Lovers of the Woods

3. I Can't believe we did this

I tell my family that I'll be back in a couple of hours and drive out of my garage with my bike. I text Iris that I'll be in five minutes so that she can be ready with her bike. We both go to Grandpa Greg's shacks around the stream area. We were told that Grandpa Greg's ancestors used to be the watchmen of the town in the olden days to protect them from wild animals, so these lands were given to them. Also, only Grandpa Greg is left in that line, and he still wants to live in this dreadful place. Sometimes I wonder what goes on with the older generation. Do we lose every logic when we grow up?

Hiding our bikes in Grandpa Greg's shed, Iris and I walked down the untouched road, which seemed like a medieval-period stone pathway. Everything in these woods seems odd and suspicious. We walk along the path, assessing our surroundings. I personally carried some tools for defence, and I'm completely proud of them. It is better than Iris's idea of stealing Grandpa Greg's old rifle. " What do you think made my grandpa dig about this?" Iris asks me.

"Of course, missing people, death and other crimes. What else do you think?" I question her. "No, I just think that there is something more to this. You know older people always have this habit of keeping secrets for no reason. He always talked riddles, you know. I was too young and had no brain to understand him right away. Before he disappeared, he told me that I would grow up to be his replica, unlike my father, and he would miss seeing it. I thought he meant him passing away someday because of old age. Who knew this would happen?" she sighed heavily. I didn't comment on anything and chose to be silent while walking into the depth of the woods.

Due to the silence, I heard another pair of footsteps apart from the noise made by our movements. I covered Iris's mouth and dragged her near to a rock to hide. I signalled her to stay silent and grabbed a hammer from the backpack. At a two-metre distance from our hideout, I saw a huge guy coming down in the same direction as us. It was too dark to see his face, and I guessed that same goes for him to see us behind a rock. I stealthily waited for him to move further towards us and watched what he was doing. He fished out his mobile phone and dialled someone. " Yeah, I have searched the place, but no one is here. Are you sure that the kids left for here?" he spoke, which brought chills down my spine. I held onto Iris tighter. He continued talking. "What do you mean by that? They are a couple of teenagers in their rebellious period. They could have gone for some illegal booze party." he cut the call, after which I confirmed that it was about us.

Iris and I looked at each other terrified. I saw the guy leaving the area towards the exit of the forest. We sat there for a while in silence. "Ju, you think that it was really about us or not someone else? There are a lot of hormone-filled high school students in the town." Iris asked me. "It could be, or it could not be. Whatever it is, we must be careful, that's all." I gave her a stern look before she came up with any other excuses. "Let's dig deeper," I say and move inside the forest. Iris smiles and moves along. After another fifteen minutes of walking, we reached the small pond area, which once used to be a camping site. "Okay, now we take a left from the pond area. We will reach the Reef House. This is the place everything started. So we need to look into it ourselves. I nod and turn to the left, clearing a bush, when we hear a soft growl. "Ju, did you hear it?" Iris asks me, looking around. I hear it, too, but I don't know from where it came. The growl increased, and a huge brown cat-like thing sprung on me from the bushes that I had just cleared. I caught it out of my reflex and threw it towards the pond. It was not just a cat. It looked like a fox, coyote or worse. A small-sized wolf? Instead of fighting with it, I decided to grab Iris's hands and run away from there. "JU!!!!!" she screamed. I didn't reply and was focused on running towards the rock that we hid before to locate the exit direction. I heard the growling sound of that thing approaching our way. "Ju, it's chasing us," Iris screamed, running behind us. "I F***ing know Ju. Keep up, and don't look back." I screamed. I guess since that beast is a smaller version of something. It couldn't run straight, and we got some time from that to reach the rock and took a right towards Grandpa Greg's stone house. Iris looked at me in awe that I had remembered the route even in this situation. Of course, I had to.