The Enemy Closes In Read online

  “Hi, guys,” a familiar voice said.

  Piper stuck her head inside and couldn’t believe her eyes. “Willard? Cody? What are you doing here?”

  “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Cody said. He was checking his arms and legs like he was glad they were all there.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Piper raced up the steps and threw her arms around him. “I’m just glad you’re here!”

  The only person more surprised than Cody was Piper. She immediately stepped back and cleared her throat. “What I mean is …” She glanced down, obviously embarrassed. “It’s good to, uh, see you again.” She stole a glance back up at Cody. The guy almost seemed to be glowing.

  “Uh-oh,” Willard said. He was glowing too. Not only glowing, but starting to short out. One minute he was there, then he’d blink out, then he was there again. “I guess … I … still don’t … have … enough … power.”

  “What’s going on?” Piper asked in alarm.

  The blinking grew faster as Cody tried to explain “ … another … Willard’s … stupid … inventions.”

  “Oh, no,” Piper groaned.

  “Oh, yes,” Willard shrugged.

  And then, with another poof of light, they were suddenly gone.

  “Nice of them to drop by,” Zach smirked as he climbed behind the RV’s steering wheel.

  “Those were your … friends?” Ashley asked.

  “It’s another long story,” Zach said. “But we’ll see them again, ’specially if Piper gets her way.”

  Piper glanced down, feeling her ears heat up.

  “Get in.” Zach motioned for Ashley to come inside.

  “But, I — ”

  “We’ll take you home.”

  She took a tentative step into the motor home. “But that’s all the way back in L.A.”

  “Zach,” Piper reminded him. “Mom and Dad are still in trouble. We gotta help them.”

  “She’s right,” Ashley said. “I can’t put you out.”

  “Well, you sure can’t stay here,” Zach said. “Not with those creeps.”

  “I know, but — ”

  She was interrupted by the honking of a horn behind them. And more honking. And more. She poked her head outside and Piper joined her.

  It was Gus the mechanic — sitting in his beat-up tow truck. “Will you kids move that bucket of bolts?!” he shouted from the window. “I gotta get this here fellow to Los Angeles and get back ’fore daybreak.”

  “Los Angeles?” Piper called, exchanging glances with Ashley. “That’s a long way.”

  The old-timer jerked his thumb toward the passenger who was starting to climb into his truck. “He’s paying me good money for it.”

  Piper looked over and was surprised to see the passenger was the gray-haired man Elijah had been studying the Bible with earlier.

  The man smiled and explained. “Gus, here, says he won’t have my car fixed for another two weeks, and I need to be in El Monte first thing tomorrow.”

  “El Monte?” Ashley asked in surprise.

  He nodded. “I’m helping a youth pastor down there who works with families in crises — ”

  “I live in El Monte,” Ashley said.

  “Really?” the man exclaimed. “That’s some coincidence.”

  Piper and Ashley exchanged a second pair of glances.

  Ashley turned back to him. “Listen, you don’t happen to have room for one more, do you?”

  The man glanced into the truck and then called back. “Sure … if you don’t mind it being a little cramped.”

  “No,” Ashley said, “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all!”

  As she spoke, Piper slowly turned to Elijah who sat in the motor home, humming away. Then she threw a look over to Zach who was obviously thinking what she was thinking.

  Mom and Dad clamored into the Jeep. As Dad fired it up, Mom rummaged in the back.

  “Here’s the computer!” she exclaimed. “Can you believe it?! They even left our computer!”

  “Great!” Dad pulled the Jeep onto the gravel road.

  “Send the kids an email. Make sure they’re okay and tell them there’s a little town called Bensonville on Highway 14. Let’s meet up there.”

  “Terrific!” Mom said as she turned on the laptop and started to type.

  Zach stood outside the motor home. It was harder saying good-bye to Ashley than he thought. “You’ll keep in touch?” he asked.

  She nodded, her eyes already filling with moisture.

  “C’mon, boy,” the mechanic shouted from the tow truck behind them. “Let’s go!”

  “He’s right!” Piper called from inside the motor home. “We gotta hurry.”

  “Right.” He turned back to Ashley. “I think things are going to work out.”

  Again Ashley nodded.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, all right, then.” Unsure what to do, he turned toward the RV.

  “Zach?” Ashley’s voice was clogged with emotion. He turned back.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He felt his own throat tightening up.

  “And what you said about God … and all that stuff ?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to give it some serious thought. I mean real serious.”

  “Cool,” Zach smiled. Suddenly his own eyes started to burn.

  “Zach!” Piper called.

  “Well … we’ll see you then.”

  “Yeah,” she croaked. “We’ll see you.”

  Before he knew it, he reached down and kissed her on the forehead. Nothing mushy or romantic. Just a way of saying that he cared for her. Cared a lot.

  She looked up and smiled as tears spilled down her cheeks. And then, without a word, she turned and dashed toward the waiting tow truck.

  Once again the mechanic honked his horn.

  “Come on, Zach!” Piper called. “They’ll be here any minute. Move it!”

  “All right, all right.” He turned, gave his eyes a quick swipe, and stepped into the RV.

  Piper sat in the passenger seat, working her laptop. “I got news from Mom and Dad.”

  “Where are they?” he asked as he climbed behind the wheel.

  “They’re safe. They got away.”

  “All right!”

  “They want us to meet them in a town called Bensonville on Highway 14.”

  “Perfect.” He reached down and turned on the ignition. “Bensonville, here we come!”

  “What do you think about that, Elijah?” Piper turned to her little brother. “We’re going to see Mom and Dad!”

  Zach glanced into the mirror, expecting to see one happy little kid. Instead, Elijah sat in the back with a deep frown on his face. A very deep frown.

  And that made Zach nervous — real nervous.

  Mom and Dad continued down the deserted mountain road. Although exhausted from the ordeal, they were incredibly excited. In just a few hours they would be reunited with their children. And that thrilled them.

  They might not have been quite so thrilled if they realized that underneath their Jeep was a small metal box with an antenna … and a blinking red light.

  Inside a black truck another red light blinked. On its roof a large antenna swept back and forth.

  Two burly guards climbed inside. A third opened the rear door of the vehicle and waited as Shadow Man emerged from the building. Despite the lights around the compound, his face remained in darkness as he walked towards the truck.

  “Are you sure this is necessary?” the guard asked as Shadow Man arrived. “We can find them and bring them to you.”

  “I mussst come along,” Shadow Man hissed. “The boy isss too powerful to control from afar. I mussst be near to sssubdue and control him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He climbed into the rear of the truck, which had been specially outfitted to handle his large form. The guard shut the doors, and the vehicle slowly pulled away. As it passed through the gate, Shadow Man called to the driver. “Do
you have a reading?”

  “Yes sir. They’re on the highway, 1.7 miles ahead.”

  “Good,” the Shadow Man grinned. “Ssstay far behind them. We don’t want them to know we’re following until they meet up with their kidsss.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver answered.

  “Then we will sssee who hasss the real power. Yesss, we will,” he chuckled to himself. “Yesss, we will …”

  The Adventure continues in

  Trapped by Shadows

  Chapter One

  Pursuit

  Thirteen minutes before midnight, three vehicles from three different directions sped toward a single destination, their occupants all focused on a single goal.

  From the north, a mud-splattered Jeep Cherokee raced through the night. Dad concentrated harder as he tightened his grip on the wheel. His headlights caught a sign: Speed Limit 55. It whipped from sight as the Jeep slid around another curve.

  “Mike!” his wife warned, her knuckles white as she clutched the dashboard.

  “If we get pulled over, I’ll explain our kids are in danger,” said Dad, his mouth in a hard line as he stared ahead.

  From the south, a sleek black Hummer roared down the highway. Its dashboard was lit up with indicators like the cockpit of a fighter jet: digital readouts, GPS map, radar screen, infrared monitor, and a fl ashing red light from the tracking device that had been attached to the underside of the mud-splattered Jeep, now only a few short miles away.

  The glow from the dash lit the driver’s face. He glanced into his rearview mirror, caring not so much what was on the road behind him so much as what was in the seat behind him — a dark presence that soaked up all the light around it.

  Shadow Man.

  And from the west, lumbering along as fast as it could, was an old beat-up RV camper. Its worn engine coughed and choked, puffing blue smoke out of its tailpipe.

  Inside, sixteen-year-old Zach held the steering wheel with one hand while stuffing his mouth with the other — a Super Extreme Nuclear Burrito, featuring Flaming Fire Fajita Chicken. And forget the wimpy hot or extra hot sauce. Not for Zach. He’d gone for Taco Wonderland’s newest sauce, the kind they advertised as Danger: Explosive!

  Behind him, in the back of the RV, sat his thirteen-year-old sister, Piper. As the ultra-responsible one of the group (someone had to be), she was taking care of their six-year-old brother, Elijah.

  “All right,” she said, carefully tapping out some raisins into the little boy’s hand, “you can have eight now and eight more when we get there.”

  Elijah, who hardly ever spoke, looked up at her with his big brown eyes and smiled — his way of saying thank you.

  She smiled back. “Don’t worry, it won’t be long before we see Mom and Dad again. I promise.”

  Elijah nodded and laid his head on her arm. Piper tenderly stroked his hair, hoping she was right. Without her mom there, the job of caring for the little guy fell into her hands. Which was okay. She loved Elijah. He could be so sweet and caring … when he wasn’t being so weird. Honestly, she’d never met anybody like him. Sometimes it was like he knew what was going to happen before it happened. Sometimes when he visited sick people, they were suddenly well. And sometimes when the family really, absolutely needed something to happen, she’d see his little lips moving in prayer, and, just like that, it happened. Not all the time. But just enough to make things a little freaky.

  And speaking of freaky, there was her older brother, Zach — it wasn’t just his eating habits that were adventurous. It was everything he did. From seeing how fast a skateboard could go if you attached rocket motors to it (answer: ninety-three miles an hour before he crashed into a tree, flew through the air, and landed in someone’s kiddie pool), to seeing how many bottles of ketchup you could drink before your hurl (answer: 1½ ), to talking his littler sister (as in Piper) into sticking her tongue on the frozen monkey bars in the middle of winter to see what would happen (answer: a visit by the paramedics who had to pour hot water on her tongue to unfreeze it from the bars).

  Good ol’ Zach. That’s why she had to keep an eye on him all the time. Like now, when she looked up front and spotted him biting into his burrito. Like now, when his eyeballs bulged and his dark hair — which usually looked like it was styled by a fourteen-speed blender stuck on Super Chop — seemed to stand on end.

  She could tell he wanted to say something. She could also tell that his mouth was on fire. Which explains why the only word that came out was:

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  “What’s wrong?” Piper shouted. Then she saw the wrapper on the floor and understood. “Nuclear burrito?”

  Zach nodded, waving air into his mouth, which caused the RV to swerve from side to side.

  Piper sprang for the RV’s sink. She turned the water on full blast and yanked up the sprayer, pulling the long hose to the driver’s seat.

  The RV bounced onto the road’s shoulder as Zach slammed on the brakes, finally bringing the vehicle to a skidding stop.

  “Open your mouth!” she yelled.

  He obeyed.

  She aimed for the screaming hole in Zach’s face and pressed the sprayer.

  The water hit its mark, and Zach’s mouth sizzled like a frying pan dumped in cold water.

  Meanwhile, in the Jeep, all Dad could think of was getting to his children before the other side did. He’d seen the evil their leader could do and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He wasn’t sure if those dark powers came from this world or from somewhere else. Either way, the children had to be protected.

  In the Hummer, the driver focused on the tracker beam and the GPS map. This time there would be no mistakes.

  And in the RV, Zach’s mouth continued to smolder.

  Chapter Two

  The Plot Sickens

  There was a fourth vehicle: a dark green van sitting on the shoulder of the highway.

  Inside, Monica Specter’s red, shaggy hair shone in the mirror light. She was busy applying another layer of bright red lipstick and shimmering, electric-green eye shadow. Granted, sometimes in the bright sunlight all that makeup made her look a little bit like a clown. But in this dimmer light she looked more like a … well, all right, she still looked like a clown.

  And don’t even ask about her clothes. More often than not, it looked like somebody had just stitched a bunch of bright beach towels and bedspreads together and thrown them on her. It’s not that she didn’t have any fashion sense. It’s just that … well, all right, she didn’t have fashion sense either.

  Bottom line: The same charm school that taught her all those delicate, lady-like manners (and she didn’t have any) taught her the same delicate, lady-like ways of choosing her clothing and wearing her make up.

  Bottom, bottom line: Monica was a real piece of work. Unfortunately, her partners weren’t much better:

  First, there was Bruno, a very large man with a very small brain.

  Right on cue, she heard a cry of joy from the backseat. Bruno had breathed on the glass beside him and fogged it up. He drew a smiley face with his finger … to join an entire family of smiley faces he’d drawn across the window. “Wanna see me do it again?”

  Then there was Silas, a pointy-nosed, pointy-chinned, pointy-everything guy with bloodshot eyes and big, droopy bags under them the size of hammocks.

  “Not again …” Silas sighed. “I don’t ever want to see another smiley face in my life. Do you understand?”

  Bruno paused in deep thought. “So … you want me to draw little frowny faces, instead?”

  Silas turned away and moaned.

  “Will you two grow up?” Monica snarled from the front seat. (Snarling was one of her specialties.)

  “I’m not the one who needs to grow up,” Silas argued. “He is.” He thrust a pointy thumb in the direction of his partner.

  “No sir,” Bruno said. “You are!”

  “No, you are!”

  “Liar, liar, pants on — ”

  “Knock it off !”
Monica shouted. “You’re acting like big, fat, stupid morons!”

  Bruno sucked in his gut. “I’m not fat.”

  Monica could only stare. They had been sitting here on the side of the road for hours, waiting for the kids’ RV to rumble past. And they were definitely going stir-crazy.

  But Monica was as determined as she was nasty. This time she would not fail. Shadow Man wanted the little boy. He never said why, but there was something very, very valuable about him. And she would deliver him. She had to. This was her chance to finally prove her worthiness.

  She glanced at her two partners sulking in the backseat. They’d been assigned to her since the beginning — a skinny little weasel and a brainless baboon. They had bungled every assignment she’d been given.

  But this time, it would be different.

  Headlights suddenly appeared in the mirror.

  “Duck!” she called back to them. “Duck!”

  Bruno’s face brightened. “You want me to draw a duck?”

  “Duck! Duck!” she cried.

  “Goose!” Bruno shouted back in glee.

  “No, you moron,” Silas scooted down in the seat. “She means get down!”

  Silas yanked him down in the seat just as the RV swooshed by, rocking the van in its wake. Once it had passed, Monica rose and turned on the ignition. The van’s engine roared to life. This time, the kid would be hers.

  To anyone else, the run-down garage was packed with yesterday’s junk. The sagging shelves bulged with old televisions, radios, and out-of-date computers. But to the inventor’s eye, these old gadgets and circuit boards were the building blocks of imagination.

  Willard, a pudgy genius with curly hair, punched in numbers on his laptop. His reluctant assistant, Cody, watched with concern.

  It was getting late, and they had to hurry.

  “One more calculation …” Willard punched a key on the laptop keyboard with the fl air of a concert pianist hitting the last note of a great concerto, “ … and the program has now reached terminal status!”

  Cody, who was definitely smart but not “Willard smart,” turned to him and in his most intelligent voice asked, “Huh?”

  “We’re done!”