see a small screw poking up from the floorboards.

Something next to it caught my eye. Curiosity overcame me and for a moment I forgot my predicament. A large, round handle, more like a ring, was tucked into the floor. It was flush with the floor and not at all noticeable unless you knew where to look, or happened to find a loose screw next to it.

Pushing the cot out of the way, I lifted the edge of the ring from the floor so I could wrap my hand around it, then pulled upward. A trapdoor creaked as I pulled harder. There were no hinges holding it in place, so the whole trapdoor came free of the floor and I pushed it to the side. Gazing into the dark hole beneath the floor, I saw the first few rungs of a ladder.

No way am I going into that dark hole, I thought. But what if it leads out of here?

I knew I couldn’t make myself go down there without a light and decided to look around to see if I could find another mantle, now that it was lighter in the room. I quickly searched the drawers in the cabinet and found a box with one spare mantle. I silently thanked the person who had left the meager supplies that I had needed.

A few minutes later I had the lantern shining brightly. Even though I didn’t expect to find anything but an old cellar, I decided to pack my few belongings into my backpack and bring it with me. Maybe I could find some canned fruit or something down there.

In the back of my mind I pictured spider webs crisscrossing the room, but climbed down the ladder nonetheless, holding the lantern with one hand and gripping the ladder rungs with the other. There were a few spider webs, but I studiously ignored them and focused on my task.

It seemed to take a while to climb to the bottom, but once my feet touched the hard ground I held the lantern high, examining the small space. The room smelled strongly of Earth and I hoped there weren’t too many insects lurking about, ready to crawl up my legs. The thought made me shudder with revulsion.

Dirt walls surrounded me on three sides, but where the fourth wall should have been I saw an opening that led to a hallway. Intrigued, I held the lantern in front of me and stepped toward the narrow opening, wondering where it led.

Chapter Three

Wooden beams ran up the sides of the opening and a short beam wedged across the top. I wondered if it was keeping the whole thing from collapsing. Dirt-packed walls lined both sides of the hallway and I took a tentative step forward. The lantern tossed eerie shadows along the dirt walls and I hesitated, wondering if it was a mistake to keep going. Then I thought of the room I had just left, and how there didn’t seem to be a way to leave. I continued on, hopeful the tunnel would lead outside.

Dank air filled my nostrils, reminding me of the time we had dug several deep holes in the yard when planting trees. It had been dirty work and I hadn’t liked getting so filthy. Now though, I didn’t care if I ended up grimy—I wanted to get back home, whatever it took. I noticed it wasn’t as chilly down here as it had been in the hut, but it was still cool.

I moved forward, the lantern held out in front of me. After taking a dozen steps I turned and looked behind me. The dark had swallowed the small cellar that led up to the hut. A shiver of fear rolled up my spine, but going back didn’t seem any better an idea than moving forward. True, I knew what I would find if I went back. But I also knew I had tried everything I could think of to get out of that hut and nothing had worked.

Going forward seemed the only option.

Hesitating, I looked in the direction of the cellar. Then with sudden resolve, I pivoted back toward the unknown and began walking. With the light from the lantern I could see about five feet in front of me. Besides the occasional cobweb, which I carefully avoided, the dirt-walled tunnel was boringly monotonous. My fears began to recede as I strode along.

I wondered who had built this tunnel and why. It seemed odd to have such a place in the middle of the forest. Could it have been built long ago? Back when people needed to make quick escapes or hide? My mind wandered as I imagined who could have used this tunnel in the past.

Suddenly I found my face inches from a large, hairy black spider dangling from the ceiling on a thick strand of web. Startled, I screamed and threw my hands up as I jumped back. The lantern flew from my hands and went out.