Shadows in the Dark

by Hunter England

Karen

  I was still a little shook up after the whole thing with that guy. After hours of being paranoid, I convinced myself I could’ve imagined it all. I haven’t slept in hours, and I’ve been walking all that time. I needed to sleep, but had nowhere to do that.

  I decided that, instead of walking next to the highway, I should hitch a ride. Sure, it’s not the safest thing. But I can take care of myself, considering what I can do.

  Before sticking my thumb out at the side of the road like a bum, I looked back to see how many cars were driving past. Not a lot, but not a little. Sighing, I stuck my thumb out and walked backwards.

  For the longest time, people just stared at me and drove past without a care in the world. Now I knew what it felt like to be a hitchhiker. Let me tell you, it’s not the best.

  An hour past and no one had stopped to hitch me a ride. People nowadays are jerks, huh? I understand stranger danger, but come on! Really? An hour?

  I started to sweat as the sun had just started to hit its highest point in the sky. My legs were on the breaking point of snapping. My arm was getting tired from being stuck out for as long as it had been. I was about to give up. But as I turned forward to give up the whole hitchhiking thing, I heard the sound of a car pulling up behind me.

  I turned around, only to see a car parked right there, a nice, old lady sitting in the driver’s seat with a big smile on her face. A huge smile appeared on my face. Finally. Someone with feelings.

  I walked over to the passenger's side and knocked on the window. The old lady opened the window with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. She gave a small wave, and I waved back.

  “Need a ride, miss?” she asked. I nodded my head, still having that stupid smile on my face.

  “You’re the first person to even consider it since I started doing this over an hour ago.” The lady gave me a sympathy filled look and shook her head.

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s horrible. Here, hop in. I’ll take you anywhere you want.” I opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. The instant cooling of air conditioning made me feel amazing. My legs thanked me as I finally got off of them.

  “You have no idea how much this means to me, miss,” I told her. She giggled a little.

  “You’re just a little girl,” she said. “You seem like no danger at all.” I scoffed to myself. If only she knew what I really was.

  “I don’t really have a certain place I want to be,” I said. “I just want to be anywhere but here.” I saw her smile from the side of my eyes.

  “Ah,” she said. “You’re one of those people. I used to be like that.” She drove back onto the highway and drove off down the road. “Don’t worry. You’ll see where you want to be really soon. Same thing happened to me.”

  I couldn’t comprehend how nice this woman was. Why can’t everyone else be like her? I looked out the window as we drove down the road, me knowing nothing about where she was going. But it didn’t bother me. Like I said. Anywhere is better than here.

  The woman turned on the radio and started listening to some talk show. It kind of made me laugh a little. For a while, we had small conversations every few minutes. She seemed like a really good person, not mentioning the fact that she had picked me up off the road without knowing anything about me.

  She tried to learn more about me, and I had no problem answering her. I just left out the big stuff. Like how I can move things with my mind. Yeah, it’d be smart to leave that out.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her. She smiled at me and sighed.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m like you. I’m just out for a drive. Then I just happened to stumble upon you, and now I’m going where you’re going.”

  “So, you’re just driving for the hell of it?” I asked. She smiled and nodded her head. I liked this woman. She seemed like someone who just does what they want.

  After ten minutes, we ended up driving through a small town. The old lady sighed and looked over at me.

  “It seems I have to stop for gas. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” I said. She pulled into a small gas station and stepped out of the car. I stayed seated, watching her as she walked into the gas station and paid for one of the gas pumps. I looked over and noticed that the side of the town led to the woods.

  I started looking and watching animals poke their heads out and go right back in. It was kind of adorable. One deer stepped all the way out and looked around. It stayed on the borderline of the trees, staying out of the road. Then its ears perked up and it looked back. It scurried away and vanished into the trees. What scared it? There were no cars in sight. Then, two kids walked out from the trees and looked around.

 

  Both of them looked beat up. One of them had cuts on his face, while the other had some bruises. What were they doing? Then I noticed something. One of them was Luke.

  What the hell was Luke doing walking out of the woods? Why was he all the way out here? I stepped out of the car and watched as Luke and his friend crossed the road and walked towards the gas station. Luke seemed paranoid, looking around every few seconds. But his friend seemed pissed, looking like he was trying to ignore everything Luke was saying.

  When they got to the other side of the road, Luke finally noticed me standing by the car. His facial expression quickly changed from scared to shocked. He seemed just as surprised as I was. He left his friend and quickly walked over to me. His friend stared at him confused, then saw me. Then he just seemed to get annoyed.

  “Karen?” Luke said as he walked over to me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I could as you the same thing,” I said. “What happened to you? Why were you in the woods?” Luke looked over at his friend who had just walked up and looked at me.

  “Well...” Luke started. “It’s a long story.” His friend tapped his shoulder, and he turned around. His friend sighed.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “Umm...” Luke looked at me, then back at his friend. “This is a girl from my school. Her name is Karen.” Nick was about to say something to me, but Luke pulled him over to the side and said something to him. I looked back to see what the lady was doing. She was standing at the doors, watching me and smiling.

  “You never answered me,” Luke said as he walked back over to me. “What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms and gave him a straight answer.

  “I felt like running away. I didn’t feel like staying where I was. So, now I’m here, watching you walk out of the woods with cuts on your face and Mr. Bruises over there.” His friend smirked at me and patted Luke on the back.

  “I like this chick,” he said. “Hey, you seem a little shaken up. Why?” I looked at my reflection in the car window. I did look shaken up.

  “Well,” I said. “I was at a diner, and as I was leaving, a guy chased me. But I think I imagined it. I haven’t slept in a while.” His friend looked at Luke and back at me.

  “What’d he look like?” Luke asked. I started tapping my foot, trying to remember anything about him. But all I could remember is that stupid hoodie of his.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “He was wearing a gray hoodie and had the hood over his head. I couldn’t see any part of his face.” Luke’s eyes widened, along with his friend’s. They both looked at each other, looking worried.

  “Did the guy do anything weird?” his friend asked. I sighed and kind of scoffed.

  “As I was running away from him, his footsteps seemed to get louder. A lot louder. It felt like they were in my head.” Luke stiffened up. “It hurt a lot, and I toppled over and covered my ears. But I could still hear it. The footsteps finally stopped, but when I looked up, he was gone.” Luke’s friend ran his fingers through his hair and scoffed. Luke leaned against the car, seeming as though he was in disbelief.

  “Karen,” he said. “Can you... do anything? Like, anything different?” They both stared at me.

  “Umm... what do you mean ‘different’?”
I asked. His friend sighed and looked around.

  “Different,” he said, “like this.” He walked over to me and stuck his hand in front my face. At first, it was weird. Then, before I knew it, a flame appeared out of nowhere in the palm of his hand. I gasped and backed away, staggering and grabbing the hood of the car for support.

  “How did you-”

  “We’re different, Karen,” Luke said. “Nick and I both.” The kid, Nick, closed his hand, making the fire disappear. “Yesterday morning, in the town on the other side of the woods, the guy you mentioned attacked us. He was different too.” Nick shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “We feel like he attacked us because we were different,” he said. “So, Karen. Are you different?” I looked around, then at them both.

  “I... uh...” I gulped, not really sure what to say. “I can... I can move things with my mind.” Nick smiled, but Luke stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “Well, what do you know,” Nick said. “We found someone with Telekinesis.” I looked at Luke. He was still staring at me.

  “What can you do?” I asked him. Nick looked back at Luke, but Luke didn’t reply.

  “Mr. Luke,” Nick said, “can shoot lightning from his hands. It’s pretty badass.” He leaned against one of the gas pumps. “I, on the other hand, can make fire appear out of thin-air.” He displayed it for me one more time, making a flame appear in his hands, then making it vanish.

  “Luke?” I said. He sighed.

  “Can you control it?” he asked. I sighed a little.

  “No. Not really. The only times I can recall doing it were when your dumb girlfriend pissed me off.” Luke got wide-eyed again. “Yeah, the whole ‘floating cheerleader’ thing was me. But it was an accident.”

  “Well,” Nick said, “from past experience and from what you and Luke told me, anger seems to be one gigantic trigger to our ‘specialty’. Luke and I can control it. So, I’ll just say this. All you have to do it focus and stay calm. If you freak out, you won’t be able to focus and your ability will lose control.”

  “So,” Luke said. “Are you going to come with us? Or are you going to stay with the old lady over there?” He pointed at the gas station doors and I looked back. The lady was still standing there, smiling and watching.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on where you two are going.” Luke and Nick looked at each other and shrugged.

  “We don’t really know either,” Nick said.

  “Well,” Luck started, “I really feel like finding this ‘hooded guy’. I want to know what he’s up to and why he’s following us.” Nick nodded his head.

  “Now that I think about it, so do I.” They both looked at me.

  “So, Karen,” Luke said. “Are you in or out?” I looked back at the lady, and she was already waving her hand at me, saying goodbye. I smiled and waved back at her. She walked off farther into the gas station, leaving my sight. I then turned around at Nick and Luck and smiled.

  “I’m in.”

  .....

  Karen

  I didn’t know if going with them was the smartest thing. But it felt right. They were like me. Well... not completely. But they were “special”. I wasn’t completely used to it, but I was getting by. As we walked through the trees, back to where Luke and Nick came from, they didn’t really talk. It was just silent almost all the way through.

  Even when they did talk, they didn’t talk about our “specialty”. They talked about normal teen things. Like friends that they left behind, or old memories with family. They acted as though nothing had ever happened.

  Nick looked up at the sky and sighed.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be dark soon, and it’s still a pretty long way to where we came from.” Luke sighed in frustration, knowing what Nick was going to say. “We’re gonna have to sleep out here. It’s too dark once the sun goes down. We won’t be able to see.”

  “But,” I said, “can’t you make a fire that would lead us the way?” Luke scoffed.

  “Can’t take any chances of being seen, apparently,” he said. “Get ready to have the worst night of sleep that you will ever have.” Nobody said anything after that. We just kept walking for as long as we could. Then, the sun was close enough to being gone.

  Nick sat against a tree and offered to take watch. Luke slowly laid down in the dirt and turned to his side, attempting to sleep. I looked around and found a nice enough patch of grass to lay on, awkwardly laying on my back as I stared up into the sky. I laid there for a while, watching the sunlight drift away like an ocean shore and see the stars slowly become visible in the night sky. That’s where I drifted off to sleep.

  I didn’t remember having a dream, or let alone cared. When I woke up, it was dead silent. I slowly sat up from the patch of grass, and saw that I was alone. Luke and Nick weren’t anywhere in sight.

  I quickly stood up and looked around, but I couldn’t see anything. A thick fog had surrounded me and made it nearly impossible to see ten feet in front of me. Then, I heard a twig snap from behind me. I quickly turned around.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Luke? Nick? Are you there?” For a second, no one answered. But a familiar voice made me relax faster than anything.

  “It’s okay, Karen. It’s me.” From the fog, Anna walked out and stopped a few feet away from me, smiling an adorable smile.

  “Well,” I said, “I left. Now what do I do? Where do I go now?” Anna giggled.

  “You’re exactly where you need to be.”

  “But what about the guy who ‘covers the world in fire’? Where do I find him?” As much as I hated to ask, I needed to know.

  “You already did, Karen. Didn’t you see that? Nick is my brother.”

  What? No way.

  “Ni... Nick?” She nodded her head, still smiling. “Then how are you-”

  “A few months ago, Nick found out what he could do. But it costed the lives of me and our parents. He didn’t mean to, but it happened. Now he sees the world as nothing after what he did.” She gained a sad look on her face.