The Haunted Houses part 1

Dead flowers

They had been walking for hours, until they finally found a good place to make a camp. The boys started putting the tents up while the girls tried to find dry wood for a fire. Everyone were hungry and tired from walking and wanted to eat something before making any plans for the rest of the day. Carrie and Alice walked around the camp picking up some dry branches.

"Let's go somewhere futher away, I can't find anything here", Alice complained.

"No, if we go away from the camp, we'll get lost", Carrie said with a worried voice.

"Stop being so nervous, we won't get lost."

"You can go if you want, I don't want to leave", Carrie said silently.

"Why are you so nervous?" Alice said angrily. "Why did you even come?"

"Well I'm wondering that myself", Carrie mumbled.

"Hey girls, are you ready?" shouted Jeremy from the tents.

"No, all these branches are wet", Alice complained.

"I'm sure you have enough of them, just get over here", commanded Dave.

"As you wish", Alice screamed and ran to him. Dave started chasing her around. Carrie sighed and rolled her eyes to Dave's and Alice's immature behaviour. When she saw Jeremy on the other side of the camp doing the exactly same thing, she started laughing. Jeremy looked her into the eyes and laughed too.

"Some people never grow, right?" he said while walking closer to Carrie.

"You're right", Carrie laughed. "Should we start making the fire, it looks like we won't get any help in making it."

"Sure, I'm so hungry."

Carrie and Jeremy collected few big rocks to mark the fire's place and prevent it from spreading all over the forest. They put all the dry branches in there with some paper and tried to light fire in it with some matches.

"Do you know how to make a fire?"

"Well it shouldn't be to hard, since we have the matches. And when I was a kid I was in a boy scout so I think I know how to do it", Jeremy answered with a smile that once made Carrie fall in love with him, a smile that light up his face and made him look friendly and handsome.

And soon, like he promised, there was a fire burning happily. Before cooking, they had to wait for the fire to become embers so it wouldn't be too hot and burn their food, but it was nice just to sit close to the fire and relax. It wasn't raining anymore and small light beams shone from the gaps between the trees. For the first time during the whole trip, Carrie felt like she might actually even have fun in the forest. She was laying in a blanket with Jeremy, looking at the treetops and the sky with him. Jeremy was telling her about the clouds and easy ways to predict the weather based on the size and shape of them. They were also saying what the clouds looked like in their opinion. Carrie knew that it was childish but it was also fun so it didn't matter. Sometimes she just looked at Jeremy from the corner of her eye and saw how happy he looked like. It made her happier too. Soon they had a break in their converstation so Jeremy rolled on top of Carrie and gave her a long kiss. He started unbuttoning her shirt.

"Hey, stop", said Carrie. "We can't do anything here, we're in the middle of a strange forest and Alice and Dave aren't far away."

"Where's your adventurous mind?" Jeremy asked, covering his true feelings of shame under a fake laughter.

"I guess I left it home", Carrie said quietly.

"I think we can start cooking, the fire isn't so hot anymore", Jeremy said changing the topic. Carrie didn't really mind.