"Remember to not walk off. I'm talking to you, Gordon."
Gordon rolled his eyes at his big brother. They could never trust him to be responsible, but it wasn't his fault that he got bored easily.
After Scott had finished his speech about how they needed to keep in eyesight and not run off as soon as they saw something more interesting, Gordon, they were finally heading to the maze.
Gordon stood and waited for Scott to give the woman at the front of the maze their tickets, and as he did so, Gordon looked up at the tall hedge in front of them. It looked big and daunting and the entrance was dark, but Gordon refused to let himself get scared.
"You make a very nice pirate."
Gordon looked up to find that the woman was looking down at him with a smile.
"I'm a zombie pirate." Gordon lifted his hands to show her the green paint that was on his skin.
He felt like there was someone watching him, and he glanced over to find Scott was sending him a pointed look.
Gordon sighed and dropped his hands.
"Thank you," he added, knowing that his brother expected him to be polite.
The woman just laughed, seemingly unfazed by it.
"Go on in." She stepped aside with a smile, and they headed on into the maze.
It was very dark in the maze. The only light came from the almost full moon above them and the occasional lamp that they passed. Gordon kept up with the rest of his brothers, determined to prove that he could be responsible at least once.
"Which way should we go?" Scott asked as they reached a section that separated into two different paths.
"Right!" Alan's voice chirped up.
They all started to head down the right path at Alan's suggestion, but something from the left path caught Gordon's eye.
He stopped walking to look down the stretch of the maze. He was pretty sure he had seen what looked like a person dressed fully in white walk across the path, but as he looked, he saw nothing.
It was probably just someone in a costume who had been hired to scare them, so Gordon just shrugged it off and turned to follow his brothers.
Only, when he turned back around, his brothers weren't in sight.
"Guys?" Gordon called as he made his way down the path he knew they had gone down.
However, that path immediately split into three more paths. Gordon looked down each one to see if there was a sign of one of his brothers, but there didn't seem to be anyone around.
He stood there for a moment whilst he thought about what he should do, but then he heard a voice. It sounded just like John, and it was coming down the path to his left, so he decided to go that way.
He still couldn't see anyone, though.
"John?" He called out and waited for a reply, but it was quiet, and he couldn't hear any of his brothers anymore.
He didn't think his brothers would go that far without him, surely they would have realised he wasn't with them. As they didn't seem to be down this path, he turned around to head back to where he was.
He walked back down the path and took a turn around one of the hedges that he was sure led back to where he'd last seen his brothers, but then he realised that he was in a completely different place.
He had no idea where he was.
He was lost.
Scott was going to kill him.
Deciding that it was not going to make the situation any better by just standing around, he headed further through the maze, with the hope that if he kept going then he'd run back into his brothers somehow.
Several minutes later, he still hadn't found them. He hadn't even found another person or employee that he could talk to about his situation. He really had no idea where he was now, so there was no way that he would be able to retrace his steps.
The maze seemed to get darker the further he went, and he wrapped his arms around himself.
He was not scared, he told himself. He was just cold.
He took a step further but jumped up as he felt a hand grab his foot. He yelped as he leaped away and turned just in time to see the arm retreat back under the hedge.
He quickly hurried away, but wasn't paying attention to where he was going and ended up tripping over something on the ground.
When he hit the ground, his breath was expelled out of him and his pirate hat fell from his head. He searched around in the dim light to look for it, but just as he found it, his hand brushed up against something.
He yanked his hand away in fear of what it was, but then he laughed as he realised what it was.
It was a spider. Very obviously fake if the huge size was anything to go by. Gordon may have just been seven, but even he knew that no spider could be that big.
He stood up and fixed his hat back on his head and brushed the dirt off his knees. He was just letting the fact that he was alone get to him. This maze wasn't that scary; he could find his brothers without freaking out.
However, that confidence was short lived as he rounded the next corner, and someone dressed as a mummy jumped out at him.
Gordon screamed in shock and ran back in the opposite direction. He didn't stop until he reached a dead end and almost ran face first into the hedge.
He was breathing heavily and tried to stifle the growing panic of being all by himself. The hope of finding his brothers again seemed to be getting further away, and he didn't know if he could last in here all by himself for much longer.
He heard a noise come from next to him, and it was only then that he realised that the dead end he was in wasn't empty.
It was dark, so he hadn't noticed it before, but there was a coffin sat propped up on the grass next to him. There was a noise coming from inside.
Gordon's instincts told him to just run away, but he didn't go anywhere. He wasn't scared. He didn't need to run from some fake coffin.
He took a step closer to it as he heard another noise come from inside. However, as soon as he was in arms reach of the coffin, the lid of it swung open and a skeleton burst out with a loud, shrill sound.
Nope. No way was he sticking around anymore.
He turned and ran back the way he came. He was sure he could hear footsteps chasing him, but that could have just been the sound of his heart beating in his ears and his mind playing tricks on him.
He chanced a look behind himself as he rounded a corner, but that meant he wasn't looking where he was going and ran straight into somebody.
Gordon looked up fearfully, but instantly relaxed as he realised that the face he was looking at was Scott's.
"Scott!" He threw his arms around his brother's waist and buried his face in his belly.
"Gordon?" Gordon felt Scott's hands fall onto his shoulders. "Where did you go?"
"I got lost." It was muffled as it was said into Scott's shirt. "I didn't mean to run off! I turned around and you weren't there!"
Gordon looked up at Scott tearfully, and Scott gave him a comforting smile.
"I know you didn't mean to." He came to crouch down in front of Gordon. "I'm sorry I didn't realise you weren't following sooner."
"Are you going to tell dad?" Gordon asked him worriedly. His dad would never let him go anywhere if he found out Gordon got lost again.
Scott chuckled and reached forward to wipe a tear from Gordon's cheek.
"Tell you what. I won't tell dad you got lost, if you don't tell him I let you get lost. Okay?"
Gordon gave him a wide smile and nodded vigorously. "Okay."
"Good." Scott was still smiling as he stood up and held his hand out to Gordon. Gordon took it and wiped the remaining tears out of his eyes. "Want to show us what you found in the maze?"
Gordon nodded again and pulled Scott along to follow him. It didn't seem so scary with his brothers around, and he smiled at the thought that he could terrify Virgil with that skeleton coffin.