THANK YOU SO much for all those wonderful reviews!! I really appreciate all of them and I hope I can get just as many or even more!!

Kerry Okie: YES I love that movie! I have a website too. E-mail me whoever wants it!!


The gang hung their damp clothing on the tree branches after changing into dry hiking clothing. They had somehow talked Arnold into going on a short hike before coming back to check into the main office. It was almost 11:30.

With her hands on her hips, Helga glanced around the forest; debating how to go about this.

"That's funny...there's no trails," Arnold said. Phoebe took out her compass.

"We have a compass. As long as we know which direction we're taking it should be alright," Phoebe told Helga. Thinking quickly so Arnold wouldn't change his mind, Helga pointed in a random direction.

"This way!" Helga ordered. The group shrugged, and with only Arnold hesitating, made their way through the thick forest, their campsite getting farther and farther away from them with their every step.

Soon they were surrounded by nothing but Douglas Firs that seemed to reach the sky, fallen branches covered with moss, occasional patches of green grass, and each other. It was a literal Kodak moment. They heard the distant sound of rushing water and followed the sound until they saw it.

Thirty feet from where they were standing was a clearing. There was a river with clear blue water rushing, and to the left of the river was a cliff.

"Sweet!! Let's follow it!!" Curly yelled, breaking the silence and running towards it. The gang screamed and laughed, catching up with him at the end of the drop-off. Phoebe and Arnold snapped picture after picture after picture, as Rhonda plopped down on a broken log and took off her ankle-high hiking boots. she moaned as she massagued her socked-feet.

"Those shoes look awfully new..." Helga pointed out, lowering an eyebrow.

"Of COURSE they're new. You don't think I'd ever own a pair of these tacky things other then for hiking, do you?" Rhonda asked as if owning a pair of boots for anything other then hiking was the most outragously ridiculous idea she'd ever heard.

Phoebe blushed slightly as she tried in vain to cover her boots that were the same exact style as Rhondas.

"Big deal. When Arnold and I told everyone to bring hiking boots, I meant old worn out ones or sneakers," Helga told her, kicking a pebble with her sneaker.

Rhonda opened her mouth to protest, but was interrupted by a sound coming from the forest.

It was a sound that put a chill in everyones spines. Even Helga's.

It was the sound of something. Something that they could not determine. The sound of a peircing scream that did not sound human. It couldn't have been. And it wasn't. And the rustling of tree leaves and branches. Everything on the trees, from the grass up to about nine feet, the wind blew so feircly, that some of the branches cracked. It was as if an invisible force nine feet feet tall had scampered a hundred miles per hour through the forest.

No one said anything.

They just stared. Saying nothing. Just staring.

Then there was another peircing shrill shriek. Then another. And then another.

Curly's glasses shattered and cracked. So did Phoebe's. They gasped.

Arnold face grew a terrible pale white color. He began vomiting and vomiting and vomiting, giving up his breakfast, and the dinner from the night before. Then he had nothing left in his stomach to vomit. He heaved air out of his body through his mouth.

Helga burst into tears.

For no reason. She tried to stop, and forced her self to STOP and willed and willed. STOP CRYING!!! she screamed over and over inside her head. But she couldn't keep the tears from from pouring over and over down her cold cheeks. Her tears dampened her sweater collar. Helga fell to her knees, still sobbing loudly.

Snapping out of what seemed like a spell, Phoebe ran to comfort Helga, as Gerald did to Arnold. As soon as Phoebe's small hand touched Helga's shoulder, Helga stopped crying, as sudden as it began.

"I'm alright, I'm alright," Helga told Phoebe in a small wimper, still shaken. Phoebe helped her up, as Helga stood on weak wobbly legs.

"What was that?" Rhonda asked, just below a whisper. With shaking fingers, she clumsily pulled her boot on and tied it.

"What the fuck...?" Curly asked, taking off his now useless glasses. Arnold gave him a cold look. He didn't like that word.

Phoebe glanced at her glasses, still shocked, then dug into her shoulder bag and found her prescription sunglasses.

"I don't know, but let's get the hell out of here, and back to the campsite." Helga said.

"Good. The minute we get back, we're going to to pack up our things and-" Arnold started.

"What?! I'm not leaving!! I mean out of this AREA, not the entire campsite!!" Helga protested.

"DID YOU NOT JUST SEE WHAT HAPPENED?!" Arnold yelled, his eyes widening.

"I can't think of anything that could have been..." Phoebe thought aloud.

"It was probably a coyote," Helga suggested meekly.

"A COYOTE?! Rhonda can barely talk, you completly broke down, Curly glasses SHATTERED, along with Phoebes and I just hacked up a years worth of food, branches CRACKED in that wind...and you think it's a COYOTE?!" Arnold said sarcastically, still shouting.

Curly chuckled.

"Ever seen that movie Totoro? That's what makes the wind blow..." Curly wasn't scared. Just very shocked at what had happened. He was actually quite amused. Then again, Curly was the kind of person who often tested how far he could place a needle into his thumb during study hall.

Arnold and Helga continued arguing, completly ignoring Curly's remarks.

Phoebe and Gerald couldn't help but snicker softly at the sight. A couple who had been going together for nearly four years, standing twelve feet apart, yelling their heads off at each other. What brought these two together for so long? One never knows.

Arnold raised his arms up in defeat and compromise. Trying to talk Helga into not doing something she already had her heart set on was was as good as trying to pass a camel through the eye of a needle.

He learnt that along time ago.

"Fine!! I'll stay, but only under one condition," Arnold told her. Helga folded her arms and closed and opened her eyes slowly.

"And what one condition would that be?" Helga asked.

"After we go back to our tents, we go straight to the main office to check in and ask what the Hell that was," Arnold finished.

"We were going to do that anyway, but okay..." Helga muttered, leading the way back to the tents, slightly embarassed with her unexpected breakdown. They walked back to the campsite, this time with Phoebe leading, since she had the compass.

It was silent, except for the occasional comments.

"What was that, anyway?"

"I wonder what that could have been..."

"There's no reasonal explanation..."

"I'm hungry."

After about twenty minutes, they reached the campsite. Phoebe stopped dead in her tracks and covered her mouth, dropping her compass in the soft grass near her feet.

"Now what??" Helga asked impatiently. It was the campsite that had made Phoebe stop short.

It was exactly the way they left it. Their bags were in the same place, their campfire, their tents. Their tents....

Their tents were ripped into the tiniest shreds, as if they had gone through a paper shredder. Only they weren't cut with a blade. They were torn. Shredded. Savagely ripped apart; as if by hundreds of tiny claws.

Rhonda ran foward ahead of them, picking at peices of what used to be her father's hunter green tent.

"My father is going to KILL me!! Who the HELL did this?!?!" Rhonda demanded, furious.

"I think the question is, WHAT did that..." Gerald said softly. Staring at his navy blue tent. Or the remenants of it.

"Anyone have any duck tape?" Curly smirked. Rhonda spun on him

"How can you be joking around at a time like this?!?!" Rhonda screamed shrilly. "This place is a HELL HOLE! Not a camping site!! First we get lost, then, Helga has a nervous breakdown, Arnold hurls up his intestines, we all get scared the shit scared out of us, and NOW THIS!!!" Rhonda screamed in Curlys face, who was trying dearly for his life not to laugh. Rhonda's eyes widened. "I know! YOU did this! Didn't you?! DIDN'T YOU?!" Rhonda pointed at him, trying to find someone, ANYONE, to blame.

Gerald rolled his eyes.

"Rhonda, you know Curly couldn't have done this. He was with US the whole time," Gerald told her. Rhonda didn't reply. She grabbed her duffel bags and slung them over her shoulder.

"NOW can we leave?" Arnold whispered, dazed at the scene in front of him. Helga just nodded.

In silence, everyone grabbed their luggage, coolers, and duffel bags, then miserably trudged toward the main office where Arnold's van was parked.

After about fifteen minutes, Curly glanced around at the group.

"Is it just me, or are we taking to wrong direction?" Curly stopped walking and glanced at the scenery with squinted eyes. Phoebe looked thoughtfully at her eighty-five dollar compass.

"No, I'm absolutly positive this is the correct way. I remember these surroundings too," she told them. "Lets keep walking a few more minutes. It can't be too far off now," she said.

They walked for another twenty minutes.

And they didn't find the office. Or Arnold's van.

"What...? This is ridiculous! Phoebe, let me see that," Arnold frowned, wanting to get out of that forest as soon as humanly possible. Phoebe hesitated, but handed it to him anyway.

Phoebe was right. They had been going the right direction. Arnold announced that, and the group groaned in impatience.

"Well...maybe the compass is broken..." Rhonda suggested.

"I just got this from my father last month," Phoebe told her curtly. There was a silence.

"But it just doesn't make any sense...I know I've seen this before. Remember?" Gerald asked, pointing to a tree that had been knawed on by a beaver. "Didn't you point that out earlier?" he asked Phoebe. She nodded.

"This is crazy, that's what it is! There HAS to be some trails or an information booth SOMEWHERE on this campsite, right?" Helga declared.

"Yea, but if there were...which there definatly should be, we'd see them. We've been walking for nearly forty-five minutes," Gerald told her. There was a silence.

"So what do you all purpose we do?" Arnold asked, sitting on a log and dropping his sleeping gear and luggage onto the grass beside him. Another silence.

"The river!" Phoebe exclaimed. "If we go back to the river, it HAS to lead us to SOMETHING..." she thought aloud. Helga jumped up.

"Alright then, lets go! We'll be home in no time then, away from this creepy creepy place..."


Six and a half hours later.

Nothing.

No river.

And definatly no office.

Rhonda was close to tears. It was near dark, and they had no tents.

"I can't believe this is happening! This place has something wrong with it! Why can't we find the river, or the office?! We can't even find our campsite!!" Rhonda cried shrilly, fighting back tears. Helga and Phoebe were just as close.

"Was anyone smart enough to bring a cellphone?" Gerald asked hopfully.

"I forgot to charge mine."

"I have no more minutes."

"I can't get service around here."

Everyone groaned.

"Well...we could eat something I guess...." Curly suggested. Then they realized that they were all starved, walking for most of the day. Curly and Rhonda passed out drinks and sandwiches.

Arnold clenched his fists by his sides, watching everyone. He was an optimistic person, always helping everyone, looking on the bright side, cheering other people up....but now he couldn't. There was no bright side. Not to this.

For no apparent reason, Arnold stood up and left the group. No one noticed but Helga. He stormed off a couple yards out of view from the group, and sat miserably onto the cold cold ground, and stared up into the sky, the stars still surrounded by trees. No one came after him.

And for the first time in all his seventeen years of life, he truly felt alone.

Maybe it was because he hadn't expected a camping trip to start off like this; maybe it was because he hadn't expected to humiliate himself in front of his best friends by hurling his guts at something that wasn't worth freaking out about; maybe because no one came after him when he needed someone the most; or maybe it was because he always expected everything to be the worst, and not the best.

He wanted to talk to Gerald about these things, but he couldn't. Gerald was his best friend, but he'd still just mock him, or call him a pansy. Arnold had learnt that the hard way.

He was so involved with his thoughts, he didn't hear Helga sit down beside him with a sad look in her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked softly. Arnold shrugged.

"Nothing, I guess. I'm just not having a good day," Arnold lied with a weak smile. Helga punched him on the shoulder.

"Of course not. None of us are. After having to eat Rhonda's homemade tuna sandwiches..." Helga finished. Arnold couldn't help but laugh.

Helga's look turned serious as she rested her head on her fist, gazing at him.

"But what do you suppose that was?" she asked him. Arnold stared at her thoughtfully.

"I really don't know. And I don't know why I reacted like I did. I kept willing myself to stop, but I couldn't. It just kept coming," Arnold told her. Helga's eyes widened.

"Yeah no kidding! Same here!! I don't know what happened back there, but I can tell you it sure wasn't worth crying about!" she said. There was an awkward silence. Helga's smile widened.

"Ever hear about the Jersey Devil??" she asked excitedly. Arnold groaned. That was just like Helga.

"This is Oregon. Not New Jersey," he reasoned.

"Aw you like to take the fun out of everything. Maybe it was the Yetchi," Helga grinned.

"Yeti," Arnold corrected. "And those are only in the Himalyas," Arnold laughed. Helga pouted.

"Then it was probably a big foot," she declared firmly, refusing to be proved wrong.

"I wouldn't count on that, you know those things aren't real," Arnold grinned.

"Of course not, I'm just pulling your leg. But you have to admit, that was pretty dam freaky." Helga told him as she rested her head against his shoulder. Arnold smiled softly, putting his arm around her small waist.

"Yeah, I'll admit that. I've never seen anything like that," Arnold said, almost to himself.

"Getting a little cozy there?" they saw Curly pop out from behind the tree, grinning widely. Behind him was Rhonda, Phoebe and Gerald. Helga blushed, tore off her sneaker and threw it at Curly with all her might. She missed by about three feet.

Everyone laughed, and so did Helga and Arnold; whose mood had really lightened up, although Gerald was giving him a horrible time and making something innocent look impure and rotten. Arnold's face turned just as red as Helgas at Gerald's comments.

"What about you, you hypocrite?! Remember that last week of school when you and Pheebs thought no one else was in the hall way and then the principal came and-" Helga started, trying not to laugh.

"Hey that's not my fault!!" Gerald protested as the entire group laughed louder.

Phoebe coughed, adjusted her glasses, and spoke up to change the subject.

"Arnold, Helga, we have come to a decision. Since it's nearly pitch black out, searching for anything won't do any good. So we're pretty much forced to camp out here, and first thing tommorrow, we're searching again," Phoebe declared as if she were reading from a paper.

She saw the look on Arnold and Helga's face.

"We know, we know, but the compass is obviously messed up. We really have no other choice. Perhaps we were going North instead of South the whole time or visa versa, so despite the similaraties we thought we saw in the surroundings, they must have, and had to be, coincidences," Phoebe explained.

"I'm not exactly looking forward to sleeping in a forest with something that shredded our entire tent into tiny bite-size peices..." Helga started.

"Well, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all of this, and we'll find out first thing tommorrow when we get the the check OUT office, but everything should be fine if we all stick together." Phoebe finished.

"Anyway, it was probably some eight graders idea of a prank," Rhonda spoke up, fuming at the very thought.

So it was settled. They were going to sleep in the forest, where weird things always happen.

The sooner they went to sleep, the sooner they woke up.

Lying between Curly and Gerald in his bright red sleeping bag, Arnold stared into the sky again.

Trying to fall into a deep sleep was what he wanted, but everytime he closed his eyes, scenes from Blair Witch and The Village and other horror movies that took place in a foresty area swam through his eyes, refusing to leave him.


::squeals:: Alright there's the second chapter for ya and a long one toO!!! REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!!!!!!!!!! I'm working on the third chapter ,