The Wolf Code

She half expected the Sheriff to reach out of the darkness and grab her, but when nothing happened, she hurriedly got down and started to squeeze her way through the opening.  Her shoulders were the hardest, and she almost got stuck.  When she finally put one arm out and the other back, then let out all her air and pushed herself through with her legs, she felt stuck for a moment, then slipped through the opening and out onto the cold, hard cement floor.

When no one rushed to flip on the lights or recapture her, she stood and closed the door, latching it again to hide her escape.  Quietly, she walked down the center aisle on her toes, doing her best not to make a sound. 

She stood in front of the large, double doors at the front of the barn and stared at their outline in the darkness.  These doors were loud, and if she opened them, they could be seen from practically any vantage point, even if she was careful. 

She needed another escape route, and she needed it fast.

She felt defeated, but she pushed onward, trying not to let the issue with the double doors get into her head.  Worst case scenario, she would wait until someone else opened the doors and sneak out.  But there had to be another way out, and she was going to find it.

Walking carefully in the darkness, she kept her hand on the outer wall and felt for a side door or anything that would serve as a secondary exit.  Her feet left the concrete walkway that ran between the barn stalls, and she shuffled her feet slowly over the uneven dirt floor on the outer edge of the barn.  She bumped into the corner of the barn, turning to follow the wall and starting to panic.  She was almost to the stalls, and she’d found nothing.

When she stumbled into a large dip in the floor, she almost fell flat on her face.  She got on her hands and knees, feeling around in the darkness and smiling when her hands found soft, freshly dug earth against the wall.  Something had been digging into the barn to look for food and it appeared that the disturbed ground had been hastily shoved back into the hole and the vermin run off or killed.  Whatever it was had dug a pretty large hole beneath the edge of the wall, and Hannah couldn’t contain her excitement as she began to scoop it out and pile it to the side against the wall.  She was tempted to fling it haphazardly, but she wanted to get a head start, and dirt flung everywhere would give her escape route away. 

When she’d pulled the dirt out and built a large pile beside herself, she grabbed a rock and dug the hole a little deeper and a little wider.  She worked quietly, listening for any sign that she’d been heard and keeping her eye pressed against the space between the wood slats that made up the side of the barn.  She couldn’t see too far away, but in the relative darkness, she was certain that no one could see her if she could see them.

She checked the width and depth of the hole, then crawled in and flipped onto her back.  She used the wall of the barn to pull herself through, then wriggled and contorted until she was most of the way out.  Her ankle got stuck, and she quickly removed her tennis shoe to release herself, then retrieved the shoe and put it back on.  Back pressed against the barn, she looked up and down the narrow walkway that went all the way around the barn, then dashed toward the woods in a crouch, keeping as low to the ground as possible.

When no shouts of alarm greeted her as she made it to the tree line, her eyes welled up with tears.  She was free, though not safe yet.  But she’d gotten out of the barn undetected, and that was monumental. 

She continued into the woods, not even entertaining the idea of all the wild animals that might be lurking in the darkness.  Hannah was on a mission, and she was bound and determined to escape and survive this ordeal. 

The old Hannah was scared of snakes and spider webs in the forest.  The new Hannah knew that there were far scarier things in this world, and she wouldn’t stop running until she found her way out of this mess.

She dared anything creepy or crawly to get in between her and freedom.