The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back by Christopher Helwink

couldn’t stay on open land. With a sharp
right turn, the Boy in Blue ducked off the path and deep into the
forest.
    “We’re going to lose him if we stay on the
path!” Rocket yelled at his brother. “Stop this thing! We need to
chase him!”
    Wedge hit the brakes and the four-wheeler
came to a sliding stop. Both boys jumped up and off the vehicle
almost in unison and started chasing after the Boy in Blue.
    “Kid, we are in pursuit on foot. Heading
south.”
    “Roger, keep going,” Kid said back over the
communicator in both their ears. Back at The Playground, Kid turned
to Gears and Roller who were at their computer stations within Main
Computer Room 1.
    “Where are they heading?”
    “If we superimpose their locator device on
the map of Maple Forest – it looks like they are heading right for
Grauer Mill,” Gears answered back. “They are taking a long path,
but that looks like the end point.”
    “Boys, you copy that?” Kid asked back to
Wedge and Rocket.
    “Grauer Mill, got it!” Wedge said as he
puffed.
    The chase was long and hard, traveling
through some of the more dense parts of Maple Forest. It seemed
that Wedge was faster than the Boy in Blue, as he had no problems
keeping up with him. Rocket was a bit slower, but followed his
brother’s trail.
    The Boy in Blue had about a hundred foot lead
as the exited out of Maple Forest and onto the grounds of Grauer
Mill.
    Grauer Mill was an old mill that was built in
the late 1800s that was used to grind wheat, corn, and other grains
that were produced by local farmers.
    The mill was about six stories tall and was
constructed using bricks made form clay taken from the Grauer farm
and fired in a kiln. The support structure was made out of white
oak timbers that were abundant on the grounds.
    Water from Pepper Creek rushed into the
millrace and the wooden waterwheel that was constructed on the side
of the mill would turn. That would in turn move the machinery
inside the mill that would grind grain for the better part of a
century.
    The mill was shutdown now, but served as a
major center of the economic life for young Elmcrest during the
nineteenth century. Inside now, you would find an extensive museum
about the mill and local tourists would flock by the hundreds here
each day to get a look at the old mill, buy some apples from the
apple orchard on the premise, and see the beautiful waterfalls that
Pepper Creek formed in the back of the mill.
    Pepper Creek opened up as it hit the Grauer
Mills property. Instead of the small, fifteen foot wide creek as it
emerged from Maple Forest and onto Grauer Mill, Pepper Creek
expanded to nearly two hundred feet across.
    As the water rushed through Maple Forest and
onto this new large area, they water was greeted with a ten foot
high drop in elevation. The mill workers, back in the day, made a
dam to help funnel the water to the large waterwheel that the mill
used to power its machinery. That dam, made for some gorgeous
waterfalls as the water descended over the apex.
    The Boy in Blue knew he had to lose these two
kids following him. He wasn’t too sure who they were, but he
figured out for himself they must have been apart of the base that
he had found out in centerfield of the ballpark in Maple
Forest.
    He barely looked back at his chasers. The Boy
in Blue was focused and looked as if he had a plan.
    Being late in the season and approaching
fall, Grauer Mill was full of tourists. They loved to come here in
the late summer and fall months to watch the leaves change on the
trees and walk up and down the walkways that led around the mills
grounds.
    Most tourists wouldn’t even stop in the old
mill, but those who did were treated to a great history lesson on
the place and could watch the mill work as it did in the old
days.
    The pathways and walkways were full of people
looking at the sites today. They were two, three thick in some
places. Others huddled under different trees around the grounds –
taking pictures of