CHAPTER 7

"Huh?" Jeff asks. "Uh… is it just me or did anybody see anything?"

Everyone shakes their heads and mutters different variations of, "I didn't see anything."

"What?" Carmen asks. She is pale white and her skin looks translucent in the semi-darkness. She looks each of us in the face. Her eyes are wife with fear or panic. Maybe both. "What do you mean you didn't see it?" She shrieks. Her voice is disturbingly loud in the confined space of the bus.

"Keep your voice down, Carmen," George snaps. "See what?"

"It… it was standing right there," she stammers. Her hand stretches out and points through the windshield.

"What was it?" George asks her in a calm tone.

I see her knees shake before her legs give way and she falls on one of the chairs. She glances up and looks at each of us, her eyes settling on me. "He saw it too?" She says. "He saw it. He knows I'm not lying or running crazy."

"Saw what?" Lucas snaps at her and then turns to me. "Saw what? What is she talking about?"

I opened my mouth to talk but no words could come out. I realize that this is the part where I nod and agree with Carmen that I really saw something a few minutes ago.

I realize that my words would mean a whole lot between imagination and reality for the group. They all turn to face me, eyes wide and waiting.

"Well?" Jeff prompts me to speak.

I open my mouth again but no words. I look down at Carmen. Her wide eyes were planted on my face too. I take a deep breath and shake my head, "I didn't see anything. Carmen, it must have been the shadows from the trees and moonlight playing tricks on you."

The whole group sighed in relief at my words. All except Carmen. Her accusing stares pierced my soul. I don't know why I lied, maybe I needed to hear the words myself that there was nothing out there.

"So what were you saying?" George asks Lucas. "We are all in favor of going back to the Con-Hagen village?"

They all nodded. I kept my head still. Me and Carmen did not nod. I think she's gone into a mild shock. What did she see? I ask myself.

"There is nothing out there," I mutter under my breath.

Suddenly, as if in response to what I just said, a loud, eerie howl rings out through the woods. It permeates the air and goes on for a few seconds before another silence. The silence continues inside the bus, everyone is frozen. The hair at the back of my neck stands on end and I can feel goosebumps on my forearms.

Tristen's mouth is half open.

"Okay, what the actual fuck was that?" George says. His voice makes the others snap out of their trance.

"Uh, Emma, didn't you say there were no wolves on this side of the world?" Lucas asks.

"There is no-"

"That didn't sound like a wolf to me," Grace says. She involuntarily rubs her arms. The howl had had the same effect on her as it had on me.

"It also didn't sound like an elk," Lucas snaps. "Didn't you say it was only elks we had to be worried about?"

"Okay, whether it was a wolf or a fucking elk," George says, cutting into them. "We can't stay here."

"I agree," Lucas agrees. He immediately jumps out of the bus and starts marching towards Con-Hagen.

They all file out. Tristen knocks at the window near me. "You coming?" I shake my head. Carmen is still seated in her seat, unmoving. Her eyes are wide open but I doubt if she is seeing anything. She is rocking gently on her butt.

"She doesn't look like she can move," I say gesturing at Carmen. "It won't be safe to leave her here alone."

George nods from the doorframe. "Smart, enough. Stay with the bus."

Tristen signals to me to open the window and I do. He reaches in and hands me his phone. "Since your phone is history… I have all our numbers on speed dial. Call us if anything happens or if you see help out here."

I nod gratefully and accept the phone. I tap on the screen and as expected, there is no signal bar. Calling is a futile idea, but I could use the torch.

I lean down and look through the windshield at Carmen's boyfriend, Jeff. The fucker is walking ahead without even a backward glance or thought of his girlfriend.

Even though, I don't believe what I am about to say, I still say it. "Call me if you guys get help in Con-Hagen,"

George nods and slams the door shut behind him.

I sit beside Carmen. "I guess it's just me and you now," I say to her. She still doesn't reply.

After a few minutes of trying to get her to talk or move without response, I go up to the front of the bus and sit in the passenger seat. I watch the whole group walk ahead. Tristen and George were far ahead. Only Grace turned back to look at me. She raised her hand in a half wave.

"Maybe she likes me too," I mutter to myself and grin.

I check the time on Tristen's iPhone. It was 1.33 a.m.

That was not such a good time to be walking around in the dark.

I glance back to look at Carmen. She was still sitting, unmoving. Looking ahead without seeing anything.

I reach into my bag and bring out one of the books I nicked from the library. I position the iPhone so the torchlight shines down on my lap, and I open the book and get to reading.

The books basically repeated the same thing as the first one. It spoke of an animalistic creature that fed on women. My mind immediately goes out to Grace. I hope she is alright.

I close the book to check the title. It was "What really happened in Con-Hagen?"

I sigh in frustration. This is not a history. It is just a pile of theoretical articles written by men who wanted to be authors.

In one of the articles, one of the writers said that the village was attacked by vampires and was they were all turned to vampires too, but didn't know when the sun rose and burnt them to ashes.

I chuckled at that one. Each one sounded more ridiculous than the last.

The only logical article I came across was that the village's water system got poisoned and they all drank from it, killing everyone.

But even that, has many loopholes.

Like, who or what poisoned the water system, which was a stream that was pumped into every house. Was it possible to poison a flowing stream?

What happened to the bodies? I don't remember seeing any mass graves. Maybe they had died off one by one, and the earliest deaths had been buried.

But then, I saw a lit candle and a dining table. What happened there?

I know that the next village – the one that we had stopped by in the afternoon also tapped from the same flowing stream. So why were they not dead?

All these questions bounce around in my head and rattle my brain. I snap the book close and head out of the bus for fresh air to clear my head.

I lean against the side of the bus and take a deep breath of cool night air. The moon is out of the clouds and it lights up everywhere. I have that tingling sensation in my chest again.

Suddenly, there is another loud howl. Same as before. It is loud but low, soul-wrenching, and a bit melodic. It rings out and echoes in the far distance.

My gaze follows where the sound was coming from.

If it had not moved, my eyes would have traveled over it without noticing anything. But it moved and looked directly at me. Huge red eyes stared and held me pinned at a spot.

I see it in slow motion. That is what happens when your mind moves faster than your body.

The creature stands on its two hind limbs. It is easily over 9ft tall and it runs at me. I can see some glints of saliva on its fangs as it bounds towards me.

My mind is screaming at me to run for my life, but I can not move my legs. It feels like the ground is sucking on my feet.

When it is about 10 feet away, it uses its four legs to launch at me and knocks me down, but it doesn't stop, it just continues its run into the woods.