The Quarry • The Story About Phoebe King And Ryan Erzahler

Chapter 4: DON'T PANIC.

Ryan and I take our time walking back to the fire pit since we had a weak Nick following us.

Once we got back we hear Abi freaking out to Kaitlyn who is sitting next to her.

Dylan is sitting across from them being quiet.

We go over to the log benches and I lay Nick down on the ground. Dylan comes over to us with a worried look on his face.

Abi starts bawling.

"It was horrible... It was... It was... I- I- I don't even know what it was. It was so fast and- and there was- there was a hunter... and it was just... it was just..." Abi cries.

"Oh Abi..." Kaitlyn frowns. She picks up Abi's drawing pad and hands it to her.

"Here."

"What?" Abi asks.

"Try drawing."

"Drawing what?"

"Can you draw what attacked you?"

She starts drawing while we look back at Nick who looks like he is in much pain.

He tries to get up but I gently place him back down.

"Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow," I whisper while rubbing his head.

I sit on the ground next to Nick while the boys sit on the bench.

"Nick. Hey. Buddy. Can you tell us what happened?" Ryan calmly asks.

"Animal attacked... Where's Abi...?"

"He super out of it, man," Dylan says while looking at me and Ryan.

"We need to know what happened," I tell Nick.

"Right, there was... there was a guy there... but... there was some kind of... some kinda animal-" He grunts.

"The hell?" I whisper.

"What fucking kind of animal does this?" Dylan asks with a worried look on his face.

Dylan gets up and kneels down in front of Nick.

"Did... Did I get... Is Abi...? Nick questions.

"Hey, hey she's okay, dude, she's right over there." Ryan points to her.

"Big claws and... teeth on top of me... I think it was a bear."

Nick yells in pain and digs his face in my hair. I rub his back trying to comfort him.

"Full-sized bear would have crushed him. There's no way." I tell the boys.

"I- I thought we don't get bears around here?" Dylan says.

I look over at Nicks's leg... he has a big scratch on his leg with black ooze dripping out from it.

"Oh fuck. Look at that!" I shout.

I startle the boys and they immediately look over at his leg.

"Oh shit!" Ryan mutters.

"That black stuff. That's- That's infection. That's... and it... it's spreading. This is bad. This is really bad, dude." Dylan shouts in a stressed-out manner.

Ryan puts pressure on the big wound which makes Nick yelp.

"I'm sorry bro! Sorry!" Ryan apologizes.