Author's Note: Sorry about the long wait but finally got this chapter finished. I've finally finished planning the rest of this story. That means I'll be including new warnings as I go along. A lot of these warnings are specific to certain chapters so I'll give a warning each chapter these occur.

Warnings: Religious themes in the second half.

"Where the hell are we?" Joe asked, looking at his map from odd angles. "This path is taking us in the opposite direction of where we should be going."

"Are you sure you're not just looking at it upside down or something?" Frank reasoned, grinning as his younger brother glared at him.

"I'm absolutely sure Frank. We've not been going the right way for at least twenty minuites. If you look at the map it says the forest starts here and ends here, it makes absolutely no sense for us to be alongside it now."

"Joe these are the directions that dad gave us and as dad is the one that's been up here before I'm going to trust his judgement. Come on, we're nearly there anyway."

"Couldn't he have marked the directions out on the map for us? It would have been a lot easier."

"You know he couldn't have done that Joe. Apparently, that maps pretty old and the forest has grown more in the past few years so it takes up more of the road," Frank frowned slightly as he rounded the next corner. "Though I will admit I'd like to get there before night, the road ahead looks pretty dark."

"Scared brother?" Joe teased, hiding his own discomfort under humour. Joe himself didn't like the look of the pathway ahead of them. The trees now joined on either side, leaning slightly towards each other as if forming an archway that blocked out most of the light. Their roots were stretched, as if straining to hold the weight. It looked as if a single gust of wind would be enough to send most of them falling on top of the car. The fact that the road was so narrow also served to make Joe restless as he knew if the worst happened and one of the trees was to fall there would be no way for Frank to swerve out of the way without crashing.

"Me? Of course, not," Frank said grinning. "Just worried you're going to get nightmares little brother."

Joe playfully swatted Frank's arm.

"Hey not when I'm driving!" Frank complained but remained smiling none the less.

The brothers settled into a comfortable silence for a while. It was only when the sky turned another shade darker and reached the clear dark blue, suffocating any stars that could shine down under a layer of clouds, that the silence became a little less comfortable. It was rather unsettling. The reddish shade of the sun in the distance had faded to a simple pattern of floating lights in the distance. As the trees grew denser the brother's sight of even this was blocked from view, instead falling to the path in front of them.

"Watch out Frank!" Joe shouted, pushing himself back in his seat with a jolt.

Frank, startled by his brother's shout felt something in his mind click and adrenaline fill him. Going cold down to the bone Frank swung the wheel to one side and pushed down on his break. The car halted and the force pushed the brothers back. Frank blinked a couple of times, attempting to rid himself of the adrenaline rush. He looked up to see why Joe had stopped him. Immediately he was met a pair of glowing amber eyes in the centre of the road staring back at him. In his panic, he had trouble distinguishing where the eyes came from. It took him a while to calm down but eventually he noticed the shape of the animal stood in the middle of the road.

"Stupid deer…" Joe sighed. "Stopped like it wanted to get itself killed!"

As if blinking out of its stupor the deer took off leaving the two bothers staring at it dumbfounded. Frank was shaking slightly behind the wheel but had managed to regain his sense of control. He shook his head slightly, turning to look towards Joe was staring after where the deer had disappeared, notably angry.

"Joe calm down," Frank reasoned sighing. "It's just a deer. Its instinct is to stop dead if it feels it's threatened. Just causes a problem for us."

Joe's showers lowered and his stance relaxed. He too breathed out a sigh of relief before finally turning to look at Frank with a more neutral and subdued expression.

"You okay to drive?" he asked eyeing Frank's hands that were still gripping the steering wheel far too tightly.

Frank shook his head to bring himself back to the present. He relaxed his death grip and smiled at Joe.

"Yeah. I'll be fine."

"You sure? I could take over?" Joe asked, not looking convinced. Frank cursed Joe's ability to read him so well. However, instead of relenting and letting his brother take over he laughed.

"With a road this narrow I think I'd trust that deer behind the wheel of this car more than I'd trust you."

Joe narrowed his eyes however there was a slight glint in his eye as his concern seemed to ebb away, "Hey at least I noticed said deer before you crashed into it."

Frank laughed, "True."

As Frank's laughter faded away the two sat in silence for a moment. Eventually however Frank acknowledged how dark it had become.

"We should go or we'll never get there in decent time."

Joe nodded, "Let's just hope we don't encounter any more suicidal deer on our way."

The two brothers lapsed into silence again but this time it was far more tense. Frank was completely focused on the road ahead and Joe was looking on both sides of the path just in case he'd notice anything else that could potentially endanger them.

Joe saw nothing of interest for a long time. Instead he busied himself observing the twisted and misshapen shadows the trees cast. Joe felt unease creeping from him and his mind began playing tricks. He imagined the branches of the trees as broken limbs and could have sworn he kept seeing things move in the trees. At first it was just shadows seemingly dancing between the trees, just out of Joe's sight. It was only when Frank reached a particularly narrow part of the road and was forced to slow down as much as he could without stalling that Joe noticed that maybe it wasn't his mind playing tricks on him.

Instead of seeing shadows dancing he now saw pale shapes moving slowly and gracefully in the distance. If they hadn't been so deep in the woods Joe would have assumed the shapes to be lights from the town they were heading to however Joe knew that was not the case. He was further convinced of this when one that was particularly close to them, seemingly only two or three trees away, moved in a way that Joe knew something that wasn't alive couldn't achieve.

Joe considered asking his brother to look however knew that Frank needed to focus on the road. Something about the sighting however made him shift slightly away from the window and focus too on the road ahead of him. He busied himself looking in the distance for deer. However, something about those pale shapes in the distance plagued his mind. It took him a while to realise he had been subconsciously searching for them instead.

"We're nearly there."

Joe found he had been so focused he had zoned out for a while. The trees were opening out somewhat and the path seemed to be growing clearer as lights from buildings blinked in the distance. Joe, incredibly relieved to see signs of civilisation, smiled.

"Finally. I thought we'd never get here."

Even as he was smiling a small area of his mind wanted desperately to turn around and look at the path behind him as if the shapes would be stood there. However, the morbid curiosity was quenched by unease and instead Joe continued staring towards the safety the village promised.

xxx

"Lori, we should pray before we eat. We haven't done it in a while and I'm sure your mum wouldn't approve."

The dinner table settled to an uneasy silence. Lori retracted her hands from the table and looked up to face her dad. Her expression wasn't one that James could read. She looked completely disinterested.

"Shouldn't we wait until our guests get here to eat. That was something mum always said too."

James sighed, "The boys won't be here until late so they already ate before heading out."

Lori shrugged.

"Do you think Edward and Amy pray before eating too?"

"I assume so."

"I suppose we should then," Lori's expression finally shifted from bored as she smiled placing her hands together and bowing her head.

"Can you say the prayer today dad? I think I prefer praying silently now."

"Of course," James smiled finally feeling like he was getting somewhere with his daughter. Since she had been grounded Lori had been quieter and seemed to be distancing herself. It was starting to concern him. Her nightly departures hadn't ended either. He'd just stopped taking note of them.

James spoke the prayer slowly, trying to speak in a way that was reminiscent of his wife's soft and almost harmonic tone. He felt the moment of peace stretch as he realised how long it had been since he and his daughter had prayed together. He wondered how she felt. He wondered if she felt as at ease as he did in that moment.

As his curiosity mounted he made the unconscious decision to open his eyes. He wanted to see how she was feeling at that moment. He wanted to know if she was experiencing the connection he felt as a family at that moment.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

The glow from the candles he'd lit before the meal now seemed sharper. It cast harsh crimson shadows across the room. Perhaps it always had and he'd just never noticed it before. Lori, instead of looking down at her clasped hands in prayer, was staring straight into his eyes, unblinking, grinning in a wholly unnatural way.

He had never seen her smile like that before.

Instead of feeling happy at seeing her so amused this smile seemed cold and almost crazed in its intensity. Such an intense show of emotion dispelled the peace and tranquillity he'd been feeling only moments before. The jolt of fear he felt in that moment shook him to his core. The sharp nature of the expression didn't shift. He didn't stop praying.

Eventually, he grew so unnerved that he shut his eyes again, finishing the prayer as quickly as he could.

Almost afraid to open his eyes again, James let the darkness hold for a while longer.

When he opened his eyes Lori was still smiling but the smile seemed pleasant and kind. The lines on her face were far less sharp and her eye contact had relaxed significantly. She looked completely normal.

"Shall we eat now?" she asked.

"Yes."

He wondered if he'd imagined it.

"You know sometimes I wonder why we still pray before meals. If we don't do it all the time there's not really much a point in doing it is there? I don't think we should do it anymore," Lori said, scratching at a splinter on the wooden table.

James was suddenly hit with a memory of the haunting smile. He must have imagined it.

"If you don't want to pray before dinner anymore we won't."

"Thanks dad, I love you."

"I love you too."

The candlelight flickered.

Yes... Surely he'd imagined it.