Friends and Foes

Coen-- 7

"He just said, 'call 9-1-1,'" I said. My heart felt as though it was in my throat and my stomach had dropped, my eyes suddenly widened.

"What?" Silas questioned my expression.

"It sounds like voices are getting closer." I replied.

"100 percent." he agreed, "they're definitely creeping closer."

"Exactly, so let's choose a fucking path and go!" I knew I sounded hostile, but nobody made a comment due to them being equally as scared.

"Okay, but like what is seriously going on? The girl screamed for help, they're acting insane, and they just told us to call 9-1-1." Silas was doing his best to keep his head on while he did his best to rationalize the situation at hand.

"Let's just keep walking." I pointed in no specific direction, but in the end, we proceeded to the left, which was the path that led upwards.

As we walked, I kept glancing to the sides in panic knowing they were close, I was terrified someone would jump out at us any minute. The further we went the closer the voices and demonic laughter got. The closer they felt the more my stomach sank and the slower we walked unsure if they were in front of us or behind us. These people were toying with us knowing we were terrified.

"What? What's wrong?" Silas asked as we came to another stop.

"Dude, they're way too close for comfort," Ethan's voice shook.

"Bro, what if this path is leading us directly to them?" I asked before getting shushed. I followed everyone's gaze watching as the figures in the trees crept towards us.

"They're right the fuck there," Silas breathed and then yelled, "Go, go, go!"

Silas, acting like a parent pushed us all back the way we came making sure everyone was running before he took off in a sprint himself. The group started running after us, we had no idea how many of them there were, but we weren't interested in finding out.

"Come here," one of them growled making us all pick up in a full sprint.

A few more paces past the split in the road we all stopped breathing heavily and adjusting the equipment we were carrying. My throat burned from inhaling the cold air as I quickly tried to catch my breath.

"Bro," I started through breaths to Silas, "are you trying to run all the way back to the car?"

"No," he breathed back, hunched over, one hand on his leg the other holding the camera weakly, he glanced up at me then focused on something behind me before stating, "but we don't have a choice, they're right there. Go!"

Rather than waiting for everyone else Silas took off with me, Ethan and Matt close behind him trying not to trip over one another. We looked back every so often double checking the distance between us and the group.

"Oh, shit, they're really freaking close," Ethan gasped, realizing we had slowed down at some point the group managed to gain on us, we let adrenaline take its course and picked back up to a full sprint the rest of the way to the car.

I somehow managed to make it to the front of all of them and once we were out of the forest and past the gates, I stopped next to the car turning around to make sure we were all still together.

I pulled the keys from my pocket as fast as I could, speaking as I unlocked the door, "They're right there get in the car." I gasped as quietly as I could. I rounded to the driver's side quickly turning off all lights as the others piled in.

I leaned my head back against the head rest trying to catch my breath, my chest heaving with each chopped breath. My nose and throat were burning from the cold air, and I closed my eyes as I tried to focus.

"Holy hell, I can't believe this is actually happening," Silas breathed causing me to open my eyes and look at him.

"Should we try to leave?" I questioned, scared to start the car.

"I don't know."

A few people came through the gates and stood on the sidewalk with their hands on their hips.

"They're sitting down..." Silas squinted as he tilted his head.

"There's no way they're not tired," Matt breathed an uncertain laugh.

"I don't think they see us yet," Ethan added.

"There's two people staring at us over there." Silas pointed, "I don't like this let's just go, let's go." Without hesitation I started the car and took off not giving it a chance to warm up.

***

We drove around for about an hour talking about what had just happened without the camera. We decided to go back to the forest to finish our video knowing our subscribers would give us shit for giving up even if they didn't understand the whole seriousness of the situation. Nobody was around as I parked the car. Silas pulled the camera back out as I pointed out that there were less cars around. We did our best to explain what had happened not trying to make it sound worse than what it was, but also not sugar coating anything.

"Are you sure you're ready Matt?" Silas asked looking back at Matt who still looked a bit pale.

"Yeah, I'm ready," he replied making his voice deeper to sound confident.

"You know what they say, once you go black you never... go back." Ethan laughed nervously unsure if he should've said it.

"But, for some reason, I'm going back," Matt laughed accepting his joke.