After a few moments of climbing, the mayor stopped, panting like he had just finished a marathon, not more than ten feet below me. And then a real mayor of a real town spoke directly to me. His voice was low and grumbly, just like you'd imagine for a fat guy.

  “Son, you're in big trouble. Does your mama know where you are?”

  “Yes, sir. And I swear I didn't see you kill that woman down there.” As soon as I said it I realized how stupid it was. I shook so bad you could've made scrambled eggs on my head. Actually, that didn't make any sense whatsoever, but you get the point. I'm sure as we get along in this story-telling business I'll get better at it.

  “Son,” the mayor said, “I didn't kill no woman. My … friend and I were just wrastlin', that's all. We're done now, and she ran off back home.”

  I couldn't help but wonder if all old people really think kids are that stupid.

  “Yes, sir, I know, sir. I'll never say you're a killer. You were just wrestling, that's all,” I said, failing to mention the small fact that I had just seen someone disappear.

  Borbus T. Duck looked at me for a long time. I had seen him a hundred times before, but never this close. He was so incredibly ugly and fat as a heifer. It pained me just to look at him, especially with sweat all over his pale, fat face. I guess I had no idea what true fear was like until that moment. I knew if the mayor could kill that woman, he could kill a little squirt like myself. Good thing I'd only downed one root beer that day, or I might have had another accident right then and there.

  After having stared at me for what seemed like hours, without saying another word, Mayor Duck started climbing again.

  Eight branches, six branches, four branches below me. I tried moving farther up the tree, but I'd already come just about as far as I could go. His grunts as he climbed reminded me of the pigs on my Aunt Lorena's farm. Limb by limb, breaking off leaves and twigs, branch by branch, he inched closer by the second, and there was nowhere for me to go but …

  It was then that I jumped.

  I had never before done something so crazy in all my life. I was fifty feet in the air, and all of a sudden I decided I was one of those flying monkeys after all. But I guess I just didn't have much of a choice. I figured I'd rather risk breaking a few bones than getting strangled by the mayor of Duluth, Georgia.

  I jumped straight out from my limb, in the opposite direction of the side that the evil old mayor was climbing up. I thought I might be able to catch a limb of the neighboring trees on my way down. For about two seconds, I was having a dandy of a time, but it ended quickly. I grabbed at every limb and branch and who knows what else as I fell, but I couldn't hold on to anything. Limbs and twigs and leaves slapped me and poked me and scratched me. Nothing would stop my fall, despite my desperation in trying to grab anything I could.

  Then I hit the bottom branch with something my mom says is hard as a rock—my head.

  And it hurt. Bad.

  It flipped me back the other way and I landed plumb on my back. At that very moment, I thought I was going to die. My head felt like it was in ice-water, and my back felt like Rusty had just gone to new levels in his torture tactics with me. The only thing I saw before blackness came over me was Borbus T. Duck clambering down Ole Betsy, like a fireman going to his fire truck, with his wicked eyes glaring straight at me.

  And that's how my nightmare started.

  I hear Mom yelling my name, but I don't listen; I just keep running. I know I have to get back soon, but I just want to swing on the tire one more time. Rusty is yelling at me that I'm going to be in big trouble, but I can't care less. I get me a great running start, feel like I have run a mile, and then I jump up on the tire and take off over the river like a 747. I'm flying, I'm a bird, I'm a dragonfly! Then I hear the snap, and then I feel the absence of anything holding me back, and then I see the broken rope dangle down past me, and then I am falling fast. My heart is in my throat, and the rushing air as I drop roars around me. The only other sound I hear is an evil laughter, like an angel of the devil come to take me away. It is loud and shrill, like a bird that has just been shot. It reminds me of one of those clown toys I saw at the flea market that just didn't sound quite right when you pulled the string and let it go. Then I realize how strange it is that I haven't hit water yet. I'm just falling and falling but the river isn't getting any closer. I look down, and there is no river in sight. It's been replaced by a thick blackness, empty of light. And all I can hear is that horrible laughter, calling me … calling me … waiting to swallow me whole …

  I jerked up from my sleep, sweating like a pig in August. My breath was heavy, and my hair stuck to my forehead. At first I couldn't see a thing—it was pitch black—and I couldn't hear a sound coming from anywhere. I lay in a soft bed, with covers over me, and a nice fluffy pillow. I panicked, but I couldn't get myself to move.

  Soon, my eyes adjusted a bit, and I could see a window to my right. Barely any light was coming through at all, but I could tell it was a window. I waited longer still.

  A little bit later I finally got the nerve to get up and try to find out what the heck was going on. I sure wasn't in my bed at home, and I sure wasn't in Rusty's room. All I could remember was lying under that tree looking at Mayor Duck coming down at me. As if brought on by the thought, I felt the pain in my head and back again. It ached like nothing else, and I had to sit back down before I passed out.

  I felt hopeless. I either started crying again or just kept crying from the first time, I couldn't remember. I was scared to death. Where was I? Where was my mom? Did that devil of a mayor drag me to his shack or what? Where could I—

  The door to the room opened.

  I gave out a little shriek and jumped back onto the other side of the bed. Before I landed, the light switched on.

  Standing in the doorway was the biggest man I had ever seen. He must've been seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. His hair was the color of lemon frosting and his skin as dark as a lifeguard in late summer. He wore one of those fancy suits that old people tend to wear—it was a dark charcoal color. He had demon eyes bearing down on me like a wolf's on a rabbit. Needless to say, I didn't think this monster was going to be too friendly.

  Then, the Monster spoke.

  “You, get up. Time to go see the Sheriff.”

  I gave a quick sigh of relief. Monster-boy wasn't going to kill me after all! In fact, he was going to take me to the police and everything would be just fine. Well, I might as well tell you right now, that was not the case.

  I slowly got up and gave a quick, “yes, sir,” and followed him into the hall. I could finally see what kind of place I was in, and it was nothing but a mansion. The walls were wallpapered all nice and fancy, with frilly wooden thing-a-ma-jiggers along the top and bottom. The white carpet could have made a bed for normal folks like my family, real cushy-like. It felt good under my toes. That was how I realized that I didn't have my shoes on. Somebody had done me the favor of taking them off for me.

  We walked down the hall a ways, down some curvy wooden stairs—I think they were made out of cherry wood—through a foyer I swear was bigger than the White House itself, and finally into a huge room that I guess was a library of sorts. You talk about your rich folks. I swear I saw this library in one of those boring movies about England that my mom's always watching. I didn't get too much time to see what it looked like because I wasn't in there more than two seconds before all the lights suddenly went out and I was in the pitch dark, alone with the beast of a man that had brought me there—or at least I thought we were alone.

  I coughed, and it sounded like a sonic boom in all that silence.

  “Hello, young Jimmy, my boy,” a raspy voice spoke from the darkness. “Don't be alarmed. Now, you've gotten yourself into a bit of trouble, but everything is going to work out just fine. What you saw yesterday in the woods was not what you thought it was. But it was something very profound, and because of it, your life will never be the same.”

  I don't know if profound was the best word to use, but there was no doubt that my life was about to change. Mostly for the worse.

  After the voice spoke from the darkness, a small light switched on in the middle of that huge room. It was a lamp sitting on a large wooden desk. Behind the desk, propped on a cushy leather chair, sat a man that made the monster look like your neighborhood barber. It had nothing to do with their size. The man at the desk was a lot smaller than the villain who had led me to the library. But his face looked as mean as a snake. He had thin eyebrows, a skinny, pointy nose, jawbones that were about to poke through the skin, and eyes that were black as tar. His hair was gray, and he wore a fancy suit, similar to the one worn by the Monster. After looking at him and those evil eyes, I had second thoughts about my earlier conclusion that Mayor Duck was the devil. If the devil was human, he was sitting right in front of me.

  I'd like to think at that point I could have acted brave, and made that mean son of a gun see that I wasn't someone to be toyed with. But all I could get my poor soul to say was, “Sir, I don't know what the heck's going on, but I'm downright scared, and I want to go home.”

  “Go home?” His raspy voice spoke again—I wanted to tell him to clear his throat or something. “Well, I don't really think you'll be going home anytime soon, son. You see, what you saw yesterday is a lot bigger than you may think. That woman you … saw … had been spying on us, Jimmy. Do you know what happens to spies?”

  He paused, expecting me to answer, but I was too scared to even shake my head.

  “Nothing good,” he continued. “She found out a lot more than she bargained for, and then went way too far when she decided to take a walk in those woods to look for something that is very special to all of us. It must have been a shock for you to see your own mayor hurting that poor lady, eh?” The sicko let out a little chuckle, then continued, “You know what, son? She's now in a place that you've never even imagined in your wildest kiddy dreams. And … ‘she ain't coming back,’ as you might say. And you know what else?”

  I swallowed.

  “No, sir.”

  “If you don't do exactly what we tell you, you're going to join her.”

  An hour later, I knew what it was that they wanted me to do.

  Nothing.

  It took them an hour to tell me that, but that was the message. I was supposed to sit tight and wait for them to decide what they were going to do with me. They told me if I so much as breathed wrong they'd kill me with about as much thought as stepping on a cockroach, which made me feel pretty down right special.

  As they had sat there and discussed the future of a little brat named Jimmy Fincher who had stumbled upon them at their worst, I heard little bits and pieces of their conversation. They talked about my dad a lot, and some guy named Joseph, who they had no idea how to find. They also mentioned a couple of things that really made me think they were whacked in the brain. They kept talking about opening some door before someone else did, and how they had to stop the “Givers.” I had no earthly idea what they were talking about.

  I was led back to my room after learning nothing of value, told to stay put and keep quiet, and then locked in. Of course, I tried the door, but it seemed pretty set in not letting me out. I also checked out the window, but it was bolted down. Even if it hadn't been, I was on at least the third floor of this mansion, and it would have been a mighty fall to jump out that window. I'd had enough jumps for one summer.

  I sat on the bed and bawled my eyes out ’til there was no water left in my head. But then, I vowed I wouldn't do it again. I figured if I was old enough to get kidnapped and threatened with my life, I was old enough to quit crying.

  After an hour or so, with nothing new happening, I fell back asleep. All I dreamed about was that poor woman who had her life taken away from her. And about the darkness that had sucked her away into thin air like a bad magic trick.

  My world had become strange and terrifying.

  It was only the beginning.

  I lived in that room for two days, with nothing to keep me company but a bed and a bolted-down window. It seemed like a whole lifetime. I had plenty of food brought to me, fresh clothes, even fresh sheets. They even let me shower, which was nice, because I had started to stink something awful, even by my standards. But I was purely miserable. I kept my word and didn't cry, but I came awfully close. All I could think about was my mom and dad and brother and friends and how much I wanted to go swimming. Every minute that went by was longer than the one before it. It wasn't too long before I started to feel crazy. Anything but that room, that bed, that window that untruthfully promised there was normal life on the other side. I hated it.

  Two days.

  But after two days, the waiting ended.

  One morning, the Monster came into my room—without knocking, he never knocked—and said that we were going on a trip. He threw me some fresh clothes, grunted, and declared that we were leaving in five minutes. He left, leaving the door open.

  I got dressed as quickly as I could, thankfully finding my Braves hat still intact and with the clothes the Monster had given me, and waited for him to come back and get me. Ten minutes went by with no sign of that ugly beast. I decided that maybe I was supposed to come downstairs on my own. I went to the door, and peeked around the siding. The hall was empty.

  I left the room and walked down the hall, on top of that plush carpet, and headed for the huge staircase that led down to the foyer, then looked down.

  No one.

  I went down the stairs, finally getting a good view of what this place looked like. It belonged on ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.’ Everywhere you looked, there was shiny gold or silver or expensive wood or lush carpet or oriental rugs—you name it, it seemed to have it. I was definitely in a bona fide mansion.

  When I reached the bottom, I plopped down and sat on the bottom stair.

  And waited.

  Still, no sign of the Monster, or of the old devil with the raspy voice.

  I waited longer still.

  Finally, the passing time making me braver, I got up and started walking around the house. You sure could get lost in a mansion if you weren't careful. I walked through a couple of connected rooms, and then heard voices from somewhere to the right side of the room. If my sense of direction was correct, it would have been the room I visited during my first encounter with Raspy-voice. At the very back of the room I was currently in, a door led into the direction the voices were coming from. I could hear that raspy voice, and I knew the source immediately.

  “Fine. Go get the boy, and let's do it. His father will have no choice now. That letter leaves no doubt that he knows where Joseph is hiding out. It's time to get nasty because we are running out of time. The Givers will get desperate, and may not just sit back any longer. They and their stupid legend and heroics.”

  Not knowing what to do, I crept behind a couch and strained to hear what I could.

  “The boy!” This was the voice of the Monster. “I forgot all about him. He's up in the room with the door wide open.” This was followed by a thundering of footsteps that I could tell were going out of the adjacent room through the door right next to the staircase on the other side.

  I don't know how or what came over me, but I knew that my only chance in the world of seeing another day was to somehow run for it. I dashed back into the hallway, headed straight through the foyer and out the front door. A blast of sunlight hit me, and I could barely make out the humongous yard that lay before me. To the right was a cobblestone driveway that made its way through some gardens before disappearing around a bend. In front of me was a vast expanse of green, green grass. And to my left, not more than fifty feet away, were woods.

  I ran for it.

  By the time I had reached the first trees, I could hear the Monster bellowing from the house, “He's gone! The little brat is gone!”

  I ran and ran. My heart beat as fast as it could. The trees got thicker and thicker, limbs and leaves slapping me every which way. I stumbled, and got right back up. I knew I was running for my life.

  In the distance behind me, I could hear sounds of pursuit. It was faint, but someone was running through the woods behind me. Twigs breaking, leaves crackling—someone was making chase, and I was pretty sure they were catching up. My body cursed me, begged me to stop. But then the Monster would roast me like a chicken. So I ran on.

  I heard a yell from behind.

  “Where you going, boy? You think you can run? You're going to be dead in five minutes!”

  The Monster was catching up. I was going to die.

  Suddenly, looming before me stood a wooden fence, running in both directions for as far as I could see. There was nowhere to go. I stopped running and looked around, desperate for a solution. The fence stood at least ten feet high, so I couldn't jump it. My instincts saved me. I started climbing the same thing that had gotten me into this mess in the first place. A tree.

  It was only a few feet from the fence, and I knew I could climb out on a branch and jump over from there. Sweat was pouring down my face, and I felt like I was about to collapse.

  I climbed on.

  I reached a big, thick branch that stooped right over that blasted fence. I was almost there. I was almost to freedom. I started climbing out onto the limb and then his voice froze me.

  Panting, somehow the Monster got out some words.

  “Stop right there you little good-for-nothing, or I'll make sure you never see another day in your life.”

  I slowly looked down and saw the barrel of a pistol—one of those fancy kind you see in FBI movies. Fear gripped me. My mind emptied of thought, my heart emptied of feelings. All I knew was fear, and I could not move.