Although I was already eighteen and had a driver's license to get me here, we had to have a supervising adult like children.
Since Duncan did not have a driving license, I gave him a ride, he was the other member of our search party. When I picked him up from practice, he was especially ripe. I made the pointed effort to not mention the smell coming from his body.
His dark hair matched his dark eyes, so different from before. Whenever I saw him, a grin always formed on his lips. Now he seemed to be itching from anxiety and worry.
Today was different. When I picked him up, he was arguing with Haley, and it seemed heated. When he was finished, he just get into the car, picked up a shirt over his head, and then put on earphones not to talk to me, although I told him that I hate when he takes off his shirt.
But he was particularly genuine about his motivation to join. He is Jacks's teammate and best friend, one of the less douchebag ones.
I parked in a branch between the gas station and the outgrowing woods. I latched onto my backpack, unzipping it to give a quick look, going through my checklist: water bottle, map, compass, phone, earphones, and sketchbook—all here.
I unlatch the door, giving a wary glance, looking for Mr. Warner. He was supposed to be here, the only teacher who was willing to be out in the woods in the middle of the night looking for a missing body.
Not even once did he want to back away. Despite the fact that he had plenty of reasons why not to. One example comes to mind the time when Jacks teepeed his car last year or the fact that he drew boobs on one of the textbooks in his class for literature.
Duncan splayed his body over my car, crossing his arms over his dark, muscled torso. It wasn't that he wasn't attractive. The fact that he was Jack's friend is what put me on edge around him.
I was giving him room, concentrating more on the map I was currently playing over my windshield. I was staring at the map with all the crossed-out areas. The woods were huge. In no measure a normal forest.
Our town was famous for those woods. People have gotten lost there for years now, and warning signs are the only disincentive that we could have managed to help ourselves to warn hikers to not go into those woods.
It wasn't just the size of it. People have been mapping the woods for years now, and somehow it always seems bigger when you enter its depths, as if it's trying to lure you in.
It seemed that I'd seen most of these woods weathered with the search party the time that I'd been hiking up those woods during my free periods.
It all paid off. We almost managed most of it. Only a patch of land in the middle of the woods was the only area that we didn't cover.
At the sound of the screeching wheels, I quickly folded up the map into my pocket.
Mr. Warner's car, a dark Jeep with a bicycle rack behind, parked itself right next to my car. Mr. Warner got out of the car, playing his hands wide, "all right we are all here?"
Duncan with one subtle motion, picked out his earphones and pointed out, "Haley quit."
I whipped my head towards his, displaying my shock that he could have ridden with me all the way out here and not mentioned that?
He huffed a long sigh. So that's what they were talking about, realizing what that heated discussion was. Mr. Warner expresses his disappointment: "Such a shame. But this news brings me to something I wanted to talk to you."
I stiffened my spine at that. I glanced at Duncan with a question in my eyebrow. He shook his head in acknowledgment, telling me that he has no idea what is going on.
He continued, "I talked to the police unit handling Jacks's case, and they told me that they're not going to investigate anymore."
Duncan screeched a bark of laughter that seemed to be forced out. "Of course they did. Useless."
I looked at Mr. Warner a quick assessment. He looked genuinely concerned for Jacks's safety. He really wanted to find him alive.
"What are we doing now then? Are we shutting down the search group?"
His gaze wandered between the two of us, jumping from one to the other. "That's a more complicated decision since we are only three members now and the case is now going cold. We need to discuss what we're going to do next."
Duncan fisted his hand. He's trying to stop himself from punching him. "So you're going to give up on him?"
Mr. Warner probably saw the rage, and he raised his hands at the fence. "We don't know where this path will lead us, and I don't want us to keep up hope for something that isn't out there. Maybe we should move forward."
Duncan fumed. I felt a touch of violence coming his way, but I reached out for his hand, squeezing it. "Mr. Warner, there is a patch of land we didn't go through yet. Let us have today to decide." I looked at him with a lot of intention and determination. He decreased his brows, trying to figure me out, but he held back an objection. "All right then, let's pack up and go."
I let go of Duncan's hand, feeling it relax under my grip. His expression was still angry as hell, but a lot of confusion was creasing his brows. 'What are you doing?' was clearly what you were trying to communicate through me, but I pretended I didn't see that question.
We gone into the woods and we're not coming back until we're going to find him.
------
The place we were going was the center of the forest, and it was the place that hikers were usually going missing.
As kids we called it no man's land.
No one was really talking about it, but there were rumors that in the center of the forest, something was up—some sort of Bermuda Triangle or it was haunted.
And considering what I was going for right now, I wasn't completely rejecting the idea. Whenever I suggested to Jacks come with us to the search party, he was half in and half out. On one hand, he didn't want me to go there alone, even though we had others in the search party. Not that I didn't like the chivalrous side of him, but it's weird as hell.
But every time I came up with the suggestion, he had that strange look of fear about him. Maybe it was haunted.
I didn't care if it was haunted or if a million ghosts came up and attacked me. I needed Jacks out of my life for good.
He didn't know yet how much it ached for me to see him all the fucking time. Now every time I think about it, I could go back to that moment when he called me a whore and told me to be on my knees.
I just needed him to go away, but a part of me didn't want him to be in this form as a ghost. I wanted him to be alive out there. Staying the fuck away from me, not fucking miserable all the time. This walk in the woods was starting to be really fucking annoying. Everytime my knees started to buckle by the time we made the pit stop.
Duncan cut me a glance. I think he wanted me to talk to him. Probably curious about how I knew that all the other spots we didn't look at weren't possibly the place where we're looking for.
So I stayed the hell out of his way. I didn't need him to ask me any questions. Plus there was the whole "Why would I be so invested in finding a random jock's dead body?"
It wasn't like me and Jacks were close. Yeah, I knew him, and he knew of me, but we weren't in the same social circles. He was out of my league.
I figured if anyone asked, I could just tell them that I felt bad because I was hosting the party that he had gone missing at, so I felt responsible. I leaned over a rock, and Duncan handed me a bottle of water, which I drank deeply from. I moved away from him, trying to create some distance, but he grew closer, glancing at Mr. Warner before he muttered, "I need your help."
I raise my eyebrows. "I know that you have been looking for him in your spare time. I've seen the map. It's filled off with crossed-off areas that we have never been to, so we should join forces." I opened my mouth to deny it, but then there was no reason to.
But I didn't need to know if he could be trusted. "Why are you so determined to know where he is? Isn't it like a little creepy?"
"I could say the same thing about you," he chastises me. I huffed, not really able to deny it, but there was a lot of intent in that sentence, as if he knew exactly why I was looking for him.
I slightly pushed up my head, looking at him, wondering if he was hoping to find him alive. Maybe he thought this whole thing was a waste of time, and he hoped that I would tell him otherwise, but I wasn't going to do that.
We continue up the path. I was hoping he would lay off me, but Duncan just upped his pace with mine, which was easy because the dude was huge—over a foot taller than me. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I know why you're doing this."
My pulse fluttered faster for a whole different reason besides the exhausting walk. My denial was fast. "What do you mean?"
Duncan scan me, looking for something.
He shrugged. "You hosted the party he was at?" Didn't you?"
I hesitated, should I tell him? That was my plan, but now that I'm looking at him. I inch back from Mr. Warner, giving him a big girth.
I muttered under my breath. "I'm kind of feeling guilty about him dying at my party, so I joined the search party to help. It was the least I could do." I tried to seem nonchalant about the situation, but I could feel the lie between us. And for some reason you seem to see right through it, but he did not say anything.
Duncan shook his head. "Frankly, I don't believe he's dead."
I raised one eyebrow at him. "You know that's not very likely."
He moved his hand, cutting the air. "I know Jacks. He went wild, He always did it with us. With the guys, the team, or one of the girls he dated, never alone. And he always, always texted one of us when he woke up with a hangover."
My movements grew slower as his words turned more firm. "If he is gone missing, he would have gone anywhere that wasn't around people."
I tried to be gentle about it. I couldn't give him false hope like that. "Isn't it more likely than that he..."
He did not let me complete the sentence as he gave me one searing, angry look that could turn men into stones.
"Never mind," I muttered. He softened, "It isn't like it's the first time he went off the grid."
I didn't have the chance to ask what he meant by that because of what was held before my eyes. I stopped in my tracks, seeing hundreds—no. Thousands of ghosts, all trailing up and down the center of the woods.
So many of them.
Most of the time that I saw the dead, they seemed lost and confused, like waking up from a dream. This seemed like a full-on The Walking Dead.
They were all. Standing around as if there were one with the trees staring at void, but as soon as we arrived, they were all staring at me how I knew it?
Because as soon as I moved away from Mr Warner and Duncan, their eyes moved with me. So apparent that I could feel it on me. I was surrounded by the wolves and I came packing as a loaf of meat.
The ghosts wasn't the only one who noticed my movements because Duncan looked at me from his back. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."
"I'm fine." I lied.
Duncan pinched his eyebrows, he did not believe me. He moved forward, and a slight trivial shiver went up his body, swaying on his feet. He squirmed against the ghost now circling him. "What was that?"
They were all still looking at me. I could not run, but it felt like a thousand little ants trolled off my insides, trying to bite off my skin, and I could not move. I needed to stay planted in place.
I could feel Jacks voice inside my head teasing me, scaredy cat.
I somehow found it comforting. Fuck knows why.
"Let's get out of here. I have a bad feeling about this place." I tried to not sound as panicked as I was, but some of the fear was creeping in.
Duncan crossed his arms, whether it was cold or just him being angry, I did not know. He scolded me, "We made it so far. Let's get a few miles."
I cut him off, "No." I start backing out of this cursed woodling. When a whooshing sound caught my attention, the wind picked up alarmingly fast.
I looked over to the sky. It started darkening, and the ghosts seemed to stand together, all looking to the sky above. They stood so close they looked like they were merging with each other, all rotting skin and pale eyes. Then they begin to fade into mist that I was sure was even visible to Mister Warner and Duncan.
Even Mr. Warner now seemed concerned.
I didn't know. I do not know what this feeling in my chest was, some primal ancestral survival instinct, but it screamed at me to do one thing. I roared, "Run!"
I did not care if they followed me, but I started running for my life. Because I knew if I stayed there, something bad was going to happen—something always did.