full sprint. He saw the light up ahead. This was it. He knew it. The streetlight. He had somehow found the street again.
The giggling was right behind him.
Christopher ran faster toward the street. Toward the light. He ran under the cover of the last tree. And he stopped when he realized he wasn’t in the street.
He was back in the clearing.
The light was not the streetlight.
It was the moon.
Christopher looked around and could feel things staring at him. Creatures and animals. Their eyes glowing. Surrounding the clearing. The giggling was closer. Louder. Christopher was surrounded. He had to get out of here. Find a way out. Find any way out.
He ran to the tree.
He began to climb. The tree felt like flesh under his hands. Like climbing arms instead of branches. But he ignored the feeling. He needed to get higher to see a way out. When he reached halfway up the tree, the clouds parted. The moon made the clearing glow.
And Christopher saw it.
On the other side of the clearing. Hidden behind the leaves and bushes. It looked like a cave mouth. But it wasn’t a cave. It was a tunnel. Man-made. Wood-framed. With old train tracks in the ground running through it. Christopher realized what that meant. Train tracks led to stations, which led to towns.
He could get out!
He climbed down the arms of the tree. He reached the ground. He felt a presence in the woods. Eyes on him. Waiting for him to move.
Christopher ran.
All of his might. All of his speed. He felt creatures behind him. But he couldn’t see them. He reached the mouth and looked into the tunnel. The train tracks went through it like a rusty spine. He saw moonlight on the other side. An escape!
Christopher ran into the tunnel. The wooden frames held up the walls and ceiling like a whale’s rib cage. But the wood was old. Dilapidated and rotting. And the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for a train to pass through it. What was this place? A covered bridge? Sewer? Cave?
A mine.
The word hit him like water. A Pennsylvania coal mine. He saw a movie about them in class. Miners using handcarts and rail track to bring out earth to burn. He ran deeper. Racing to the moonlight on the other side. He looked down at the tracks to get better footing. That’s when he saw the little-kid footprints were back. And the giggling was back. Right behind him.
The moonlight faded ahead as the clouds played hide-and-seek. The whole world went black. He groped into the darkness. Trying to find the walls to guide his way out. His feet scraped the tracks as he reached out like a blind man. And he finally found something. He finally touched something in the dark.
It was a little kid’s hand.
Christopher
was
not
seen
or
heard
from
for
six
days.
Part II
Dreams Come True
Chapter 7
Mary Katherine was guilty. That was nothing new. She had been guilty ever since her first CCD class with Mrs. Radcliffe over ten years ago. But this was really bad. She couldn’t believe she let it get so out of control. The law clearly stated that kids were not allowed to drive alone after midnight. It was 11:53 p.m., and she was at least ten minutes from home. How did she let this happen?
“You just got your license! You’re so stupid!” she berated herself.
How long did it take her to get her license? Remember?! She had to beg her mother to even bring it up to her father. Then, when her mom finally mustered enough courage to throw back a couple of (boxes of) white wine and have the talk, it took both of them working on Dad for weeks to even allow a learner’s permit. When the other kids only took one Driver’s Ed class, Mary Katherine had to take two. When the other parents let their kids drive on McLaughlin Run Road or even Route 19 for gosh sake, Mary Katherine was still stuck in the church parking lot. Not even the big parking lot at Holy Ascension. She was stuck at St. Joseph’s! Hello!
By the time slutty Debbie “Done Him” Dunham and that notorious drunk Michele Gorman were driving all the way to downtown Pittsburgh, Mary Katherine was pulling in and out of her own driveway.
“Hey, Virgin Mary,” Debbie would say in the locker room. “Could you give me a lift up my driveway?”
Mary Katherine was used to kids calling her names. “The more devout the child, the more devout the insult,” her mother liked to