Love Bites

Chapter One

Night swamped the forest, sending chills down my spine countless times as my best friend Johnny and I trekked through the seemingly endless swirling fog, concealing looming trees and roots for us to trip over in the shadows. Johnny was bobbing his head along to some new song, the sound blasting through his ear buds.

A wolf howled somewhere in the distance and I grimaced, regretting having agreed to let Johnny drag me through the forest in the middle of the night. I reached over to where Johnny was to grab his arm before I lost him, but there was only air to greet my cold fingers. I felt my heart quicken as I spun around in a panic. Johnny was nowhere to be found.

"Johnny!" I yelled. A bush quivered behind me and I jumped, spinning around. A luminous pair of bright green eyes stared at me from between the branches of a shadowy bush. My breath caught in my throat and I stared back, paralyzed with fear. They blinked and then they were gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but terrifying thoughts began to fill my mind. What if that was the wolf I heard? What if it got to Johnny?

"Johnny!" I screamed again.

"Rachel! I'm stuck!" Johnny yelled from back where we had been walking a few minutes before. I turned and stumbled over a protruding root in my haste to find Johnny. I found him a few feet back, his oversized backpack lodged high in the branches of a tall oak.

"Johnny, why did you need to bring such a big backpack," I sighed, running over to him in relief. I refused to show my fear in front of him. I didn't want my optimistic friend to worry. "I thought I lost you!"

"Rachel, everything I own is in here! I couldn't leave anything behind!" He said, attempting to pull his backpack out of the tree. "And you were gone when I got caught, I couldn't see you." I rolled my eyes and grabbed his hands in my shaky ones, pulling as hard as I could. I only had a bag half the size of his, and IT was annoying.

"The last thing I wanted to do is spend a night in a forest alone with you and your stupid backpack," I grunted, straining to pull his back pack out of the tree.

We both fell as it tugged free and tumbled down a small slope, falling through a spider web as we fell. We landed in a panting heap at the bottom. The wolf howled again and I stiffened underneath him. Johnny peeled the spiderweb off his face, seeming unbothered by the howl.

Johnny hopped back up, breathing heavily. I stood up, pulling my long brown hair out of its ponytail since it was already falling out.

"Come on Johnny, we should figure out how to get back to town," I whispered, looking around for the green eyes. Johnny ignored me and pointed down into a valley beneath us instead. A large fire was burning in the centre of a small town, and people were slowly walking around it. Some of them were on fire, I noticed in horror. They were slowly dismantling the buildings, and I looked on in confusion with Johnny.

A blazing trail of burning people was being lit through the forest. Johnny grabbed my arm and shook it excitedly.

"That's totally awesome," he exclaimed, heading down the hill towards them. "We should totally follow them!"

"No, we should not- Johnny!" I yelled as he ran to the bottom of the hill into the village. "What are you doing?!" I hissed when I caught up to him. He was watching the whatever-they-were carry away the wooden building frames from behind a partly torn down shop. "Come on, lets go before they see us. We need to get back to town, they're on fire for god's sake!"

"Naw, we should totally follow them! They might lead us to a town we can stay the night in!" Johnny said, completely ignoring me as he followed the last group of 'people' head out with their building pieces.