They had barely made it out of the pakinglot when they came upon a group of people standing in the middle of the road. They slowly started to shuffle out of the way for Claire and the cars behind her to go passed.
Not far beyond they could see the main gate for the park, it was closed and their were two officers manning it. From there spot in line it appeared everyone had to stop at the gate, and talk to a detective before leaving.
Josey opened his door and hopped out, "While we're just sitting here I'm gonna go see what's up over here," Josey stated pointing to where the mob had newly congregated before shutting the door.
"Can we take the blidfolds off?" Laura asked.
"Yeah, I don't think you can see anything from here," Claire answered.
Laura removed her blindfold and stared after Josey's retreating form. Her eyes roamed over his body, watching for any signs of what was being discussed. Whatever they were talking about, it didn't appear to be anything good.
It took Josey around 20 minutes to return to the car, he was immediately peppered with questions, "Apparently there was a really savage bear out here last night. If I'm remembering correctly, five people died, three are in the hospital with serious injuries, and there's a woman missing."
"Oh my God," Neka exclaimed covering her mouth.
"They're starting a search party for her, I'm gonna help."
"I can help too," Claire immediately responded.
"Okay," he paused a minute to think before continuing, "Neka, you and Laura wanna go get a hotel room or something? We'll probably be here awhile."
"No! I'm coming, " Laura firmly protested.
"Are you sure you can handle that? Who knows what condition she might be in and you've had a tough enough morning already. I don't wanna lose you looking for someone else."
"I'm fine, I want to help."
He looked over to Neka, "I guess you-"
"Well of course I'm helping too." Neka cut him off before he even started.
"Okay, well, that's settled then. So I guess just go park off the side of the road over there and we can go join in," Josey stated scratching the top of his head slightly bewildered.
Claire parked and they quickly piled out of the car. Josey led them over to the group standing in the road. There was now a table with a map on it set up in the midst of them. Several men were bent over the table moving their fingers across it as they discussed different strategies. Everyone else stood around quietly awaiting instruction.
After ten minutes they finally turned to face the crowd. "Okay, were gonna break y'all up into several groups so we can cover more space and to make sure no one gets lost. It is very important you stay with your group, if you wonder off and get lost we'll have to search for you, which will obviously take time away from searching for her."
Another man took up the instructions where the previous left off, "Please step forward one at a time and print your name on the pieces of paper attached to the one of the three clip boards. Make sure this is done in an orderly manner so we don't waste more time."
The group of people started russeling around until they formed 3 orderly lines
Oh, and here's a picture of her," Josey held up a paper poster with a woman's picture on it.
"Oh my God, that's Carrie! She goes to school with us!" Neka exclaimed.
"Yeah I met her at the bathroom the other night, she was camping with her sister. She was actually really sweet I hope we find her. " Claire added.
YOU ARE READING
Mauled - Book 2 of the Close Call Series (Currently Published On Amazon)
Short Story*These books do not have to be read in order. A camping trip, gone seriously wrong. A group of friends are on a camping trip, everything is normal that is until they all lay down for bed. Suddenly they begin to hear strange noises, scared to death...
