A Week Away

Chapter 3

Joseph's P.O.V.

It was just as cold as I had expected it to be tonight, maybe even a little chillier. I unzipped the flap to my tent and made my way out, my bladder about to burst. I walked over to the edge of the woods behind my tent, unzipping my jeans and relieving myself. As I finished I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I turned around as I zipped up the front of my jeans to find the shy girl from the fire wandering past me. She paused when she noticed me watching.

"Where'd you think you're going in the middle of the night, all by yourself?" Her eyes widened slightly and she looked downwards, but she didn't run off like I had expected her to.

"I needed to use the bathroom." She mumbled. Her face went bright red and she shut her slanted eyes shut, as if waiting for a barrage of laughter from me.

"That's a reasonable reply. But why by yourself? You could get lost, or eaten..." I chuckled at myself and at the thought of someone getting eaten by a bear whilst going to the bathroom. Pretty funny, if you asked me.

"I'm fine-"

"I'll come with you. We both know anything will be too afraid of me to eat us." Her jaw dropped slightly but I ignored it and hooked my arm in hers, walking her out to the woods. We reached a flat spot of bush suitable for a woman to relieve herself in just a hundred or so metres into the trees.

"Don't watch..." she blushed and walked over to it. As commanded I turned around, looking away from where she would relieve herself. A gust of wind blasted through, turning my curly locks into a tangled set of curtains in front of my face. As I moved them aside I could see a shadow dart through the trees, disappearing in seconds.

"Uhm, chicky babe, could you hurry it up back there." I called back. I got a faint 'okay' as a reply. It was a few more seconds before she walked up beside me, shoving her toilet paper roll back into her sweatshirt pocket.

"Are you gonna walk me back as well?" She questioned. I nodded, hooking my arm back through hers.

"We gotta hurry, I'm getting tired." I faked a yawn as we set off to reinforce that lie. Truth was, whatever that shadow was freaked me out. I didn't want to spend a second longer in this part of the forest than I needed to.

All of a sudden the girl stopped dead in her tracks and looked behind her, as if checking for something. "You okay?" She looked at me with a confused look on her face.

"I heard someone." She whispered in a hushed tone, as if not wanting anyone else to hear us.

"How do you know it was someone?"

"They were shouting." She was beginning to freak me out a bit, but I couldn't let that come through.

"It was probably a couple of kids screwing out in the woods. Teenagers do that, you know." She blushed, nodding and starting to walk again. But it didn't take long for her to stop again with a terrified look on her face.

"Look, girl, you're freaking me out. Please st-" As I turned to look at her I froze. She was looking back at the path we had come from, not noticing the man standing behind her a few metres away in a gas mask.

"Sorry, I keep hearing things." She said, turning back to look at me, the colour drained from her face. The man standing behind her was doing nothing but staring at us. She looked up at me, noticing that I was frozen. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Run," I whispered. I darted my eyes to a branch that had fallen from a tree, sitting right next to my feet. Before she could say anything I pushed her to the side and grabbed the branch in one quick swipe. As soon as the man noticed I had the branch he lunged forward, reaching for me. Before he could grab onto me I swung the branch, hitting him on the side of his arm and making him recoil slightly.

"RUN!" I screamed. The girl hesitated a second before sprinting as fast as she could towards the camp. I was about to start running myself but was interrupted when the man threw a punch at me, missing, but catching the corner of my forehead and sending me flying backwards. I lost my breath, laying there for a few seconds.

I could feel a warm liquid trickling down my face and getting into my eye, disrupting my vision. The man leaned over me, a knife in had. Before he could do anything I kicked upwards into his thigh, making him collapse. In the few seconds extra I had gained I got up and started running, my breath uneven and hitching in my throat every few seconds. I ran around the camp through the trees, in hopes of losing him. Once I was a decent couple hundred metres from where he attacked me I circled back round and ran straight for the first tent I saw.

I ran up to it, my thoughts buzzing. I reached for the zipper, fumbling with it a few times before successfully unzipping the tent and collapsing in. I ran a hand through my hair, a little bit of relief threatening to enter through my body. I turned my head to see who else was in the tent with me, only to find it was Lizzie.

"Joesph?" She asked, anger starting to fill her voice. "What are you doing? What happen-" I shut her up by placing my hand over her mouth, only now noticing the extreme amount of blood that had covered them.

"Shhh," I hushed her. The noise of the wind sent shivers through my spine, making me paranoid that I would see the man appear in the doorway to the tent any second now. "There's something out there." I whispered.