Somewhere in the Trees

two

"What, I can't look at what's in the backpack?" The student asks.

"Why do you want to?" Declan asks.

"I'm fucking starving. I wanna see if there's food in it."

"Just wait," Declan says, taking a step away from him.

"No, give me the backpack," the student says. He takes a threatening step towards Declan, his eyes narrowed and his forehead nearly touching Declan's. They're both quite tall, but this guy is an inch or two taller, and has a lot more weight on him. Kiran quickly steps in between them.

"Relax, Nate," Kiran says, his hand on Nate's chest as he gently pushes him away from Declan. "We're all stressed right now and we're all hungry, we just have to wait a little bit longer."

Zoe rolls her eyes and looks at me. "I can't believe we're stuck with these morons right now."

I'm about to respond and tell her to quiet down before suddenly, somebody says, "Seriously? Do you ever take a day off?"

When I look towards the voice, I see that it's a girl named Alice who spoke, and she's looking right at Zoe. She's another quiet student who always flies under the radar. She usually sits in the back of the lecture hall for class, always going unnoticed. She's surprisingly close to us and leaning against the fence next to me, I didn't even know she was there.

I can tell Zoe didn't expect somebody to hear her, despite how loud she always is. She looks over at Alice and shines her flashlight right in Alice's eyes. Alice squints beneath the heavy light.

"Who was talking to you?" Zoe asks her. Her voice shoots through the tense air like a lizard spitting venom.

Alice falters slightly and crosses her arms over her chest. I catch myself silently rooting for her to say something else to Zoe, but she doesn't. Nobody ever does. Instead, Alice just looks down at the ground.

"Come on, guys, I know this situation sucks, but don't take it out on each other," Kiran says to the two of them, breaking the silence. "This obviously isn't what any of us want to be doing with our Saturday night."

Zoe turns to look at Kiran, and the way her look lingers on him makes me tap my foot and gnaw on my nail.

I cringe as she crosses her arms, tilts her head to the side, and asks Kiran, "Are you and Declan dating?"

She's clearly agitated, probably more annoyed that she's not at some frat party hooking up with her latest fling right now than anything else, and if you know Zoe, you know that it's best to keep your distance from her when she's like this. I tense up a bit, my face heating as I step away from her.

It's uncomfortably silent, only bugs tick and chirp amongst us. I look at Declan, he shares the same confused look that Kiran has. His eyes meet mine for a quick second before he immediately looks away.

"Zo," I say quietly, trying to pull her away, but she just keeps going.

"You two are, like, so obsessed with each other. What? I'm just wondering." Her voice is both accusatory and playful, like all she wants to do is embarrass them for her enjoyment.

Declan grins as he leans over, grabs onto Kiran's face and dramatically kisses his cheek. Kiran laughs and pushes him away slightly, rubbing his cheek off after. I try to subdue my smile as I avert my gaze to the ground. I don't want to give Declan any satisfaction.

"Damn, Kir. We need to be more subtle," Declan says, before he starts laughing along with Kiran.

Zoe smiles and turns to me matter-of-factly. She's annoyed that her attempt didn't work out well, I can see it in her deflated shoulders. So, she nudges me and says, "I knew it."

"They're joking, Zo," I tell her, aggravated. "Kiran's literally engaged." I remember meeting Kiran's fiancée, Anika, at a coffee shop on campus once. She gushed as she flashed her ring to me, it was a sizable, shimmering diamond shaped like a teardrop.

"Who cares? They both suck," she shrugs her shoulders, and I look around to see if anyone heard her, but they're all tending to their own conversations. "I'm just sticking up for you."

"I don't have a problem with Kiran," I defend meekly. "He's always been really nice to me."

"His little boyfriend hates you, so that means he probably hates you, too. Stop being nice to people that don't deserve it. Lou-Lou, I honestly don't know how you've made it this far in life." She rolls her eyes and sits down in the dirt.

Just as I sit down next to her, one girl, Rachel, gasps and says, "He's back!"

I turn and point my flashlight at Professor Kitt, relieved to see that he's back, unscathed, with a smile on his face. I shoot up to my feet and step towards the fence as he walks closer. Did he find someone?

"So," Professor Kitt says with a breath, "Good news. There's a family in a house down a little ways, they said they'd be happy to help us."

The class erupts in relieved sighs, and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Somebody else resides in this forest, so we can't be that far from civilization.

I almost didn't notice somebody standing next to Professor Kitt. Instinctively, I shine my flashlight towards a tall man in overalls. He's older, maybe early 60's, with only a few wisps of white hair on his head and a thick peppery mustache over his lips. He has a big nose and rosy cheeks, and when he smiles at us, he only has a few teeth in his mouth.

I swallow hard and look at Zoe.

"Ew," she says to me. Not loud, thankfully.

I look back at the man as Professor Kitt says, "Class, this is Mr. Lark-"

"Please, Robert is just fine," the man corrects. His voice is gravelly and higher-pitched than I'd expected. I feel bad for being creeped out, he's probably just a nice man who wants to help. This probably happens all the time, people getting lost in the woods and finding him.

Professor Kitt nods and says, "This is Robert."

Robert reaches up to unlock the gate and slowly, it creaks open. Nobody moves. "It's dangerous out here," Robert tells us. "There's bears and foxes and what-not. Y'all need to make your way in here quick."

We all hesitantly walk in through the gate. It's so cold that I don't even care about how weird this is. Robert has to have a phone or a radio or computer or something that could help us, or at the very least, a warm house for us to sit in for a little while.

I hear metal jingling as Robert locks the gate behind us. He rushes back over to us and leads the way as we begin walking over a hill. I notice a porch light shining a decent distance away and I feel myself smile. I reach for Zoe's hand again and she takes it, tightening her grip around my fingers.

Robert starts walking in front of me. I shine my flashlight towards him and my heart drops to my stomach when I notice there's a shotgun strapped to his back.

I must have audibly gasped, because Robert whips his head around to look at me as we walk. He has piercing blue eyes, they're so light that they're almost white against the flashlight beam.

I feel my fingers start to shake around the metal base of the flashlight in my grip. I've never seen a gun in real life before, let alone one of that size.

His lips curl into a smile.

"For hunting," Robert says. "It's for hunting."