The responsible van woman must have poked the others' consciousness enough to motivate them to check the backroom. There erupted a squawk, a squeal, ranting, and screeching that would shatter eardrums. No guessing was required to know that things were going to happen fast now. It was time to wake up their sleeping adrenaline.

The action went like clockwork. Fisting rifles, they barreled out passing by the van. The van driver peeked inside to assure herself that those held inside were still there. Runs the Field got into position at the edge of the tree ridge. They spotted her and followed her right through the trees. By the time they thought they'd catch up with her, she was already up the hill.

Liz felt Linda yank on her sleeve snatching her purple pack. Hunching through the last green they'd see in a long time she snagged her pack from Linda's hand. It was a bit tangled with Linda's backpack; she has a habit of carrying everything over one arm.

As the group fled up the hill, Liz saw no evidence of any cave, just the looming side of a ledge with perpendicularly angled rocks. Caves had openings; she saw none. Searching the landscape she wondered where they would hide from the impending danger.

Her curiosity and anxiety grew as they stopped midway up the hill. Linda, who had been uncharacteristically silent looked inquisitively at an equally mute Liz. They both turned toward the base of the hill to ensure everyone's safety. They figured the last ones should be the lookout. When they turned back toward the line of teens there was no one in sight.

Linda stumbled frantically further up the hill scanning to the right and left. Possibly they had proceeded up the hill and around a corner. She saw no one; only more rock and more hill. There were some pretty pink wildflowers among the chickweed as a consolation. Their ever vigilant heads oscillated with eyes darting like ping pong balls as if paddles were thocking them back and forth. What would they do? How had an entire group completely evaporated?

***************

Here they were the ones who had rescued the girls, and now they needed serious saving. Dramatic Liz thought it was a cold cruel irony. Linda's acid reflux was betraying her terror. Liz's drumming heart plummeted to her stomach's rock-bottom. They simultaneously sagged to the ground, sheared up only by the cold hard surface.

They were maintaining composure but it was wearing thin. The trembling that had been swimming throughout their innards, made its way to their hands. Squeezing their eyes shut hoping to hold in their tears they did not see the source of encroaching footfalls.

They could hear scuffing closing in on them. Liz reached for Linda's hand, the comforting connection craved in that terrifying moment. Quavering fingers met each other.

With eyes pinched tight and their free hand in a protective position, they refused to respond when they felt tapping on their hunched shoulders. They did not dare to open their clamped-shut eyes.

Appropriately named, the soft consoling voice of Velvet Dove, reassured them they had not been abandoned. Five barefooted girls stood before them. Clutching their hands and supporting their arms, the girls helped them to stand and steady themselves. Now Liz and Linda would finally find out where everyone had disappeared to and where this elusive cave was.

Liz and Linda braced themselves and each other, clutching the protruding rock as they spun around to see the line of girls slowly disappearing. Not again! Linda reached the end of the line before Liz. They were not going to be left outside again.

There was no expected gaping mouth to this cave. One by one the new line of girls disappeared. Linda and Liz reached the vanishing point to discover a split in the rocks. Their pursuers' bellows coming from the other side of the line of trees propelled the duo into the unknown. Runs the Field popped in right behind them.

The opening was a very narrow slit among the rocks concealed by a superfluous weed known as leafy splurge. Neither needed to be guided around two other deterrents to snoopers: burdocks, and stinging nettle. Both were very familiar with the severe discomfort brought on by either or both at a time.

Liz hadn't realized how bright that tedious haze was until the pupils of her eyes went from dots to what felt like the size of dimes. Slight relief came as others were beginning to light a few soot-blacked oil lanterns hanging on rusty iron hooks. An eerie glow reminded Liz of the lantern her mom kept on the stone shelf of their cellar.

She was directly carried to the night a hurricane hit her region of the state. Her mother had gone down cellar to get the lantern. She quickly returned to urge her two-year-old brother and her, down the wooden cellar stairs. She was three when they were ushered to be seated upon their Glider sled on the dirt floor.

Her ushers for this storm, of a different type, were teenagers who definitely had all kinds of turbulent weather going on in their heads and hearts.

She was snapped back to the gravity of her situation when she heard the dreaded alarm. There was shouting and shooting. The startle of gunshots caused everyone to mentally count how many were present against how many were supposed to be there. It was concluded that someone must still be outside. Who could it be?

Whispering in staccato, Spring Blossom announced Sage was missing. She shook her head, sure Sage had followed stepping through the cave crevice. Everyone held their breath at the voices, no further than three feet from the opening which fortunately, was concealed by vines and other greenery.

They ghosted their way further from the gap, separating them from terror and out of earshot. They could hear someone around a corner vomiting. It was Sage, distressed sobbing at the same time. The others were so relieved to see her. Trooping over to where she was, they comforted her and each other.

Completing the mental inventory, Runs the Field, accounted for everyone. She speculated that rather than shooting at someone, the desperate hunters were aiming into the air probably trying to flush them out from their presumed hiding places of rocks and bushes.

She was a bit concerned about the fact that they were hovering so closely, which indicated they had sufficiently searched behind every rock and bramble and found no one. She wasn't sure if they had been sober and clear thinking enough to detect a ruse of her allowing them to see her and chase her up a slippery incline.

The angry and bewildered jabbering of their pursuers rolled back down in the direction of house and van. A ghastly silence followed. Everyone froze in their next step. A raging uproar exploded with thumping of metal against metal then metal against glass and back to something very heavy thrown against what sounded like the van or possibly the dumpster.

Liz and Linda looked on as the girls dissolved toward the dampness of the floor. Everyone wished this a cautionary tale, for any future attempts of enslavement. Nervous laughter and angry tears surged as if a floodgate had burst open. This finally broke the tension. Sage, now feeling better spoke.

She told what a fool she felt like. "Two of my classmates were going to walk home with me but I told them to go along, that I had to go back into school for something from my locker. The lockers require solving a combination of numbers, dialing this way, clicking that way. This took way more time than I had expected.

Everyone had left by the time I got back outside. The air was ominously still. I shivered, shrugging, knowing I needed to head home to the "res". I picked up my stride when I sensed a sinister van slowly slithering after my every panicky step.

I was paralyzed when I heard the rasp of the emergency brake as the van shifted into neutral. I looked around. There was not a soul to help me. I wanted to make a break for it but knew it would be a clumsy effort in futility. The next thing I knew was utter darkness."