After a night spent more awake than asleep, Zack woke and slowly opened one eye to the morning. The sun was just beginning to filter through the layer of pine boughs and snow that was their make-shift roof. He squinted and looked away and saw part of Danny's head through the lower edge of his vision. Zack grimaced and shifted slightly to move one of the boy's elbows from his ribs.

Zack wasn't as cold as he figured he'd be. He was far from warm but wasn't freezing. "I guess Bear knows what he's talking about after all," he said to himself. He slowly took stock of his body. The ache in his legs from last night was gone. The knot that had formed between his shoulders from carrying Danny for however many miles was gone. His stomach...was empty. As if on cue, it rumbled. Zack frowned. "Not much chance of finding a McDonald's out here." It rumbled again.

His hand. That's what he was worried about. Zack had rolled over on it more than once during the night and instantly awoke in pain. He slowly inched his hand out of his sleeve and held it up. Even in the shadowed light of their shelter it didn't look good. Blotches of purples and blues and blacks covered everything from the middle of his thumb, all the way across the top of his hand, and down to the base of his pinky. He wasn't sure but he thought he could see the individual marks of Jerry's fingers on his hand. Zack sighed and gently put his hand back down.

Somewhere along the line, Zack had fallen back asleep. He woke back up when Danny started stretching on top of him. Zack yawned and watched as Danny came awake.

"Hey," he said as the boy's eyes popped open.

"Hey Zack." Danny yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty good."

"Well that makes one of us," Zack said as he unzipped his coat and let Danny slide off him.

"You didn't sleep good, too?"

"Nah, I had this really squirmy blanket that didn't stay still all night," Zack told him.

"You had what-hey!"

"No, I'm kidding. You weren't that bad."

The two boys traded small talk for a few minutes while they woke up completely. Finally Zack decided that they could put off leaving their shelter no longer.

"Okay, Danny. Let's do this. Time to get home." Zack crawled out of their shelter and stood up. "You know," he announced to Danny and the rest of the woods, "I've had just about enough snow to last me the rest of my life." He looked around their immediate area and he only difference he could see between now and the previous night was that instead of dark and white, it was bright and white.

"This sucks," Danny said as he crawled out behind Zack.

"Yep. That's why we have to get moving. Think you can walk today?" Danny tried standing up and putting weight on his ankle.

"Ouch!" He said as he lifted the injured foot up and leaned against Zack for support.

"That looks like a no," Zack said, turning away so Danny wouldn't see him frown. It was hard enough carrying him last night when the snow was up to his ankles. Today, from what Zack could tell, the snow looked to be at least shin deep. He sighed and squatted down and Danny hopped on.

"I hope you don't have any important plans today, Danny," Zack said as Danny got into position. "Because I don't think we'll be moving all that quick."

"I guess I'd better find a faster ride then," Danny joked.

Zack slogged on, breaking a trail through the snow while Danny kept up a running commentary on anything and everything he could think of. Zack would answer occasionally but saved most of his talking for one of their many breaks. Sometime, Zack figured it was probably around noon but he couldn't see the sun through the snow and clouds, they stopped and Danny asked him about how he was kidnapped. After he told Danny his story, he returned the question.

"How about you, Danny?"

Danny was silent for a moment before he answered. "I lived in a foster home then. But it was more like a group home, I guess, since there were usually around five or six of us. Our school was four blocks away so we'd walk home. One day, the day I was kidnapped, I stayed after school to work on a project so I wasn't with the others. I was halfway home when Jerry pulled up in his car.

"He pulled up while I was waiting for the light to turn and held up a picture of a dog. 'Hey kid, have you seen this dog?' he said. I remember it perfectly. I told him I hadn't and he looked real sad. 'Man, my wife is going to kill me. She loves Pepper more than she loves me, I think.' I told him that the dog was really cute." Danny stopped talking and studied the snow.

"You don't have to keep going, you know," Zack told him.

"I'm good. I was just thinking about how stupid I was."

"You were, what? Eight? We're all dumb at that age."

"I guess. Anyway, he offered me ten dollars if I'd help him look and said he'd drop me off at home after we found the dog. All I had to do was ride around with him in the neighborhood and look and call out the dog's name while he drove. I knew I shouldn't do it, we'd talked about stranger danger in school, but he seemed nice and I didn't want his wife to be mad at him. And I'd never had ten dollars of my own, Zack. That was a lot of money. So I did it. I got in and we went up and down the streets. I didn't notice that we were getting farther and farther away from my house and the school until we passed the mall that was near the highway.

"I told him that I shouldn't be this far away from my house or something like that. He told me that I'd be going a lot farther away than this and that I should get used to it. He turned his car onto the highway and I cried for a few miles before he told me that needed to stop before he threw me into traffic. And...I guess you know what happened after that." The boy's voice hitched a few times and Zack was sure that tears were soon to follow.

"Wow, Danny," Zack said as he put an arm around the boy. "You know what though?"

"What?"

"You don't have to worry about him ever again. Ever. I promise."

"How?"

"Because, when we get out of here, and we are getting out of these stupid woods, I promise that too, we're going to the police and we're going to tell them what that freak did and he'll be put in jail for a long time. Forever."

"Good. He deserves it."

"He deserves a lot worse, Danny. He might just get it, too."

"Huh?"

"I've heard that people like him don't last too long in jail."

"Good. I wouldn't care a bit."

"Me neither." Zack started getting to his knees. "Now let's get moving again. I'm getting tired of all this snow."

"Me too," Danny announced as he climbed on Zack's back.

When they started out for the day, Zack's rest breaks were short and occurred once or twice an hour. As the afternoon wore on toward darkness, they'd increased to every fifteen to twenty minutes and lasted longer. They'd find a tree to lean against and neither boy talked much once they'd settled down. It was only when Zack felt the calming numbness of sleep calling him that he'd rouse himself and start again.

As he trudged along with Danny riding shotgun, he focused on nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other. He tried his best to ignore his increasing hunger pangs and growing exhaustion but it was becoming a losing battle. Zack also began wondering if he'd be able to keep any of his promises to Danny. It was looking more and more likely that they'd spend another night in the middle of nowhere and the odds of them getting through that and then carrying on with another day like this one were very, very long. Zack sighed softly.

They crested a small hill and began carefully heading down the other side and there it was. Through a gap in the trees and a lightening of snowfall, Zack caught a glimpse of what could only be a road a few hundred feet away. He shook his head and looked again, certain that he'd imagined it, and when the conditions aligned a second time, he was sure. There was a road. A way the hell out of here. Zack felt a smile break out on his face and his legs suddenly weren't as weary.

"Danny! Do you see it?"

"Huh? See what?"

"Straight ahead through the trees. It's a road."

"I don't—wait, I do see it. Finally!" Zack could feel the boy's body relax on his shoulders, as if Danny finally let out a breath he'd been holding for hours. "Maybe we'll come out near a gas station or restaurant so we can get some food."

"I'd settle for anywhere with a phone," Zack said as he reached the bottom of the hill and started across the clearing that led to the road. "A cheeseburger would be nice, too," he added and heard Danny laugh.

"Cheeseburger and french fries," Danny said. "And a Coke!"

"Cheeseburger, french fries, a Mountain Dew because Coke is terrible, and then another cheeseburger after that. Maybe a third after the first two. What do you think about that, Danny?"

"I think you're fat!"

"Hey! I'm going to eat your burger now too, kid. Sorry. That's how it works."

"It better not work like that," Danny told him as they broached the trees at the edge of the road.

Zack stepped onto the shoulder of the road and stopped. "What the hell is this?" he asked no one in particular. He looked up one way and back down the other and saw no sign of anything human other than a pair of tire tracks almost completely refilled by the snow. "Where is everyone? Is this some kind of a joke?" He took a deep breath and yelled. "I didn't cross however many miles of fucking forest to find-" Zack's voice cracked and he fell silent.

"Which way do we go, Zack?" Danny asked after giving Zack a few seconds to pull himself back together.

"I...I have no idea, Danny." He pushed his hair up out of his face. He shouldn't have to make any other decisions. He'd done his part by getting the two of them out of Jerry's and across the damn frozen backwoods tundra. That's more than enough for any one person.

"Let's go right," Danny told him.

"Why right?"

"Because that's the way the tire tracks are going," the boy said matter-of-factly. Zack started to open his mouth but shut it since that was as good a reason as any.

"Right it is." He readjusted Danny's weight and started down the road.

While the road was devoid of any traffic, and had been for at least an hour as far as Zack could figure, it was relatively straight and flat. Not having to find places to cross partially frozen streams or skirt dense growths of trees allowed them to move much faster than they'd managed before.

"Okay, Danny. Here's the deal," Zack said ten minutes or so later after they'd rounded a curve, "I think we're going to have to start looking for another place to crash for the night. I don't know how much further I can go. Plus, it's getting dark and it's going to get colder really fast." He felt Danny moving around and it almost made him lose his balance.

"Settle down up there, kiddo, or we'll end up in a ditch."

"Zack, turn around."

"What? No way. We're going this way now. Too late to change your mind."

"No, just turn around."

"Why?"

"Just do it." Zack stopped and turned, planning on appeasing the boy before continuing on. "Do you see it?" Zack heard the excitement in Danny's voice before he saw the faint glow of light coming around the corner.

"Headlights!"

They stood in the middle of the road and waved and shouted as the light became brighter. Zack unknowingly had tears of joy running down his cheeks when the plow finally came into view. They heard the engine downshifting and the truck slowed as it neared them, stopping a handful of feet away. The hazard lights began flicking on and off and the door opened. Zack squinted into the lights and saw a figure standing on the running board behind the open door.

"Need a lift boys?"

"Oh do we ever, sir," Zack said after he found his voice. Zack felt his legs grow wobbly and quickly sank to one knee, all but spilling Danny to the ground in the process. "Oh do we ever." Upon seeing Zack nearly fall, the man hurried from his truck and helped Danny off his back.

"Easy there, big guy," the man said as he looked the two boys over. He bit back a grimace. "You two look pretty rough. What say I get you boys in the truck and take you somewhere warm? Maybe we can talk about why you're out in this weather."

"We're not runaways," Zack said. "At least not the kind you're probably thinking of."

"I didn't say anything about that. We can work on that once we're out of the middle of the road and back in the heat." He looked at Danny and saw the boy was all but balancing on one leg. "Can you walk?" Danny shook his head in the negative. He helped Zack back to his feet with one arm and scooped Danny up with the other. He led them to the passenger side door and slammed it with an elbow to clear all the snow away from the handle. Once it was clear, the man opened the door.

"Little guy, you're riding in the middle, okay? Just be sure not to hit the shifter with your legs." Danny nodded as he was lifted up and into the truck. He slid across the seat and stopped in the center. Zack climbed in after him and pulled the door shut. The man got back in and they were on their way.

"Thank you so much for the ride, mister," Zack said as he thawed out in the truck's heat. "I don't think we could have stayed outside for another night."

"Another night? What on earth have you been outside that long for?"

"We were kidnapped and escaped," Zack told him.

The man, T. Spencer, according to the badge hanging from his jacket, turned to Zack and studied him a second before looking back to the road. Zack could almost see the light bulb go on over his head as it hit him. "You're the boy that was all over the tv the other day. Chris Martin, right?"

"Zack Martin. And what do you mean I was all over the tv?"

"You know that missing kid thing they always run at the bottom of the screen? I must have seen your face a hundred times."

"I guess I'm famous," Zack snickered.

"You must be half-starved. Zack, if you can reach it, there's a lunch box under your seat. I don't know if you boys like bologna sandwiches with mayo or not, but they're yours if you want them."

"Mr. Spencer," Danny said softly, "I'd eat a cat food sandwich topped with broccoli right now."

"Me, too," Zack added.

"Dig in, then," he said. "And you can just call me Todd. Mr. Spencer is my dad's name," Todd said with a smile. Danny introduced himself before attacking one of the sandwiches from the box.

When he was barely over halfway through with the sandwich, Zack discovered his eyelids were quickly becoming unbearably heavy. He noticed that Danny had already inhaled his sandwich and was leaning against him and breathing deeply. Zack smiled and put his free arm around the boy. He managed to take the last two bites of his own sandwich just before the warmth of the truck and the relief of being rescued combined to bury him in unconsciousness.

Todd kept driving while they slept. When he finally climbed out of the small valley they were in, he picked the radio handset from the dashboard. "Dispatch, this is truck 20. I need you to put me through to the police. I picked up some precious cargo just after the Route 1 exit."

"Care to be a little more specific, Spencer?" the radio operator shot back.

"I found two kids out in the middle of nowhere, Dispatch. One of them is that Martin boy that went missing a few days ago. Not sure who the other one is but they both look pretty ragged."

"Copy that. I'll relay the message." The radio fell silent for a moment or two before the voice came back on. "Mercy Hospital will be waiting for you, Spencer. Be careful."

"Always am, Dispatch. Truck 20 out."

Sorry for the delay on this, everyone. I meant for it to be up a few days ago but some lovely winter weather somehow managed to knock my internet out until this morning and my phone isn't quite 'smart' enough to post from (if you even can. IDK). Also, this story was nominated for a TSL award and I think that's awesome. I won't tell you to vote for it but I wouldn't mind if you did!