World Of Silhouettes

Thirty-Six

Bruce yawns and stretches his arms out. He has a small cut on his left hand that he seems to glare at. Its between the web of his fingers. Those are the worst. 

 "This grass is like knives!" He complains. 

"It isn't exactly grass, more like a mixture of hay and weeds . . ." I remind. He just grunts in reply. 

"What do we do now?" He asks Grey who sees to be one step ahead of both of us. Not a big surprise. He pulls out a map and begins to study it. I peer over his shoulder and look at it. 

"My Mom used to look at maps for fun." I say. He looks up at me with a weird expression but looks back down as I catch his look.

"What?" Bruce says. He sits next to me, wincing at how uncomfortable the grass is. I roll my eyes. 

"They aren't needles, you know," I say. Sometimes I cant help but look at him like a child. 

"Yeah but it feels like it! I mean. . . ow!" I roll my eyes. 

"Find where we are on the map." Grey states, a playful look on his face. "Whoever finds it first will not have to keep watch tonight." My eyes scan everywhere, till they land on a wooded area, with the smallest field in it. Not only is that the only wooded place, it looks just like where we are, with the highway near by it. I look at where we begun, and smile. 

"Right here." I say, putting my finger on the spot. Bruce slams his hand on his lap. 

"Yeah." Grey says, after looking at the spot I pinpointed. 

"Shoot! And I was thinking of that place too! That isn't fair!" I playfully stick my tongue out at him. 

"Have fun keeping watch Bruce." I say. He makes a funny face at me and I laugh. I trace the map with my finger where will I be in a week or so?  Who knows. I think thats also interesting though, being kept in suspense like that. I won't say its not nerve wracking though. 

"Grey. . . would it be smart to travel by night instead of day? If this is the only wooded area, they'll be sure to come through here so we cant stay here much longer. We have to travel through towns and people will be suspicious of any group of people who wear big cloaks and has swords. . ."

"Ive been considering that but its not a smart idea. . . not for now anyway. We need to get some new clothes. . . some new looks. And we also need to get out of these woods. . . that shouldn't be that hard, though. . . its only a mile or so of marsh. After we get out of this, our clothes will be destroyed anyway. When we get into town, we get disguises. 

"Lets get going because I want to change. My clothes are wrecked." Ben's voice startles us from behind. He's tapping Katie in an effort to wake her up. She yelps and slams her head into Ben who holds his nose with a pained expression. I laugh softly. Abbey wakes up and smiles at me. I offer her a melancholy look and help her up. 

"Lets get out of here and never come again." I say. 

"Agreed," Katie says behind me. "bugs. . . ugh!" We follow Grey, not really talking much. The fear of the dogs still looms over me. They can find our path if they looked here. . . but then again, we've got Grey with us. If it comes to it, we use magic. I don't know what the big deal is.

After a hour of walking through swamp, I feel like every time I smell I want to throw up. If we smelled bad earlier, we aren't human now. Grey's voice rings through, 

"Theres the town. We made it." He turns around and nods in respect for our courage. I laugh softly. 

"Hey, you got something on your face." I put my hand on his chin to hold him still and wipe a smudge of dirt off. He blushes and looks away.