Chapter Nine: The Capture
The road narrowed down as I drove further. I turned to find them fast asleep. I drove quietly for nearly three hours and still couldn’t find anything worth stopping for. Then I took a sharp bend to another narrow route, there was a high rock halfway buried in the sand. I could have sworn I had dodged it until the loud bump shook the car. There was a loud clang from the collision of the metal exhaust pipes in the car and the hard rock. We all jerked forward and l nearly flew to the windshield. Dad opened his eyes to see us in a narrow route with long trees around us.
He held his head as it had hit on the side of the glass.
“Ouch! That was a loud bump. What’s going on? ” He asked, running his head with his palm.
“I think we are lost, ” I said, stepping on the brake.
“What the fuck!” Dad held the map, checking through it to see if he could tell where they were.All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.
“You had a map all along?”
“I fall asleep for a while and we end up in the middle of nowhere,” he scoffed.
“Oh c’mon you agreed on taking this route too.”
“I think you need to keep going. There should be something down there,” He sounded hopeful.
“I have been doing that for a while now. Still haven’t seen anything. Looks like a dead end.”
We kept going through the path. Occasionally, Dad popped his head through the window at every interval to see if there was something he would see. The forest was quiet with the sound of the engine disturbing its peace. The birds chirped, flying above us up in the high tree. We could hear the hissing of the reptiles and humming insects.
“Do you think anyone is out here?” Dad asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, still on the steering wheel. There was a flash of red light on the fuel gauge. The red indicator arm settled on the “E.”
“Oh no!” I cried out, “Not now, not now!”
“What’s wrong?”
“We are out of gas.” I turned towards him.
“Oh shit!”
I held the steering wheel and watched the car slow down, driving to a complete halt. Dad was already gazing at me by the time I looked at him.
We took in deep breaths leaning to the seat.
“What now?” I asked.
After a while sitting without saying anything to each other, Dad got out of the car.
Mum slowly opened her eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“The car stopped, we ran out of gas.”
“Oh God!” She gasped looking around.
“Hello!” she called out.
“Don’t yell, you could draw some attention towards us.”
“Is that not what we need right now?” She asked.
“What about people from the wild or animals?
“Oh please,” she rolled her eyes.
He climbed to the roof of the car and looked ahead.
“I think I see something.” Dad said.
“What do you see?’
“Like some rooftops. I think there is a town up north. We should check it out. Maybe we can get a phone.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get going.” Mum said.
“What about the car? Do we leave it here?” She asked.
He walked over cutting off some broad fern leaves and placed it around the car.
“This should do the trick.” He said and we walked down.
“What’s that over there?” We sighted some hyenas. They were sipping from the lake as we approached them.
They surrounded us. Moving around as a predator preparing to devour their prey.
“Stay away.” I watched them.
“I’m warning you.” One of the hyenas dived in and I blocked it, hitting it down. It got the other hyenas furious and they all charged, saliva dripping from their mouth. I bent down and placed one hand on the ground as I raised my head, my eyes and fangs had all come out. I roared at the hyenas so that they ran away fearfully. Bringing out to my wolf’s side when I was weak only made me weaker and so I fell to the ground gasping for air.
“Oh my God Clara, you shouldn’t have done that.” Mum cried out reaching out for me.
“You could have hurt yourself.”
“The hyenas were coming for us.”
“You should have let us handle it. You are with a child.”
“Don’t remind me of that. I don’t want to hear it.”
Anchored on my father’s arm, we got to the lake and took in more water.
“It’s so refreshing,” Mum took in, nearly falling into the water. Just then, I noticed a familiar plant by the lake as I moved over to it.
“Shit! Stop drinking!”
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s a wolf’s bane over there.”
“Oh shit,” They spat out the water from their mouths but the wolf’s bane already taken made our wolf side only grow weaker. I summoned it several times but it did not seem to respond to me.
We gathered dried tree branches and leaves and made a tent where we retired for a long nap but before that, Dad had already put on a fire to scare away the animals while we slept.
I opened my eyes to the constant thumps on the ground. Wiping out sleep from my eyes and putting off the fire. I could not find my parents beside me, only voices outside.
Without wasting any more time, I hid beside the trunk of the oak tree and watched the carriages driven by some men. I sighted my parents being dragged into one of the carriages. I saw five men fully dressed and armed, but didn’t see clearly as the lights were still very dim and dawn had not yet set in.
How could they have gotten to my parents?
“Stop the carriage!” One of the men ordered. He bent over to the burnt-out stick and sniffed it.
“Someone was here, check the tent.”
“That was us, there is no one there,” My Dad echoed.
“Shut up old man.”
The men quickly invaded the tent but did not find anyone.
“There is no one here.” The other man announced. The first man walked forward a bit, “I think we should keep going, we need to deliver the people before dawn.”
I peered forward to see what was in the carriage, I heard the voices of people from within the carriage. It wasn’t just my parents there.
“Oh my God!” I gasped under my breath, moved backwards a bit and trampled on a dried-out stem which made a loud creak. The men suddenly stopped moving on hearing that and quickly turned towards the oak tree but they did not see me as I duck underneath.
They began moving slowly towards the tree. I tried to bring out my wolf’s side but it did not respond. Turned out I had taken so much wolf’s bane from the water in the lake which had completely suppressed my wolf’s side.
The last time I had this much wolf’s bane, I had heard the physician tell my father that I might not be able to see my wolf’s side for a long time. I ended up seeing my wolf’s side after a couple of weeks.