Since it's a lazy Sunday, if enough people want me to, I'll post the next part later tonight.
If there's at least, lets say, 30 comments, I'll let you see the next part later tonight! No spamming though! But for now, the continuation. Enjoy!



Watching Mr. Lobos walk towards the entrance of the bush made us all scramble to our feet. None of us wanted to go int there, but at the same time, no one wanted to be away from Mr. Lobos. Thankfully he heard us coming and stopped.

"Right," he said, "Remember, we're going in single file. I'll lead of course..."-he pointed at me-"...and you'll take caboose, Luke."

With the realization of what he meant by caboose, my brain felt like it was melting. Thousands of scenarios of a messy end raced through my mind. I tried to argue the fact, but Mr. Lobos ended my dissent by posing a good argument. I was the largest person there, other than himself and I was the ringleader of the group. He said that it would make the group feel safer if I took up the rear. I begged to differ. It was all I could do to not cry in terror. Reluctantly, I accepted my fate and headed to the back of the line. The one plus to this position was that Mr. Lobos had passed me a red-gelled flashlight from his coat. I kept it close to my chest, holding it like a rifle.

Mr. Lobos returned to the front of the line and ordered everyone to grab a hold of the person ahead of them. The final line up was Mr. Lobos, Shawn, Erica, Katie, Phil and lastly, myself. We started forward, marching to the entrance of lower trail. Tree's lined the trail towards it, the sky still visible above us. As we closed the last few meters to the entrances, I glanced ahead. The row of trees on either side links their branches together to block out the stars and the moonlight. A white sign was nailed to one of the trees. Past that, it was like there was a wall of black paint, you couldn't see down into the trail. Mr. Lobos walked into the darkness and disappeared, the other following him, a step behind. I gulped as Phil walked into the darkness and watched as my arm was enveloped into the night.

I had entered the Bush.

A force seemed to close in on my lung just as the darkness had swallowed me up. I tried to think calming thoughts, but It was all I could do from keeping my eyes in my head. I was looking all over the place for as much good as it did me. My eyes needed to adjust. Until then, I would have to try to keep up with the group, stumbling in the dark. I then began to wonder how Mr. Lobos could be able to travel this void with no lights. My mind attributed it to the fact that he claimed to have been out here many times before and knew the terrain. I don't know why, but that thought comforted me. We continued to walk.

After about 5 minutes My eyes had fully adjusted. I have extremely good night vision, I'm actually a product of evolution. When I was 9 I had an eye exam that revealed the fact that I have a silvery filament in my eye that, at night, allows me to pick up light far better than a normal person. Up to 80% better vision and focus I was told. I was thankful for it now. I could now see about 15 feet away from me. Even so, I still had no depth perception. Every time I stumbled, it looked like puffs of black smoke erupted around us, my eyes losing their focus.

The trail was a tunnel of darkness for the first 10 minutes. We stopped a few times along the way, pausing to hear what my friends had detected. Nothing made it apparent. I was starting to think that Mr. Lobos was just getting kicks out of taking a bunch of students out and scaring them, but I kept my suspicions to myself.

A few minutes after that, we came to a rise in the trail, a small hill. We passed it and entered a clearing. It was just as he described it in his story. Mr Lobos stopped the group.

"Let's wait and see if he comes tonight," Mr. Lobos said gravely.

My heart rate began to climb I turned around. If there was a twig about to snap, I wanted to see if he he friends out here, I was still unconvinced other wise. We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

The fear that I had felt earlier was quickly starting to dissipate. It was all a ruse. Mr. Lobos was screwing with us. I was about to confront him, but he spoke to soon.

"It seems like we won't be seeing him here tonight. Lets keep moving."

Phil turned back to me.

"Dude, he had me convinced that this place was actually haunted," he scoffed, "I'll still have to check for skid marks when we get home though, that story had me going!"

"Yeah, no doubt," I replied, "At least we got a good story out of it."

We jogged to rejoin the group before it re-enter the trail.

The sound of water was the next influence of note. As we walked away from the clearing, I began to hear the sounds of the Nine Mile River. I looked to my left, catching glimpses of the moonlight reflecting off the river's water through the trees. Mr/ Lobos told us to be careful. Up ahead the trail took a steep descent and paralleled the river's banks. It was here when Katie stopped the group for the first time.

"Stop!" she hissed, "I see something. Ten 'o' clock, low.

I looked to my left and down. I didn't see anything at first, the tree trunks crisscrossed to block my view, but the murmurs of my friends told me that something was there. I crouched and moved my body from side to side. There was a light.

It looked to be about the size of a Toonie. It glowed like a cigar ember, vividly orange, but it wasn't stationary. It moved and swayed in the air; aimlessly. We stared for about 5 minutes, until I decided to break the silence. I shouted out hello, my voice echoing through the wood.

It stopped dead in the air for a few seconds and then dropped, disappearing from view.

Phil and I exchanged a quick glance. Mr. Lobos chuckled.

"Let's keep it going."

The trail down the hill was indeed steep. Several times, my feet slipped out from under me and I had to scramble to recover my balance. I was not the only one who had to. Only Mr. Lobos seemed to be immune to the gravity of the situation. Finally the ground leveled out.

The same routine played out. We would walk and stop. Walk, and stop. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. One time, it did sound like there were dozens of small animals that were surrounding us, but with that many leaves on the ground, it could have been Night Crawlers that were making the noise.

However, circumstances would soon remove me of logical explanations.

I had been ignoring a lot of sounds I had been hearing since we had entered. I'd been interested in nature since I was a kid and knew many of natures noises. Since our last stop, however, I was starting to hear something out of the ordinary, something too organized. I thought I was hearing footsteps behind us. Each time that we would stop, the footsteps would stop a few seconds after, as if they were trying to match our pace. I told M. Lobos this and my suspicions of him having a friend follow us to scare us. His answer was blunt.

"Catch him with your flashlight, prove me wrong."

I took the flashlight and held it at the ready. I was going to be good and sure that when I did expose Mr. Lobos friend, I'd catch him before he could run. I waited. The footsteps sounded close, but they needed to be closer. after five minutes, I had what I asked for. The trail rounded a bend and dropped lower. I heard the footsteps heavy on the drop. Ripping the gel off the flashlight, I whipped around and flashed the light directly where the sound was coming from.

My jaw dropped at what I saw.