Children of Dawn

Andy’s POV
I had to get out. I knew that the one guy, Ashley or whatever, was a rapist. I had no idea what the rest of them had done. I was certain if I watched the news for long enough I would probably figure out that one of them was a pedophile who was interested in fourteen-year-old boys. It was probably the one who kept trying to change my bandages. At least Ashley was out of the room. So instead of being alone with a rapist and a pedophile I was just alone with a pedophile. Who wanted to touch me. I weighed my options.
“I’ll give you your clothes back if you let me change the bandages,” He said staring at me with those blue-grey eyes. I felt like he was looking at my soul, I doubted he had a soul. I didn’t want to answer him, I’d been quiet all day.
“How about you give me my pants back and then I’ll let you change my bandages,” I said. He looked at me, I thought it was a fair bargain, and at least I’d have something to wear that wasn’t a blanket.
“Okay,” He said. He handed me the pants from my pile of clothes. I slid off the table, surprised that my legs actually held me. I had been sitting there for most of the day and it seemed like I’d regained a little bit of my strength, although I did wish that I hadn’t denied their offers of food. I struggled to get my pants on, my stomach burned horribly and my balance was far worse than it had ever been. The guy (I thought they said his name was Jinxx or some bullshit like that) didn’t try to help me even once, and I was glad. I eventually got them on and climbed back onto the table. I was still looking for an opportunity to get out.
“Hey Jinxx, can you come help me with this real quick?” A voice called from somewhere inside the house. Jinxx looked annoyed, but he turned around anyway.
“What is it?” He called back.
“I just need you to hold the bed frame up while I get the supports in place,” The voice called back. Jinxx looked at me.
“Just hold on a minute, it won’t take long,” Jinxx said. He left me alone in the room, taking my shirt with him, it was the first time they had left me alone since I woke up. I jumped off the table as fast as I could and started rummaging around in the rough cabinets they had built. It didn’t take any more than fifteen seconds to find a box of protein bars. I grabbed a handful of them and somehow managed to keep walking. I stuck my head out the kitchen door. Jinxx and the guy who’d had his arm around me earlier had their backs to me in one of the side rooms. I ran past them as lightly as I could. My feet barely made a sound on the wooden floor. There was sunlight streaming into the house from behind a tarp. I pulled it open quietly. To my right I could hear voices. Ashley in the guy that had pulled him out of the room earlier where standing with their backs to me, looking down over the hills and talking. I felt a surge of hope, I could actually make it away from them. The hope brought new energy to my skinny legs. I ran across the grassy area around their house my bare feet were soundless on the soft green grass. I ran across the clearing past what looked to be the beginning foundations of a shed, and down a path that had been beaten through the underbrush.
I pretty much slid down the steep hill. The dirt slid away under my toes and pain shot through my stomach, but I bit back my cry of pain. They could not know I was getting away. Who knows what fucked up thing they had planned to do to me? As the path leveled out and wasn’t so steep I heard the rushing of water. There was a small river not far from me. I scrambled down the pebbly beach over the smooth rocks. I stopped and looked around. I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go back home, there would be cops everywhere. I listened behind me into the woods, I couldn’t hear anyone come after me. They didn’t know that I was gone yet, or if they did they just didn’t care. I had to keep going though, while I still had energy and while they were still clueless to me being gone.
I looked at the rushing water, It was only about ankle deep at some parts, and crystal clear. I could see straight to the bottom. The sun was warm on my chest and arms, I wouldn’t have to worry about freezing to death if I went across. It was summer anyway. I took a step into the cool water. It trickled around my toes and swirled past my ankles. The rocks and mud underneath my feet felt pleasant enough so I trudged my way across. As I splashed through the water I only got wet up to my knees. As I pulled myself out the other side and stood in the mud I grinned, surviving out here in the early summer was going to be a piece of cake. I took off jogging lightly through the woods, breathing the piny air and feeling the warm dapples of sun on my skin. I was surprised at the amount of energy I had. I stopped for a second and caught my breath, I turned around and looked through, back at where I’d come from. Not a soul was after me.
I stood there and ate the first of the protein bars as I caught my breath. As I glanced through the trees I saw a glint of something red. I finished off the bar and mindlessly dropped the wrapper on the ground. It didn’t matter. I was the king of the woods. I headed off to figure out what red thing I had seen. To my surprise there was a patch of strawberries. All the berries on the branches were bright red and ready to be picked. I smiled at my luck. I made my way up to the bushes and proceeded to start stripping the branches. They came off easily in my hands and tasted sweeter than anything I’d ever eaten, even if they were a bit warm. I had been there for a while stuffing my face, my hands and cheeks were all sticky, but I didn’t care. The bushes seemed to go on endlessly. I was sucking some of the juice off my thumb when I heard a branch break behind me. I turned around quickly expecting to see a person behind me. What I actually saw was much worse.
Standing in front of me was a large black bear. She looked about as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I had clearly invaded her strawberry patch. I took a step back and she took a step forward, I inched sideways back in the direction of the river and she turned to follow me. We were only ten feet apart. She stood up on her hind legs to get a better look at me and I backed away slowly. I may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but I knew that you should never run from a bear. The bear will always catch you. She got back on all four paws and started waddling towards me. I backed up until my back was against a rock and she still came closer, snorting and huffing.
I pressed myself up against the rock and held my breath. She inched closer and sniffed my fingers, they were still wet with the juice from the berries. I prayed that she didn’t decide to take a bite. She didn’t. Instead she started licking my fingers like a dog after you eat bacon. I tried to slide to the side but she wasn’t having it. She stood up on her hind legs and batted me in the side of the head with one huge paw. To her it might have just been a scolding, reprimanding me for trying to get away when I shouldn’t have been. To me it was like getting hit by an MMA fighter. I toppled to the ground on my back with my head spinning. I tried to get up but there was a massive paw on my chest. Luckily for me she didn’t put her full weight on me. Instead she just held me down with a paw on the center of my chest, avoiding my injured stomach. As I looked I could see her sharp claws curling out from her black fur. I could almost feel them tearing into me.
She was sniffing my pants’ pocket, the same pocket that held the protein bars. She grunted loudly and lifted the paw off my chest so she could claw at my pocket. I dared not move. As her pawing became increasingly frustrated she started to put more force behind it. Eventually she hooked a claw into my pocket and managed to rip my jeans from my pocket all the way down to my knee. The last two protein bars tumbled out. Immediately I was no longer the object of interest. She began sniffing and biting at the bars before clawing one open and eating the food inside. I slowly stood and backed away into the forest. She didn’t seem to notice, or care. When got to what I thought was a safe distance away I cursed myself for losing the only two sources of food that I had. I huffed and looked at the sky. It was getting dark. Not only because the sun was going down, but also clouds were rolling in. They were dark grey and they boiled angrily in the sky. Not only that but the temperature was dropping.
I was really starting to wish I had my shirt, and my shoes. My neck was starting to ache from looking down all the time to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anything dangerous. The beating from the bear wasn’t helping either. It was incredible how quickly I was able to go from being the king of the woods to just a shivering boy again. I kept walking. The ground shook as thunder rumbled through the sky. Eventually my exhaustion started to catch up to me. I was thirsty and every now and then I stumbled over a rock and scraped a toe or a knee. As the rain started to patter down I hung my head to keep it out of my eyes. It was getting cold, fast. Eventually I gave up on walking and falling. I sat next to a tree and turned my head away from the pouring rain. Eventually I dozed off. When I woke up it was pitch dark and rain was pouring even harder through the trees. It was hard for me to even open my eyes, the cold was taking away all the strength that I had had. The bandages around my stomach were soaked through and starting to slide off, but that wasn’t what woke me.
“Andy! Are you out here!” A voice called. I could hear someone stumbling through the foliage. I wasn’t going to say anything. I knew the voice it was Ashley. I didn’t want him to find me. I heard him stop walking and swear. The wind howled and thunder crashed. It felt like there could have been a tornado.
Suddenly all the hair on my arms stood straight up. Then there was an explosion, or what felt like one, anyway. I covered my head and when I looked up there was a fire rapidly crawling down from the top of one of the tallest trees. In the light from the flames I could see Ashley lying unconscious next to the tree, he had blood dripping from his ear. I sat in shock for a moment watching the flames spread from the top of the tree down across its branches and to the other trees. Ashley wasn’t waking up. Burning pine needles and branches were starting to rain down around him. I could have just gotten up and ran away, but I didn’t. There was no way I was going to have another death on my hands. I jumped to my feet swaying dizzily as I stumbled over to him. I knelt down and put my hands on his shoulder, shaking him.
“Ashley! Wake up! The forest is on fire!” I yelled. He didn’t move except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Bigger branches were starting to come down and the trees groaned. I coughed in the smoke and the water on my shoulders steamed. I grabbed Ashley under his arms and with all the strength I could muster I pulled him away from the danger, through puddles of mud until I could pull him no farther. Then I fell back. I scrambled to my feet and started shaking him again.
“Come on Ashley! I can’t just let you die out here!” I screamed. To my relief he groaned and turned his head.
“Ashley come on! Get up before something else gets struck by lightning!” I shouted at him. That seemed to rouse him a bit. He opened his eye then shot up quickly, looking around.
“Andy! What happened!” He yelled over the roaring wind and fire that was creeping towards us.
“You were right next to a tree when it got struck by lightning!” I shouted back. He got to his feet and pulled me up with him.
“We’ve got to get back to the cabin or we’ll die out here!” Ashley yelled. Before I could think about it, I was nodding. Nothing seemed nicer than that cabin with it’s solid walls and the warm fire. Even if it was full of scary guys I didn’t know.
“Can you run?” Ash asked. I nodded again. He grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the direction of the flaming trees. I ran as fast as I could but I knew that he wanted to be going much faster. We ducked under the flaming trees and my lungs burned from the smoke. Drops of fire came down from the trees and came dangerously close to landing on me. Ashley pulled me through anyway. As the smoke began to clear I could hear the rushing of water in the distance. We were running up hill, and I didn’t have any time to look to see where I was going. I stepped on all sorts of nasty things with my bare feet. Not to mention I felt like the world was on a seesaw. Everything rocked back and forth, by the time we got to the river Ashley was basically carrying me.
When I had crossed it earlier in the day the water had been nothing but a little trickle. After being in heavy rains all night the river had swollen like a broken toe. The white water crashed over the rocks as it raced quickly downstream. I turned to look behind us. I could still see the glow of the fire climbing closer. Ashley was looking up and down the river trying yo find a safe crossing but it was nigh on impossible to see anything. Let alone a log over the river or a path of rocks.
“Andy, I need you to hold onto me. We’re going to have to swim and I will not have you drown,” Ashley said. I nodded at him. There was another flash of lightning that illuminated our way across. I put my arm around Ash and he grabbed my shoulders. We stepped into the water with him slightly more upstream than me breaking the flow. We walked for a few more steps holding onto each other until I was suddenly swept off my feet as the water got deep quickly. Ashley had a hold of me though. He pulled me onto his back and started swimming. He was a strong swimmer, but we were still being swept downstream. I kicked my legs and tried to help, but I wasn’t doing much, we were going to be swept away. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and just downstream I saw what could be our saviour.
“Ash! There’s a log downstream! If we can get up on it we can make it out of here!” I shouted in his ear. I didn’t hear a response but we were heading in that direction whether he wanted us to be or not. I could see the shape of the log and as we passed under it I reached up and grabbed hold. Somehow I had enough strength to haul myself onto the top off the log, but I could feel the stitches in my stomach twisting and aching. Ashley was still in the water, even with me off his back he couldn’t make any headway against the water. Thinking quickly I grabbed a branch off the log and pulled it off with all of my strength. I lowered it into the water where Ashley was still struggling and braced myself. He grabbed hold and I somehow kept a hold of the log with one hand and the branch with the other. It was obvious that I wasn’t strong enough to pull him up though. He kept hold of the branch and used it to keep him from sweeping any farther downstream. He kept swimming to the far shore and eventually got to a point where he could stand up. I let go of the branch and scrambled across the log as I jumped down Ashley was pulling himself out of the water. He was panting. I next to him while he caught his breath. He looked up at me and pulled me into the woods without a word.
We climbed up the hill together slipping and sliding all the way. I fell flat on my stomach more than once. When I finally saw the cabin in the distance I was relieved beyond words, but also apprehensive. Ashley still had a firm hold on my shoulders, which was probably a good thing because I was prepared to collapse at any moment. The rain poured down around us as we sloshed up through the clearing. The tarp on the front door was pulled back. Jake stuck his head out.
“Guys he found him!” Jake shouted into the house. We sloshed through the wet clearing, Ashley was carrying me more than I was walking on my own. We stepped into the house. Both of us shivering and soaked to the bone. Jake, Jinxx, and CC stood waiting in the front room.
“Are you crazy kid? You could have died!” Jake said. I looked at the water pooling around my feet, truth be told I was scared to say anything.
“Lay off him, Jake,” Ashley said.
“You two are buddies now, huh?” CC said.
“Well we’ve save each other’s asses twice now. So I think we’re even,” Ashley said nudging my shoulder. I looked at him.
“Yeah, we’re even,”

Notes

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought. I'd love to hear your feedback. Have a good week everyone!