Survivor ~ Until Dawn

Chapter 8. Sighting

Days After Until Dawn: 12

"Ash. Ash, can you slow down?"

The pair were both at a Christmas Tree Shop looking for decorations for their apartment they were renting. It wasn't much, but it was home. Chris swore that he would make it right with Ashley and get an actual house sooner rather than later.

"What? Sorry I can't hear you all the way back there." She shouted, smiling at him and speed walking ahead of him.

She wasn't that far ahead of him but she was laughing like she was about to win a marathon.

She stopped in front of some placemats for their table and Chris was just getting to her when she she was looking at the second pile.

"You think that this color would go with the table?" She asked him.

"Uh- I don't know." He answered. He found that his mind was still occupied with the thoughts of the mountain. He hadn't had half the experience that Sam or Mike had but seeing that Wendigo in the lodge...

He felt like a coward for running out first, for leaving Ashley in there by herself. They all could've died and he would be the only one left.

"Chris? You okay?"

She waved her hand in front of his face and waited for him to say something but he was in a trance.

He thought what he was seeing was just in his mind and he tried to get himself out of it. Shut his eyes and then open them again. But there it was, still there.

"Oh fuck." He said.

"Ashley move." He commanded.

She had never seen him like this. Except well, the mountain.

"Just come over here." He said to her.

She did as he said and went behind him as they ducked behind an aisle.

"Ashley, you can't freak out okay? I don't know what I'm seeing and whether or not I'm just having an episode or something. I need you to look over there and tell me what's going on."

He motioned towards the window in front of the store and Ashley looked. She almost wanted to roll her eyes at him. It wasn't that she didn't believe him, but there was no way it was real.

She turned, saw, and swallowed her words hard down her throat. She hated herself for even thinking them.

She lost her words all together and just nodded to him.

He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes. "Okay. We can do this. We did it before. It's distracted. It won't see us if we move, and even if it does, we know to stay still."

"But what about the other people?"

Chris looked at all the customers running around the store and some were crying while others were yelling. There were even a few that did both.

"Fuck. We can't go through the back. It'll only draw more of them towards us. I know there's only one but you saw how many were in the lodge. If this one survived, then they might have too." Chris said.

Ashley nodded, agreeing with him.

"We can go towards the front and make it out."

"But it's at the front, what do you expect us to do? Walk by?" She asked him.

He put his hands on the sides of his head and bent down.

"We need to go slow, maybe I can find a way to distract it but now, we need to move, we can't stay behind the aisle, it could get us. Maybe even throw this on us and bury us." He said.