To read Chapter 1, click here.
As the sun sets, Reese, James, and I dress warmly in dark clothing.
“That way, we’ll be like spies!” James is very excited. He wants to be a spy when he grows up.
We each grab a large duffel bag. Reese had found them under dusty boxes in the garage. The bags smelled like sweat, but they’re all we have.
We each are assigned different jobs: I’m gathering things we need.
We don’t have many clothes, so Bag #1 isn’t very full. I throw in some shampoo and conditioner that my parents “got rid of” (really, Reese took it out of the trash before the dumptrucks came) and a fancy necklace my great-grandmother had. My parents don’t deserve it.
James accidentally found a secret fridge full of all the food our parents buy. Our fridge in the kitchen is full of expired and gross foods that they “graciously let us brats eat”. I empty the entire fridge into Bag #2. It’s very heavy, but it won’t matter.
I grab random things to put into Bag #3. Old stuffed animals, old toys James found, leftover money Reese has taken, identification papers, and my magazine.
I wait by the front door for Reese to give me the signal. Her job is really important.
James runs up to me.
“Did you find it?”
He nods eagerly. He was assigned the job of finding the keys.
Reese waves her arms wildly.
I open the front door. She was given the job of destroying the security cameras and the alarm. Our parents should hide their hammers better.
Reese, James, and I walk into the cold, dark night.
“I’m so excited!” Reese is practically vibrating with excitement.
Taking out the keys from my pocket, I press the button on the car fob. Dad’s truck beeps. He got it using all the money he’s saved up.
“Can I drive?” James asks.
“No.”
Our plan is simple:
- Pack duffel bags
- Destroy the cameras
- Find the car keys
- Steal the car
- Drive far away
- Ditch the car
- Take a bus ride
- Live happily ever after!
We’ve already done the first three. Since we have the keys, it won’t be hard to take the car. We’re leaving at night, so we have enough time to escape. Mom and Dad are going to wake up in the morning and try to round us up so they can leave for the orphanage. When they find that their things and their car are missing, they’ll call the cops. They’d have to answer to the fact that their children are also missing, which will take about half an hour, but eventually the police will report us missing and the car stolen. They may not even notice the car is gone if they leave out the back door and take Mom’s car.
It’s almost midnight now, so that gives us about 8 and a half hours to get as far away from the police (and our parents) as possible. We’ll ditch the car somewhere with minimal cameras, and we’ll change our clothes.
The car is now unlocked, and I open the back door. James hops in and buckles up while I throw in each of the duffel bags. Reese slides in next to him, moving the bags to the floor. We’ll stop in a few hours to refill gas and for me to get a bit of sleep.
I walk around to the driver’s side of the car, where I gently open the door and slide into the seat. We’re all buckled in, we’re all packed, we’re all ready.
I place my foot on the gas pedal. I have my license. I secretly took the test without my parents knowing, in case my dreams of escape were realized.
I push my foot down, and the car begins to move. Step 4 is done. I pull out of the driveway as James squeals with glee.
“Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!” We say. I permit them to do a hand sign that would get us in major trouble if Mom and Dad were here.
The road is inked with darkness. I think I might have run over a squirrel because I couldn’t see very well. I didn’t say anything about it to Reese or James because I knew it would make them sad. It makes me sad, too. But I pretend it didn’t happen, so they don’t get discouraged.
The drive will be long. It has to be, otherwise the police will find us quickly. We don’t have a particular destination or a way to get there. I know where I want to go. James knows where he wants to go. Reese knows where she wants to go. We all want to go to the same place.
Far away from Mom and Dad.
______——______
The truck is small and cramped. There is barely enough space in the backseat to hold James and all our supplies. It’s certainly not the place to spend hours driving across the state, but that’s what I have to do to protect them. The food bag is much easier to carry after Reese and James plow through our snacks. I realize that we’ll have to ask someone on the road where the nearest gas station is. I don’t want to show up on any security cameras, so we’ll have to change our appearance.
We’re stuck at a red light. The man next to us looks polite enough, so while Reese and James put on different hoodies and face masks, I roll down my window and motion for him to do the same.
“What?” He (rather rudely) asks. He clearly does not want to be here, and he certainly does not want to talk to me.
“Excuse me, but do you know where the nearest gas station is?” I smile at him. I hope he’s a good person and not someone I’d want to run away from. I’ve already got enough of those.
He looks me up and down. I assume he’s thinking about how strange this looks. A 16-year-old in a large truck, who doesn’t know where the nearest gas station is? That would mean I’m from out of town (which I am), in a truck I likely do not own (which I don’t), and I’m filling up to keep going (which I am).
He can’t care too much, because he points down the road. “Keep going straight. Next right and you’re there.”
James rolls down the window. “Thank you!”
The man nods. We follow his instructions and arrive at an enormous, mega-store.
“OH MY GOD!” Reese exclaims. This place is so incredibly large that I can’t even see the ends of it when I turn my head.
I pull up next to one of the dozens of gas pumps and fill up this huge truck. This is an old pump, apparently, because it doesn’t take card. Not that I have a credit card to use. Even if I did, I wouldn’t use it. I don’t want to give away our location.
I see the security camera out of the corner of my eye and realize that that could be what I’m doing right now. But I’ve got on a hoodie that covers my brown hair and a face mask. Thankfully, it isn’t too out of the ordinary.
I pay with cash, which we have a lot of after everything Reese has saved. I get back in the car, and we park next to the huge automatic doors. James and Reese practically throw themselves out of the car and run to the store entrance. As soon as the doors open, they dash inside.
They run so fast I have to sprint after them so I don’t lose them in this huge store. Reese immediately grabs a crap-ton of candy off the shelves, and James just stares in awe at the surprisingly large selection of beef jerky.
“Can we buy a bunch of stuff?!” James asks.
“Please, please, please, please, please!!!” Reese pleads.
“How about we each spend ten dollars to get whatever we want, go to the bathroom, and then we get back in the car and keep driving?” I say. They are both extremely pleased with this.
Reese does the math for how much money all the candy would cost. James seems to ponder whether to get a chicken or a classic flavor.
I don’t really know what I want. I just wander around. I find the clothes, the bathrooms, and the dark chocolate, but what piques my interest is the rack of magazines next to the registers. The one on the top shelf boasts an exclusive interview with a famous actor.
The middle shelf rack holds a magazine with an intriguing article about how to grow your food. I tried to grow potatoes once, but they didn’t even sprout. Florida summer is not kind to root veggies. Though it may have been an animal rummaging in our yard for food.
But the bottom shelf has words printed across the front that grab my attention immediately.
ARE GHOSTS REAL?
I’ve always been intrigued by ghosts. Something about how mysterious they are has always been a point of interest for me. I flip to the inside and find the article.
It reads: Ghosts have now been scientifically proven to be a hoax.
I close it. I was hoping it would prove that they are real with interesting experiments, but it’s boring.
James and Reese run up behind me, with their chosen items. I don’t want to leave with nothing, so I grab the gardening magazine. Maybe it’ll be useful. I pay and hold James and Reese’s things while they pee. Reese comes out, and I hand the stuff to her.
When I enter the bathroom, I stop. It’s so clean. The bathroom at home was never this clean.
Now, it hits me how bad they treated us. This gas station has more food and cleaner bathrooms than they ever gave us. I just about cry in this gas station bathroom.
I’m going to make sure my siblings are never hurt again.
________——–_____
The rest of the drive is even longer. We have to have been driving for at least 6 hours before I need to take a nap. So I pull into a motel parking lot and lie back.
I have a dream that Reese got into the front seat and started driving, even though she doesn’t have her license, so I wake up with only a few hours of sleep in my system. Thankfully, Reese did not drive the truck while I was asleep.
So I drive more. We pull into a coffee shop and I get an espresso. It tastes gross, but I’m alert and awake. Reese and James each get a small cupcake. We drive until the sun starts to set in the sky. We drive after the last bit of light slips away. James and Reese succumb to sleep. They’ve been awake for almost a full day now.
But finally, we drive to the edge of a huge city. The buildings tower over us. It’s so much taller than anything I’ve ever seen. I thought my house was tall, but these are incredibly enormous. The buildings are lit up like it’s day, even though the day is long gone. I pass many a bus stop, but there are too many cameras in the city. A residential area would be better.
So we leave the city and find a neighborhood. I drive around a bit more to give them as long as possible to sleep before finding a bus stop. I see a few, and I try to remember the locations. But forty minutes go by, and the sun is long gone. If we want to catch a bus before morning, we need to find a stop soon.
So I gently wake Reese and James by driving quickly over the speed bump ahead of me.
“AHHH!” James screams.
“OH MY GOD!” Reese screams even louder.
“Now that you guys are awake, we need to find a bus stop.”
“Oh my god,” Reese says again. “You’re so annoying!”
“Guilty as charged!” I say.
But we pull over the truck in front of a yellow house, a couple of blocks away from the nearest bus stop, and gather our things. James and Reese move more slowly than I would like, but when they finally shuffle under the cover of the bus stop, I find a discarded bus schedule.
“Perfect timing! The next bus is in 4 minutes.” I announce to my siblings. They complain of hunger. For fear that the bus driver won’t let us, we all have a small meal to keep us going.
“Allison, quick question, where is the bus going?” Reese probes.
“I didn’t check,” I say sheepishly. But when I look at the last column on the sheet, my heart skips a beat.
“It’s going to Key West.”
Author’s Note:
Hi! Thank you so much for reading the second chapter of Lost in the Cemetery! It really means a lot to me that I get to publish this story at all, but to have people read it?! It’s very exciting, to say the least. Each issue, a new chapter will be released. Our final issue (which is published in May) will have the ending. Anyway, happy Fall Break!
