“Sarah, for one thing there is a path.” I pointed to said path. “For another thing there haven’t been any reports of large animals like wolves or anything like that for the last five years. Some nature preserve came and took them all to some kind of habitat.” I remember when they had done that because the town had been pissed. But apparently they had been finding wolves and other state protected animals killed around the area. “I am pretty sure unless a horde of squirrels comes after us, we should be okay.”
Sarah took a step back, shaking her head. “Ugh, I don’t think so. I have a bad feeling about this.”
I didn’t comment on how I, too, had this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I assumed it to be just my nerves and the memory of all those tales I was told growing up.
“Maybe we should just head back to the party?” Sarah said and looked at me. She moved back another inch, and her stilettos were getting stuck in the mud.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m about done for tonight with the whole party and having drunk guys hitting on me with lame pick-up lines.” I smoothed my hands down the red velvet Little Red Riding Hood outfit I had on. “Besides, I’ve already gotten beer spilled on me twice, and I am only renting this damn outfit.” Sarah looked genuinely frightened, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for her.
“Maybe I’ll just go back in and wait for Andrea to finish… whatever it is she’s doing.”
I shrugged. “If you want.” I wasn’t about to pressure her into going with me, but I wasn’t going to stay at the party any longer either. The truth was it was depressing being with all those people. A party was probably the loneliest time of all, despite being surrounded by people—it was too intimate, if that even made sense. I was just a body in a sea of flesh and bone, no one paying me much attention at all, blending into the crowd. After my mom and dad had split two years ago, and my father moved to another town to be with his girlfriend that was the same age as me—twenty-three—Mom had just shrunk into herself. I was truly alone, and it was the saddest damn thing in the world. Well, I was tired of it, tired of trying to be a people pleaser and show everyone that I was okay. Even after two years I wasn’t fine, I wasn’t happy, and I sometimes fell asleep hoping it would all be a dream and I’d wake up in another body.
“It’s okay, Sarah, but I’m done with all of that.” I glanced behind me at the party that was still going on full force despite the fact that it was going on midnight.
“You have your cell?” Sarah asked.
I grabbed it from inside of my bra—yes, I kept my cell in my bra, because carrying a purse, or the picnic basket it had come with, was a deal breaker. I held up the phone to her, and she smiled, as if relieved. “If I get attacked by a group of squirrels I’ll give you a ring to save the day.” I smiled, hoping to ease the weird fear she had for me. I waved to her and watched as she trekked back up the hill to where the house was located. When I turned and face the woods again this strange, powerful wind picked up, moving my long dark hair in my face. I picked up the heavy fall and held it over my shoulder, staring at the way the leaves on the trees moved from the sudden gust that had moved by.
Another chill raced up my spine and I let go of my hair to take my red cloak and wrap it around me fully. I moved forward, trying to still my racing heart, and told myself that this fear inside of me was because of the words of others that played through my head.
Moving further into the forest I glanced around, took in the way the shadows played across the trees and flora, and knew that this would be the longest twenty minutes of my life. The deeper I went into the woods, the colder it seemed to get. Or maybe that was just my nerves on high alert? And then I heard the sound of a twig snapping behind me. I spun around. The trees had closed in, suffocating me with their thickness. I couldn’t see the house any longer, couldn’t even see the sky, for that matter.
I heard the beating of my heart and my rapid breathing and told myself over and over again that I needed to calm down. Closing my eyes, counting backward from ten, I waited until I was no longer feeling as though I’d crawl out of my skin. Slowly opening my eyes, it took a second for my vision to adjust. The moon broke through in a few places of the tree line, but it wasn’t enough that I felt very confident in hauling ass out of here if the time called for it.
God, you shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have, Red.
There wasn’t anything spooky or menacing lurking in the shadows, and I sighed a relieved breath and turned back around to get the fuck out of here. But I froze when I saw the massively huge figure standing between two thick oak trunks. And then he stepped away from the protection of the forest and shadows, came into the swatch of moonlight that spilled through, and I knew that what I had just done was walk into the lion’s den.