Julie managed to get to the general area where Jenny said she and Abbie had seen Moloch all those years ago. Jenny told her the coordinates where Crane, Abbie and Henry were headed were not too far from there. It was the only lead Julie had. She got out of the car with her flashlight in hand. Luckily, something about her conversation with Cynthia led her to believe she should wear durable clothing. She had on work boots, jeans and a pink t-shirt under a dark blue hoodie. She walked along the edge of the paved road to see if she could tell where they may have entered the woods. She kept an eye out for any disturbed ground or fresh footprints. This is horrible. I can't see anything. Almost every part of her said to go back and start again in the morning, but there was another part that knew every second counted while her friends were still missing. She tried not to imagine what horrible things could have happened or could still be happening to them. She had walked for a few minutes when she came across some tire tracks, as if someone peeled out in quite a hurry, but she had no idea if they were fresh tracks or not. She paid particular attention to that part of the side of the road where it met the woods, just in case. She knew little about tracking, just her common sense and a little bit she learned from watching TV. She noticed there was disturbed gravel and some broken branches. Well, here goes.
Raised Christian, Julie'd had a bit of a love/hate relationship with God since Eddie's accident but she figured it couldn't hurt to ask for a little help from above at that moment. After all, she was fighting evil, right? At the very least it made her feel a little less desperately alone. She crept deeper into the wooded area, trying to follow what little path Crane and the others had left behind them. After about thirty minutes of walking and backtracking and changing direction and being terrified multiple times by sounds of innocent woodland creatures, she came to a small clearing. Because of the darkness she couldn't tell if they were white or not, but she saw four trees in a perfectly straight line. It had to be the ones Jenny told her about. She got closer and shined her flashlight on them. They were absolutely white, and two of them were covered with vines as if something had been tied to them and then let loose. She walked over and saw a piece of black cloth hanging from a sharp branch on one of the trees. It was a beautiful satiny material that was ripped from something larger. It didn't look like anything Crane, Abbie or Henry would have worn. Well whatever the case, something definitely went on here recently. OK, so now what? Well, they aren't here now, so keep tracking. What happened next? She shined her flashlight up and down the path. The dust was very loose. Someone or something definitely came through here tonight. Before following the path, she decided to look around this area some more. She noticed there was some recently disturbed ground near er feet. She knelt down. She moved away the leaves that were lightly strewn over the area. There was loose dirt underneath. She cleared the leaves, following the edge of where the solid earth met the loose ground. It went a few feet then turned to the left, then left again, then again, until Julie saw the shape of...Oh. My. God. This is a grave. Somebody's fucking buried under here. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. What do I do? She put her face down to the soft dirt. "Hello?" Ohmygod. I have to get them out! Wait, get who out?...What if Crane & Abbie put someone in here? Don't be stupid, Julie. They wouldn't bury someone alive. That's pure evil. And she was sure as hell nobody would be taking the time to bury the dead. No. Someone was put down there. Alive. Hopefully still alive. One of the good guys. One of the Witnesses. "I'll be right back! I'm coming to get you! Do you hear me?" She screamed into the ground beneath her.
She ran as fast as she could back to her car to find something, anything to help her dig. As soon as she was close enough she hit the key fob to open her trunk. She ran over and flung it the rest of the way open. Ice scraper. Tire jack. Grocery bags. Shit. Tool box. Jumper cables. SHIT. Stuffed animal. Garbage, garbage, garbage...SHIT! There was nothing there even remotely useful. Julie grabbed a pair of utility gloves, slammed the trunk and rushed back to the dirt pile while putting on the gloves. When she got back to the clearing her knees fell hard to the ground. "I'm here!" She shouted into the ground at whoever may have been under there. She began to slide the dirt aside, then push it up and out of the slowly growing dip in the ground. When it got too low to slide the dirt out with her hands, she took off her sweatshirt and laid it flat beside her in the hole. She loaded as much dirt as she could onto the hoodie and when the pile was large enough she picked up the edges creating sort of a makeshift satchel, which she then lifted up and dumped out on the ground above. She repeated this over and over, her mind racing, dreading what or who she may find down there. Every few minutes crying out, "I'm coming! I'm coming to get you!" God, please let Crane be OK. Please let Abbie be OK. If she wasn't so overtaken by adrenaline and the task at hand, she would probably have been sobbing. But she wasn't. She was determined. Lifting her dirt-filled garment out of the ever-deepening trench became harder and harder. Her arms were in pain. Her back hurt. Her legs were sore. Her pink t-shirt was covered in black. Still, she was determined not to stop. Not until she found who or what she was going to find. The dirt is still loose, so you keep going. Keep...going...God I'm so tired... and then, something. Her gloved hand scraped against something that wasn't dirt. It was hard. She took off one of her gloves and felt it with her bare hand. She gasped. It was wood.