Ch 1- Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are….
"Mom, Mom! It's this way, hurry!" Johnny whispered.
The panic in his normally confident eyes caused Lana's heart to thud, beckoning her to a greater urgency. She squeezed both of her daughter's hands and the four of them began to run again. It was difficult to navigate any semblance of a path in the depth of the dark woods but Johnny did his best to make a way for his mother and sisters. His breath ragged in his chest, he felt like a deer running as fast as it could from its smarter, more agile pray.
Lana could hear nothing save the sound of twigs snapping in the brush between their hurried, panicked steps. She couldn't even gauge if the monster she was running from was near enough to catch hold or not.
"Ahh!"
"Lena!" Lana cried.
Johnny looked back from his place ahead of his family, his heart leaping when he discovered his sister's foot trapped tightly between the ground, very large fallen tree limb and other various pieces of brush that he could not make out but he and his mother had climbed over with relative ease.
"It's stuck!" The girl complained, giving a panicked cry.
"Shu!" Johnny warned. "Do you want him to hear you?!"
"No, no." She shook her head desperately, wincing as she tried to pull it out.
"Johnny, quick, help!" Lana urged, she and her youngest, Olivia, already going to work on trying to dislodge Lena's leg.
"Come out, come out wherever you are!"
Olivia gasped when she heard a noise in the distance. Her brother grabbed her, quickly covering her mouth and giving her a warning glare.
"Come on, Daddy just wants to play house."
In that moment, Lana was able to get her daughter's food freed from the tangled mess of brush below. She wanted to scream; she thought it was probably broken. At her brother's urging though, she continued to follow him and their mother up the densely wooded hillside.
It was hours before daybreak and the four of them couldn't see where they were going; they only knew they needed to get away and to hide whenever possible.
"Lana I'm not fooling around!" Came the voice again.
Olivia was scared and wanted badly to cry.
"Keeping my children from me, it's a game to you isn't it?! You take them away now just like you wanted to all the way back then, you fucking whore!" He shrilled.
The frightened little family then heard the unmistakable sound of a running chainsaw. Johnny gulped, not wanting to know what he planned on using it for, and Lana whimpered, understanding all too well.
"I'll give you an ultimatum Lana!" He offered.
A few minutes passed without a word from Oliver Thredson. Silence gave his tortured wife and very frightened children hope, perhaps false hope, that they'd finally lost him somewhere in the woods.
"Wow!" Johnny whispered softly and stopped.
He'd come close to the top of the hill, it was just a little place where the trees cleared for a couple of feet in each direction and you could clearly see the stars shine in the heavens, as if they were close enough to just reach out and touch. It was like a light at the end of the tunnel and it gave Johnny such hope that they were home free after all.
Lana looked at her boy hopefully and the girls clung to her hands still. Lena was in eructating pain but would put all the weight in the world on her injured limb if it could mean escape.
Lana saw such hope in the stars; she had for many, many years now. They were her encouragement: that no matter what happened, no man could alter the state of the heavens to serve his own purpose. The stars were a constant and her reminder that the world went on around without her in it, and that one day; she'd rejoin it. Without thinking, Lana pushed her two girls ahead of her and the four surged on ahead, about to climb the last bit of the hill before they reached the peak, the city just over the edge. When they got there, they would finally be free.
Soon they reached the very top of the hill, the edge been far steeper than they'd had any clue. They scraped, fought and slid to reach the top of the hillside, an assortment of twigs and trees there to break their fall. Lana, in her condition, was having an especially difficult time. Johnny made his way up first, followed by his sisters. Lana lagged behind just a few feet, struggling to make it up the hill. Johnny laid down, extending his hand to her, and Lana accepted, reaching back as best he could.
"Ahh!" Lana cried out as soon as she touched her son's hand, feeling something snake around the width of her ankle and squeeze beginning to pull her back in.
"Mom!" Johnny screamed, he and his two sisters now using all their strength to pull their mother up.
"Urrg!"
Lana fought and kicked, the four of them terrified, not knowing what it was that held her captive. All of them, at first, imagined it was be a tree branch, like with Lena. The siblings pulled to no avail and Johnny looked down desperately into his mother's bright brown eyes, which were illuminated by the brightly shining moonlight above. In an instant he noticed she was crying.
"Go!" She mouthed, trying to hold back her tears. "Now."
Without another word a mighty tug pulled her out of their shaken grasp.
"Hush now." They heard a familiar whisper that shook all three of them to the core. "Everything's going to be alright."
…..
Six Months Earlier, February 1980
"You can't do this." Johnny said, sitting down at the breakfast table with his mother.
Lana Winters Thredson stared off into space, cigarette in hand. He hated mornings like this when she zoned out entirely, leaving behind a shell of the woman she really was. Of course, Johnny understood why. His mother was very loving to him, and had, from a young age, explained to him their unusual way of life. She was strong, courageous, and everything that Lana Winters had been when she made her way into Briarcliff Manor for the first time in 1964. Their life had not broken her. But there were times when she was weak and her mind seemed to drift off into the unknown. Sometimes, when this happened, Johnny would just leave her in whatever half tranquil state he found her but today was not the day for that. Today, in his father's eyes, he would become a man.
If this was what becoming a man was, he'd never be ready for it, nor would he want to be.
"Hey!" He said, ripping the cigarette out of her hand.
Lana jumped at this and stared back at him blankly. It was in moments like this that her son reminded her of Kit Walker. She loved that about him.
"Not today! Mom, today, you really, really need to be with it. He's on the hunt."
Lana's eyes widened, she nervously picked the cigarette back up again.
"H-he promised me he wouldn't do that."
"He, he promised you?" Johnny laughed. "Since when does that mean…"
"Morning everyone." Oliver cried cheerily. He came to the breakfast table, coffee in hand, the paper under his arm, and looking just as polished as ever. He leaned down and kissed Lana on the cheek.
Lana and Johnny were silent for a moment, and Oliver, of course, took the opportunity to speak.
"Anything yet?" Oliver inquired kindly.
"No, no nothing yet." She replied flatly and almost under her breath.
"I can't believe you're trying to have another baby." Lena said, joining her brother at the table.
"It's your father's idea." Lana replied, in that same tone of voice, taking a puff of her cigarette. Her eyes locked with her son's and in an instant he knew she wanted to disappear. So did he.
"Well, yes, perhaps it's a little too late." Oliver conceded. "But…"
"Lena, Lena we're going to be late!" Olivia called from the living room.
"That's right, look at the time. Girls, I'll give you a ride." Oliver said, hurriedly sipping what was left of his coffee. He put down the paper and kissed Lana goodbye.
"Johnny, you and me, after school? Some….bonding time?"
"Maybe some other time." Johnny said calmly. "I-I have a lot of work, the psychology and the calculus you wanted me to take, remember?"
"Oh, that's right."
"Daddy come on!" Olivia called.
"Coming muffin!"
"Do you ever worry about leaving them alone with him?" Johnny asked.
"All the time." Lana conceded, taking another puff of her cigarette and then blowing it all out in one breath.
"And what's with this baby thing?"
"I think the bigger question is what's with this bonding time."
"He wants to pull me in Mom. He wants me to…to join him. Mom."
Lana didn't reply for a moment. She put her head down and paused, nervously putting her cigarette back in her mouth.
"Damn him."
"Mom. I can't do it I'm not him."
"Damn him."
"Mom I…"
"Damn him, damn him, damn him!"
"Mom. We gotta do it."
She looked back up at him, her face falling. "No…"
"Yes! It's time. I'm fifteen…we're all older…and he's getting worse. Mom we gotta do it. We can runaway. And you can tell your story like you always wanted. You'll be famous and most importantly; we'll be free."
Lana sighed, burying the end of her cigarette in the ashtray before her.
"Where do you suggest we go?"