Kidnapped

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

There was a cloud of dust and dirt and ashes. All around us. I hadn't noticed it before, but now I couldn't breathe. I coughed and gasped and sneezed.

"Cover your mouth and nose," Dave said. He lifted his shirt over his nose and breathed in. I did the same. It made the coughing stop.

Everything was silent. Still. It was just me and Dave standing in the middle of the cloud of dust. It was an oddly peaceful silence, and depressing and horrifying at the same time. The ground was covered in bits and pieces of cars and trucks and people.

I didn't think anyone else had survived.

It was horrible.

"Why would someone do this?" I asked.

"You're asking me?" Dave replied.

We started walking. Neither of us really knew which direction we were going, we just walked. The ground was covered in all kinds of things. Glass that was shattered into a million shards and scattered across the dark pavement. Doors and wheels and parts from a firetruck, a police car, an ambulance. Ashes, dirt, and dust. Lots of it.

Whatever kind of bomb they used, it was big enough to cause all of this destruction.

As we walked further into the cloud of dirt and ashes and dust, it got hard to see. If I could even open my eyes. If the dirt flying into them didn't make me close them, I could only see about a foot in front of me.

"Why is there so much dirt and dust?" I asked.

"I think the explosion brought down a building." Dave told me.

Sure enough, as we walked through the wreckage, we saw a pile of rubble where the cloud was the thickest.

"My gosh." I gasped. I stared at it for a moment. "Can we get out of this?" I asked. "I need to breathe."

"Yeah." Dave replied. We turned around and started going back the way we had come. The dust cloud got thinner and thinner and after a while we could breathe. We went and sat down under a street lamp.

Dave was covered in dirt, dust, and ashes, and I assumed I was too. I lifted my hand and trailed my finger across his cheek. 

"This is terrible." I said as my finger turned black and his cheek had a line on it where the dirt had been wiped clean.

"It is." Dave took my arm and started tracing lines up it like the one I drew on his cheek. His fingers turned black and my arm had lines on it. I laughed.

Dave wrote his name on my arm and I wrote mine on his. I felt like a little child. But it felt good to act like a child. To laugh. 

Dave wrote something on my forehead.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"You'll have to wait until you get a mirror to find out." He smiled. I lifted my hand and wrote something on his forehead.

"Now you'll have to find a mirror, too." I smiled teasingly. Dave lifted his hand and traced the outline of my lips. When he kissed me, it tasted like dust.

The police arrived a few minutes later. An officer came over to us and shined a bright light into our eyes. Then he had us come over to his car and tell him the story. When I got to the part where Jake died, I started crying.

"Sir, can we speak with you tomorrow? I think tonight we've both had enough of this." Dave asked as he rubbed my back soothingly.

The officer hesitated for a moment. He looked from me to Dave and back again. "Yes, that would be fine," He finally replied. He had Dave give him our phone numbers and where we would be staying and all that fun stuff.