Threnody (032).

(This is a 500-word-a-day novel project.)

There was a sigh of wind overhead, rustling through the strangely shaped leaves. All around them, the children closed their eyes for a moment, as if relishing the cool feel of the draft.

Jesse took a step closer, kneeling down so that she faced eye level with the boy. She was wary – the trucker would always be in her mind

How long have you been here? she asked him.

The boy shrugged in a very Ryan sort of gesture. I don’t know, he said.

Jesse could see her skin prickling up as her fear began to overtake her. She fought it off, biting the skin on the inside of her lip.

The boy looked up at Ryan. You’re tall.

Thanks, Ryan said, a grin creeping across his expression. My mom was Bigfoot and my dad was the Jolly Green Giant. When I grow up I’m gonna be a hundred feet tall.

The boy laughed, clapping his hands, and then looking at them in surprise.

Jeez, if you think that’s funny, I got a million of them. Ryan bent down next to Jesse and held out his hand. I’m Ryan, this is Jesse. What’s your name, cowboy?

The boy looked at the hand, and then did it again, that slight narrowing of eyes as he looked at them, like he was searching for something. Then he shook Ryan’s hand carefully. I don’t have one, he said.

How did you get here? Can you tell me that? Ryan was keeping his tone light, but Jesse understood that he was trying to make the boy at ease, to learn if they had anything to worry about as long as they were near him. The boy shrugged again. Though he looked like he might be perhaps seven years old, eight at the most, there seemed to be something much older deep down in his young skin.

Jesse’s finger crept to the corner of her mouth, and chewed on it, never taking her eyes off of the boy. Denny, she said softly, barely aware that she’d spoke.

Ryan looked at her. What?

She opened her mouth to make up some sort of explanation, but as it turned out she didn’t have to. They both began to feel it, the steady invisible force that was forever pushing them onward, prodding them with their own fear that was beginning to grow.

We got to go, little buddy, Ryan said, standing up. You coming with us?

Wait, Jesse said sharply.

We can’t leave him. Ryan took off the backpack, searching until he came up with a black T-shirt; he slipped it over the boy’s head; it hung down to his knees and the boy giggled, delighted. He was missing his two front teeth.

Not that, Jesse thought, her heart breaking. Please not that.

The dread was steadily growing stronger, really beginning to dig its claws into her; Jesse stepped onto the road, facing the direction she was being made to go. Ryan, you know we can’t stay here.