PART 5

Colleen kept running. Pushing branches away, breaking twigs underneath her feet. She just wanted to get away from everything. Franz tried to keep at a close distance behind her so that he wouldn’t lose sight of her. "Colleen, would you stop already?" He yelled out to her, panting to catch his breath.

Colleen stopped and leaned up against a big tree to catch her breath. Franz caught up to her and stopped right beside her. "Why did you follow me?" Colleen asked him.

"Honestly, I don’t know." He said still panting. "If I’d have know you were going to run this far, I wouldn’t have." Franz answered angrily. "What do you think you’re doing running out into the woods like this?"

"I just wanted to get away."

"Couldn’t you have gotten away about a mile back that way?" he pointed in the direction that he thought they came from. Colleen ignored him.

"Look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Becky. I’m sorry that you had a fight with Andrew. I’m sorry that I told you about Becky next to a wooded area that I’ve never been in before." Franz was getting angrier by the minute. Franz knew that he had no idea where they were.

Franz sat down beside Colleen, and took a deep breath. "Look, I didn’t mean to get upset."

"Do you love her?"

Franz was surprised at the change of subject. "Yes, I do love her," he said.

"And I love Andrew. I miss him so much. I guess I thought I could get over him if I started to like you," she admitted.

"But you can’t, can you?" Franz asked.

"No." Just then they heard a clap of thunder.

"Colleen, come on. Let’s get out of here. It’s gonna start raining soon, and everybody is probably wondering where we’re at."

"OK." They got up and started heading back the direction they came from. They kept walking and walking. Finally, Franz stopped.

"We’re lost, aren’t we?" Colleen said.

"Yep." Franz admitted. "We are." They heard another clap of thunder.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"COLLEEN!" Matthew yelled out. "COLLEEN!"

"FRANZ!" Becky followed suit. "FRANZ!" she yelled.

"It’s no use," Becky said as tears began to run down her cheeks.

Matthew looked over at her. She was beautiful, but he had noticed that there was something between her and Franz. If he hadn’t noticed it before, he certainly knew it now. His heart jerked as he remembered Ingrid and Emma. He had no idea if he would ever find the right woman or not, but he now realized Becky wasn’t her. She belonged to Franz. He went up to her and put his arm around her to comfort her, "It’s OK. We’ll find them." He tried to sound confident. "We just have to keep looking." They continued their journey forward.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Where could they be?" Jo asked as she leaned up against a tree. "Nick, I don’t know what I would do without Franz. He’s always been there for me since Fritz died. He’s been like my own son."

"We’ll find them, Jo. If we don’t, the others will. Now we can’t quit." He encouraged her. Nick took her in his arms. "Are you ready to continue on?" he asked her.

"Yes, let’s keep going."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"COLLEEN," Sully yelled out for his daughter.

"COLLEEN," Michaela did the same.

"Come on, Michaela. Let’s go this way." Sully told her.

They continued walking for awhile, and Michaela decided to stop by a tree and rest for a moment.

Sully looked over at her. "Michaela, don’t move," he said.

"What?"

"Just don’t move." Sully grabbed a big stick from beside him, crept up from behind his wife, and quickly lowered the stick down.

"Sully? What is it?"

"OK, you can move now." Michaela turned around to see where Sully had just killed a rattlesnake. Michaela ran into Sully’s arms.

"Thank you."

"Yeah. Let’s keep going." Sully and Michaela continued searching.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back at Plumfield, the children had just gotten back home, and were sitting in the living room worried sick about what was going on out in the woods. Dan was put in charge of everyone.

"Come on, guys. We can’t just sit here worried about them. We have to do something to keep our minds off of this. They’ll find Franz and Colleen." Dan tried to comfort the group.

"But what?" Emil asked.

"I don’t know. Any suggestions?" The kids all nodded their heads. They were all too worried to think about doing something else.

"Everybody, look!" Bess said as she stared out the window. The kids all joined her at the window.

"Oh, no! It’s raining," Nat said.

"Raining hard," said Nan.

"Now what are we going to do?" Bess asked.

"The only thing we can do." Dan said, and then made a suggestion nobody ever thought that he would ever make. "Pray."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Franz, I’m sorry! This is my fault. I shouldn’t have run out here like that. I’m the one that got us lost." Colleen felt terrible.

"No, that’s ok. All we have to do is figure out where we’re at." Franz said. "Which I’m not sure of." All of a sudden, it began to rain.

"Come on, we need to find a place to take shelter." Franz took her by the hand and started running through the woods looking for shelter.

"Franz, I don’t see anything." Colleen said after about 10 minutes of searching in the pouring rain. They were both drenched, and beginning to get chilled.

"Neither do I." Franz looked around sadly. "Come on, let’s head up that way."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Becky held one of the picnic blankets up over her to try to stay as dry as possible, but it wasn’t long before the blanket was soaked through.

"Now what?" Becky asked Matthew. "Where do we go from here?"

Matthew had a gut feeling that something was up over the hill ahead of them. Colleen, maybe, he thought. He followed his feeling.

"That way," he pointed over the hill. Becky followed him as best as she could, continuing to leave a trail behind them.

They got up to hill and Matthew looked down. "Becky, get down now," he loudly whispered over to her. Becky got down on the ground. They both looked down the hill. What they saw was a huge bear.

"Matthew," Becky said, frightened.

"Shh, just stay down low so he can’t see us. With it raining, he shouldn’t be able to smell us," he said to her. The rain had begun to let up a bit. They both cowered toward the ground, until they saw the bear wander off in the opposite direction. "Whew," Matthew said.

"Matthew!"

"Don’t worry. Let’s go that way." He pointed in a different direction than the bear went. He still had that gut feeling that Colleen was close by.

Becky followed him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"It’s almost two o’clock, Nick." Jo reminded him.

"Yes, it is. Maybe the others have already found them. Let’s head back to the pond." Nick said. They followed their trail that they left back toward the pond.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Well, Michaela. It’s almost two o’clock. We best head back." Sully told his wife.

"But we haven’t found Colleen yet," Michaela protested.

"Maybe some of the others have. We have to go back and find out. If they haven’t, we’ll head back out and look for them. OK!"

"OK." Michaela agreed. "Let’s hope they’ve been found."