She ran upstairs and grabbed her camera.
"Let's go outside to do this," she said. "I don't want to wake my dad up."
"It's a wonder we haven't woken him up already," I commented.
"Haha, yeah," she laughed nervously.
We stepped out the glass door that led to the backyard, taking Charlie with us. The sky was overcast and the forest looked particularly sinister. We both felt very uneasy. We didn't know what to expect, but I knew we both hoped the same thing.
She began to take pictures. We were both really tense at first, but as time went on, we both loosened up a bit and forgot why we were out there in the first place. We did funny poses and laughed till our stomachs hurt. It was almost as much fun as earlier that day.
Charlie started to growl softly. We both ignored him at first, assuming it was just a squirl or a cat or something of the sort. His growling grew louder and louder. Suddenly he leapt up and began snarling and barking. He was facing the forest directly in front of us.
I took Leslie's camera and aimed it where Charlie was barking. As soon as I took the picture, the camera became hot as fire. I yelped in pain as it burnt the flesh on my hands and dropped it to the ground. Charlie was still barking, and Leslie and I stood close together, terrified.
Then, Leslie's dad came bursting through the door. Charlie stopped barking immediately.
"What the hell are the both of you doing to that dog to make him bark like that?" he shouted.
"We didn't do anything," Leslie said defensively.
"Honestly, we didn't," I agreed. "He just started barking like that."
"You expect me to believe this dog started making such a fuss for no good reason?" he inquired.
"Nothing due to us," Leslie muttered.
He stood there, unconvinced, for a few moments. Then he said, "Just come back inside, all right? You shouldn't be out here so late anyway."
He turned and walked back in. I bent down and gingerly picked up the camera, wincing in pain as I did so. The metal was as cold as stone now. With slim hope I opened the portion that contained the memory card and took it out. I smiled with glee to discover it was still in tact.
"Grab my laptop and bring it upstair," I told Leslie.
"Why?" she asked. "The camera is ruined."
"But the memory card isn't," I said. "We can still see the pictures!"
We ran upstairs to Leslie's room, laptop and memory card clutched tight in our hands, and immediately plugged everything in. I downloaded the pictures and went straight to gallery. I groaned in despair and Leslie shrieked. The man was in all of the pictures, even closer than he'd been before.
"I can't look at these," Leslie moaned.
I clicked on the last picture that had been taken and gasped in horror at what I saw. It was a closeup of the man. The background was grainy, like a TV with poor reception, but through the blurriness I could see the forest ablaze with small children hanging dead from all but two of the trees. I knew as soon as I saw it what this image meant. Leslie and I were next.
Leslie saw my face grow pale. She hesitantly peeked over my shoulder and instantly regretted it.
"What is that?!" she shrieked.
"It's our fate'" I whispered dully. "This is what will happen to us if we can't find a way to stop him."
"Well there's got to be something we can do!" she shouted.
"Well, do you have any suggestions?" I asked sarcastically. "Because if so then please, share."
She glared at me for a moment then stared back blankly, response-less.
Suddenly, the lights went out. Our time for planning was up.