Chapter 3

Hunter

    Alex must have gotten up in the night and gone back to her room. She wasn’t where she had been when Hunter woke up. That was fine. It was good for her to overcome her fears and sleep in her own bed. Hunter would always be there for her, but he was well aware that at some point Alex would just have to learn how to handle her fears and emotions on her own.

    Hunter got out of bed and got dressed. It was hard with a long week of physically taxing construction work behind him and darkness still blanketing the world outside. Yet, it had to be done. There were kids missing. If Alex went missing, he would want someone to help him look for her. When Hunter went downstairs, Alex was there, sitting on the table again, staring blankly into the darkness.

    It startled him when he switched on the light.

    “I’m not loving this new habit of yours,” he said. “Get off the table.”

    Alex climbed off of the table with all of the grace of an awkward teenager.

    “I’ve got a couple of extra minutes, so I’ll make you and Tommy some pancakes before I had out,” Hunter said. “You’re going to have to watch him for a bit while we’re in the woods. Tanya said you can just watch movies. We’d rather you stay here than venture out.”

    Hunter was half way through making a simple pancake batter when he added, “I’m sure you know well enough not to let anyone in the house. We still don’t know what happened to those kids. I don’t want you taking chances.”

    “I won’t let anyone else in the house,” Alex said. She was sitting on the counter next to Hunter now, watching him as he made the pancakes. 

    Hunter remembered the days when Alex would beg to stir the batter or crack the eggs. Pancakes were their thing and had been for a long time. Hunter knew he would be making pancakes for Alex for as long as he could. Even if he had to break into the kitchen of his nursing home at a hundred years old, he would find a way to make pancakes for Alex.

    Once there was a pancake sizzling in the pan, Hunter shooed Alex over to the table. He put down two plates and forks and went back to the stove to flip the pancake before it could burn. The doorbell rang and he sent Alex to let Tanya and Tommy in. No one else would be coming to see them this early.

    “Bring them to the kitchen,” Hunter shouted after Alex.

    Moments later, Tanya was plopping a sleepy five year old into a chair while Alex sat back down in her spot. Hunter brought over a plate with pancakes and served each of them one.

    Tommy yawned and poked at his. Alex watched the young boy curiously.

    “Eat your own pancake kiddo,” Hunter said. He ruffled her hair as he walked by, leaving the plate with spare pancakes on the table.

    Tanya grabbed one, rolled it up, and started eating it as she waited for Hunter to finish making pancakes so that they could leave.

    Alex started rolling up her pancake as well. She ate it quickly and reached for another. Hunter focused on flipping pancakes and listening to the updates Tanya had. More kids had been interviewed. No one knew anything. The group of kids that vanished into the woods must have been outsiders since no one seemed to know them or know why they’d gone into the woods. There was always the old dare. Go into the woods. Find the old house. Taunt the evil that lives there and see if you make it out. 

    It was amazing that kids still believed that story. There was no house at the center of the woods. Plenty of people had looked for it over the years. The woods were empty, yet, even without a spooky house, they were dangerous. The road that had once run through the woods had been closed down decades ago due to the number of accidents on it. It was used as a walking trail now, not that anyone really walked on it. The trail would be their starting point in the search. There were all kinds of hidden dangers out there if you left that trail. Unmarked wells and other surprises that could trap or kill you. You never knew they were there until you felt yourself falling into one.

    There seemed to be a generational cycle when it came to the woods. The woods were avoided after something terrible happened. Kids would keep out of them after a tragedy, then, as time went by and the kids who knew those who died or disappeared in the woods had kids of their own, the fear would be forgotten by the new generation and they would go out into the woods and party like their parents did before them until something terrible happened and the woods were avoided again.

    Hunter remembered that when he was a teen around Alex’s age, some people were racing their cars down the old street in the woods. He couldn’t remember how they had gotten the vehicles around the barriers to get them into the woods, but they had. One of the cars went off the edge of the road and vanished. Sheriff Beckert, who had been a young police officer at the time, was tasked with telling the families that the river had carried the car away and there was no real hope of finding with the waters being so high. The car could have been carried a mile away or fifty. For a while, the families clung to hope that the car had been carried far away, but settled somewhere on shore with the kids still alive and breathing, trying to find their way back home again.

    The more time passed, the more obvious it became that the kids weren’t coming back. That the car must have settled at the bottom of the river somewhere and their children would forever be in an unknown watery grave.

    The memory of those shattered families kept Hunter, Tanya, and everyone they knew out of the woods. Now this unpleasant torch was being passed to Alex and Tommy’s generation. Hunter couldn’t shake the feeling that despite their efforts, the kids that had gone into the woods weren’t coming out. It was the way it had always been, but he wasn’t going to give up hope just yet.

    When Hunter turned around, he was surprised to see that the first round of pancakes was completely gone. Tommy was sitting in a daze looking at Alex who was eating the last bite of the final pancake.

    “You guys must be hungry,” Hunter said.

    “I love pancakes,” Alex said.

    “Me too,” said Tommy.

    Hunter put another pancake on each of their plates and stacked the current plate full of pancakes on the empty one in the center of the table.

    Tanya kissed Tommy goodbye and told him that Alex would show him his favorite movies until she got back. 

    “Walk us to the door, kiddo,” Hunter said as he put some dishes in the sink before walking to the front of the house.

    At the door, he gave Alex a long hug and she started to cling to him.

    “Hey, now, Alex,” Hunter said. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back soon. I just need to hear you lock the door once we walk out and don’t unlock it until we come back.”

    “And the usual babysitting rules,” Tanya said. “Not too much sugar and loads of fun. I left a backpack full of toys and books on the couch if you need it.”

    Tanya kissed Alex on the head like she had Tommy and walked out the door.

    “Let me hear this door lock,” Hunter said. 

    He gave Alex another hug and she clung to him.

    “Don’t go,” she said.

    “I’ll be back soon.”

    Hunter pried himself free and walked outside. He closed the door and waited. Eventually, he heard the gentle click of the deadbolt and walked to his car. Sheriff Beckert would be starting his meeting soon. The sooner they got searching for those kids, the better the chances were of finding them alive.