Fifth Installment - this is getting harder lol 8514

As they got closer to the light they saw that it wasn’t a store, it was a church. The light was on the front porch, making the place look inviting. They were praying that someone was there, that there was some late service or janitor or something, anything that would have at least one adult on the property. If that were not the case, then please please let the door be unlocked! The closer they got more they realized that the chances that someone was there were pretty slim. That light that they had seen from down the road was the only light on in the entire building. That was ok, that wouldn’t be a problem, lights or no lights if the door was unlocked then they would have access to a phone and could call the police. They held tightly to this thought as they ran the final yards to that door.

They pounded up the steps to the door and Harv hit that door hard as he grabbed the knob and twisted it. IT WAS LOCKED!! “CRAP!!! Crap crap crap” he shouted. “Now what are we supposed to do? We have come this far and we can’t get in!” Shelia said “Calm down Harv, let’s think this thru” Joanna slumped down on the steps and started to cry quietly into her hands, hopelessly, a sad sad sound that was very upsetting to the others. Jennie looked at Harv and Shelia and said “the only choice we have at this point is to break in.” She said it in a flat, matter of fact voice that left no room for doubt. But doubt sprang unbidden into the minds of the others. “This is a CHURCH Jennie!! You can’t break in to a church. That would be a sin!” Exclaimed Joanna jumping up. While Harv and Shelia looked at her shaking their heads slightly. Jennie continued “we have Got to get to a phone and there are no other buildings within sight, we don’t know how far the next place is and we cannot take the time to go running again. We need help and we need it now.” Shelia slowly said “she’s right you know, we do have to do this, we really do not have any choice at this point.” She looked up at Harv and waited for him to make a decision. Harv stood there looking at the girls, all waiting for HIM to decide. He didn’t think that was fair, but he knew it was just the way it was and he had to do it. He said “I think that we do have to, but we don’t have to make a mess or cause undo damage. If we are careful to not break anything valuable, then I say we do it!” After a moment of just looking, the girls came over and the four of them started looking at the door and the windows trying to figure out the best way to get in without causing any damage.

It was a mind numbing activity. Gently flutter kick and slowly, with great effort, stroke, first with one arm, then with the other. Kick, stroke. Kick, stroke. Again and again she forced her exhausted body to kick and then stroke. Amy knew that if she didn’t get to shore soon she would never make it. She knew she was going in the right direction because she could feel the little waves on the top of the water and she was using them to help her move in to shore. But it was taking SO long! She had to keep reminding herself that she was a survivor and she could not, under ANY circumstances let those horrible men win this! She swam with her eyes closed and concentrated as hard as she could. She had never dreamed, in all her years of enjoying the water and the competition of the swim team and just playing in the ocean, that a time would come when the water would not be her friend. That it could very quickly and easily take the very life that it had enhanced for so long. But now she knew, and she was getting scared that that was exactly what was about to happen.

She couldn’t swim another stroke, she had to rest. But if she stopped, would she ever manage to get started again? She had to take that chance, she had to rest! So once again she flipped over and started to float. Taking deep breaths to calm her troubled mind, she opened her eyes to stare at the stars, and couldn’t see them!! The sky was lightening and she had not even noticed because she was so busy swimming and keeping herself going! “Wonderful,” she thought flipping back over to tread water, “Now I can see the shore, or at least the direction I should be going in!” As she looked around her she saw that she was not really that far out anymore, but the sea was calm and the waves had not given away just how close she was. She carefully looked up and down the section of beach that she could see and when she was sure that no one was there waiting for her, she started swimming in that direction.

When Amy finally made it to the shallow water, it was all she could do to drag herself up on the sand. She was SO tired. And Every part of her body hurt, both from what had happened to her, but also from swimming in the ocean for so long. She pulled herself a little higher onto the shore and then collapsed face down. After a few minutes, how many she didn’t know, she rolled over and looked up at the sky. “Thank you.” She said. She was not a really spiritual person, but she had been taken to church for most of her life and she knew that God had to have been the reason she was still alive, so she felt that He needed to hear her say those two very important words. And then she closed her eyes again and started to cry.

Carol and Valerie waited with pounding hearts as the car continued to come closer. It was slowing down!!! Was it someone who would be willing to help? Or was it the men they so feared? What if it was a police officer? Would he believe them? There were so many thoughts going thru their minds as they watched the headlights draw ever closer. And then the car was right there and it WAS NOT STOPPING!! It wasn’t going all that fast, but it wasn’t going to stop for the two girls, it swerved into the other lane and just drove on by! Carol yelled after it “Hey!! Come back! We need your help! Please!” Nothing happened, Valerie started yelling too, hoping against hope that they could convince whoever was in the car to return and help them. But the car just kept going. They slumped against each other in disappointment, but also in relief because they had not been sure that they really wanted the car to stop. If it were the criminals they would have had to make a difficult decision, to fight or to run, but it had not stopped, so it was a moot point.


After the car had passed them by, the boys all came out onto the road and started after it, like they could will it to return and help. They didn’t know what to do now. They were totally out of ideas. The only thing left to them at this point was to sit back down and wait. Wait for Someone to come to their rescue. That did not sit very well with any of them, but they had no other ideas. Maybe Harv and the girls had had some luck by now, and were just waiting for the police to come pick them up. Maybe Amy had managed to escape on her own and was, even now, sitting in the police station trying to explain how to find her friends so that they could come pick them up. They didn’t hold out much hope for any of the scenarios, but they were trying to hold onto their hope because the alternative was unthinkable. Carol threw herself down in the sand and made disgusted noises then said “I have Got to do Something, I’m going Crazy here!” She sat up again and stated “I’m going to start walking in the same direction the others were going in. Maybe I will meet them coming back with good news. Anyone going with me?” Fred said “I will, but we can’t all go, we have to leave at least four here. Bret is staying because he is still not up to that kind of exertion. Carol, how bout if you, me and Jason go?” “I think it’s a good idea” Alex agreed. “there is no point in all of us sitting here twiddling our thumbs. Erin, Val and I will stay and keep an eye on things here. Please be careful!”

And so, once again the group split up. As Jason, Fred and Carol walked out of sight down the road, Erin said “I hope to God they can find someone soon. I need to know if everyone is ok.” Valerie patted his hand and agreed with him. “This is so hard, just not knowing. How can we just sit here? I know we have to, but it’s so difficult”

Bret just sat there, not saying anything, doing his best not to think anything. He just wanted this to be over. He had never lived thru a night as long as this one in his life, and he never wanted to do it again, never. “Where was Amy? What had they done to her? When would they find help? When would they find Amy? Would she be ok? Was she even still alive?” These thoughts, and more, where whirling round and round in his head and he needed them to stop before they drove him crazy. He didn’t know the answers and he wasn’t sure he could handle them if he Did know them. His head was pounding, as it had been from the time he had awakened and he couldn’t think straight all the time. He didn’t know if there was more damage then they thought, or if he should have received immediate medical care. He didn’t feel like he was dying, but he knew that getting hit that hard on the head could cause some really strange things to happen inside the skull. It didn’t feel like his brain was growing bigger or anything, but he was just not sure if he was ok or not. He could not concentrate, his thoughts were scattered, he couldn’t remember all the things that had happened this night, it was scaring him. He wished it would all just stop. He wanted to be home safe in his house with his parents taking care of everything. He knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, but he still wished for it.

Here is the next installment, enjoy 6653

Amy decided that she had been out here long enough. Time to move into land again and take her chances. She flipped back over on her back and started to slowly kick her feet. This propelled her thru the water at a nice easy pace which gave her plenty of time to think of what to do next. She believed that morning couldn’t be too far off and at that time she could start heading back to shore. She also knew that she needed to do that soon, she had been really lucky so far, in that the blood from her injuries had not attracted any of the creatures that usually fed in these waters. She felt that as long as she kept her movements smooth and unhurried that they would not think she was an injured fish and come after her. She was a little nervous about that, but there was nothing else that she could do at this point, so she just went with the flow.

As she drifted along she tried really hard to feel the direction of the tide, that would be the only way that she could determine where the shore was in the dark. This wasn’t working out so good, and she thought it was because she had been in the water too long. She wasn’t sure WHY that should matter, but it’s where her thoughts led her, so she went there.

Amy was having a hard time putting all the things that had happened to her into any kind of perspective. She was intuitive enough to know that the trauma had caused her to lock a portion of herself away in order to survive, but she didn’t know what she should be feeling or doing or anything. Nothing in her young life had prepared her even a little bit for this kind of horror. She had grown up in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else and nothing bad had ever happened to her. At least not that she could remember. There were the usual childhood type injuries, falling out of trees, skinned knees and bike accidents, but nothing of any significance in her whole entire life. She was ill equipped to handle a situation like this. She felt sure that her escape had been purely luck and not some innate knowledge that this wild ploy would actually succeed. She knew that things like this happened to other people but had never given it much thought. Nothing like that could ever happen to HER. But it had, and here she was just floating along again, letting the current carry here. “Oh no!” she thought “my mind is wandering, I NEED to focus!” She forced herself to think about what was happening right now and not go haring off in some wild direction to keep her from acknowledging her danger. She really was losing it…there was nothing else that could be happening here. She just could not seem to keep focused and didn’t know what to do. She was starting to feel that she had not really done herself any favors by fighting for her life. If she had stayed, those men would have ended up killing her, but it most likely wouldn’t have taken much longer for that to happen. This way she was either going to go crazy or drown or be attacked by a shark or….

“NO!!” she thought. “That is the way to think if you WANT to die! Now STOP that right now!” She figured out that if she had to work to stay afloat she would have a better chance of being able to keep her mind on her problem, so she flipped over onto her stomach and made herself do a slow crawl. After a few minutes she thought that she could feel some pull towards her left, so she gradually turned in that direction and continued to swim, slowly to be sure, she was very tired, but surely. She WAS going to survive, no matter what. And after she was safe again she would find a way to make sure this didn’t happen to any other woman, she promised herself this, she would find a way. But for now, she swam.

Meanwhile, the four young people that was walking for help were still walking. They had picked up the pace again, after the car had passed, they had a greater sense of urgency now, thinking that the men might be going after the others and they were the only hope for any of their friends. It seemed like an eternity before they saw a light, but finally they did. Far down the road was a light, they couldn’t tell if it was a house, a store or a phone booth, but they knew it wasn’t a car!! They started running just as fast as they could to get to the help they knew they would find there. It didn’t take long before they were all out of breath, but they tried to keep running. Nope, they ended up having to stop for a minute, panting and leaning over, they resented their inability to move faster, people were counting on them!!! It was up to them to get the help their friends needed and they were pooping out. It wasn’t right. But it didn’t take them long and they were running again.

Bret had worn himself out. What with the attack and Amy missing and waiting in the dark and not being able to find the keys and feeling so helpless that he could just scream, he was totally exhausted. He didn’t know what to do next. Sitting here crying sure wasn’t the way that he had always imaged he would behave if he were ever in a bad situation. He would be the hero! He was big and strong and young and smart. No one could get one over on him. He would protect the women and children and chase the bad guys right on outta town. THAT was the Bret he had always seen in his mind when he looked. And that was not the Bret he was seeing in reality right now. How could this be happening to him? He knew that it was Amy they needed to worry about right now, but he could only feel the inadequacy, the sense of failure and the complete helplessness, and that made him even more ashamed.

Fred suddenly stood up. He cocked his head to the side and listened. Erin said “what is it? Do you hear something?” Fred said ‘shhh. I think there is a car coming!” Alex jumped up and started toward the road, but before he could take a full step Valerie had a grip on his arm, saying “wait, hold on a second. How can we be sure that whoever is coming is coming to help us? How do we know it’s not those men?” Everyone looked at her, trying to see her face in the darkness to see if she was kidding or meant what she has said. Bret said “I don’t care who they are, they have a car and we NEED to get to the police! If it is the men that took Amy, then maybe we can get her back!! There are SEVEN of us to their two, we can do this! Quick, everyone get back off the road, except the girls. If it is the men, then we can jump out and overpower them. If it’s not then the girls will seem less threatening then this whole group and the people in the car will probably stop to see if they need help.” This seemed like a pretty good idea to the rest so the boys all backed up a bit so that they could not bee seen from the road, and Valerie and Carol moved closer to each other, taking each others hands for courage, they stepped into the road and started waving at the approaching car, trying to get it to stop.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #20

(for those waiting for the next installment of the book, please be patient, I took tonight off to craft - my first creative love - and will return with more adventure tomorrow. Thanks again for your comments and time, that really means a lot to me - or as the Cake Boss says "It means the World to me!!"


Challenge Time!!!!!

Wow, week 20 in the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge over at Studio L3!!! Can't believe there have already been this many techniques learned. I didn't get to start at the beginning, but have really been doing my best to keep up. Not doing too badly either lol anyways...

This week it is Industrial Grunge, please open your Compendium of Curiosities (which can be purchased, autographed, here) to page 54, where you'll find Tim's instructions for his cool Industrial Grunge technique!

This is another one that I have never tried before, but really like how it turned out. I used the technique on the 'hardware' on this little book.

The book itself is made up of two small stretched artist canvases..painted with blue acrylic and inked with purple, light green and med green pigment inks.

Then I used a couple of Tim's stamps and two of his masks to decorate the front. One stamp didn't work so well so I stamped it again on cardstock then tore it and distressed it with vintage photo and antique linen and placed it over that image, allowing part of the first stamp to show.

I wrapped some ribbon around the front cover, added the ticket and the key and a flower that I just happened to have hanging around for a month or so, and there it is!






I will be entering this into three challenges this week.

Compendium of Couriosities Challenge at Studio L3
The All things Tim - yahoo group
Simon Says Stamp - the challenge this week is Shabby

Third installment - NaNo WriMo 1474 today - 5316 total

When she was in third grade, Amy met Jennie. Jennie Newton was so cool, she could do anything, anything at all and that just fascinated Amy. Jennie had wavy brown hair, hazel eyes and a full lipped smile that lit her face up when it appeared. Amy and Jennie became fast friends that year and could be found together just about every minute of every hour of every day the summer between third and fourth grades. They both took swimming lesson at the Y that summer and Amy finally found something that she could do better than Figgy could. Oh how they had giggled the first time Amy had called her “my own little fig Newton”. Jennie had been teased many times about her name, but coming from Amy it felt right some how. Amy thought that if she practiced enough that Fig could do it better, but Jennie didn’t really want to, she had all the other things, sewing and reading and making things and music, Jennie was a Wizard on the piano and had a voice that could make Ella jealous. Amy really wanted to keep leaning this new skill, so she would go to the Y alone twice a week for the lessons and soon she was like a little otter in the water. She could play, swim, dance, almost Fly in the water. It was almost like she was a fish not a little girl.

She really was glad of this skill now! That feeling of comfort in the water is the only thing that was keeping her going. She could almost be more relaxed floating in the ocean then walking on the beach. The water caressed her and protected her. She had no fears while she floated, she was at peace. After a little while she realized that she was drifting away, maybe even losing conciseness every now and then from exhaustion and trauma. She thought that she would be ok, but was now a little worried that she would not be able to make it to shore if she couldn’t get her bearings. So she started treading water again and took a good long look around her. She couldn’t really see anything. There was no moon, and the starlight was not strong enough to reveal any landmarks or houses or Anything. She didn’t know what time it was either, but was pretty sure that morning ought to be arriving soon. One thing she Did know was that she needed to be as far from those men as possible when it got light enough for them to see her. She could sort of feel the direction of the waves, but no real pull towards shore, this led her to believe that she must be pretty far out past the breakwater. This could be a problem if she didn’t have the strength to make it back to shore. No one would ever think to look for her out here. They would assume that the men had either killed her and buried her or taken her away. Then she would be lost at sea. She had not endured all of this just to float passively out into that vast wetness. No way! She started formulating a plan.


Fred and Erin were getting discouraged. They had not seen one person, house or car in the entire time they had been jogging down this road. They knew that they had to find someone, Anyone, but how? Then it hit them!! Fred cried out with frustration “Why didn’t we think of this before? Come on, lets get back to Bret. He has the keys to his car and we can drive to the police station!!!” Erin said “Oh my God, how could we be so stupid?” “Come on!! Let’s RUN!” shouted Valerie. And they did, they turned around and started running back to the three teens sitting in the dark.

It didn’t take them any time at all to return to the starting point. When they came running up, out of breath and panting, Bret jumped up asking if they had found Amy. He almost lost his balance and fell back down, he still wasn’t all that steady and getting excited made it worse. His face fell and he almost cried when they admitted that they had not found her. Bret was devastated. Not only had he failed to protect Amy, he couldn’t even really provide any assistance with the search because of his head injury. He was so frustrated!! Fred told them about his plan as quickly as his panting would allow and almost jumped up and down with impatience while Bret dug in his pocket for the car keys. They were not there. “NO” cried Bret “They Have to be here” as he searched all the pockets on his body, he even took off his shoes just in case, but no keys. The only thing they could think of was that when they took Amy they had taken his keys. If not that, they the keys were laying out there in the sand where they had been attacked and if that were the case, they were still screwed. It was too dark to find that place again and way too dark to try to find the keys, even if they could. None of them had a flashlight, though there was one in Bret’s car, and none of those present smoked, so no lighters or even matches with which to start a fire. They all slumped back down into the sand, Bret cradled his head in his hands and started quietly to cry. Tears running down his face he looked up at his friends and told them that this was all his fault and he didn’t think he could live with his guilt if they couldn’t find Amy. The others just looked at him helplessly, they didn’t know what to do or say, they were so afraid that Amy was gone forever and they didn’t know who to turn to.

JoAnna and Jennie were waking just as fast as they could and talking quietly, trying to come up with some sort of plan of action if they couldn’t find any help soon. Sheila and Harv were a little ways ahead of them moving fast and pulling away slightly, they were so anxious to find someone to help them, they were so out of their depth with this emergency. That’s what adults were for! They were all so upset that they had somehow lost track of how many steps they had taken. They stopped when they realized it to determine what they should do about this. Sheila said “the number of steps we agreed on equal approximately one mile, does it feel like we have gone a mile yet?” They looked at each other standing there in the dark and ruefully shook their heads in mute discouragement. JoAnna said that she thought they might have come about halfway and that they should start counting again, and turn around at 1000. The others agreed that this was sensible and they set off being more careful this time.

They had only gotten to 547 when they spotted headlights coming at them. They were ecstatic! Someone was coming! They were going to get help! Then Jennie grabbed Harv’s arm and started pulling him out of the headlights. He tried to shake her off, asking what the hell was wrong with her and she was shouting “Get off the road!!! That might be the men that DID THIS TO BRET and AMY! How do we know it’s not? How DO WE KNOW?” The others looked at her in stunned disbelief. Why hadn’t anyone else thought of that? They all turned to look at the lights again and then as one, they ran into the dark and hid until the car had passed them. They were all pretty shaken by the nearness of possible disaster and were talking rapidly as they started jogging down the side of the road, even more determined then ever to find help for Amy. They just didn’t know how or when. Unknown to the others, all of the kids were praying, praying hard, for Amy, for Bret, and for themselves. It made them feel a little better. Until JoAnna turned and stared back the way they had come and she whirled around and yelled “if those are the men that took Amy, they are headed right for Bret and the other kids! They won’t know to hide! What are we going to do?” They stopped in their tracks, totally aghast at this new thought. What could they do? They would never be able to beat the car back to their starting point, and they had no way of alerting Bret or the others. Once again they found theAmselves helpless in the face of circumstances.

NaNo WriMo - day two 3847

While the rest of the group was splashing and playing in the water Amy and Bret wandered down the beach, just talking, getting to know each other a little better. They discovered that they had some things in common and were getting along rather well. So well in fact that they never even noticed the passing of time or that it was starting to get dark. they did not realize just how far they had walked down the beach nor how isolated they had become from the others. Not until the men jumped out of the shadows at them. One of the men grabbed Amy and very forcefully put his hand over her mouth as the other smashed something down on Bret's head, knocking him to the ground. Amy tried to scream, but the hand holding her mouth was too tight and her fear was making it hard for her to think. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before and she had no idea what to do. She struggled and kicked and tried her best, but the second man came over and helped the first restrain her. They carried her off down the beach and she started crying, knowing, somehow that her life had just changed, forever.

Bret awoke some time later to see the faces of his frantic friends hovering over him, shouting questions and totally freaking out. He couldn't understand what was going on, the last thing that he remembered was that he and Amy were walking down the beach, what the heck had happened. What was he doing laying here and why were they all so upset? Ouch, man his head hurt! Where was Amy? He struggled to his feet, swaying and having a very hard time keeping his balance. One hand to his head the other outstretched to help keep him steady and also in a plea, to anyone, to answer his questions. But no one did. They just got quiet and stepped away from him. He was scared. He didn't know what to do. His friends were not any better; they were scared and didn't know who to turn to. Usually it was Bret who took control of a situation, and told everyone what to do, but this time he was confused and hurt and starting to panic. Finally, Joanna came over and put her arms around him, holding him tightly and telling him that it was all right, they would find Amy and everything would be ok. Let's just get to a phone and call the police. He had been attacked and they need the cops to come take charge. The group walked out to Collins ave and started looking for a phone. The road was deserted and they couldn't see a light in any direction. They didn't want to just walk away for fear that they would not be able to find the spot again, but they also didn't want to just sit there waiting and hoping that a cop would come down there on patrol. Splitting up seemed like the only option. But who would go and who would stay? and which direction to go in? they couldn't remember what was out here on this stretch of the road...none of them were real familiar with the area and it was dark and a bit on the frightening side. There were a total of twelve teens in the group, and now, with Amy missing they were down to eleven. They know that Bret couldn't really walk that far so that left ten to find help. It was decided that Bret, Jason and Carol would stay, sitting on the side of the road waiting. Harv, Joanna, Jennie and Shelia would go one way and the remaining four, Alex, Erin, Fred and Valerie would go the other way. They were scared but they were so worried about Amy that they knew they had to do this. None of them had any idea what time it was but it was agreed that they would walk for 2000 steps and if they had not found anything or anyone by then that they would come back and they would regroup and see what else could be done. The three that were left sitting there were having a very difficult time waiting. They had nothing to occupy their minds and they were scared. Time crawled by, seeming to not move at all.

As Amy was carried away, crying and struggling, she couldn't believe that this was happening. Why were they doing this? What had they done to Bret? What were they going to do to HER? How could she get away. What could she do? She had never even imagined anything like this happening to her and had no earthly idea what she could do to get out of a situation like this. She knew that she didn't have the ability to fight off the two of them and they were out here in the middle of nowhere so even if they took the hand off her mouth, no one was likely to hear her screams. That was the way they had planned it, of course, she thought. And then she started thinking about all the horror stories her parents had told her about, the ones where the 'bad' girl was raped and killed because she hadn't listened to her parents about how she dressed or how she acted. Amy had always blown those stories off, knowing her parents were just worry warts. Now she wished she had listened a little closer, she might have had some ideas about surviving if she had.

She was getting so tired...her struggles were getting rather feeble and her tears were running down her cheeks in rivulets thru the sand that was clinging there. She decided that if she were going to survive this ordeal, she had better start using her brain. She didn't see a way out of this mess, yet...but she just knew, deep in her heart, that she Would make it out of this alive!!! She didn't know how yet, but she was determined to do it, no matter what, this was NOT going to be the end for her, she had dreams and she was going somewhere and it wasn't going to end here, in a mess on the beach, just because two evil men thought they could stop her. And with a single mindedness that her parents would have recognized as her stubbornness, she started planning her escape. Not knowing what was in store, she could do no more then shore up her courage, but she would get away.

As Harv trudged along his heart was so heavy…he knew the chances that they would find Amy were getting slimmer by the minute. The longer it took to get help the less chance they had of getting to her in time. But he didn’t know of any other way to go about finding help. Their idea of splitting up made all the sence in the world, but it just didn’t feel right. They should have stayed together and followed the footprints in the sand and went after those bastards. Then his mind went the other way and he realized that even though there were more of them, they were just kids and those men had already demonstrated that they were not afraid to hurt anyone. Just look at Bret! Harv seriously thought that the men had meant to kill him, and the fact that he had a really hard head is all that had saved him. What if they had other weapons? Besides the thing they had used on Bret? Like knives or guns, what would the kids have done then? They would have been in even more trouble. But it just felt wrong to not go haring off to her rescue, like they did on TV. But he was smart enough to know that tv wasn’t real, and that they could all get killed if they didn’t handle this correctly. They needed help and they needed it fast and they were just plodding along like a bunch of old ladies!! He turned to Joanna and Sheila and shouted “we need to hurry!! The longer it takes us to find the cops, the longer those bastards have Amy!! Can you run? Just for a while?” The two girls looked at each other and then back at Harv, trying to figure out what had set him off. “We have to hurry” Harv cried, “I can’t stand not being able to help her. Come on!” They both nodded yes and the three of them started running down the road. It made all three of them feel better to be moving fast. Like they were actually doing something to find her, instead of just wandering leisurely down the road on a late night stroll.

Alex was feeling very much the same as Harv at that moment. Helpless and at a loss for ideas, he turned to his three companions and with an almost desperate intensity he pleaded with them to walk faster. Erin, Fred and Valerie felt pretty much the same way and started walking much faster and soon the four of them were running down the road like the devil himself was after them, which is how it felt to them. They didn’t know where the men were who had done this, nor what they were doing with Amy. Not even if she was still alive. And if she were dead, were those men coming after them? Were they in danger right this minute? Once again panic threatened…but then Erin stopped running and, taking a deep breath, said “Stop running! This is not the way to help her! We need to stick to the plan, it’s the only way. If we panic, then she has no hope at all. It is up to us to find help and save her.” The others slowed to a walk, looking at Erin with a new respect. They were scared, but Erin was too, and Erin was thinking. They needed that right now.

The men carrying Amy were getting tired; they set her feet on the ground, telling her that if she tried to run, they would kill her. They warned her not to yell either. They stated that if she did everything she was told, then she would be ok, they wouldn’t hurt her and she could go home to her parents that same night. For some reason, she just couldn’t believe that. They had bashed her friend over the head, maybe even killing him, forcibly carried her away, kicking and screaming, and they thought she was dumb enough to think they were not going to hurt her? If she had thought she was in trouble before, she knew she was now! She didn’t know exactly what they had planned for her, but she was pretty sure she would never be ‘ok’ again. But, she would survive, that was a fact. She would survive. She was strong, she was smart and she was NOT going to be beaten by a couple of stupid men!!! Her head was whirling with thoughts and fears, but the one thing she kept hearing was ‘stay calm, do as they say, and wait for an opening – then RUN LIKE HELL!!!” She clung to those thoughts…they were a plan and all she had right now.

Amy was right, they hurt her. They hurt her badly, over and over again. They took turns, watching each other and cheering. Egging the partner on to even greater acts of depravity than either would have ever perpetrated on his own. Amy passed out at least a couple times, from the pain and the trauma, but each time when she awoke, she would search thru her exhausted brain and find her new mantra “She would survive. She was strong, she was smart and she was NOT going to be beaten by a couple of stupid men!!!” And it sustained her. She did not try to fight them, she didn’t have the skills or the strength, she didn’t try to be quiet or strong, she cried, she screamed, she begged them to stop – and all the while that mantra was streaming thru her head, keeping her alive.

After an unknown time, they stopped. They were exhausted and had run out of horrible things to do to her. Now that they were done, they talked about what to do with her. They had made no effort to conceal their identities from her, so they couldn’t just let her go. They discussed different ways to kill her. Amy was laying there, in the sand, totally beaten, listening to them plan her death and thinking about her survival. She mentally assessed the damage they had inflicted upon her and knew without a doubt that she could not out run them. But, she was laying in the sand and could still hear the waves, so they must still be on the beach. Maybe if she were to jump up and run into the ocean they wouldn’t be able to swim after her as fast as they could run after her. She was a strong swimmer and very comfortable in the water, she could swim for hours. If she could just stay ahead of them for a while…hey, maybe she could convince them that she was drowning!!!! And they would stop chasing her, figuring they could let the ocean do their dirty work for them! If she went under a couple of times, hyperventilating each time, then just stayed under, and swam parallel to the shore for as long as she could hold her breath….it might work. It was the only plan she had at this point. And they were catching their second wind. If she were ever going to try, it would have to be soon. She thought that she should really try before the sun came up…making it harder for them to see her, would make it harder for them to catch her. She rolled over on the sand and made retching noises, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees in an effort to catch her breath. The men looked over at her and almost laughed, saying things like “it looks like we won’t have to do anything after all, she’s going to puke herself to death” and other crude remarks. She was using this ruse as an effort to gain her feet without alarming them or alerting them to her real intentions. Also it was giving her a better idea of just how hurt she really was. This wouldn’t work at all if she could not at least run to the water. She staggered to her feet, crying and clutching her throat, doing her best to act like she couldn’t breathe. They just sat and watched her. The plan was working! She staggered around, heading in the general direction of the sound of waves, and timed her next move to one of the times they looked at each other laughing. Then she took off running just as fast as her abused body would allow. And it turned out to be just fast enough. She had taken them off guard, just as she had hoped, and she had a pretty good head start before they even realized that she was making a break for it. And at that, they didn’t really believe she had it in her to out run them. And they were right, she didn’t, but she wasn’t planning to out run them, as they soon found out. She lurched into the water, gasping for breath and trying with all her might to wade faster. She fell and did an awkward crawl/run into deeper water. The men followed her, laughing and making crude jokes about sharks and giant sea monsters and yelling that she would be better off if she let THEM kill her then to let the man eating shrimp get her. She kept up her wounded bird charade a bit longer, until they could tell that she was out in deeper water and then she went under! When she popped back up, she struggled to stay atop the waves, crying out and quickly going back under. She did this again and saw that they had stopped and were just watching her ‘drown’, smiling as they did so. She took several deep breaths and went under for the last time. She had taken a good long look at the shore and hopefully had gotten her direction of travel set. She kicked off the bottom in the direction she thought was parallel to the shore and started swimming underwater as strongly as she could. She did her best to set a pace in hopes that she could stay under longer. It seemed like an eternity, her lungs were burning and she HAD to breathe – she slowly came to the surface, facing up and just let her nose and mouth break the surface of the water. She took shallow breaths until her lungs felt human again, then submerged again and continued swimming. She didn’t know how many times she had repeated this pattern when she realized that she was loosing it. She needed to find out where she was and needed to rest. She once again broke the surface, glancing around carefully. Seeing nothing alarming, she rolled over onto her back and just floated. After a few minutes, she flipped over and started treading water while she searched for the men, the shore, or for help. She didn’t see ANY of those things! Oh it would be such cruel irony if she had escaped her attackers just to drown in the ocean because she got lost. She rolled over on her back again and just rested. Knowing that she had done all she could gave her a sense of peace and of accomplishment and she thought that if she just rested a few more minutes, then she could start trying to find the shore and someone to help her.

Nano WriMo has STARTED!!! Day 1

I'm not sure that everyone is aware of just what this means...so if you are not, please go here for information, they are probably swamped today, so be patient with the site loading please.

My plan, if you can call it that, was to try to write about 17,000 per day on the blog, creating a form of accountability. Don't know if it will work, but here is day one...

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They were young when they met. He was 17 and she was 16. They both came from just your Average Joe homes, nothing extraordinary or special about either of them. But in the end, they touched a great many lives, in ways that they never dreamed of.

When Amy Johnson was little, she thought the world revolved around her. As a child this is not that unusual, but in her case it continued into adulthood. It wasn’t an attitude of ‘the world owes me’ but one of ‘I am the world”. Some people found this to be an endearing trait, but most just thought she was a bit arrogant and selfish. That was ok with her; most of them were not people she wanted to know anyway. She was just gliding thru life, enjoying the wonderful opportunities it was presenting her, when she met him. 17 year old Bret Howards was tall, at least 6 feet, and had wavy dark hair that he wore neatly, but a little on the longish side, with brown hazel eyes and a ruggedly handsome face. Kind of chiseled in fact, but it had no hard edges. He was leanly muscled and quite attractive overall. He was the type of guy that girls looked at and ended up becoming friends with. He had such an easygoing way about him that it was hard not to like him.

They were both invited to the movies by friends, who were going as a group. They both accepted, knowing that it would be fun with the whole crowd there. The movie was the all time favorite scary movie of the day, Jaws! They had never met before, not formally anyway. They had seen each other around school and had shared a class in 7^th grade, but he had had a crush on the teacher and never even noticed any of the girls in the class. So when they joined this group outing they were essentially meeting for the first time.

And he was immediately smitten with her. He maneuvered the folks around to ensure that he was sitting next to her, and tried to make it look like an accident. She noticed, but really didn’t pay any attention or give it any special significance, after all, who Wouldn’t want to sit with her? Mind you, this wasn’t a conscious thought, but somewhere down under all that real world stuff, there it sat. There was another girl sitting on the other side of him, Joanna, and when the movie got really intense, she grabbed his arm and hung on for dear life. Amy was bound and determined to put a brave face on things, she wasn’t a squeamish, screamy kind of gal, but Jaws won and she ended up hanging on to him too. He loved it.

When they all walked out of the theater the entire group was hyper. They were all talking fast and making corny jokes and laughing almost hysterically. An onlooker, not knowing what movie they had just watched, might have thought they were high. But unlike most of the youth of their generation, this group didn’t do drugs. They felt that drugs took away too much of their lives without giving enough back in return. But the truth was, the movie had hyped them all because it was so intense. They needed some way to work off all that adrenaline, so they arranged to meet at the beach in a little bit for some volleyball.

They had to arrange to carpool, because not all of them had vehicles yet. Bret had a car, and so did Amy, so they both offered to load them up for the trip. They managed to get all the kids in those two cars amid a great deal of laughter and squirming around. Being as they all lived close by and most of them spent a great deal of time in this group, they ran by the homes of a few and ended up with enough bathing suits to go around without having to all go home. It didn’t take long to get to Haulover Beach; it was only about 20 minutes away on the Expressway. They drove well, but they were kids, so there were several times they raced side by side or played leap frog on the highway.

They were all laughing and joking when they arrived and piled out of the cars, running for the sand with the energy that happy teens display. The sky was clear and the water was so blue you would almost think it had been faked. There were only small waves and a light breeze blowing. All in all it was a perfect afternoon to spend at the beach. They quickly choose up sides and got into position to play. Bret had, of course, picked Amy for his side. None of them played all that well, but the enthusiasm kept the game going for over an hour. Then, hot, sweaty and getting tired, the group ran down to the water to cool off.

(845)

It's Halloween again!!!

and as per our usual custom, a couple of us dressed at work. We did our theme again and there are three of us. I'm not going to write too much here, but here are a few pictures. This was a really fun costume to put together, Trav got involved in helping me gather the needed pieces and parts (like fabrics and thread spools) and helped with the final assembly. He took these pics on my iphone, so they are a bit blurry, but I'm sure you get the idea.

hope you enjoy them!!!







and here are a few more from the big camera before he had to leave for work...

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #19

Well, it's time to post the next installment in the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge over at Linda's blog - Studio L3

This is one of the 'funner' ones I've done so far...Extreme Masking, page 61 of Tim's book Compendium of Curiosities (which you can get at Tim's website AND you can purchase an autographed copy). Linda says that you may omit step 5 if you would like, but I think that is a really kewl effect, so I did it!

This week I really only ended up with one halfway decent picture, so I hope it's good enough.



I didn't use a whole lot of different stuff on this one. Peeled paint, faded jeans and fired brick DIs. Two of the masks are Tims and the third I die cut using his die. Spritzed after drying with pearls spray (I made it) then did the optional step with a music stamp I've had forever. The bos tie on the bird is from a stick pin I disassembled for my halloween costume this week and then I used the tiny attacher to put those word thingys on there. I think that's it....oops, no, I used some coordinating stickles for the eye and accents. thanks for looking!

Compendium of Curosities Challenge, Week 18

We are officially halfway through the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge Series! Hard to believe I know, but it is true! Now, though, it's time for Challenge #18!

So, please open your Compendium of Curiosities to page 37, where you'll find Tim's instructions for his fun (and kind of magical!) Dabber Resist Technique!


I am a little short on time this close to holidays (HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!!!) so I decided to do a card front. Tried it SIX times with white, didn't work, mud, so decided that black was the color of choice and that worked out great!


I used TH stamps and tape and DI fired brick, faded jeans & peeled paint. I used a gear and game pointer and hammered the brad. The Ticket was stamped with a $ stamp from Michaels with a home made pin.


And that's all folks! lol

CCC Week 17 - Fragment Charms & Simon Says Stamp and Show some metal

Cutting it close this week!!! I wanted to do something new, but it didn't happen, so I am going to share a project I made to memorialize our Lover Boy, who died on Christmas 2009 from a snake bite. I still miss him so much, he was around 18 years old and was my baby. Anyways, here it is...

This is my entry into the Studio L3 Compendium of Curiosities Week 17 Challenge. This weeks challenge is all about T!ms Fragment Charms and using his technique found on page 64.

I used a number of his charms covering them with coordinating paper and stamping on them
with stazon inks in black.

Used the grungeboard heart and wings covered in crackle paints and
then inked with vintage photo DI.

Anyways, here it is, I am going to be using it as a wall decoration. None of the papers or other items are named because they are all from my stash of weird stuff lol....

This is also my entry into the Simon Says Stamp & Show Some Metal challenge. Not too often I can get in two fer one lol...there are a few metal pieces on there, a key and heart, and a fish bones charm and some butterflies as well as the clip holding Love!

thanks for looking!

Challenge 16: Wrinkle-Free Distress - Part TWO

I had to try again and I'm not too sure about this one...it's a little folder with m&m's in it and I think it's kinda cute.....but the rest of the world might not agree lol

This is for the Challenge 16: Wrinkle-Free Distress challenge over at Studio L3... week two!!!


I used peeled paint, faded jeans and antique linen, black soot DIs and silver and black embossing powder. That is about it. very simple. Hope you like it.