14. I am . . . Stuck

When they returned with the wood, Byron, Cole, and Dayton let it fall onto the floor of the cave near where Frankie was sitting and waiting for them. "Do you think this will be enough to wait out the rain?" she asked.

"I hope so," Cole replied.

"I know I said we shouldn't need all the much stuff for a quick hike to explore," Dayton began. "But did anyone by chance grab matches that we could use to start the fire?"

"Actually, I did," Cole replied. "But we should probably get some of the leaves and small twigs that are around the edge of the cave to use as kindling to get the fire going."

There was enough light in the cave that the group could see around the cave where dead leaves, grass, and small twigs had blown in. They gathered them so Cole could get a match lit and the fire going. After a few minutes of adding more kindling and then adding some of the sticks they had collected, the fire had grown large enough to give light to the whole cave.

"Great job, Cole," Dayton commented. "Though now I'm really regretting that we didn't bring anything more for a hike. I mean, so many other things could have gone wrong, and so many things could still go wrong, but I—"

"Day, chill. Thanks for the compliment about the fire, but worrying and wishing we could go back and change things isn't going to help us."

"Yeah. We can just relax here and tell stories around the fire," Byron shrugged. "It'll be fun to wait out the rain. Does anyone have any good campfire stories to tell?"

"I've got one," Cole spoke. "It was a dark and stormy night when four teenagers decided to wander away from the campground where their families were camping together. There were two boys and two girls—"

"Oh brother," Dayton sighed and put her face in her hands.

"You're right! I am your brother," Cole teased.

"Not what I meant."

"Can I continue with my story now?"

Dayton rolled her eyes. "Sure."

"Right, so the four were best friends and had been since they could all remember, but they felt that they were old enough to go and explore on their own even though when they had asked their parents earlier in the day and been denied the chance. They instead planned to sneak out around midnight after they were sure their families would all be asleep, they had had a busy day and everyone was tired.

"The oldest of the group, Cade, had snuck some energy drinks with them and shared them with his friends before they headed out to make sure they wouldn't fall asleep while they were out. They also made sure they each packed a few supplies like flashlights, rope, matches—"

"I get it, we should have packed those things."

"Water, food, and toilet paper, well, and a few other things," Cole continued, ignoring Dayton's interjection. "He and his best friend, Blake, lead the way for the girls Dakota and Fae."

"Cole Reyes, how come the boys in your story are treating the girls almost as though they are damsels in distress?"

"Um, did I say that both Cade and Blake were leading the way, I meant that Cade was the only one leading the way because he had an idea of a place he wanted to go and something he wanted to show his friends."

"Better," Frankie confirmed.

"Right, so Co—Cade lead his friends to this outlook so they could see the lake they were camping by. . .

"What do you think?" Cade asked his friends.

"This is amazing," Fae said, leaning against Cade, who she was secretly-not-so-secretly crushing on.

"Thanks. I looked up places to see before we came here to go camping and this was one of the top places to see."

"It's actually kind of romantic," Dakota said, gazing up to the full moon overhead.

"Yeah," Blake agreed. "I mean if there were just two of us, but not necessarily us, but." Blake cut himself off and reached up to mess with his hair.

"Cole, what are you trying to suggest with this story?" Dayton asked.

"That's just our—I mean their dynamic."

"Sure it is."

"Fine, they were all just friends with no tension between any of them. . .

"It would be romantic with the right person," Fae agreed. "But let's keep moving. There's still a lot more that we can explore. I also have somewhere that I wanted to show everyone while we were here."

"Lead the way," Dakota said, motioning for her best friend to continue leading them the same way Cade had been leading them at first.

"For the next couple hours, the friends each lead the way to a place they had discovered through research and had hoped to show their friends. They were glad they had brought some supplies to help them along the way as they ended up needing several of the things such as the rope, water, and the toilet paper when nature called," Cole continued. "But their adventure wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Something, or someone was lurking in the darkness, following their every move.

"Blake was the last one to lead the way to the spot he wanted to check out. . .

"This is it," Blake said. "This cabin is believed to have been built way back around the time of World War I and then a bunker was added during the Cold War when there was concerns of bombings and people wanted bunkers to hide out in."

"And we're going to try and find the bunker?" Dakota asked.

"No. I'd rather not trust that it would still hold up under us if we explored it, but there's a story with it. Legend has it that in some sort of false alarm, the family went into the bunker. Their radio didn't work and they didn't dare go outside to check, so the family of four died in there after running out of supplies. The legend says that their ghosts still hang around here, even though they tend not to haunt it."

"Wow, great way to give me the creeps," Cade said.

"Maybe we should get out of here," Dakota agreed. However, before any of them had the chance to go anywhere, they heard a branch snap in half.

"Um, did someone step on a branch?" Blake asked.

"No," Cade, Fae, and Dakota answered together.

"I was afraid of that."

"Well, it can not be one of the ghosts. Though I have no doubts that there is no such thing as ghosts, they would not be able to snap sticks by stepping on them if they were real," Fae said.

"This is suddenly way creepier than I was thinking it would be. Let's get out of here," Blake said as they began to run back towards the campground.

"While the group raced back, the sinister person who had been following them chased after them as she had been for part of the night," Cole continued. "They ran and ran and ran to escape the woman chasing them, but she was catching up fast and was leading them in a way they hadn't intended to go. Before they knew it, they were trapped against a rock wall that had no good way to scale it to escape. . ."

"So this is how it ends," Dakota sighed. "Thanks Cade."

"I'm not the only one who had this idea," he snapped. "Sorry. I just—Please don't kill us," he begged to the person who had been following them.

"I'm not here to kill you," she laughed.

"Mom!" Fae exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Following you kids to make sure you didn't get into trouble. I didn't have time to wake anyone else up, but I knew you were all up to something tonight, so I followed. I didn't want to see you get hurt. I see you were just fine, but you will need to face the consequences of your disobedience—in the morning."

"Then the four followed Fae's mom back to the campground. When she told everyone else's parents what the kids had done the night before the following morning, they ended up grounded for a month after they got home from their camping trip. The end."

"That was an interesting story, Cole Reyes."

"And I love how the characters definitely were not us," Dayton spoke sarcastically.

Cole shrugged in response.

"It's getting kind of late," Byron said, glancing down at his watch.

"And I don't think the rain is letting up, so we might have to get comfortable here for the night. I know it's not ideal and we didn't really eat before we left," Cole added.

"We brought the granola bars," Dayton reminded Cole. "We can at least eat those to hopefully hold us over until morning."

"Right." Cole, Dayton, and Byron pulled the granola bars from their pockets and ate them while they continued to sit around the campfire and talk, sharing a few shorter stories as they ate.

"Frankie, is there a way to put you in sleep mode for the night without the tablet?" Dayton asked when she, Cole, and Byron had finished eating and the storytelling for the night was over.

Frankie paused as she checked her settings. "There is, but I would still need you to wake me up in the morning manually when you get up. Do you remember how to?"

"Yeah. I remember what Jenny did."

"All right. Goodnight," Frankie said before she turned herself to sleep mode.

"I guess now we get as comfortable as we can near the fire to stay warm," Byron said. He took his sweatshirt off and laid it over his chest as a blanket. Cole and Dayton did similar things as they said goodnight to each other and let their exhaustion pull them to sleep.

A/N: In the writing of the chapter, I imagined it almost like when TV shows will sometimes have the characters play out something that happened to their ancestors in the past. Though for this is was obviously not the past but rather a story.

There's not really anything else I have to say other than that I have the next few chapters written and just need to do the finishing touches and editing to them, so hopefully I'll have the time to do that soon.

Thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, favorited, and followed. I appreciate constructive criticism because it helps me become a better writer. So I'd love to know what you though or how I can improve. Thanks again for reading,

-CrazyHayniac