Heartless

48

We eventually went back to the fire and sat down to talk about what happened. I sat on Colby's lap and rested my head on his shoulder, playing with the strings of his hoodie. "I'm so sorry if I scared you guys..I saw the shadow again..so I kept running and I thought you were right behind me so I kept going." He rhythmically stroked my side as he spoke. "We are just glad you're okay bro." Sam said and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "What do we want to do? Do we want to try and go to the cabin or just chill here for now?" Sam said and looked around. "I say we go to the cabin. Someone is in these woods.." Corey said and Jake shook his head, "I think we should stay here for a little bit, or at least pack our stuff up." He said "Cora?" Colby said causing me to just hum. I was really tired now because of all the commotion.

"Do you want to go to the cabin or stay here?" Colby said and brushed my hair behind my ear as I chewed on the sleeve of my hoodie again. "I don't care." I said quietly. "Alright, well I think we should start cleaning up and if we don't hear anything or see anything we just stay here but if something else happens we go to the cabin." Sam said and Colby hummed in agreement.

So we did exactly what we said we would do, we packed up everything, "we should bring some of the stuff we aren't going to use and bring it to the car in case we have to run." Colby said as we finished packing up all the chairs and the fire pit, "I'll go with you." I said quietly and started to pick up the chairs. Colby grabbed the rest of the stuff and we started our way to the car. "Cora..I'm still so sorry." He said as we walked. "I know..it's okay, you just really scared me Colby." I said focusing on where I was walking. "I never wanted to scare you." He said softly. "I know. It's really alright Colby..I'm just glad you're okay." I said as we reached the car. I felt tears threaten my eyes as I thought about what could have happened to him, I shivered trying to shake the thought as we put all the stuff in the trunk.

"Come here." Colby said quietly and wrapped his arms around me right after he closed the trunk and set the lantern on it. "Please don't leave me again." I said as I began to cry into his chest. I didn't realize how scared I was until I was choking on my sobs.

"I won't leave you again I promise. I'm staying right here with you. I'm not going anywhere." He said and kissed the top of my head. We stood like that for a minute before Colby mumbled, "the guys are going to worry if we don't go back" I nodded in agreement and stepped away from him, grabbing his hand as we walked back.

"Were you scared?" I said causing him to look over at me, "when I was in the woods?" He asked. I nodded and he sighed, "absolutely horrified." I stopped and hugged him tightly again causing him to laugh, "Cora it's okay now." He tried to catch his balance since I had thrown myself into him without warning. "I don't like you being scared." I whimpered as he laughed, "I know, but I did it to myself. I shouldn't have run off." He said as I let go of the hug. "I was so scared that you would run into the woods after me and get lost." I laughed, "I almost did but the guys stopped me." I bit my lip as he laced his fingers into mine. "I'm glad they did. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you were lost out there."

Once we got back the tent we got in, the boys were laughing and telling fake ghost stories. "...And then the ghost grabbed the boy by the shoulders and kissed him, and it made the other boys sad because they lost their friend because he got married to the ghost" Corey said causing us all to laugh, "moral of the story is don't get married" Sam said to the camera.

We heard loud noises coming from outside the tent again, this time they were closer and louder. "There's someone out there.." Corey said shakily. I tried desperately to stay calm and quiet as Colby positioned himself in front of me. "We need to get out of the tent! Can we leave? I'm serious." Corey said as he started to unzip the tent, "hold on hold on!" Sam said pulling his hand away, "we have to be careful. If someone is out there we don't know what they are capable of." Corey slowly nodded his head. I clutched onto Colby's arm, hiding into his shoulder as Sam explained what we should do. "Let's just be quiet for a minute and see if we hear anything else. If not then we run to the car okay? Jake, wake up." He said shaking Jake who was nearly asleep.

As silence fell over the tent we listened for any noise. It felt like forever as my hands shook with fear, but eventually we heard a loud bang that almost sounded like pots and pans clanging together. "Can we go..." I said as a couple tears fell from my eyes. "We are gonna have to book it to the car, but we need to make sure the coast is clear first." Colby said and leaned forward reaching for the zipper. He started to stand up but stopped and turned to me. "I'm not leaving you, I'm gonna just poke my head out okay?" He caressed my cheek gently as he spoke, wiping one of my tears away. I nodded silently, causing him to turn and peer out, looking around with a flashlight. Sam joined him, "hello?" He called out.

"There's nobody out here, we should be safe to get to the car." Colby said and reached out to help me up, "what's going on brothers?" Jake said groggily, as he finally sat up. "We are going to the cabin." Corey said and put a sleeping bag over his shoulders, "the haunted cabin?" Jake said and rubbed his eyes. "That's the one." Sam said and grabbed a sleeping bag as well.

Once we gathered up all of our sleeping bags so we were each holding one, we got out of the tent. Colby grabbed my hand as we all sprinted to the car. My lip quivered with fear as I realized how dark it was, with the only lighting being two lanterns that Jake and Corey were holding.

Sam fumbled as he looked through his bag for the keys to Colby's car, but he eventually found them and we all got in. We sat in silence for a second as we all tried to catch our breath. "Everyone okay?" Colby said and scanned everyone's faces, we all looked horrified. I nodded silently, trying to calm down again. The boys each said they were okay and we made our way to the cabin. It was only 2:45am, meaning we had so much longer to go.