Serlock Pines

Three

Running at a slow pace, at more of a jog rather, Caleb still followed the sets of footprints. It had been nearly an hour and the tracks always ended up winding around and backtracking before going off in another random direction. Every time he had to change directions Caleb felt a little more sick. He often tried to calm himself but he was undeniably unsettled by the situation, and his fear grew each moment he hadn't found his friends.

After it had passed the hour mark, Caleb finally found something that wasn't empty woods and dense dead grass. There was another small clearing he could see about twenty yards ahead of them, and in the clearing sat some kind of stone structure. Something was off though, the structure gave Caleb no sense of hope but instead radiated with dread.

Everything inside Caleb was telling him to avoid it, but he knew he had to follow the tracks to it. He gulped and steeled himself before contuing yo press forward.

Brushing past the branches of pine before the clearing, Caleb stepped on a single twig and cracked it as he walked. It had been the first sound he had heard in a while.

Now in the clearing he could see the structure he had seen wasn't a structure at all, but was rather a statue. An ominous one at that.

Caleb rounded the statue so he was facing the front of it. The state itself was around seven feet tall. It looked to be carved out of a pure block of pale stone. It was in the shape of some kind of demonic figure. It had humanoid like legs and arms, but a menacing head with goat like horns, it's face that of an angry snarling lion.

Caleb shuttered at the statue and backed away from it.

Caw

He heard the bird again. There must have been a single bird and a single owl in this entire forest Caleb thought. Turning his head and body back to the statue Caleb jumped four feet ba kwarda, startled nearly out of his shoes. The statue was directly in front of him. While he looked away for a half second the statue had somehow moved. Breathing heavily Caleb backed up on the ground. The eyes of the lion head seemed to stare down at him in hate. Caleb more and more felt an overwhelming uncomfortable dread, eventually opting to get up and just run.

Caleb sprinted through the forest for what must have been half an hour before finally coming to a stop. He put his hands on his knees and breathed heavily. In and out. He was still startled by the thing but at least it was out of his sight. It hadn't seemed to catch up with him either.

"Oh my god, oh my god." He repeated over and over.

Caleb took a long time to compose himself then looked around him, taking stick of his surrroundings. Needless to say the tracks were long gone and he was now just aimlessly wandering in the empty forest.

"Fuck." He said aloud.

He looked around for once more for a moment. He didn't have a direction to go but he also didn't want to stay put. He sighed and without reason, he turned to his left and began walking that way.
Walking further into the forest the atmosphere of silence and death only continued. He changed directions a couple times but after another hour it do Caleb was still just as lost as he was before. He wanted to try calling out to them again but was too frightened of the extra set of footprints and who they might be with.

Instead of making noise Caleb elected to still wander aimlessly in the forest as a better alternative. He had no interest in also being captured or whatever had happened to his friends. He was considering farting to the car to leave, only by now he had no idea where the car would be or even where their camp was. Besides Adam had his pack which had the car keys. Caleb cursed again and started jogging again, listening for anything and everything. After what seemed like another two hours of walking, Caleb findlly stumbled upon something that wasn't the same dark pines and dead trees.

Just ahead of him there was a clearing that looked to lead to a sort of garden. A large gated garden, the fence around it connected all the way back to an old eerie cabin. The canon was made out of dark colored wood and there was only a single window on one side of it.

Caleb sighed and approached the cabin cautiously, not wanting to repeat his mistake the statue. Upon arriving at the garden however Caleb found something he was looking for, much to his horror.

Once he was closer to the garden, Caleb saw that there in the soil between the various ominous plants was Adam's camera, on the ground next to broken glass. Adam's camera lens had shattered here, he must have dropped it.

Caleb's heart seemed to stop in his chest for a moment. All hope of anything innocent hepiening here vanished from his mind. Something bad had happened to his friends and this confirmed it. Caleb looked towards the dark cabin. His spine tingled with fear but he had no choice but to move forward.

"Okay... Okay." He said a few times, reassuring himself.

He was calming himself once more. The strategies to do so he had learned through many years of trial and error dealing with unbearable anxiety and irrational fear. Though again, it was largely ineffective, mostly because most of his fear had become more than warranted.

Swallowing a gulp of spit, Caleb stood up straight and steeled himself for what was to come. He let out a long sigh, again realizing the eerie silence of the forest was almost suffocating. Not wanting to give himself a chance to change his mind and run away, he pressed forward and walked to the entrance of the dark colored cabin.