365 Days Hunted Read online

  “We have to do something,” he sobbed. “They’re killing him, Jacob!”

  “There are too many,” I whispered. “They’ll kill us, too, if we try to interfere.”

  “Then, what are we going to do?!”

  “We need to get help. Find a phone somewhere and call the police.”

  “Uh, Jacob…” Kieran’s voice had become small and shaky. His hand snaked out and squeezed my arm. “Look down,” he said, urgently. “Look down now!”

  * * * *

  They were coming for us!

  While our attention had been focused on the second group and the horror they were perpetrating, the first three juvies must have caught sight of us up on the road above them.

  Now, the three of them were scrambling up the hillside—pulling themselves up through the chaparral, their faces grim and determined.

  As I peered down, the largest of them—the Hispanic—looked up at me and grinned. He was just close enough for me to see the thin scar that ran from his right ear across his cheek to just underneath his chin.

  There was a large knife in his right hand and he held it up.

  Looking directly into my eyes, he drew it across the air, just in front of his throat.

  The implication was obvious.

  My brothers and I were in deadly trouble!

  * * * *

  The severe angle of the slope was to be our saving grace.

  That, and the disintegrating granite, kept tripping our pursuers up—making them backslide and stumble.

  Still, I figured we had, at most, maybe two minutes.

  It would have to be enough.

  “Come on!” I yelled. “Run, Kieran…run, Rhys!”

  Grabbing both of my brothers—one by each arm—I started pulling them.

  But I didn’t pull them away from the hillside. Instead, I tugged them along the rocks at the side of the road, threading among the giant boulders—always in view of the three boys below.

  As we ran, I could hear other boys begin to yell.

  The second group had seen us now. They were racing toward the first three, eager to join in the pursuit.

  “But we’re heading back to Malibu!” gasped Kieran, confused. “Why are we going back?!”

  “We’re not. That’s just what I want them to think,” I explained.

  A few moments later, I pulled Rhys and Kieran away from the edge of the hillside—and the sightlines of the boys down below.

  “Quickly!” I urged. “Across the road—into that ravine!”

  I let go of my brothers and, together, we raced to the other side of Kanan-Dume Road. There was a small rift in the rocks there—where the bases of the two hillsides met. It was no more than a few feet apart and difficult to see behind the bushes and boulders that fronted it.

  But I knew it was there—one of the upsides of spending hundreds of hours hiking throughout the area.

  We moved quickly, pushing in through the bushes. A large boulder barred our way, but I knew from past experience that—if we ducked low—we could shimmy our way past the rock, using a small opening to the right.

  “Follow me,” I ordered. “Hurry!”

  I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled through the opening.

  On the other side, I turned back and bent low. Rhys had just entered the small tunnel. I reached in and grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him quickly through.

  Behind him, Kieran knelt down to follow.

  “Where’d the bitches go?!”

  The voice that had spoken was harsh and gasping for air.

  It was also directly across from us—in the middle of Kanan-Dume Road—with only a few bushes between its owner and Kieran!

  I quickly looked through the rocks at my younger brother.

  Kieran had frozen, his head and shoulders in the opening, his butt and legs exposed. When our eyes met, I motioned with my hand parallel to the ground—urging him to lie flat.

  Silently—looking terrified—Kieran sank to the ground, remaining motionless. Behind him, I could see splashes of orange through the bushes as figures scurried about on the road.

  “They run up there…up the hill,” another voice said. “I seen them.”

  “Little chickens,” said the first voice. “Someone needs to pluck them good.”

  Suddenly, there were more footsteps; apparently the second group had joined the others.

  Beside me, Rhys gave out a little terrified hiccup. I quickly jammed a hand over his mouth, shaking my head at him to keep quiet.

  “Hey, Mateo,” said a new voice. “Which way, bro?”

  “You take care of the rat?” asked the first voice (obviously ‘Mateo’).

  “No worries. He don’t be squeaking no more.”

  My hand was becoming wet; Rhys was silently crying—terrified tears that ran down his cheeks and onto my fingers.

  I smiled at him slightly—hoping to reassure him.

  “Hate them rats,” growled Mateo.

  “You think those others,” asked the new voice, “you think they’ll tell?”

  “Not if we don’t give them the chance.”

  Slowly, I reached my hands between the opening in the rocks. Moving carefully, I placed one hand over each of Kieran’s shoulders, latching my fingers around to grasp him just under his armpits.

  Kieran raised his head, looking up at me—expectant.

  I shook my head—not yet.

  He slowly dropped his cheek back down to the ground.

  On the other side of the bushes, meanwhile, the conversation continued as Mateo waited for the last of the second group of boys to arrive.

  “They gonna’ find out we’re gone soon enough,” said a voice. “Then they’ll be coming for us. Maybe we should just get going.”

  “No witnesses,” said Mateo. (I figured this had to be the Hispanic kid with the scar on his cheek.)

  “Maybe they didn’t see nothing,” said the first voice.

  “Well, we’re just gonna’ make sure of that, aren’t we?” growled Mateo. “Or maybe you got a better suggestion?”

  The first voice squeaked as it quickly responded. “No, man. I’m chill.”

  There were more footsteps.

  The last of the second group must have finally arrived, because they started forward together, heading up Kanan-Dume toward Malibu. As they moved off—their footsteps and voices fading away—the last I heard was Mateo giving an order to one of the boys.

  “Brent, you’re the fastest. Take the gun and go stop them. Kill them if you want or wait for us and we’ll do it. Just stop them before they talk to someone.”

  * * * *

  When we were certain that they were out of earshot, I pulled on Kieran’s shoulders, helping him through the rift. “I think we’re okay now. They’re heading toward Malibu,” I whispered to my brothers. “But keep your voices low, just in case.”

  “This is insane!” hissed Kieran.

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  “They killed a kid!”

  Kieran and I turned toward Rhys. He looked younger than his eleven years as he wiped at the tears on his cheeks.

  “I know, bud,” I said, reaching out and giving his shoulder a squeeze. “But we’ll find a cop and they’ll be arrested. You’ll see.”

  “Do you think that we should go back onto the road?” asked Kieran, worried.

  I shook my head. “There may be more of them that we haven’t seen. It’ll be safer if we go overland instead. We’ll arc around, catch up with Mulholland on this side and follow it up to the Valley. Then we can go straight up and over the hill and we’ll be in Agoura.”

  “We should also try and find a phone somewhere,” said Kieran.

  “Absolutely,” I nodded. “First place we come to, we call the cops. But right now, let’s get going in case they come back.”

  * * * *

  It was difficult, moving along the ravine.

  In places the scrub was thick and tangled, makin
g it a frustrating mess to pass through. We found ourselves pulling apart branches, scrambling on hands and knees along the dirt, and pulling thorns and ticks from numerous and varied places on our bodies.

  Rhys, needless to say, was having the worst time of the three of us.

  * * * *

  “Tick…tick…tick!”

  “I’ve got it,” I assured him.

  It was the fourth time that we had needed to stop walking just to remove ticks from Rhys. And frankly—at this point—we were all being attacked by the little bloodsuckers.

  Kieran and I, however, just flicked them off as we walked along.

  Rhys was a different matter.

  He couldn’t even look at the ticks, let alone touch them.

  Using the edge of my nail, I slowly eased the tick up from where it was about to latch onto Rhys’ ankle. As I tossed it to one side, I noticed something.

  “Oh-oh,” I said, quietly.

  “What oh-oh?!” screeched Rhys. “Is it another one?!”

  “Kind of.”

  I motioned Kieran over. He bent down, looking to where I was pointing.

  “Oh-oh,” he said. “They like it where it’s warm and moist, you know.”

  “What oh-oh?!”

  Rhys started batting at his legs—whack, whack, whack!

  I quickly pushed his hands back. “Stop it!” I ordered. “They’ve already latched on. We need to get them out without breaking off their heads!”

  “Heads?!” Rhys looked like he was about to pass out. “There’s more than one?!”

  * * * *

  When I was younger, my mom and dad had taken us all camping up in Canada. It was amazing—with massive Douglas Firs towering above us, pink salmon swimming upriver to spawn, antlered elk wandering around our rented camper—and an enormous brown tick the size of the nail on my little finger that lodged itself just under my left armpit.

  But—because it was so big—the tick was also easy to remove.

  A passing ranger merely lit a match and placed it against the back of the tick. Within moments, the bloodsucker had withdrawn from my armpit and the ranger had flicked it to the dirt.

  My father—his emotions so very similar to Rhys’—immediately and maliciously, had ground the parasitic insect into a gooey-mush under his boot.

  I thought of that enormous bloodsucker now—as I examined the four small ticks embedded in Rhys’ inner thigh, just under the hem of his board shorts. Unlike my well-fed Canadian tick, these American ones were ‘tiny’—little asterisks with teeth, sucking away on my brother’s blood.

  Too small to be burned out—these ticks would have to be teased out, slowly and gently—using the corner of my driver’s license.

  “Bro, I hate to tell you this,” I said to Rhys, as I pulled out my wallet, “but if you’ve got these ones here, there may be other ones farther up. You know they like to climb.”

  Rhys’ eyes went wide, practically rolling up in his head with terror.

  “Just get ‘em out, get ‘em out!” he hissed, between clenched teeth.

  Finding my license, I worked on biting a small triangle into the corner. That would make it easier to trap the small tick and lever its head out of my brother’s body. While I was gnawing away, I motioned to Rhys.

  “Drop trou, bud,” I ordered. “We need to make sure that those are the only ones sucking on you.”

  My younger brother glared at me. There were tears of frustration and fear in his eyes as he unzipped his shorts.

  “Worst day ever!” he declared.

  * * * *

  By the time we started walking again, I had removed six ticks from Rhys, two from Kieran, and one that had somehow climbed down my sock and was sucking away at the back of my right heel. Meanwhile, the sun had risen high in the sky and we figured that—if it wasn’t already—it must be close to noon.

  In the distance, we could see a 2-storey house—dark and silent—a large barn behind. We angled through the bush toward it.

  “They’ll have a phone,” said Rhys, looking hopeful. “I know they will.”

  “Unless they’ve gone totally cellular,” said Kieran. “I know lots of people who don’t have landlines in their homes anymore.”

  Rhys’ face fell. He looked crushed.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “It’s like you said. Reception is bad in these canyons. It would only make sense for them to have a landline.”

  My words didn’t seem to help. Rhys still looked upset, chewing away at a hangnail as we made our way forward.

  After ticks and murderous juvenile delinquents—my little brother really was expecting the worst.

  * * * *

  It turned out to be one of the older homes in the area.

  As we neared, the three of us could see that the 2-storey was falling apart. Shingles littered the ground and the siding was peeling from the corners of its walls.

  The barn wasn’t faring much better.

  One side had fallen down and—when we peeked inside—it was obvious to us that the only animals living there now were rats and mice.

  “What a dump,” said Kieran.

  “As long as they have a phone,” I said, “who cares.”

  “Do you think they’d let us have some water?” asked Rhys, hopefully.

  “No doubt,” I said. “Unless they’re douches.”

  “But we’re strangers,” said Rhys. “They might be scared of strangers.”

  ‘We’re not the strangers they should be worried about,’ I thought to myself.

  * * * *

  As we entered through a curiously open front door, the smell of bacon and eggs tantalized our noses.

  “Hello?” I called, standing in the front hallway. “Hello?”

  Nothing—silence.

  “Is anybody there?” yelled Kieran. “We need a little help here, people!”

  Rhys peered around, fearfully. “You don’t think those juvie boys are here, do you? Maybe they’re holding them hostage or something.”

  “Out of all the houses in these canyons, they choose the one we come to?” I shook my head. “I think the chances of that are pretty slim.”

  “But there’s still a chance,” Rhys insisted.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” scoffed Kieran.

  “Shaddup,” said Rhys. “I’m not a baby!”

  “Shaddup yourself.”

  “Shaddup both of you,” I muttered. “If someone’s listening, you’re not helping us make a good impression.”

  Slowly, I took a few steps farther down the hallway, looking through the first doorway I came to—a living room. There were two small sofas inside, both threadbare and stained, situated at right angles to each other. In front of the sofas was a large flat-screen television on the wall. A cup full of coffee stood on a side table—this morning’s newspaper on the floor beside it.

  “Hello,” I called out again. “My name is Jacob and I’m with my brothers. I’m sorry to bother you, but we just need to borrow your phone to call the police. There’s been an—an ‘accident’ and we need to get some help.”

  When no answer was forthcoming, I moved onto the second doorway on the right. This one opened up into a small, but clean bathroom.

  Empty.

  There were two more doors remaining.

  One to the left; one directly at the end of the hallway.

  It took just five steps to reach the first door—it was closed.

  As I put my hand on the doorknob, Kieran slunk up behind me, whispering quietly in my ear.

  “You should stand to the side,” he suggested. “Like they do on television. In case there’s somebody in there with a shotgun. Then you won’t get hit.”

  I turned and glared at him.

  He held up his hands and stepped back. “Just saying.”

  Slowly, I put pressure on the doorknob. It creaked as it turned—an eerie sound that sent shivers down my spine. Hating myself for it, I scuttled over to the side of the door—just in case.

  When I turne
d to look back at Kieran, he gave me a thumbs-up in approval.

  Inch-by-inch I turned the knob; expecting to hear the boom of a shotgun at any moment, I slowly eased the door open, only to find—a linen closet.

  Behind me, Kieran chuckled. “Dude, you were scared!”

  “Shaddup,” I responded, irritated.

  “You shaddup.”

  Slam!

  Kieran and I both gasped.

  We swung around quickly to discover that Rhys had just closed the front door.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I hissed, annoyed as much at my younger brother as at the flop sweat that was now trickling down my back.

  “It’s scary,” he said, quietly. “I keep thinking that those guys are sneaking up on us. This way, they won’t be able to see us if they come into the yard.”

  “You can’t just go around doing what you want in another person’s house,” I told him.

  “Do you want me to open it back up?” Rhys asked.

  I thought about that for a moment.

  The truth was—even though I knew that they were probably miles away—I was still unnerved by what those juvie guys had done. With the door opened, I knew I would keep looking outside—searching for a flash of orange among the trees.

  “Leave the door closed for now,” I decided.

  * * * *

  “It’s like they just got up and left,” said Kieran. “They didn’t even finish their breakfast.”

  We were standing in the small but tidy kitchen, looking down at a table of three settings—two plates of which had strips of cold bacon and congealed fried eggs. The third setting was empty, as if the person who was supposed to be sitting there hadn’t arrived, yet.

  A plate of buttered toast was in the middle of the table. I reached out and touched the top piece.