In Their Domain

Chapter 8

Sara had gotten close to catching up, but her legs and lungs were burning far too much for her to continue or even get enough of a breath to call out anymore. Her knees buckled and folded under her and the only thing keeping her upright was the tree trunk that she was leaning against.

Arlo placed his hands on his knees as he panted. It didn't seem like it should've been possible for the man and dog to lose them, but somehow they had. But what really made his skin crawl was how quiet he realized it was. Jerking into an upright position, he turned to search the direction they'd come from. Everything was too still. "Where are the others?" he asked, his alarm evident by the crack in his voice.

Sara's eyes opened and she straightened up, her exhaustion replaced by a renewed sense of urgency as she joined Arlo in surveying the area. There was no sign of Annie, or Dean, or Chris, or the dog and its owner, and definitely no sign of the trail.

"You've got to be putting me on. They were just behind us!" Sara exclaimed as she raised her hands and then let them slap against her sides in exasperation. The harder she looked, the more her concern grew, and she knew she was on the verge of panic again. "No, no. People don't just disappear. Dogs and people don't just disappear. Cars don't just disappear. This forest isn't that big. We need to pick one direction and walk. We'll get out eventually. It might not be at the cars, but that's fine."

"We thought that too... yesterday," Arlo said, unsettled by how flat and low his own words had come out, but the despair that settled heavily in his gut was real. Very real. Out of everything, he knew he could at least be sure of that.

"How long have you been in these woods?" he asked, sounding far calmer than he felt as he tried to look very closely at everything within view—hunting for any detail that could give him an indication of which way Chris and Dean should be.

"I told you—a day or two. We couldn't have been here longer than that... We didn't bring enough food or water," Sara reasoned, but the fact that she had to say it out loud to reassure herself, wasn't promising. "At most, it's been three days..." she mumbled as she paced.

Her mentioning of the food brought back Chris's warning—reiterated from the woman they'd interviewed... Don't eat the food. Wouldn't that have to imply that somehow someone, or something, had food to offer in the first place?

There was a horrible sense of finality that trickled over him, then—closing in like the suffocating darkness had last night—the grim realization that this was it. He might never find Chris and Dean. He might never reach the car. He really might die out here because something didn't want them to leave. Something actually paranormal, and he had no idea how to fight it. Hadn't been smart enough to take the warnings they'd received seriously.

Arlo took a deep breath, wringing his trembling hands. But they'd found Sara and Annie... they were alive. And if he was right, they'd been out here for an impossibly long time, so maybe they could find help. Maybe... or maybe he, Chris, and Dean found the girls yesterday because it was already too late for them as well.

Part of him wanted to question her further. To urge her to remember as much as she could, as far back as she could, but he kept his mouth shut. She'd started freaking out when he and Chris confronted her before. He didn't think he could handle a repeat right now.

It was already bad enough that they'd run off the way they had, after that man and his dog, and now didn't know where the others were. He was pretty sure he was only one panic attack away from either crying or throwing up over all of it. "I'm gonna try my phone," he mumbled, pulling it out and unlocking it.

There were two texts from Chris, only two minutes old, but his phone hadn't he hadn't alerted him.

'Are you okay? Did you find the guy?'
'Where did you go?'