3 Finding Everyone for Lunch (Chapter 2)

Sam walked down the small path, kicking a small stone along the way.

"Whatever," he muttered. "I'll not think about what that meant right now. I gotta get moving."

Slightly picking up the pace, he accidentally kicked his rock into the grass field on the side. As he noticed it landed in a small patch of dirt, Sam was surprised. The freshly dug patch in the grass was barely visible from the road, but large enough to take notice.

"Dirt?" he pondered, "Animals don't usually come here, so why would there be a dig spot…" For some reason, no animal, big or small, would voluntarily come anywhere near the house. They would all stay in the forest without stepping a foot, paw, claw, or whatever else they had into the grassland. Sam didn't know why, and he never looked too deeply into it.

As he knelt over to inspect, he felt like he detected something in an instant from behind him. As he whirled around, he saw nothing. Only the single dead tree along the path on the other side. It was the type of tree that would scare people at night if they looked at it. Its dead branches were hanging over half the road, and its rotting black trunk was covered in white fungus. It almost looked like it was trying to reach out to the road, ready to capture, no consume, an innocent traveler. It always gave Sam the creeps when he saw it.

"Was it just my imagination?" he murmured softly. "Ugh! That tree always sends shivers down my spine. I should tell father to remove it."

Forgetting about the fresh dirt patch, Sam continued down the path into the forest. A couple of minutes later, he stepped into the forest where a drastic change in the environment happened. There were now calls of birds up in the trees, squirrels and rabbits scratching on the ground, and signs of nature all around. Sam never understood why every sound just suddenly hits him; From deathly quiet, taking one step, and sudden bustling noise of animals and insects.

Sam sighed as he continued, and soon came to the lake in the middle of the forested area. The road forked to either side, both paths completely encircling the lake together. An old wooden sign posted straight ahead originally told one what was down each path. Yet time played a cruel joke on it. The sign had seen its better days, faded and partially scratched off lettering made it mostly unreadable. There was two left arrows, one that said "3c t L cl " and the other only had " n ls C ". The first one Sam easily figured out Boat Dock, however the second one is a complete mystery to him. He was always told never to go farther than the Dock, since there was a hostile monsters nest that direction. The left path went by an abandoned fishing hut and boat dock, where exploring was fun when he was younger. The single right arrow said "Stc e Hi l " Sam had guessed it meant Stone Hills, as the right path winded a little outside the forest, where a bunch of small mounds of earth and stone are located. It was a great place to find weird rocks and small animals.

As he started along the right path, Sam felt something a little off about his surroundings, but brushed it out of his mind.

He enjoyed the quiet and peaceful walk toward the hills.

Upon arriving to the area his father was supposed to be at, Sam's sixth sense felt something more abnormal in the atmosphere. It was too quiet. No animals, no nature, no sound, nothing. Logically he should've heard his father and the other children even before he arrived, but nothing greeted him but silence.

After searching a bit around a few hills, he finally saw someone in the distance facing away from him. As he started running closer, he realized the figure belonged to his father.

"Father!" Sam yelled, trying to get his attention while running closer. "Mother said break….fast…"

His voice trailed as he watched his father fall to his knees, and another smaller figure, clad in grey robes with a hood, appeared from the other side of his body. The figure had a terrifying smile on his face. As he raised his hand to his hooded face, a long tongue protruded from the mouth and licked the sticky red substance on his hand.

"Ahhh!" A hoarse voice came from the figure in grey. His body trembling in excitement and pleasure as he exclaimed "That was delicious!"