When dusk fell, Michael and April decided that they and the teenagers would set up camp alongside the river.
After the tents were pitched and the fire was lit, everyone sat around the fire for a while as they all ate oatmeal and energy bars.
A couple hours later, Jake, Myra, and Trisha retired to their sleeping bags while Michael and April stood guard outside their tents, side by side, machetes in their sheaths at their waists.
There was a comfortable silence between them as they scanned the surrounding forest with their eyes and listened for any abnormal sounds.
They saw nothing and all they heard was a distant owl calling out into the night.
April yawned and her eyelids drooped.
"You should get some sleep," Michael said as he studied her. "I can keep watch on my own."
"No, I'm fine," April refused, shaking her head.
Michael frowned. "You look exhausted."
"I'll have plenty of time to catch up on sleep once we get the kids out of here," April told him, standing straighter.
Knowing it was no use arguing with her while out on a hunt, Michael didn't press the subject.
It wasn't long after that Michael saw something flash out of the corner of his left eye.
He swung in that direction but whatever he'd seen was gone.
"What did you see?" April inquired.
"Something humanoid is in the bushes," Michael replied.
He turned to the tents and unzipped the entrances to both. "Get up. We've got to move!"
Trisha and Myra were quick to stand and pack back up, but Jake just rolled over.
Michael ducked his head into the tent and pulled Jake into a sit with one hand. "This is an emergency, get up!"
"Okay!" Jake shouted. "Okay! I'm up."
He began throwing his belongings into his backpack as well.
"Leave the tents," Michael ordered the teenagers when they began untying them.
Myra, Trisha, and Jake nodded and followed April as they made their way through the forest with only flashlights to light their way.
They crossed the river with Michael behind them.
They walked briskly as running would likely only cause the monster to attack them sooner. Most monsters reacted to someone running like any predator would; they attacked.
They were almost to the parking area that lay on that side of the river when the created bolted out of a bush and snatched Jake off the path they'd been following.
Myra screamed.
"Jake!" Trisha cried.
She tried to grab his hand, but he was already gone.
"No!" Trisha sobbed.
"We need to keep going," April said.
Trisha stared at her. "What? We can't leave Jake behind. We have to find him!"
"Michael and I will come back and search for him as soon as we get you to your vehicles," April promised her.
Trisha craned her neck to glance at the bush again and Myra grabbed her arm.
"We're not going to do any good for Jake if we die," Myra told her.
Trisha took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right."
"Let's get you both out of here," Michael said, urging them on.
April broke out into a jog, and the girls and Michael followed.
When they reached the parking lot Myra and Trisha hopped into one of the two pickup trucks there- a white Honda Ridgeline.
"Get out of here," April ordered them. "And as soon as you can get cell phone reception call the police."
The girls nodded, and Myra, who was in the drivers seat, started the vehicle.
As she backed it up to leave, Michael and April headed back into the woods to look for Jake.
They returned to the spot where he'd been captured and searched the ground and trees for clues, their flashlights flickering to and fro.
Michael spotted a dark spot on one of the trees a little under eye level and touched it. When he recoiled and examined his fingerprints, there was no mistaking the red on them.
He showed the blood to April. "The creature took him this way."
They hiked in the direction the tree was and they began to make out the trail of stomped grass before them, a confirmation that they were going the right way.
They were on the trail for about ten minutes before it suddenly stopped.
"This is not good," April murmured.
Michael scanned the surrounding area. He was about to suggest back tracking to look for more clues, when his flashlight's beam highlighted a mass in long grass by the base of a tree.
April spotted it at the same time Michael did. "Oh no."
They approached the body slowly, wearily, knowing the creature in the forest could be near, but needing to know whether the body was Jake's or not, even though neither of them wanted to.
When Michael pushed the grass aside to reveal the dead person's face, April kneeled over, her hands clutching her stomach, and vomited.
Michael was immediately at her side. "April, are you alright?"
"It's Jake," she gasped. "And it opened his whole chest and ate his eyes."
Michael closed his eyes. "I know."
April shook and Michael held her for a while until she recovered somewhat and rubbed her eyes.
"I'm okay," she breathed as she stood. "I'm okay. I don't know what is going on with me. It was just...I don't know."
"It's okay, April," Michael said. "It happens."
"Not to me."
Branches snapped and she and Michael raised their heads.
A creature with a feminine but also monstrous looking face, long silvery hair, bloodshot eyes and a hooked nose shot out of the dark and threw Michael against a tree.
April took her machete out of its sheath and swung it at the creature, but hit the creature's shoulder instead of its neck.
The creature howled in pain and hit April in the upper chest, knocking her to the ground before shooting back into the cover of the trees.
When it was gone, April winced, and got to her knees so she could crawl over to Michael, who'd been knocked out when he hit the tree. She shook his shoulder.
"Michael, wake up."
He groaned and slowly opened his eyes. "That thing is lucky that I am human."
April laughed, partly out of relief.
"I injured the orc, but she got away," April told him.
Michael rubbed the back of his head. "It's not an orc."
"Then what is it?" April asked.
"It's an Aswang."