Outcasts

Chapter three: Moutain Trail

We stop and pull off to the opening just big enough for us to set up camp. I dismount and tie Honeydew's reins around a tree. I take my rolled tent and sleeping bag off the back of her saddle and start to build my tent. Once I'm done setting up the tent I unravel my sleeping bag and throw it in along with my bag.

When everyone's done setting up we all meet in the center of our little camp. "Alright y'all know the plan, get in your pairs and split up to find sticks. Meet back here in twenty minutes." I say. We all get in our pairs, me and Hugo, the twins, and Chase with Margo. We all head off separate ways.

Me and Hugo walk away from the others and start picking up sticks that would be good for a fire. It's not hard to find sticks with fall starting, most of the trees are dead or dying. After about fifteen minutes we start to head back to the camp with our hands full of sticks.

The others are already back and setting up a ring of rocks around where the fire will be. We toss our sticks in the pile and help them finish up the ring of rocks. When we finished that we threw some of the sticks in and Blaire started working on getting the fire going. We all kinda have a job now Chase and Misty are working on cooking the hotdogs and getting the buns ready Margo and Blaire hop on Echo and Sparrow to head up and get some fresh water from the springs. Me and Hugo go around feeding the horses some apples we stuffed in our saddle bags on top of them, eating some of the grass around them.

By the time we finish dinner the sun has already set most of the way and we're all in our pjs. We're all gathered around the campfire telling spooky stories while eating s'mores. As we finish up the s'mores it's time for the twins to show their sweet treats to us. They pull out six cute mummy cookies and hand us each one. "We made these mummy cookies because we heard a story not too long ago about mummy's." Misty says in that kind voice as always. We listen as they tell us the story.

After they finish up telling the story and we're done eating we say good night and head to our tents. I get into my sleeping bag and close my eyes. I can feel myself drifting off quickly.

I wake up late at night and slip on my boots and a hoodie. I unzip my tent being as quiet as possible trying not to wake anyone else. When I step out, zip the tent back up and head over to Honeydew. She starts to do a little trot while I put on her saddle pad. After untying her I hop up onto her and let her take charge. She races off into the night jumping over fallen trees and swerving in between trees in the badly lit path.

Getting caught in the moment I don't realize how far I've gone. What feels like only a few minutes ends up being a whole hour before I realize how far we've gone. I tug on her main to slow her down and turn her around before kicking her side to get her racing back to the camp. I can feel the wind in my face. It's cold but the adrenaline in my body doesn't let me feel it. It takes another hour to get back. The sun will surely start rising in a few hours so I heary to tie her back up to the tree and put her winter blanket back on. After she's good I head back to my tent and fall back asleep.

In the morning when we wake up we pack up camp and head off to our next spot. The spring is one of our favorite places to stop on our way. Though the nights get cold and the sun goes down earlier each night the days are warm. I get off Honeydew and take her tack off other than her reins. I take my bag off and set it with the rest of my things and then take my hoodie, boots, and pants off. I grab Honeydew's reins and water to the spring with her.

The first step feels amazing. The water cools off the heat from the sun. I let go of Honeydew and let her get comfortable in the water. Busy watching Honeydew play around I don't notice Hugo sneaking up behind me. When the cold water hits me I jump and turn to face him. A grin plays on his face when he sees how mad I look. "You're gonna regret that." I yell while throwing a splash back at him.

The others join in with us and we end up having a huge splash fight. Misty sits on the shore laughing while watching us all play around. Misty hardly ever swims anywhere other than a pool. After a few hours of playing we all mount up with nothing or just reins and trot down the water path. Misty joins us for the water trail.

By the time we get back to our stuff we've wasted most of our daylight only having two hours til the sun is down completely. We ride up a bit further til we get to a cut out to set up camp. After setting up camp we split up to get sticks then do our chores. While eating dinner and s'mores we tell more scary stories.

When it came time for us to do our sweet treat reveal, Margo took out two small containers each holding three muffins in them. "I made muffins to tell the story about the muffin man and all he did." We pass around the containers and each take one. While we eat she tells us the gruesome story about the muffin man and not the cute one you see on boxes of baked goods. After her story time we all head to bed and sleep soundly through the whole night.

The next morning we ate Chase's sweet treat which was zombie cupcakes with this scary story about zombies who took over this town years ago and then disappeared. It was pretty creepy considering there was a town that anonymously got wiped out a few years ago.

After packing up we headed up the mountain. This was our longest walking day. We would finish walking up the rest of the mountain and stop at the top and spend the rest of the day there.

To be honest you could ride up and down this trail in one day but we stretch it out so we don't get bored and we also spend most of our days doing something fun instead of just doing a straight up and down. Which don't get me wrong, it would still be fun but this way we won't be bored the whole time waiting for Saturday.

We sing songs while riding up the trail and Chase shares some cheesy dad jokes he found recently. We have a blast walking up the mountain and when we get there we have a view of everything around Eastborne, my fathers work, the farms and ranches around the outskirts of Eastborne.

We set up camp and then hang out playing games like, tag, hide and seek, Simon says things like that until the sun starts to set and we do our normal routine getting sticks, doing our chores, eating, and of course our sweet treat reveal. Tonight was Hugo's turn. He brought us sugar cookies with Frankenstein on them telling us a terrific story he had found about Frankenstein. After all that we went to bed with no problems and had a peaceful night.

The next morning we woke up early and started to tack up our horses and took down our tents and sleeping bags tying them onto our saddles. When I finished I hopped on Honeydew her beautiful golden coat looked amazing in the morning sun. Something in the air felt off though it had a certain thickness to it. I manage to brush it off and wait for the others.

Just when we turn our blacks to head down the mountain a shadow falls over us. I can feel the heat of the sun on my back disappear in an instant. I can see in my peripherals everyone looks back and over the view at the same time. My eyes widen in terror when I see what's covering the sun.