The Legend of Youngs Corner XII

PART XII
The Hill of Despair

Run, Run, Run. That’s all that filled my head as I raced up the hill. I was constantly whipped by overhanging branches, tripped by fallen logs and underlying brush, and taken aback by the shear labyrinth of the woods. I kept my eyes on the ground but trees would appear from no where and forced me to change my route and pivot this way and that. Doing all of this while running as speedily as I could caused a faint sweat to break from my forehead. I looked around me and saw my closest friends running along, Nicholas was ahead. Where were we going? I had no idea where the cabins were except that they were on this hill somewhere. The whole reason why we were running was because I had once seen the cabins on this hill. But that was in grade school and now I’d being leaving for college in a just a few months. The memory was old. What if I was leading us straight into the cabins? What if the golden retriever was still there? What if the old woman was still there? What if her shotgun-…?

I had to stop thinking of such things. Despair gripped me. Was I leading my friends into a trap? I ran faster now, with a deepened sense of urgency. God help me if I would let any harm come upon my friends. God help me, I swear. And no sooner than I had increased my resolve I reached flattened ground. Ahead of me was more hill. We had found another path, in the middle of the mountain! And this one was nothing like the one we came from. This one was narrow, very narrow; it could fit about 2 people across. I looked to my left and there stood Nicholas and Bob, and Nico was at my right. We rested, grasping for breath. When I recovered, I turned to my left. I was now facing towards the direction we first entered the forest. I turned to Nico and gave him a slight nod, he knew what I meant and quickly called for the others to come up.

The others quickly joined us, and with our flashlights on, we continued our quest. We decided to head to the left, back towards the field. As we walked we kept our flashlights pointed up the hill to our right, since I thought the cabins were atop the hill, and also on the path since we wanted to watch for obstacles. We never looked to our left, where the hill which we just ran up continued its downward slope. Any minute now, I thought, we would see the cabins atop the hill. A minute passed, then another, and another. The quest was beginning to take a toll on me and the others, but our senses of high alert never diminished. I kept looking down the path, then up the hill, back and forth, seeing nothing. Nicholas was in front of me. “Curt, when are we going to find-” as Nicholas said this he began to turn around, turning to the left. As Nicholas turned, I followed his flashlight’s beam with my eyes as it moved to the left of the path and BAM!

“HOLY…!” I yelled and dropped to the ground. Nicholas had dropped too, and I turned and saw that Bob and everyone else had fallen. Bob’s eyes were wide with fear. He kept staring down the path and for good reason. Less than 5 feet away were them…we had found them…the cabins…