Darren quickly turned around and started fumbling around in his bag.

“Hurry Darren, they’re coming fast!” Jack was right. The pounding of huge paws on the ground was getting louder and louder. Darren turned around. He had a sheepish look on his face.

“Uh… I don’t know how to break this to you, but I packed the wrong bag.”

“WHAT?!” Jack shrieked. “What are we going to do!?”

“Run for it!” yelled Darren. Him and Jack sprinted the long distance back to the van and dived inside. They drove in tense silence for around 5 minutes. Then, a spluttering noise met their ears, and the van slowed to a stop.

“There must be something wrong with the engine”, muttered Darren as he looked at the fuel gage- which was almost full. Darren hopped out of the van and jogged around to the bonnet. While Jack waited, a newspaper clipping met his eye. It was poking out from under the seat.

‘NOTORIOUS MASS MURDERER DARREN HENRY ESCAPES’ read the title. The article had a picture too. it was of a younger Darren holding Cupcake as a kitten. Jack froze. This couldn’t be right. Darren- a murderer? The date on the top of the page read: 12/5/06. This meant that supposedly, Darren had been on the run for over 2 years. Jack now felt even more scared than before. What if all of this was just a plan for Darren to get to Jack? His mind started to work furiously. It was all making sense to him now. Darren had moved next door two years ago. Amber acting strangely- she must have known about Darren’s plans somehow. All of the lies about dogs- Darren must have made them up in an attempt to take Jack away to a remote place. But then what could the huge animals have been? Fake…unless they were police dogs! Maybe the police had found out about Darren’s plans.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps met Jack’s ears. Darren was coming back to the van!

To be continued…