Unfortunately,We Were Lost PART 2

This is the story of a small group of teens who set out on an adventure to help those in need when a series of unfortunate and unforeseen events occurred resulting in them with a need for help.

PART II

The moon was high in the sky and the stars made for a nice distraction. They were bright and plentiful, like someone threw handfuls of glitter in the sky and every last spec of it stuck there. My walking pace slowed as my gaze fell upon them for a few short seconds. My snap-back to reality came when Bryant accidentally ran into the back of me.

“Hurry up, we’re going to lose them,” he was whispering but it most certainly was the yelling form of a whisper.

Oh yeah...

I was a tad butt-hurt about that, but he was right; the barking and rustling of the dogs pushing through the brush was getting quieter. We followed the sound of the barking and of the whistle for a long time. I don’t know how long, but it was a long time. The dogs were moving slowly and thank goodness; I couldn’t imagine how we would have kept up otherwise. Finding our footing on the rocky soil was hard enough in the daylight. But now that it’s dark and we need to stay quiet, it was even harder.  

There were two quick blows of the whistle and the dogs fell silent. We assumed the dogs stopped moving too. As soon as we noticed and we stopped moving to it was too late.

“Who’s there?” The voice was strong and assertive, not afraid in the least. There was a pause.

“Sniff it out Bear, go get it.”

Each one of us froze in our fear. We couldn’t see anything and we had nowhere to run. I figured one out of two things could happen: 1) once Bear found us, we would die, or 2) Bear would reveal us to his master and we would finally get help. I was banking on the second option.

Doing our best to not move a single muscle, we stood there as the sound of Bear scurrying along the ground grew louder only meaning one thing--he was getting closer. His sniffing sounded almost like an old man snoring, or choking, or a combination of both. It was not a pleasant sound.

The dog was twenty feet away or so when it lifted its head and pointed directly at us. When it laid its eyes upon us, it was almost like he was deciding if he really wanted to turn us in or not. Then came the long, ear-piercing howl.

The howl cued a long whistle, which cued more barking. Bear maintained his distance from us so we used the opportunity to hide behind the only large tree around us.

The whole gang of four-legged friends were very close.

“Alright now, come on out of there.”

We stayed put.

“Come on, I won’t hurt you.” There was a slight sound of questioning in his voice. He was an old man, his voice was gravely and he had some kind of accent. It wasn’t British, maybe Czech. How was he so certain that we were a someone? We could have been a something--like a lion or tiger or a bear--oh my!

Again, we didn’t move. Although, I was certain that whoever was out there could hear my heartbeat as pounding against my entire body.

“Let’s just do it,” not a single noise came from Eisley as she mouthed the words.

I furiously shook my head no while simultaneously waving my arms an ‘X’ pattern. As I did so my weight shifted just enough that a stick underneath my feet snapped.

“Go on, I can hear you. I know you’re right there.”

Dang it Anneke, that was stupid. You’re supposed to leave the stupid things for Bryant to do. I looked over at him hiding behind a tree a few yards away. His hands were covering his ears and his eyes were squeezed shut.

The plan was to just follow him until he got where he was going. Maybe a cabin where we could knock on his door, ask for help, and pretend that we weren’t just stalking him for the past who knows how long. Or maybe he was walking back to his car and he could give us a ride back to the camp. So much for that though.

Eisley and I both rolled out from behind the tree on opposite sides with our hands up. I can only imagine the looks on our faces when we turned and looked up to find a big, black barrel of a gun pointed in our direction. Bryant showed himself too.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bryant said when he saw he was being used as a target. “Easy, we didn’t do anything wrong.”

The old man shifted the gun so that the barrel was now pointed at Bryant.

“Sir,” he added politely nodding his head.

He lowered his gun, clicked his safety back on and shook his head. “I thought you kids were gonna be tomorrow night’s dinner.”

He “thought,” that’s good.

“What are you kids doing here? It’s late and this is private property.”

“This is private property? I thought we were in some national forest or something?” I was glad Bryant asked the question. I was glad that he said anything really. Eisley and I were too shaken up to say anything.

“You must be lost.”

His statement was followed by a hard “yes” from each of us.

“You said it was late, could you please tell us the time?” I asked trying to be very polite.

“Eleven twenty.” He was rubbing his forehead and looking at the ground--I think, it was pretty dark so I couldn’t see perfectly.

“Are you kids from around here? If I give you directions to where you need to go, will you make it o.k.?”

I wanted to tell him--with all due respect--that if we were from around here, we would have found our way back by now. But I refrained.

Bryant said, “We are from the Midwest and we would really appreciate some help getting back to Rocky High Adventure Camp.”

He laughed. It was a similar laugh to the forced laugh that all of those mall Santa’s give in the movies. Ho, ho, ho.

“No way you’re going to make it back there tonight in the dark.”

Great.

I honestly thought he was going to walk away when he turned around and said, “Why don’t you follow me? I’ll let you crash by me and I will bring you where you need to go first thing in the morning?”

“That would be great, thank you.” I said,

“Do you happen to have a phone that we could call the group back at camp and tell them we are okay?”

There was the laugh again. “No I don’t, you’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

He blew his whistle and started walking away. Breaking one of the most important rules my mother instilled in me, I followed him. Even though I wasn’t getting into a car with him, I thought this is equivalent to the same thing considering the circumstances.

Author's Note

This is a rough cut. Please give me your gentlest form of honest feedback!