Time to get up and move out., [ open ]

[Chris Chambers]

Chris could feel himself covered in sweat. Not too much, but enough to be noticeable and enough to annoy him slightly. He was curled up in his sleeping bag on the ground, his head covered with the rest of his body. Only a hand stuck out of the top of the sleeping bag, the fingers curling slightly in the dirt as she shifted and pulled himself out of the thick fabric, peering around and squinting against the sunlight.

Straightening his dirty white shirt, he sniffled and peered into the fire from the night before. Or where it had been anyways. It had gone out. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he let his gaze roam to the woods around them and the river beside them.

Something seemed a little different than it did the night before -- and it wasn't just the fact that it was daylight now. Crossing his arms over he knees, he sat there and attempted to push all the weariness from his system.

[Gordon Lachance]

Gordie stopped for a moment, hiking his foot up on a nearby rock to retie his left shoe. He'd been walking for a while now and readily welcomed the break. When he woke that morning an exceptionally damp dew had fallen across the ground and coated everything including himself, Chris, and their sleeping bags. He had gotten up before Chris and decided to find a spot to relieve himself and just enjoy the crisp morning before it warmed up. Now, well over an hour later, he was sweating heavily. There's that good ol' Maine weather for you.

From the moment he woke up that morning Gordie had the distince feeling that something was just...off. The woods felt different. From the layout of the trees to the sound of the wildlife he felt as if his surroundings were new somehow, despite the fact they'd been camping here for two days.

I should've been back to the camp already, he thought. He had only walked for half an hour before turning back and retracing his steps exactly. So where was the camp? Glancing to his right, he saw the Royal gleaming in the morning sun and listened for the river's peacful babbling. When he turned his head back to the path, he began to panic. None of this looked familiar to him at all. Everything seemed so..overgrown. Could he have gone too far?

Doubling back, Gordie cupped his hands around his mouth, "Chris!"

[Chris Chambers]

Shaking his head quickly, any traces of sleep left Chris' system as he heard Gordie's voice. What shocked him out of his daze was the fact that he was hearing Gordie's voice far away and not coming out of the sleeping bag beside him. He bolted to his feet and stepped into his shoes that he left beside his sleeping bag, and not bothering to tie them Chris scuffled off in the direction he thought he heard his friend's voice coming from.

"Gordie?!" Chris placed his hands on his hips and waited a few moments before calling out again. "Where are you?!'

[Gordon Lachance]

Gordie's ears perked up at the sound of Chris's voice and so did his spirits. Well, briefly, anyway. It sounded as if Chris was standing behind him, which meant that Gordie hadn't gone too far at all. In fact, he hadn't gone far enough. Surely he wasn't that disoriented. Hell, he'd been here for two days already. They took this trail and then veered left down a steep hill to reach the river. He could have sworn that yesterday half these trees hadn't been here.

"Coming from the river!" he yelled back. "Keep talking so I can find you!"

Gordie strained his ears as he began to fight his way back through the path that would hopefully lead him back to the campground. The last thing he wanted to be right now was lost in the woods.

[Chris Chambers]

Chris turned around to the direction he figured the river was and squinted, looking for any sign of Gordie between the trees. He began waving his arms back and forth and kicking rocks, saying his friend's name is as many different tones as he could, giving it more syllables than it should have, his voice cracking a few times.

"Gooooooooorrrrddddie! Gore-di-di-di!"

Kicking a rock into a tree by their small campsite, Chris finally stopped, snapping his head to the left. He swore he had heard something behind him, but there was nothing. He went back to calling for Gordie.

[Gordon Lachance]

Gordie pushed his way through the thicket and underbrush as he tried to follow his ears back to the campground. He shouldn't have gotten lost. It just didn't make sense. After several more minutes, he finally caught site of the clearing that held the campground. Stepping high to avoid a thorn bush, Gordie tripped over a treeroot buried under fallen leaves. As he took another step the leg of his jeans caught on the bush and he tumbled back to the ground and into a puddle of mud.

"I'll be god-dammit!"

Grumbling, he once again got back onto his feet and pulled his leg from the bush with all his strength, satisfied when he heard the distinct sound of ripping cloth.

After ten more mintues, Gordie finally had worked his way back to the campground looking--and probably smelling--like Big Foot. His clothes were filthy, torn, and his face was caked in mud.

He glared at Chris straight in the eye and said, "Shudup."

[Chris Chambers]

Chris shrugged, trying to keep a grin from his face. He only remained like that for a moment before growing fairly serious. "Shit Gordie, where did you go? Outside of Maine?" He retreated back into their little camping area and sat himself down on a log. "I figured you had gone down to the river or something... but it took you forever to get back up here."

He glanced from his friend out to the right then left, to the expanse of woods around them. Fishing a twig off of the ground, Chris turned it around and around in his hands before finally snapping it. Something still didn't seem right. He had figured it was because he hadn't been awake yet -- but he was definitely awake now and everything was still off.

[Gordon Lachance]

"I know," Gordie replied as he grabbed a spare shirt from his bag and used it as a towel to wipe the mud from his face. "I don't get it. Somehow I missed the path. It was like the trees had moved or the path was overgrown or something."

Gordie scraped as much of the mud from his face and arms as he could and looked around their campsite. That eerie feeling still resonated with him. All of this was just wrong.

"Shit, Chris," Gordie said as he looked back toward the river and tried to discern the path from the underbrush surrounding it. "We were just down there yesterday and now I can't tell where the path ends and the woods begin."

[Chris Chambers]

"Yeah, you're right," he responded calmly, hand on his hip and head cocked.

Something flashed in his mind. A question, blinking over and over again. How were they going to get back? Gordie was right -- everything appeared to be different, so how were they going to make it back to town?

Inhaling deeply, not wanting to release it as a nervous sigh (he didn't want to upset Gordie), Chris held his breath and got to his knees, rolling up the sleeping bag in front of him. They would find a way back somehow. They found their way out of everything. Well, usually that was with Teddy and Vern's help. If you could call anything they did help.

He smiled slightly at the thought of the two others. There was no bad blood there, they had just drifted apart from them since school had started. Chris finally released the breath as he slung the sleeping bag over his shoulder and stood up, narrowing his eyes against the sunlight and turning back to Gordie.

"Well, should we give going back to town a try?"

[Gordon Lachance]

"Yeah. I suppose we should," Gordie replied as he began rolling up his sleeping bag.

They hadn't traveled far out of Castle Rock. Gordie decided it couldn't be more than a few miles down a well worn path hunters often used during the season. They had trekked just far enough to replace the sound of rumbling cars with birds and nature. It felt good to get away from home for a while--and his parents. He still was the Invisible Boy.

Shaking his head, Gordie fastened the buckle around his sleeping bag and slung it over his shoulder. A few miles of forest without a path could easily become a death trap if they didn't get a firm hold on their bearings. He glanced at the sun that swathed them in mid-morning light and then turned back to Chris. They had a desicion to make.

"Should we follow the Royal back to the road?" Gordie questioned hesitantly. "Or should we make our way to the tracks and follow them back into town?"

He figured it was three miles either way, but somehow he knew if they decided to go to the tracks it was going to feel like a much longer walk.

[Chris Chambers]

"I don't know." Chris glanced in the direction of the river -- or the direction he thought it was in -- and then towards the tracks -- or where the tracks should be. Everything seemed backwards and wrong. And this was somewhere they had been countless times before.

He didn't like feeling confused.

"I guess we should follow the river." He let his eyes land on Gordie again. "What do you think?" He was about to jokingly add You're the smart one here -- but he knew it would just get him and Gordie into a little spat that wasn't needed at this point.

[Gordon Lachance]

Gordie let suddenly felt somewhat relieved. He had no desire to head for the tracks. After the events of last summer the tracks had become a sort of taboo with them. No one from their gang brought up Ray Brower. After Ace, Eyball, and the rest of them got their revenge on the four--though Teddy somehow seemed to luck out of the worst of it--the subject became a closed case. Once school started, Gordie and Chris began to see less and less of Verne and Teddy. That happened sometimes. Even the best of friends sometimes just drifted apart.

"The river then," he agreed as he wiped more mud from his eyebrow. "I think I can get us back there."

Gordie rested his left hand on the strap of his sleeping bag and began to fight his way through the underbursh and towards the path. Or what used to be the path, anyway. None of this made sense and all of it put Gordie on edge.

[Patricia McFarland]

Trisha had been following the river for several hours now, hoping to come across a camp or trail to lead her back to civilization. Somehow she found herself able to keep a clear head as she picked her way through thorn bushes and underbrush. Maybe it was because she had been through this before.

No more woods or nature trails or bird watching tours after this, she thought. If Mom asks me to go fishing with her and Pete at the river again I'm going to tell her not no, but hell no.

Trisha settled herself onto large rock formation jutting out over the river and listened to the wildlife surrounding her. As her eyes widened in suprise, she whipped her head to the left and began to speak.

"What do you think, Tom?" she asked the Red Sox pitcher who was currently leaning against the trunk of an oak tree. "Did that sound like voices to you or am I just imagining things?"

Trisha new the man looking back at her wasn't real, but he had been the key to her survival last time. Through nine days of being stranded and lost in the New England Wilderness, Tom had been there to give her guidance and keep her company. She was actually a bit suprised at how quickly he had appeared to her again, but was no less grateful.

[Chris Chambers]

Following Gordie, Chris found himself falling into his own train of thoughts as they moved, his eyes drifting around the woods as he absently followed his friend. As they neared the river, Chris felt himself stop, his arm whipping out in front of him to grab Gordie's shoulder. "Wait," he hissed.

Snapping out of the trance he had been in, Chris realized he had stopped Gordie while thinking about something completely different -- but it was because his eyes had caught something -- no, someone -- down by the river. He hoped like hell it wasn't any of Ace or his little ragtag group of pussies. Chris was sick of them, and he was sure Gordie was as well.

Pointing out the person to Gordie, Chris felt himself leaning down slightly, shifting behind the underbrush.

He couldn't tell who or what it was, only that it was human. He waited until Gordie focused on what it was -- Gordie would know what to do, he always did.

[Gordon Lachance]

"What ?" Gordie replied breathlessly. Although he knew the hand that suddenly grasped his shoulder belonged to Chris, he jumped anyway. This entire ordeal had his nerves on edge.

Glancing back at Chris, Gordie followed his friends gaze toward a small clearing down the river, where he could just make out the shape of a person. Shrinking down behind the underbrush as Chris had, Gordie licked his lips and began to lean toward the figure with his pulse pounding. He didn't really know why the presence of someone else here disturbed him so much, but he did find himself hoping it wasn't Ace or any of his gang.

Shifting around the underbrush for a better view, Gordie was finally able to tell something about this person. He could clearly see a dark colored baseball cap, perhaps black or blue, with a long ponytail trailing behind and overlapping onto a white shirt.

"I think it's a girl," he finally whispered, bewildered.