The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

Considering we were all twisted together like a pretzel, and had no space to move around, I was amazed at how well I slept. I would have been amazed that we weren’t freezing, but we were all sleeping so tightly together that we were keeping each other warm with our own body heat. It was very cold outside our group sleeping bag, though.

We ate the last of the trail mix, which there wasn’t much of to begin with, and packed up. We hiked for a long time before we saw anything else, other than the train tracks and lots of trees. What ‘that anything else’ turned out to be was not what I wanted to see.

Since we were in the woods, we probably weren’t as careful as we should’ve been. As we crested a hill, the trees parted and we came into a very large open area, where there were military vehicles everywhere. We all stopped dead, staring at what was in front of us. We were out in the open, and brightly colored.

There were military tents set up, with antennas and all kinds of other stuff that I couldn’t identify. Men were moving all over the place, doing whatever it was they did. I didn’t really care. What I cared about was getting out of sight, and fast.

Aliyah and I moved back into the trees as fast as we could, Eliana and Ben following without question. They knew that this was bad, without being told.

Once we were back in the trees, we all looked out, trying to stay hidden. I knew immediately that we had been seen. One of those army car, truck things was coming our way, and very fast. It skidded to a stop not far from where we had been when we first came over the top of the hill and out of the woods.

“Come on out kids. We won’t hurt you,” the army man yelled. There was no way we were going to get out of this, at least no way I could think of.

“Let me talk,” I whispered. Aliyah nodded agreement.

We all stood up and came out of hiding. “You kids hid well, especially considering your bright colors,” he said, with an admiring grin. “What are you doing here?”

“We were with our church group, but they left us and we started hiking and got lost. We had no idea where we were, and we got scared when we saw all of that,” I said, indicating their setup. “We still don’t, but we thought that if we stayed on the tracks we’d eventually find civilization again,” I told him. He looked at us for a while, not saying anything. Then, he reached up to his shoulder and pulled a mic down, pressing the button on the side of it.

“Sargeant, we have four kids along the tracks. Say they got lost from a church group,” he said into the mic. He had an earpiece, so I had no idea what the sergeant said to him. I didn’t think we were in any danger right then, so I didn’t try and read his mind.

“What did you kids eat for breakfast?”

“Trail mix, sir,” I replied.

“Would you like some real food?” I didn’t need to reply, as he almost laughed when he saw the hungry look on all of our faces, especially Eliana and Ben.

“Climb in,” he told us. A few minutes later, we were in a large tent that had a lot of tables and wonderful smells.

“Sit here and I’ll get you breakfast,” he instructed us. We all sat our packs on the ground by our feet and waited.

“Keep your pack close at all times,” I quickly whispered to everyone, getting nods from them all.

When the soldier put the food down in front of us, we all dug into it like we hadn’t eaten in days, which we hadn’t really. He pulled up a folding chair and sat at the end of the table while we ate, watching us. Once we were all done, including seconds, he took the tray with our dishes and had us follow him. I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one that would have liked more.

He led us to a tent with a large fold up table and a lot of chairs. It was like a meeting room, but in a tent.

“Ribinski, get in here!” he yelled, as we walked in.

“Yes, sergeant,” the newly arrived soldier said. I knew he said sergeant, but the ‘g’ was almost silent. I’d heard the sergeant say it the same way when he spoke on the radio earlier to another sergeant. Apparently, it was the army way of saying sergeant.

“Now kids, what’s your story? The truth,” he demanded, with a look that said he expected to be obeyed without question.

“We told you,” I said.

“No, you told me a lie. You kept your packs at your feet like you were ready to run. There are no reports of missing kids, and I can promise you there would be. The truth, this time,” he replied.

Tell him the truth, Aliyah said to my mind.

But it’ll get him in trouble. He wouldn’t believe it anyway, I replied, speaking out loud.

Then show him. He won’t have a choice, she said, still only talking in our minds.

“Sergeant, if we tell you the truth, it could get you in a lot of trouble. They’ll lock you up for the rest of your life if they find out you know,” I explained.

“Know what?” he demanded. I looked over at Aliyah, not sure if this was the right decision, but she nodded for me to continue.

“We’re telepaths. We were created by a government experiment and they’re after us and they’ve arrested our parents to try and get us,” I told him. He sat staring at us for a while. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Unlike a lot of people I had seen in the past in this situation, this soldier would have made a great poker player.

I was certain he didn’t believe me, though. Who would?

Reaching into that pool of energy, I let a little of it flow into me. It was such a wonderful feeling, and I was still afraid of it because of that. With that energy, I lifted the table into the air. The sergeant almost fell out of the chair he was sitting in. The other soldier looked as if he was struggling not to run away and both of them looked a bit pale.

“Sergeant, she’s right. If anyone knows we know, they’ll put us away forever,” the younger soldier said, at least a little sense still present.

“She tried to warn you,” Aliyah said, with an ‘I told you so’ tone.

The sergeant finally did come to his senses. “That is messed up!” he exclaimed, shaking his head, like he was trying to shake something loose. “Where are you kids going,” he asked.

“We don’t know. We just need to get out of Alaska, but they’ve blocked the highways and they’re probably watching any other place we could go to get away,” I replied.

“Sergeant, there’s a plane scheduled for a TDY to Eglin,” the younger soldier suggested.

“We can’t get them on a military plane,” the sergeant said, looking at the younger soldier like he was crazy. The younger soldier motioned him over and began whispering to him. Of course, he wasn’t very quiet and we could hear everything he said. We didn’t even need to read their minds.

“Sergeant, if we can get them on that plane, it gets them out of Alaska and away from us. No one will ever know we found them,” he explained.

“How can we get them on a military transport, without them being found?” he asked.

“Get them in a crate and send them away,” he replied.

“They check every crate, to insure it’s what the transfer docs say it is,” the sergeant said.

“That won’t be our problem,” the soldier said. The sergeant was silent for a long time, just looking at his partner. After a while, he turned around and stared at us, looking like he wasn’t sure about what he wanted to say.

“I think we can sneak you kids onto a military plane going to Eglin Air Force Base. That’s in Florida and a long way from here.” My face had to have gotten excited at that, because I felt like I was vibrating. Our luck was incredible. That wasn’t far from where we wanted to be, and I was pretty sure we could take care of them checking the crate.

“I take it that you’d be happy with that?” he asked, at my reaction. I could only nod my head.

“Okay, we’ll get a crate ready for the trip. It’s a large thing, big enough for all four of you. It’ll still be a little tight, though. We’ll make sure you have food in there for the trip, but you’ll get there tomorrow afternoon, if they stay on course. Make sure you go to the bathroom before you get in, cause there won’t be one inside. We can put a few empty water bottles in there for you, which you can pee in, but you’ll need to be careful how much you use them. When you get to Eglin, it’ll be up to you to figure out how to get out of the box and off the base,” he said, pausing as he looked at me.

“Will that work for you?” he finally asked. Aliyah and I both nodded.

He left for a while, leaving the younger soldier to watch over us. When he returned, we loaded back into his truck, or whatever it was, and he took us onto the main part of the base. He led us into an area that was empty of any people and then to a small cafeteria, where he got us more food. From there, we all went to the bathroom and he drove us to a hangar, very close to the runway.

Everything took about three hours, in which time we had some snacks, he gave us a lot of water bottles, about half of them empty, and loaded us in a crate in the hangar. Thankfully, we heard them outside the crate when they were about to check it. Both of us concentrated, and entered the minds of the soldiers examining the crate. It didn’t take much, and they went on their way, thinking that our crate had been checked.

A little while later, we felt the crate get lifted and shortly after that we felt the plane taking off. He had made sure our crate was labelled as fragile, so it might not get banged around too much. All of us tried to sleep on the trip, since there wasn’t anything else to do, but it was way too hot.

We all held it as long as we could, but eventually every one of us had to go to the bathroom. When any of us went, Ben would turn around so he couldn’t see, and we all did the same for him. It wasn’t the best situation, considering we were in a crate in the back of a plane, but it worked.

During the flight, I had visions of my little island, and even considered having Ben and Eliana there, but I quickly dispelled those. I didn’t want to have to police them all the time, and I definitely would. So, my peaceful sanctuary remained mine...and Aliyah’s.

I had no idea what time it was when we landed, but I felt it when the plane began descending and then the slight lurch when the plane’s wheels touched the pavement. It wasn’t long after that when a forklift took our crate out of the plane. Even marked fragile, they weren’t very careful with us. At least, that’s how it felt to me.

Carefully pulling the cell phone out of my pack, I pressed the little button on its face and saw that it was 2:13 in the afternoon. I assumed the phone automatically adjusted to the local time, but I wasn’t certain of that. It would probably be a good idea to wait until much later in the afternoon to try and sneak out, if we could figure out how to open the crate.

The box we were in wasn’t a simple cardboard box. It had thick wooden sides with metal holding them all together. I really hoped Aliyah or I could feel it with our minds and figure out how to open it.

We sat quietly for what seemed like forever. Eliana and Ben were amazingly patient during all of this. When it got to 5:00, I nodded to Aliyah. She concentrated for a little while, and then nodded back.

“There’s no one around. I’ll see if I can open it,” she told me, to which I nodded. She then closed her eyes and concentrated again.

I joined her, sending a probe out to sense the box and how it was sealed. I was very happy that it wasn’t airtight, or we’d have possibly been in a lot of trouble. My probe ran over the outside of the crate and found a couple of clasps on opposite corners, with hinges in the others. This crate was designed with doors.

Using my mind, I pried the clasps open, using a lot of energy with each one. There were only two and it felt like I had been working for hours, but the door opened slightly as the last was unfastened. Ben pushed it open completely, without waiting for us. Although I understood his desire to escape, we didn’t know that there weren’t cameras. Of course, I wasn’t sure if there was anything we could’ve done if there were.

We all piled out of the box, making sure we removed every trace of our time there, then Aliyah and I resealed the box. Whenever someone finally opened it, they’d probably wonder why an empty crate had been sent all the way from Alaska, but that wasn’t my problem or concern.

We then went through the closest door, hoping to find a real bathroom, which we did very quickly. We all went to the bathroom, and then emptied the water bottles that had served as pee bottles, and cleaned them out. We left the empty water bottles on the floor and refilled our real water bottles.

Once done with that, we made our way to the exit, checking with our eyes and mind to see if anyone was around. Finding no one, we slowly opened the door a little and squeezed out. We left the building on the opposite of it from runway.

We all hugged the wall of the building as we worked our way toward the nearby road, hoping to see something that would give us a clue of where to go. Although it was only about 6:00, the overcast sky made it quite dark. That also made it difficult to see what was around us, but there was definitely life in the distance, with bright light on both sides of the runway from where we were. I wished I had a compass, so I’d know which direction everything was and maybe an idea of which way to go.

The side of the building we were on had a parking lot and a road coming off of it. With no idea where we were going, I began walking toward the brightest area of light, which was kind of to our left.

We went right when we got to the road, which I soon found was Fisher Street. In three or four blocks, we came to Larcher Boulevard, which came to a tee in front of the base hospital. I knew the hospital wasn’t where we wanted to go, and it looked kind of dark further down Fisher Street, so I led us onto Larcher. A few blocks down Larcher, we came to the base exchange. Unfortunately, it looked closed, since there weren’t many cars in the parking lot.

Looking at the area, there was a kind of busy road that intersected Larcher, and ran in front of the exchange. Although I wasn’t positive, it looked like it might lead off the base. We turned onto Meadows Drive and saw the gate. That was where we wanted to go.

“Let’s just walk through and see if they stop us,” Aliyah said, probably guessing that I was worried about it. Rather than replying, I continued walking, right through the gate. The guards didn’t even look over at us.

“Mel, weren’t we supposed to go to Eglin?” she asked, once we were through the gate. Her question sent a jolt of panic through me, because I knew we weren’t at Eglin, if she asked that.

“Yeah,” I replied, knowing something of what she was about to say.

“We’re at Keesler Air Force Base,” she informed me.

I sat down, right where I was. My mind was going into panic mode, having no idea where in the world we were. I’d never heard of Keesler Air Force Base, not that I knew many Air Force bases.

I felt her arms pull me close, comforting me, as I sat with my face in my hands, tears of frustration and fear leaking out. Not only was I responsible for Aliyah, but I was also responsible for Ben and Eliana. I had no idea where we were or what we were going to do.

“Mel, let’s go, before someone starts asking questions,” she said, helping to lift me up. She was right, of course, but I wasn’t totally in control of myself anymore.

The base exit came to a tee on Forrest Avenue, in whatever city we were in. Right across from the base entrance was a church, which I considered going to, but at the last minute decided not to. We did cross the road, though. Following the proper rules of pedestrians, we started walking against the flow of traffic, not that there was much traffic.

There weren’t any people out and I was hoping as hard as I could that it’d stay that way. I was scared that there’d be bad people out, considering we were four kids in an unknown part of some unknown city. We were very vulnerable. God, I prayed no one came near us.

Walking along Forrest Avenue, we crossed a canal before we finally came to a tee, forcing me to choose a direction again. As long as we had been on Forrest, I didn’t have to make any choices, but now I did and I had no idea which way to go. So far, my prayer to remain unseen had been granted.

Looking both ways, I decided to go left, since I saw a Shell station that way and I was hungry, which meant we were all hungry. There’d be food there, even if it was only snack food. There would be no way to avoid people there, but it was worth it to get some food.

When we got to the Shell station, I walked in without asking the others if they wanted anything. I was sure they did. We all got a soda, each getting a different one, and a couple large bags of potato chips to share. One was ranch and the other was barbecue, which was my favorite. Eliana helped me with the barbecue, while Ben and Aliyah ate the ranch.

Once we were done, having eaten the chips outside the store, I went back in and walked up to the counter. “Is there a grocery store nearby, ma’am?”

She had the darkest skin I’d ever seen, almost being truly black. Her mostly white hair was braided really tightly in many different little braids. Although her hair made her look old, her skin was wrinkle free, so I wasn’t sure how old she was.

“There’s a Food Giant a couple blocks down on the right,” she said, with a very deep and odd southern accent. Along with her reply, she pointed in the direction of the store.

“Thank you,” I said, turning to walk out.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, smiling at me.

Aliyah and the younger kids fell in behind me as I walked out and in the direction the woman indicated. We crossed a set of railroad tracks and then I saw something that almost made me freeze in terror. Right across from the Food Giant was the police station.

“They aren’t looking for us here,” Aliyah told me, calming me down instantly. She was right and my mind began engaging again.

Stopping at the beginning of the parking lot, I turned toward the others, knowing we needed a place to stay for the night and also some real food to eat. “We need to get something we can eat that will fill us up. We can’t get candy or cookies or anything, okay?” I told Eliana and Ben, mainly Ben. They both nodded very quickly.

With that, we all walked into the store, which was thankfully still open. Once inside, I went to the peanut butter aisle and grabbed a jar of peanut butter and a jar of strawberry preserves. I always liked preserves better than jelly. It was easier to spread.

We then wandered through the store and got a small bottle of apple juice and a loaf of bread. “We need some knives,” Ben said, as we were headed to the checkout.

“You’re right. Thank you,” I replied. Once we had the knives, we went to the checkout and paid for the stuff.

Heading back in the direction we were headed when we got to the store, since I didn’t know where else to go, we walked out of sight of the police station. Even though they weren’t looking for me here, I still had some anxiety at being so close to it.

It was really beginning to get dark now, but I could tell that ahead of us was a lot of darkness. Just as I was noticing that, I saw something that was more interesting. Above us was a school zone sign. We could possibly hide there.

There was a small road to our left, and only houses and businesses anywhere else, so I figured the school had to be down that road. Hoping my logic was good, I crossed the road, making sure we could all go together, and started down Youngham Drive.

We didn’t walk very far before we came into a large opening with what could only be a school to our right, across a decent size play field. Without pausing, I walked to the school and straight to one of the doors. Knowing I could do this, I slipped my mind into the lock and opened the door. As I did, I felt like I was about to collapse. My energy was almost completely gone.

Aliyah put a hand on my back to steady me, which I was thankful for. Why was I so tired, though?

“You’ve used too much power,” she replied to my unspoken thought.

“How? I only picked the lock.”

“You’ve been using energy since we left the base. It was really weird, kind of like a bubble all around us, but I couldn’t tell what it was for, or why you were doing it.”

“I didn’t know I was,” I informed her, which brought a raised eyebrow from her.

“We need to eat,” I said, getting back to business. Eliana and Ben both nodded agreement. Aliyah was hungry, but she was looking at me like she was trying to figure something out. I knew she had a probe in my mind, but that wasn’t that uncommon for us.

“Would you lock the door back?” I asked her, to which she nodded and froze in concentration for less than a second. Picking and apparently locking locks was nothing for her.

We wandered around the school for a little while before we finally found the cafeteria, and with it the kitchen. All of us almost charged the kitchen door, since we were all very hungry. The potato chips really hadn’t done much for any of us.

We used only the stuff we had bought for our meal, not wanting to steal from the school. Although it was only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with apple juice to wash it down, it filled all of us up pretty good. Finally done eating, and cleaning up our mess, we walked out of the kitchen into the student portion of the cafeteria, intending to find a place to sleep.

Yet again, we wandered around the school, using one of our lanterns to light the way. We definitely didn’t want to turn the lights on. I was afraid the lantern would give us away, but the lights would without a doubt.

Finally, we found a room that looked like a storage room, and a seldom used one at that. We all went in and closed the door.

“We can’t lock it,” she informed me once we were inside.

“Why not?”

“I think it’s broken. All I know is, it won’t lock.”

“We’ll have to take our chances, I guess,” I said, resigned to whatever fate we ended up with. We needed a relatively safe place to sleep, and this was the best I could come up with right then, not knowing where we were or what was nearby.

“Sir, we lost them,” John reported to his boss.

“I’m not surprised,” Raughlin replied. John wasn’t sure how to take that, and wasn’t about to say anything to his boss about it.

“Where was the last known location?” Raughlin asked.

“The Beach Lake Camp, in Chugiak, Alaska,” John said.

“So, they up and disappeared,” Raughlin mused.

“It seems so, sir,” the security chief replied.

“And they left the phone you traced, correct?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” John replied, curious how he knew that.

“I’m looking at a map on the internet and noticed a set of railroad tracks nearby. It seems the girls knew you were coming, somehow, so it is a reasonable assumption that they would have taken a path out that you would have had a lot of trouble following. Those tracks seem like a very good solution for them, wouldn’t they?” he asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“Yes, sir,” John replied, getting more nervous with each step the Headmaster took down his logical path.

That girl was making him look bad, and he had no doubt that the Brager girl was the leader. She always had been.

“Something else to consider...those tracks lead on to the military base, and they are military kids. Keep that in mind, as you search for them,” Raughlin said, and hung up.

Although John Wu may have been a good soldier, he was not the best leader, and Raughlin sorely missed Stone being in charge. Yes, he was unable to capture the girls, but he was constantly on their heels, anticipating their moves. John had been far behind them the entire time, never really getting that close.

Regardless of all of that, his plans were still going well and he had no doubt that the girls would show up again at some point, along with the two younger children. The only questions were when, and where? He strongly suspected that they had managed to slip out of Alaska at this point, considering how resourceful those girls were, but he didn’t know with certainty.

Unlike John Wu, Raughlin suspected that Melanie Brager might not be as much of a leader as it seemed. Aliyah Draper might actually be the stronger leader, but he wasn’t certain. Regardless, he’d make use of them once they finally came home...to him.

John was keeping them busy, which was exactly what he wanted, although it’d have been really nice if he had managed to actually catch them. That was too much to ask, though, and he knew it.

John sat for a long time, trying to figure out how his former boss had managed to stay on the girls heels so effectively.Although he never actually caught them, John believed that Stone would have if he’d stayed on the job and not abandoned his men like he had.

Enough of his ‘what ifs’. He had a job to do, and he was determined to do it, to the best of his ability. Standing up, he stretched a moment and walked out of the room.

“Easely, there’s a set of railroad tracks that intersects the road to that campground. Have a team scout it. The girls likely used it to elude us,” he instructed.

“Yes, sir,” Easely replied, with a smart salute.

“And take a telepath with you,” he commanded.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, again with a salute.