Restless

The Burning Birthday

Back in Ironton, the boys had went back to camp, ate dinner, and went to sleep. We slept soundly in our beds and dreamed of the day to come. Ben and I were woken by something stomping outside our tents.

I grabbed my revolver from beside my bed and lept up from my bed. I was ready to shoot when I opened my tent. Zach was cheering and dancing around outside. Relief filled me when I saw it was only Zach.

"What are you doing, Zach?" I asked lowering my gun. He was fully dressed and had an assault rifle in his hands. He looked ready for war.

"It's my birthday, so I'm calling the shots. We're going back to that shack and we're going to check it out." He said firmly.

"Why are you so pumped all of a sudden?" Ben asked, sticking his head out of his tent.

"I had a dream. We're going to find something down there." Zach said. I did what he told me, because it was his birthday. I got dressed and grabbed my revolver. When I was tying my boots, Zach called for us. I finished and we gathered in front of the trail.

"Are you ready, troops?" Zach asked us. Ben had his rifle and a flashlight.

"If we go up the river a little bit, we can cross it at the shallow part." I stated. We started our quest towards the river.

"What did your dream tell you we were going to find down there, Zach?" Ben asked.

"All I remember is that it was really bright." Zach said kicking a rock.
"Where's that blueprint of that thing?" Ben asked me.

"I left it at the shack. On the desk." I answered. Zach stopped us and we looked into the woods at what he was looking towards. Zach was looking at a doe and her fawns. He raised his gun and aimed at the mother.

"Zach, what are you doing?" I asked.

"It's good meat." Zach said like a cannibal.

"Zach, she has babies. Without her, they'll die." I whispered, trying not to disturb the peaceful deer.

"You're right." He said lowering his gun. The mother scurried away, her babies following her. When they were out of our sight we continued towards the river.

"Do you think we'll run into anybody, down there?" Ben asked. I shrugged. For some reason, my gut was telling me not to go down that hole. I was really curious, but I didn't like the idea of climbing down into complete darkness. I had a hunch we would find something.

"There's the river. Which way do we go?" Zach asked, as we approached the river. The river seemed to flow faster than usual today. The shallowest part of the river was somewhere to the left of us, around the bend. I pointed the way and we kept going. After walking along the riverside for about a minute, we saw something made of rotting wood, sitting on shore. It was an old fishing boat. When we approached it, we could see that it's bottom and side were badly damaged. I saw something under an old sheet, inside the boat. I carefully lifted the sheet, revealing a fishing pole and a tackle box.

"Dude, we could use this!" I called picking up the rod. It was brown and white, with a starfish on the handle. The entire thing seemed to be there except, the end of the line didn't have a hook.

"Check the tackle box for a hook." Ben said circling the boat. I grabbed the lock on the box and pulled it upwards. The lid opened and I peeked inside. There was two hooks and a small pocket knife. I picked up the pocket knife and flipped it open. The blade was dull and short.

"We can grab this stuff on the way back." I announced, standing up. We still had a job to do.

"This is shallow enough, let's cross here." Zach said stomping through the water. the water only went up to his knees, so Ben and I followed him. We easily crossed the river and turned back, to walk towards the shack. Zach led the way to the shack. It was the same way as we had left it yesterday. He opened the shack's door and turned on the light. The mysterious hatch was still open. I felt something bad about to happen. I kept it to myself and Zach handed me the flashlight. "You first, Drayton."