Chapter
17
I
was nearly bursting with excitement as we finally pulled into Brian’s driveway.
Josh turned off the car, and I quickly
hopped out. Josh climbed out and got our
bags from the trunk, then followed me to the front door.
As
we climbed the stairs to the wide front porch, the door swung open, and there
stood Nick. “Hey guys!” he cried,
breaking into a wide grin. He strode
over to me and gave me a big hug.
“Hey,
Nick!” I said, happily returning his hug.
I headed into the house, as Nick and Josh greeted each other.
As
soon as we were all inside, a girl came into the foyer. Nick’s eyes lit up when he saw her. “Hey, guys, meet my girl, Sammy Peter,” Nick
introduced, putting his arm around the girl.
As I
studied Sammy, a strange feeling came over me, like I knew her from
somewhere. But I ignored it, knowing
that Sammy and I had never even seen each other before. She was from California, I knew, and I was
from Illinois and had never even been near California. So there was no way I could have known her
before then.
I
smiled warmly. “Hey, Sammy,” I
said. Sammy and I had never met in
person, but we had talked before online, so we were already friends. She was a sweet girl, and I liked her a
lot. I could tell Nick did too.
“Hi,
Julie!” she said, grinning back. “Hey,
Josh!”
“Hey,
Sammy!” he greeted, offering her one of his adorable grins. She returned his smile.
Just
then, Brian came into the room. “Hey!”
he cried, hurrying over to Josh and I.
He hugged us both warmly and led us into the living room, taking our
bags upstairs to the guestroom we would be staying in.
AJ
sat in a big armchair in the living room, watching TV. He stood up when we walked into the
room. “Hey there!” he said,
grinning. He gave me a hug and slapped
Josh heartily on the back as we exchanged hellos.
“So,
are Heidi and Sonny the only ones not here yet?” I asked.
“Yup,”
AJ replied.
“Where’s
Leigh at?” I asked.
“In
the kitchen,” Sammy said, motioning to the door across the room that led to the
kitchen. I went to it and entered the
kitchen. Leighanne was just closing the
stove. She looked up when I came in.
“Julie!”
she cried, smiling. She hugged me. “How are you doing?”
“I’m
great, how about you?” I asked.
“I’m
good too,” she said, smiling again. She
did look good too. It was hard to believe
she was forty five already. She looked
much younger.
“So,
where’s Hope at?” I asked, looking around the room. Just then, as if on cue, in walked Hope. I broke into a grin when I saw her. I hadn’t seen her in person for at least two
years, and since then, I had only seen a few pictures that Brian had emailed,
but she was even more adorable in real life.
She had wavy blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes and was the perfect
combination of Leighanne and Brian. “Hi,
Hope!” I said brightly, smiling down at her.
“I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I’m Julie.”
She
smiled shyly up at me. “Hi,” she said,
her voice small.
“So,
Hope, how old are you now?” I asked. I
knew full well she was five, but I knew how proud it made little kids to tell
people their ages.
Hope
grinned, a dimple showing in her right cheek, and she held up five
fingers.
“Wow,
five?!” I cried, acting amazed. “You’re
a big girl, huh?”
She nodded vigorously, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m in kindergarten now!” she announced proudly.
“Wow, awesome!” I replied.
“Do you like it?”
“Yup,” she said.
Then she turned and left the room again.
“She’s always a little shy at first, but she’ll warm up to
you,” Leighanne told me.
“Oh, I know, I was the same way when I was little,” I
replied knowingly.
Just then, the doorbell rang. “I bet that’s Heidi and Sonny now,” I said
and left to go see if it was them. Sure enough, when I reached the foyer, there
they were.
“Heidi!” I cried, grinning.
“Hey, Jules!” she said, hugging me tightly. I hugged her back, happy that we were all
together again. It had been too
long. But our happiness would not last
much longer.
***
We ate an early supper that night, for it was Halloween,
and Hope was all set to go trick-or-treating. She was dressed as a black cat, dressed in all
black, complete with a long black tail, a headband with cat ears, and a black
nose and whiskers painted on her face.
She carried a plastic orange pumpkin candy bucket with her. I grinned as Leighanne and Brian took picture
after picture of her in that costume. I
realized that in only a few years, I would hopefully be doing the same thing
with my son or daughter.
Brian was supposed to have taken Hope trick-or-treating,
but he had a cold and didn’t want to be out in the cool night air, so Josh and
Sonny had offered to take her. I smiled
ruefully, knowing my Josh was really just a kid at heart. He was thrilled to be taking her trick-or-treating,
and I knew it.
“Now, be careful,” Leighanne warned, as Hope nearly dragged
Sonny and Josh out of the house. I knew
how anxious she was to get going, remembering all the times I had gone
trick-or-treating as a child. Besides
Christmas, Halloween had always been a favorite holiday of mine.
“I will, Mommy,” Hope said.
She looked up at Josh and Sonny.
“Come on, boys,” she said, taking them each by the hand and pulling them
onto the porch.
Brian chuckled.
“Have fun, baby,” he said, waving to his daughter as she started down
the steps.
“I will!” she called.
“Bye!”
“We’ll see you guys later!” Sonny called, waving to us, as
they started down the sidewalk.
We all went back inside and sat down in the living
room. Leighanne popped some popcorn, and
we sat down to find “Scream” on TV. It was
an old movie, made almost twenty years ago, but it was a classic, and I had
always loved it and still did, so we watched it.
“We’ll have to turn this off before Hope gets back,” Heidi
said, chuckling. We all nodded absently,
cringing as the killer plunged a knife into Drew Barrymore’s chest. It was scary, but it was only a movie, so we
were entertained. It wouldn’t have been
so entertaining if we had known what was about to occur just blocks away from
us.
***
Josh and Sonny stood at the end of the driveway of a house
a few blocks down the street and watched as Hope got her candy at the door and
came skipping back down the drive to them.
“Next house!” Hope cried happily and started skipping down
the street. The next house was several
lots down the street. The three or four
lots in between that house and the one they’d been to had not yet been built
upon.
Sonny turned on his flashlight, for it had gotten quite
dark, and they were walking under some big trees, which blocked out the light
of the full moon that had been shining down upon them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sonny saw something dart out
from behind one of the trees. He whirled
around, but the dark figure had disappeared.
Sonny relaxed, thinking it was just an animal.
He walked on, a few feet behind Josh, who had caught up to
Hope. Suddenly, he felt an arm grab him
from behind and pull him back sharply.
He tried to scream, but a hand closed over his mouth, muffling the
sound. Then, he gasped in pain as
something was sharp was thrust into his back.
He was let go of and thrown to the ground. He looked up to see a person dressed in a
Scream costume leaning over him, a knife in hand. He moaned weakly as the person plunged the
knife into his stomach, and then, everything went black.
***
Josh heard someone gasp from behind him and turned around
quickly to see what was wrong. His eyes
widened in shock as he came face to face with a tall person wearing a Scream
costume. He let out a shaky breath and
rolled his eyes, embarrassed that he had nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Uh, hi there,” he said, letting out a nervous little
laugh.
“Hello,” the person said, trying to make his voice sound
like the killers in the Scream movies.
Then he let out an evil laugh and raised his hand above his head. He was holding a knife, Josh realized.
“Nice try, buddy,” Josh said, thinking it was just a
plastic knife. But as the figure lowered
it, and he saw the glint of the shiny metal, he realized he was wrong. However, there was no time to react. The knife was jammed into his stomach and
then ripped back out. Josh doubled over
in pain and crumpled to the ground, gasping.
He looked up to see a second person in a Scream costume appear next to
the first. The first figure cackled again and kicked Josh hard in the ribs,
causing him to roll off the road and into the ditch.
Josh raised his head up weakly, but collapsed against the
ground again. With horror, he heard Hope
scream. His eyes opened wide, and he
forced himself up, just in time to see one of the figures hit Hope hard over
the head. She collapsed,
unconscious. Josh watched, terrified, as
the people shoved her limp body into a big burlap bag and run off down the
road.
“Help!” Josh screamed, but his voice was weak. “Please, somebody help!” He screamed and
screamed, but no one heard his pleads for help.
He finally collapsed to the ground again, the pain taking over his
body. He began to shake with sobs, for
he was in more terror than ever before.
He was scared that he was going to die, and that Hope was going to die
as well. And the second fear was worse,
for he had not been able to stop those people from taking her, from hurting
her. The guilt was even greater than the
horrible pain that plagued him.
Then he realized he hadn’t seen Sonny. Where was he?
Had he been stabbed too?
“Sonny?!” Josh called, frantically
looking around for Sonny. He didn’t see
him anywhere, and he heard no answers.
Suddenly, a wave of pain rushed through his entire body, and he fell
back to the ground, his world going black.
***
When Josh came to, he found himself still there, lying in
the ditch. He slowly realized that he
must not have been passed out for long.
Suddenly, he heard some people approaching. He could hear their laughs and their
footsteps on the concrete sidewalk. He
grew hopeful as their footsteps grew closer.
They slowly came into view, and Josh saw two boys walking
side by side, dressed as Ninjas, all in black, with plastic swords hanging at
their sides.
“Hey, look!” one said, pointing down at Josh. “Cool, it’s like a scarecrow or
something!” He headed off the road,
approaching Josh.
“How come it’s lying down?
Don’t scarecrows stand up?” the other boy asked, following his friends
to where Josh lay.
Josh wanted to say something, but he was so weak, he
couldn’t even lift his head up, and when he opened his mouth, no sound came
out.
“Hey, he’s a cool looking scarecrow,” the first boy said.
He unsheathed his sword and poked at Josh’s throbbing side. Josh winced in pain. Suddenly, the boy gasped as he raised his
sword up. In the moonlight, Josh could
see that the end of it was covered with sticky blood. He felt queasy, realizing it was his own
blood.
“Cool, someone put fake blood on him!” the second boy
exclaimed, noticing the sword.
Josh gathered his strength together. “Help,” he cried weakly, his voice soft and
breathy sounding. The two boys’ eyes
widened in horror, and they both screamed.
“It’s alive!” the first one screamed, scrambling back up to
the road.
“Wait!” the second called, running to catch up to his
friends. Josh began to cry again as
their screams disappeared in the dark night, losing all hope. Sapped of all energy, he closed his eyes, as
darkness took over him once again.
***
