Strange Things

Taylor was, for the first time since she and Aaron had taken a 'walk' about three weeks earlier, walking down the path to go to the beach. She hadn't been to the beach in over a month and when she had realized that herself she figured she was being over dedicated to her work as a doctor and ventured beyond the caves. Aaron was already down there with Hunter, Noah, and Will and she knew that Christy would be waiting for her. She hadn't heard about all the fuss lately.

She re-adjusted the straps on her backpack, as they became uncomfortable then trudged on wards. It seemed like every time she walked the path to the beach it just got longer and longer. She once again, pushed the straps of her bag back onto her shoulders.

"Why did I even bring this thing?" She questioned herself quietly. It finally got bad enough that she sat the bag on the ground and tightened the straps. She mumbled as she bent over and fiddled with the buckle they had. Suddenly she a twig snap and as a reaction she flipped her blonde hair out of her face to see who it was.

Her eyes widened at the sight of an extremely old woman standing in front of her. The woman's hair was white as snow and her face was worn and wrinkled. Taylor had never seen her before so she stood cautiously.

"Hello Taylor." The woman said in a shaky voice.

"How do you know my name?" Taylor asked not giving way to her fear.

"I know more than you're name." She said not giving a real answer to Taylor's question.

"Who are you?" Taylor asked slowly, shaking her head.

"My name is Danielle." She answered. For the first time a straight answer.

The woman, Danielle, had an accent. Taylor didn't know what it was but it was different than she'd ever heard. She knew Claire's was Australian, and Charlie's was English but she didn't know where Danielle was from originally. "What do you want?" Taylor asked.

"You are the one they spoke to." She said almost speaking to herself. "You are the one." Is all she said.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about. Who's they? What one?" Taylor was not only becoming confused but frustrated at the woman's poor ability to answer her questions.

Danielle looked away from Taylor; she looked around the forest. "The one they are afraid of." Danielle started to cough but quickly caught her breath. She became more deliberate, more frantic in wanting to tell her more. She mumbled things to herself and Taylor couldn't understand what she was talking about.

"Danielle, speak up. I can't understand you." Danielle looked at her with fearful eyes.

"You are the one they said would come. YOU are the one who will…" she started coughing again, only this time she couldn't breath. She heaved and gasped between spells of outrageous coughing.

Taylor panicked and took the woman's hand and led her in the direction of the caves. 'So much for going to the beach,' she thought to herself but right now she wanted to get Danielle to the caves so that she could look at her. Sure she was old but maybe there was something Taylor could do for the woman. She felt bad though…she was doing it out of greed. She wanted to know more about what the she was talking about.

The young doctor could hear the voices of people up ahead and she knew they were almost there, to the caves.

"Just a little further Danielle. Can you make it?" And as if in a strange way to answer her she just kneeled on the ground and coughed some more. Soon, she began to cough up blood. Taylor knew that was a very bad thing and yelled for help.

"HELP!" She yelled as loud as she could. She knew someone in the caves would hear her. She wasn't that far away from them. "HELP ME PLEASE!"

---

"Yeah, well I want grandkids too Case but I don't want Taylor and Aaron to rush into something just because I'm ready to be called grandpa." Jack explained to Casey who was still fixed on the idea of Aaron and Taylor having a baby.

"But Jack I would rather have it be sooner than later because I want to still be able to chase that baby around with out having to stop for my sore knees and back!" She argued.

"We're not that old." Jack sneered.

"HELP! HELP ME PLEASE!"

Jack heard someone yelling for help and looked in the direction in which the sound came from then looked at his wife with confusion, who returned the look.

"SOME ONE…ANYONE PLEASE I NEED HELP!"

"Oh my god…That's Taylor!" Casey yelled before taking off running down the path.

The reached Taylor in a matter of seconds it seemed like and found her sitting on the ground with a practically choking old woman. She was trying to get the woman to drink some water but she couldn't keep it down. She would just spit it back out with a mix of blood and saliva.

"Mom…Dad…She needs some help." She said calmly. Jack acted quickly with instinct and picked up the elderly person and started to carry her back to camp. Jack noticed that she had stopped coughing and she was lying limp.

Casey rushed ahead of him to help put the woman down on a 'bed'. Jack and Casey set her down very gently, and then Jack checked her pulse, checked her heartbeat and began CPR.

Taylor just stood back and watched her father work. He was amazingly composed, as she had not been. She had panicked and she shouldn't have. She mentally chastised herself for not thinking straight.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into her father's face. "She's gone, Taylor."

"I figured." She replied. She looked over at the old woman's form lying on the bed with her mouth open and eyes closed. "What happened Pop?"

"She probably had and aneurysm close to a lung and…"

"And her lung filled with blood causing her to cough." She nodded to herself. "I got it Dad. Thanks for helping me…helping her."

"It's not your fault Taylor." Jack knew his daughter and figured she blamed herself for this.

"I know Dad." A sad look crossed her face and she looked back up to him and smiled a small smile.

"Where did you find her?" He asked intrigued.

"She found…" she stopped herself. Jack didn't need to know about all of the stuff she said. "I found her on the path to the beach." She answered simply. Jack nodded and went back to cleaning up.

Taylor wandered off back down the path. Danielle's words still haunted her. 'You are the one they said would come. You are the one…' it seemed to echo in her mind. Now she'd never know what she meant. God that sucked so badly. She wanted to know all of these things that only Danielle could tell her and now…there was no Danielle.

"Taylor! Over here!" She heard Christy yell. She looked up to see her friends and husband sitting around a campfire and she waved back to them. The sun was setting now and she felt so sad for some reason. She knew it wasn't her fault that Danielle died but something else weighed on her mind. And the scary thing was she didn't know what it was. Strange things were happening with voices, weird sounds, polar bears and old women and Taylor didn't like it. But god damn it if she wasn't going to make the best of it.