“Sonny wait up!” I yelled as I helplessly watched Sonny jump down the last
several steps and rush outside. I rolled my eyes as I overheard Abby’s
voice as she tried to call forth the spirit of Justin Timberlake.
When will they give this crap up? I thought to myself, as I snapped out of my daze and ran down the
stairs and onto the front porch, stopping only to grab the black sweatshirt and
Sonny’s jacket I had left on the couch.
After several seconds of looking, I
finally spotted Sonny sitting on the hood of his car, which was parked by the
side of the house, staring out into the woods to his side.
“Hey,” I greeted as I approached him cautiously, hesitating a second before I
took a seat by his side.
“Hey,” he said in response. For several minutes there was silence until
Sonny spoke up in a low voice laced with anger. “How can they do that
after they knew what all that psycho did to our families?”
“Sonny, they are just kids.”
“Yeah, but did we do that crap when we were kids?” Sonny shot back. “Just
never mind; you will never understand so why in the hell should I waste my time
explaining it to you?!” he yelled before he hopped off of the hood and started
to run towards the woods.
“Where are you going?” I yelled.
I received no response and was about to run after Sonny, when I heard my mom’s
voice call my name, asking me to come inside. I gave Sonny’s retreating
figure one last glance, and against my better judgment, I walked back to the
house with a heavy heart, not noticing a figure in black lurking in the
shadows.
***
Sonny’s POV
I kept running for another few minutes, not caring exactly where I ended up; I
just needed to have some time to myself and sort through what had happened.
Even minutes after this had happened, the feelings of betrayal and hurt
were still as fresh as they had been earlier.
I stopped in my tracks suddenly,
as I heard what sounded like footsteps crunching dry leaves, and I rubbed my
arms for warmth, cursing myself for leaving my jacket at Hallie’s house when it
was only about forty degrees and was steadily dropping. I was a t-shirt and jeans - not too smart, if
you ask me.
Suddenly, I heard the sound again from
my left side, and I turned around, seeing a figure in black. The figure started to run deeper into the
woods. Figuring that it was Hallie, judging from the black clothes, I
started to run after the person. I didn’t even realize that as I ran, I
was becoming more and more lost with each passing second.
***
Hallie’s POV
“How could you?” I hissed at my sister and her two friends, as I entered the
living room. I glanced up at Mom and Dad, who looked on in confusion,
still dressed up for the Halloween party they had attended at the hospital.
“What’s going on, Hallie?” Mom asked, obviously embarrassed by my outburst,
especially in front of someone Mom didn’t know too well.
“Why don’t you tell them, Jess? They deserve to know, especially after what you
did to Sonny!”
I glared at my sister with hatred, as she tried to talk her way out of it. Thankfully, Mom and Dad were on my side
tonight and made Jess and her friends explain what happened. Once they
were finished with their story, Mom looked at them in shock, as Dad looked at
them in anger.
“Did you three think that it would be funny to try and call Justin’s spirit
back, especially after what he has done? How do you think Sonny felt when
he caught you doing that?” Dad yelled, and Abby suddenly burst in to tears as
everyone looked on.
“Sorry, Dad,” Jess mumbled.
“It isn’t me you need to apologize to, Jessica. Where is Sonny anyway?”
Dad turned to ask me as he suddenly realized Sonny wasn’t anywhere to be found.
“He took off towards the woods,” I explained gravely.
“In this weather, without a jacket?” Mom asked with a trace of worry in her
voice.
I nodded in reply, as I continued to look out the window for any trace of
Sonny, sighing as I found none. All we
could do now was wait for him to return.
I sat down heavily on the couch, as
Mom went into the kitchen to try and call Heidi and Chad, who were expected to
arrive home sometime tonight after a weekend trip to West Virginia to visit
Chad’s parents.
“Nobody home?” I asked Mom, as she sat
down by Dad’s side on the other couch. When she answered no, I
sighed. This was going to be a long
night.
***
Sonny’s POV
I finally slowed down to a halt, as
the figure I was chasing blended into the shadows. I took a look at where
I was for the first time since I started chasing the figure about fifteen
minutes or more ago.
I shuddered, as a cool breeze
whipped through the trees and chilled my skin to the bones. From what I could tell, the temperature was
steadily dropping.
I sighed, as I took one last look
around, still not recognizing my current location. I thought I heard
something from behind, but I ignored the sound, thinking it was the wind, and
kept walking. Suddenly, I felt someone
push me from behind, and before I lost my hold on reality, I heard a evil laugh
and a loud crack, and I knew nothing else.
***
A few hours later
It was now ten pm, and no one had seen
Sonny for almost an hour and a half. As
each minute passed by, I found myself becoming more and more worried.
Almost an hour after I had last seen
Sonny, a knock had come from the front door, and we had all ran to the door,
hoping it was Sonny. But it was
Derrick's twin brother, Erik, who both had just left for home minutes ago.
Suddenly, the phone rang, and Jess and
I both got up to answer, but Mom got to the phone first and answered it, as we
both stood in the doorway, anxiously.
"Hello? Hi Chad.
How was your trip? That is
good. Yeah, everyone is still awake. Okay, see you in twenty minutes. Bye," both Jess and I heard from Mom's
end of the conversation.
"What are we going to do Mom?" I
asked after she hung up the phone and signed heavily.
"I don't know, Hallie. The best thing I know to do is tell them the
truth, but hopefully by that time Sonny will come back."
"You think he might have walked
home?" Jess questioned from my side.
"No," Mom answered, as she
shook her head and sighed again.
"Not unless he wanted to get an intense workout. Twenty seven miles is an awful long way to
walk, and if he wanted to go home, he could have taken his car. Plus it is too cold to be walking without
proper clothing for that distance."
"Who was that?" a voice
whispered from behind.
I turned around and saw a tired
looking Abby standing beside of Dad.
"It was your Dad," Jess
answered before anyone had the chance to.
"Oh," was all Abby said,
before she turned around and walked back into the living room, with shoulders
hunched over in defeat.
"Well let's wait for them to get
here," Dad suggested, as he turned around and followed Abby's path from
seconds before. Mom, Jess, and I
followed shortly after.
***
Twenty minutes later, the moment we
had all been secretly dreading came, when there was a knock at the door. After Mom and Dad answered it, we heard Chad
and Heidi's voices from the doorway. I quickly took a look at Abby and frowned
as I saw her pale slightly when her parents entered the room. Serves her right for doing this, I
thought, but quickly scolded myself for thinking something like that.
"So where is Sonny at?"
Heidi asked suddenly. "I thought he
would be down here with you guys."
Both Mom and I exchanged nervous
glances, before I quietly spoke up.
"We don't know."
For a few moments, there was silence,
until Chad asked what I'm sure was also on Heidi's mind. "What do you mean?"
I quickly explained what had happened
that evening, everything from us walking in on the séance till when Sonny had
ran into the woods.
"I'm going to go look for
him," Chad said, with determination.
"I'll come with you," Dad
said, as he stood up and walked to the closet, where we kept the flashlights,
blankets, and jackets, among other things.
"Me too," I said, without
hesitation.
"No," Dad said.
"But Dad…" I started to say,
but was instantly cut off, as Mom sent me a look that silently told me to drop
the subject. "Fine," I mumbled, while watching both Chad and Dad
getting ready to go find Sonny.
“You two be careful,” Mom said, as they were getting ready to walk out the
door.
“We will,” Dad replied. “He couldn’t have wandered off too far so we
should be back soon.”
Mom nodded and handed Chad her cell phone and Dad his own. “Here take
these. If anything happens, or you find
him, call okay?”
“Will do,” Dad said, as he waited for Chad, who was talking softly to Heidi, to
come to the doorway. Once he did, they both walked into the cool night
air.
I watched them walk away, until I
could see them no more, and I began to pray for their safety, along with
Sonny’s, because for some reason, I had a bad feeling about this.
***
Josh’s POV
45 minutes later
“Do you think we should go home now and look for him in the morning?” I asked,
as weariness took over my mind.
“No. We have to find him; he can’t be too far away,” Chad responded, as
he walked in front of me, moving the flashlight beam around the area in front
of us. “We haven’t looked in this direction yet so let’s go this way.”
I nodded, too tired to really care in
which direction we went. All I cared about was finding Sonny and getting
out of this cold. Even though it wasn’t exactly winter yet, the weather
has been very cold, even
for this time of year. That fact worried
me, and I hoped that we would find Sonny somewhere besides out
in these woods.
“You go look this way, and I will look that way,” Chad suggested, as he pointed
in the directions he was mentioning. “If we find anything, yell, and if
we receive no response, we call each other on the cell phone,” Chad said, as he
brought the cell phone out of his pocket and pushed the power button. I did the same.
Before I could say anything else, Chad
was walking towards what seemed like the north-east section of the
woods, and I turned around and began walking in the opposite direction,
immediately noticing as I trekked deeper into the forest that this was an
unfamiliar section. I sighed, hoping I
myself wouldn’t get lost in this place.
After several more minutes of
searching the area, I decided that I would just search about five minutes
longer before I made my way back to where I had started. Right before I
was getting ready to leave, I looked around one last time and saw something up
ahead and to the right that seemed out of place. I quickly jogged up to what it was, and I
gasped. I had finally found what we had
been looking for.
***