The Orphans in the Woods

After the sunset, the darkness of the evening was evident and Rohan could feel the pressure of darkness for the first time in his life. He'd never been scared of the dark and didn't understand any of the children he'd known who had expressed those fears. But on this evening, he finally understood that fear. The darkness of this evening was both a blessing and a curse. It would hide the fact that he shouldn't be driving, yet also make the driving more difficult for him.

Gertrude and Rohan had spent the past few hours loading up the Mustang as carefully as possible with as many packed bags and supplies including food that they could think of to bring. While Rohan's mind was mostly focused on the way to get to the cabin and the evening drive, Gertrude's mind was still thinking about their parents dead bodies, Aunt Velma, and the dog that came to visit them.

Rohan decided to plug the phone back in. He had been thinking about calling from a payphone to let the police know about Mom and Dad and he didn't want the phone to be disconnected while the police were investigating. Then he looked at his sister who was sitting quietly at the bistro table and could see that she was ready and nervous at the same time which is exactly how he felt.

"Ok," he said as steady as he could, "Let's go." He had the car keys firmly in his hand and opened the front door for his sister. Gertrude walked to the Mustang quickly, opened the passenger door and sat inside, taking another look at the back seat which had lots of supplies piled upon it.

Rohan sat in the driver's seat and took a deep breath, looking through the front windshield to see what the night sky looked like. It was a clear evening sky with a few small shining stars and the light of the moon was coming from somewhere though Rohan could not see the moon.

He put the car key into the ignition slot and turned on the engine. Then he carefully backed out of the driveway, and drove down the road from their family house to the County Road which would take them towards the other County Roads to the cabin. All the roads they had to travel were dimly lit at night and only two lanes with white lines. The Mustang's headlights and beams were all efficiently working, but Rohan was nervous just the same.

He definitely did not want to go faster than the speed limit so he told Gertrude to be his co-pilot and keep her eyes on the signs to tell him every speed sign she saw. When they had driven about two miles away from their family house, Gertrude saw the first speed sign. 45 miles per hour.

Rohan looked at the car's speedometer. He was driving at 40 miles per hour and it felt very fast to him, but he felt safe with that at the same time and his confidence returned. The two lane road was dark, and Rohan wanted to put his beams on, but wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or not, so he kept them off. When another car driving in the opposite direction passed by on the lane to the left, Rohan held the steering wheel tightly and realized that keeping the beams off was the smart decision.

After another five miles, Gertrude saw another speed sign. 45 miles per hour. Rohan checked the speedomoter again and he was still driving at 40 miles per hour. He was trying to pay attention to the math involved. Time, Distance, Gas. His father had told him the cabin was about 100 miles away from the house. At this speed, with no stops, they would reach the cabin in less than 3 hours.

"What time is it?" Rohan asked his sister.

Gertrude looked at the watch that Rohan had put on her wrist.

"9:29," Gertrude told him.

That was all they said to each other for the next half hour.