Chapter 5 - The Desperate Escape
Claire and Jordan dropped immediately to the floor, crawling away from the bedroom window.
Heavy, authoritative footsteps echoed on the front porch, followed by a violent pounding on the front door.
"Claire, open this door immediately, it is Principal Vance!" a deep, threatening voice shouted from outside.
Claire's parents were out of town for a business conference, leaving her entirely alone to deal with the threat.
"We have to get out of here right now, or they are going to make us disappear," Jordan whispered urgently.
He grabbed Claire's hand and pulled her toward the hallway, moving silently on their socks.
They crept down the back stairs, heading straight for the sliding glass door in the kitchen.
As they reached the kitchen, the sound of breaking glass shattered the silence at the front of the house.
Vance and his men had smashed the front window and were now inside the living room.
Claire unlocked the back door and slid it open as quietly as humanly possible.
They slipped out into the cool night air and sprinted across the backyard toward the dense woods.
Flashlight beams swept across the lawn just seconds after they crossed the tree line.
"They went into the woods, fan out and find them!" Principal Vance roared into the darkness.
Claire and Jordan ran relentlessly through the thick brush, ignoring the branches whipping against their faces.
They navigated purely by moonlight, heading toward the old, abandoned train yard on the edge of town.
After thirty minutes of exhausting running, they collapsed behind a rusted, hollowed-out train car.
Claire pulled her phone out to check for any signal, but her battery was flashing a critical red warning.
"We have the video, and we have the downloaded files, but my phone is about to die," Claire panted.
Jordan looked around the desolate train yard, his mind racing for a solution.
"We need a public place with a secure internet connection to send this to the FBI tip line," Jordan said.
Claire thought for a moment before snapping her fingers in sudden realization.
"The public library is just two miles from here, and they have an unmonitored overnight drop-box for book returns," she suggested.
"We can break in through the drop-box chute and use their fiber-optic network."
They carefully made their way out of the train yard and walked along the dark, empty streets.
They finally reached the town library, a massive stone building sitting quietly in the center of town.
Jordan boosted Claire up, allowing her to slide feet-first through the oversized metal book-return chute.
She landed with a soft thud on a pile of returned novels and quickly opened the emergency side door for Jordan.
They rushed to the public computer terminals, booting up a machine to begin their final upload.
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Just as the screen flickered to life, the main library lights snapped on, illuminating the entire floor.
Standing at the front desk with a drawn pistol was Officer Davis, the one cop Jordan thought he could trust.
