The Night Of The Cryptids

The Second Day

All five of the campers ended up sleeping until almost noon on their first full day of camping. Matthew and Ruth met up by the fire circle the group had built, and sat next to each other, both with a content look on their faces. Mark and Mary joined them around the fire pit and sat next to each other looking tired, and restless. Jane was the last to join the group. She sat as far from Mark and Mary as she could, and looked at the ground without saying a word.

Ruth wasn't the class Valedictorian for no reason, and quickly noticed something was off.

"Mark, Mary, Jane, are you guys okay? Is something wrong?" Jane continued looking at the ground and not saying a word. Mark looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn't quite sure what to say. When Ruth looked over at Mary, Mary blurted out "I saw you and Matthew last night, so I wanted to have some fun with Mark, then I thought I'd try to get Jane to join us."

"And from the look of things, I'm guessing that didn't turn out well" Ruth replied. Mary sighed, "Not so much."

Ruth turned to Jane, who had glanced up from the ground, but remained silent.

"I am sorry she tried to drag you into her perverse little world Jane. Apparently corrupting Mark wasn't enough for her" she said as she shot Mary a look that was part scolding, but also part joking.

"I'm sorry! She's hot and I've seen the way she looks at Mark, so I thought maybe she would be down for a little fun" Mary said in her defense. Jane looked up, confused.

"What do you mean you've seen the way I look at Mark? I don't have any feelings for him or anything like that!"

"You know my reputation, I can recognize when someone has lust in their eyes, even if they are still a virgin" Mary said.

"Mark's not the one I've been looking at though" Jane said very sheepishly.

"What, you're mentally undressing a ghost then or something?" Mary said condescendingly. Jane got even quieter, all four of the others had to lean in to hear what she was saying.

"No. I was looking at you. You're just so beautiful, and you're funny." Then Jane got even more quiet still. "And you have amazing breasts."

Matthew and Ruth both started laughing. Mark had a sheepish look on his face, and Mary was blushing for the first time that any of the others knew of. Mary was used to getting attention from every boy in school, but getting that same attention from girls wasn't something she had even considered before.

"I...um, thank you" Mary replied quietly.

"Damn Jane, that's the least Mary has ever had to say about anything, congratulations!" Ruth laughed,

After the group had relaxed for a little while, they decided it was time to eat, breakfast or lunch or whatever it would be called in this circumstance. Matthew, Ruth and Mark headed to the gear to look for food to make. Mary pulled Jane aside to talk.

"I'm...I'm sorry about last night. I didn't mean to pressure you into doing something you didn't want to" Mary stammered, trying to apologize.

"Don't worry about it" Jane responded. "To be honest, it's not that I didn't want to do anything, I just wasn't comfortable in front of Mark. I haven't really told anyone yet that I like girls, I'm sorry." That comment put the wind back in Mary's sails.

"You don't have anything to apologize for! Never apologize for refusing to do something you aren't comfortable with, and especially never apologize for being who you are!" Mary replied passionately.

After eating, the group decided to go for a hike. They didn't know the area particularly well, but there were several trails in the vicinity of their camp that were well worn, so they figured they would be fine if they just stuck to the trails. They had been walking for about half an hour when Matthew stopped.

"Has anyone else seen any wildlife at all? A bird, a squirrel, a rabbit, anything?" Matthew asked.

"Now that you mention it no. I haven't seen, or heard for that matter, any animals at all so far today" Jane responded.

"That is really weird!" Matthew said.

Just then, the group heard some rustling in the bushes a few hundred feet ahead of them. They all fully expected to see some small creature come bounding out of the bushes to prove them all wrong. That didn't happen. As they stood there watching, a medium sized creature with brown fur came out of the bushes, stopped, looked directly at them, then took off running up the path in the opposite direction.

"Um, I'm not the only who saw that right?" Asked Matthew.

"Nope. We all saw it. Whatever it is" Mark replied.

"At first I thought it was a coyote" Mark said. "But then when it was all the way out of the bushes, while it was on all four legs, it looked like it was hunched over, and I've never seen a coyote with its spine curved like that before either!"

"I'm also pretty sure coyotes don't have red eyes, and fangs, aside from the canine teeth anyways. Did you see the fangs just beside its canines? If I didn't know better, I'd say they looked like a vampires teeth" Ruth added. The realization hit all five of them at the same time.

"No way!" Mary yelled.

"It can't be right?" Matthew asked.

Mark added "I mean, it's not like they're actually real!"

Jane just had one thought "Chupacabra."

Matthew and Mark recovered quickly, "Come on guys! It's getting away!" they yelled in unison as they started to run down the path after it.

Ruth responded with "Good! Let it!"

Mary's curiosity got the better of her, and she wandered over to the bushes the creature had come out of. "Um, guys!" She yelled. "You are going to want to come see this!" Matthew and Mark reluctantly slowed down then started heading back towards the girls. By the time they got back to the bush, Ruth and Jane had already joined Mary. They looked into the bushes and found the bodies of several dead creatures. A couple rabbits, five squirrels, a few birds, and a small deer. While the pile of bodies was pretty diverse, all of the corpses had one thing in common. None of them had been eaten at all. All of them just lay there dead, having been sucked dry of all blood in their bodies.

"Um, I think maybe we should head back to camp for the day" Ruth said.

"That's probably not a bad idea" replied Matthew. The group quickly headed back to camp. When they arrived back at their camp, they once again sat around the fire pit. This time in complete silence, while each of them tried to process everything they had just seen. They engaged in small talk off and on for the rest of the day to pass time, but none of them were really sure what they should do next.

"Do you think we should call this off and head home?" Jane asked.

"Naw, I'm sure it wasn't actually what we're thinking. It's probably just a deformed coyote, we're fine. Besides, we still have a flat tire, remember?" Matthew replied.

"Oh yeah." Jane said, disappointed.