Happy Wednesday! Sorry for the delay, school has been busy. Enjoy!
Joe stood still, staring at the ginormous man. He was scared to move but quickly scanned the area for some sort of refuge. He shifted on his feet and stared blankly at the man.
"Whatcha doin' on this neck of the woods, fella?" He growled curiously. His brown, beady eyes had not left Joe's figure. Joe could feel the sweat starting to form on his brow and searched his mind for an answer.
"Just looking for my wife," He blurted out loud. He smiled cheekily, "And she's not in this here shed, so I may as well move on." He tried to play his visitation off, but the mysterious man was not having it.
The man smiled dumbly. "Oh your wife huh?" He asked in a disbelief tone. "At this time of night in my property?"
I don't think he believed me, Joe thought nervously.
He bolted toward Joe to tackle him before Joe could react.
"Augh!" Joe yelped as he was thrown to the ground. The man had slammed him onto the floor of the shed and Joe felt his ankles roughly rub against the floorboard. Joe quickly lifted his head up and looked around. He noticed that the shed had a lock on the door and tried to roll out from underneath him.
The man may have been large and husky; but Joe was swift and quick thinking. Joe ran out of the shed and slammed the door behind him. He pushed with all his might to keep the door shut while he was trying to push the latch on the door shut. After a few moments of struggling, he was able to latch the door and lock it tightly. He slowly slid down the door, heavily breathing and hands pushing across his face in exhaustion. He felt the door being pounded on and could feel the man's whole body slammed against it in efforts to escape.
"Let me outta here!" The man's voice was muffled through the thick shed doors. Joe anxiously looked around the area to find an item to barricade the door with. He shakily got up, slightly limping from being thrown on the ground, and found a stack of large pieces of wood that had been chopped recently.
"This'll do," Joe spoke softly to himself as he mustered up the effort to grab a few chunks of wood. He slowly gathered a few large, heavy pieces and tossed them in front of the shed door, which was still rattling from the hostage inside.
Joe hastened his speed and grabbed more and more wood, creating a huge wall in front of the shed door. He clapped his hands together in relief. The wall would buy him some time as he searched for his bride. Joe quickly ran over to the small cottage, finding a small blanket to push pressure on his sore ankle. He went back inside to check on Ms. Stallon, who was still passed out hard on the small, tattered bed. He looked around inside for the key. He fumbled through the kitchenware and found a small key and placed it in his pocket. He locked Ms. Stallon's room and walked to the entryway of the cottage. He slowly walked out and dodged the door, which was loosely swinging from its hinges from Joe's efforts to get into the cottage earlier.
As he was leaving, he heard the wood that he had barricaded the shed with start to jumble a bit. Without looking back, he bolted into the woods. He started down the path that had Mandie's footprints from her boots. He realized there were other footprints too, larger ones.
He patted the pocket of his pants to check on the key from the cottage, and then ran down the path, the tracks as his guide.