WW3

The dirt tunnel

A week or so after the incident Alyssa and I go back to our normal routine, but keep extra protection on us. For instance I found a bullet proof vest in the houses attic and I make sure that Alyssa is wearing it at all times. I also keep my fathers shot gun in my coat pocket now also. But anyway I'm getting side tracked.

We race across the street to the woods and onto the leaf covered path. We turn around a corner and I push away some bushes. Where the 'bushes' had just been there is a tunnel deep into the hill we are walking along. Alyssa looks at me quizzical but once I hop in I hear her light foot falls above me and the sound of something hard hitting the ground. I look behind me and see her standing up, she grumbles about the vest being to heavy and that she doesn't need it but I ignore her. I know that some day that vest will save her, I don't want it to have to but I know that it will.

We trudge down the tunnel getting farther and farther away from the entrence to the point where Alyssa is holding my arm for fear of losing me in the darkness. The tunnel is a cave of dirt made long ago, it has ten foot high cellings and is very wide. There is only one direction to go in that way you can't get lost. We continue down the tunnel till we reach a hole in the wall. That is the very end of the dirt tunnel just a hole in the wall with pebbles falling into it. I crawl through the hole on my hands and knees. When I am outside I'm standing beside a lake beside rocks larger than myself. I climb to the rock that holds the entrance to the tunnel and wait for Alyssa to come out.

When she finally crawls out she looks very distressed with not seeing me. I remain lying on my stomach on the rock watching her till she finally begins to weep. Sigh and the small noise catches her off guard causing her to jump and shriek slightly. I laugh as she clutches her heart and breaths heavily. When I calm down and she stops threatening to kill me I climb down and sit down sit on my favorite rock. It is shaped like a chair with a high back and long seat area big enough for two people to sit on. I pat the area beside me and Alyssa slowly comes and sits beside me. We stay there for most of the day just watching the sun slowly rise over the horizon and go across the sky.

I tell Alyssa stories that my brother had told me, the first time we had come here together, of what happened when he would hang out here watching the rich families. They all lived along the lake and had parties, my brother was never invited because he didn't have the right friends to but he didn't care. He found these rich kids at school more as rats that you observe than people you hang out with. I tell her about how one summer he had been out here and was watching the people just a bit away from the rock that we sit at right now, they had been getting ready for a party and he had watched them for most of a day and finally he got up to go home for dinner and he almost gave one lady a heart attack. You see the way it used to be before he found the tunnel you had to climb across a field of rocks and of tall grass to get back to the trail that leads back to the street.

When the sun begins to set in the west we brush off the dirt and sand and stones from our pants and climb down off the rock. When we hit the stony beach a thought runs through my mind, why had the government personel shot at us? In truth that thought had been going through my head a lot lately. I had a feeling it had to do with Alyssa, and something to do with the government home. I look at her and she gives me a smile.

She's just a kid. She doesn't even know what to do if you start getting shot at, what could she have done to get a person so mad they needed to kill us? Again I look at her and she asks, "Mary are you okay?"

I nod but she persists, "Is your head hurting again? Maybe we should get back to the house." I nod but before I can stop myself I blurt out a question, "Why did he shot at us, Alyssa?"

She looks at me shocked and a bit fearfully. She lowers her head so her hair covers her face and she can't look me in the eye.

"Alyssa, do you know why he shot at us?" Again she remains silent. I'm about to let it go and just crawl back into the tunnel when she says, "I got him in trouble." I look at her. A skin and bones girl with chocolate skin and caramel hair her big brown eyes are filled with tears and a terrible thought comes to mind. I get down on my knees and hold her arms, "Did he hurt you? If he did I'll kill him." She shakes her head and pulls away from my grip, "No, he didn't do anything to me, he was stealing money from the people who owned the home I was living in. Not the mean people but their elderly mom. She was so nice, she gave all of us cookies and would sneak us food when she could. She loved us and he was stealing from her so he could buy drugs." Her bony hands become fists and they shake with anger, "So I tried to stop him with a few of the other older kids, but he hit them with his gun and told us that he would kill us if any of us told anyone. So the others let it go, but I couldn't do it. I mean how could he do that to her?!" She looks at me pleadingly but I don't say anything so that she can finish. "So that night I told the mean people what he was doing...they through him out of the house, but he saw me and said that he would come and get me. He said that I would pay for what I did. I left that night. I didn't want to take the chance of him coming back to get me. It was him that was driving. He looked like he was crazy!"

Her tears flow freely down her face and I pull her into a hug. "He won't hurt you. I promise." I hold her in a hug until all her tears are gone and she is breathing evenly. By this time the sun has all but set. I pull away and say, "Come on we better get home. My mom is supposed to be home tonight. She'll make us some food and we can have a nice night by the fire!" Alyssa smiles and crawls into the cave. I look around the place behind us and pull a rock back so the entrance is closed. We walk down the tunnel until we reach the top hole. She looks at me confused and I pull a ladder from the side and put if up against the tunnel hole. She climbs up the ladder slowly and I follow behind her quickly.  I tip the ladder over to the side so we don't land on it when we go down again and I quickly cover the entrance with the bushes again.

Alyssa and I cross the street silently without a car in sight and go up to the house all the time unaware of the figure watching from behind us...