The drive to the preserve was tense but only because I was focusing on the drive and not letting my imagination run wild.
Scott, on the other hand, was working his way through several logical steps that I had vaulted over as I had a tendency to do.
As the lights of the Jeep swept over the preserve's sign 'No entry after dark', I clicked them off and stomped on the brakes, cutting the engine.
We got out of the car, Scott pulled his lacrosse hoodie up over his head and I grabbed my Mag-light.
We were as prepared as two teenagers looking for half a body could possibly be.
"Are we seriously doing this?"
"You're the one who's always bitching that nothing happens in this town." I answered, cuffing Scott affectionately on the upper arm as I moved toward the forest.
"I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practice tomorrow." Scott sighed, following me with much less enthusiasm but I knew him and knew that the enthusiasm would come later, when we actually accomplished our goal.
We would be the talk of the town and the school. Popularity couldn't be far behind.
"Cuz sitting on the bench is such a gruelling effort." I snarked, clicking the flashlight on as we tromp through the dense forest.
The carpet of dead leaves and moss made a chuffing sound as we walked but not loud enough to draw any sort of attention or at least that's what I hoped.
"No, because I'm playing this year." Scott pointed out, hope springing ever eternal.
It took all of my self-control not to snap out a truly sarcastic reply.
"In fact, I'm making first line."
Oh, hell.
"Hey, that's the spirit! Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one."
Scott scoffed because we had this discussion before.
Scott's asthma wasn't going away, the steroids only did so much to open stubborn bronchial passages.
A really violent sport like lacrosse was completely out of the question and everybody knew it but Scott wasn't giving up.
He didn't do it out of a desire to be popular but because he really wanted to play the game. He studied videos, he read strategy books, he really tried.
I had been roped into it as a result, although my motives were a bit murkier when I did. I just wanted Lydia to notice me but well that ship has sailed and I moved on after getting an absolute rejection straight to my face last summer.
The 5 year plan of 'Make Lydia fall in love with me' has completely been dropped since then.
"Just out of curiosity." Scott said, changing the subject, "Which half of the body are we looking for?"
That made me pause for just a moment, a particular logical step I skipped thudding into my mind. Oh.
"Huh. I...didn't even think about that."
The phone call I eavesdropped on hadn't included that little detail.
Although if they figured the girl was in her twenties, they had to have at least a head.
Oh god, or maybe just one side as opposed to top or bottom.
I laughed nervously, brushing off that gruesome thought as we continued to trek while Scott couldn't help but smile.
"And, uh, what if whatever killed the body is still out here?"
A beat. I nodded in concession to the point.
"Also something I didn't think about." I admitted, trying to sound as upbeat as possible.
Surely, anything that left half a body for joggers to find would be long gone by now, right? Right?
I took a breath and started climbing the hill in front, hands first, pointing the flashlight along the way.
Scott didn't even hesitate and started climbing up behind me.
I could hear the wheeze in Scott's chest as we went and I had to slow my pace. Just a little, just enough so Scott could keep up.
"It's comforting to...know you planned this out with...your usual attention to detail." Scott gasped as he climbed.
"I know." I answered with a little bit of pride in my tone.
I didn't mention the wheezing, I never did. When Scott has an asthma attack, I was always the first to know and I learned to tell the difference between a minor one and a major one.
This little exercise barely blipped on the Richter scale, I didn't need to mention it, in a way to preserve Scott's dignity.
He had a mother who would cluck over him endlessly, he didn't need his best friend doing it too.
"Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?" And that was my cue to properly pause, since Scott mentioned it first.
My cue to turn back and watch Scott take three quick puffs on his ever-present inhaler.
So I did the right thing and handed the flashlight over when Scott caught his breath and I did it with a little smirk, as if to say take the lead.
Now Scott was the one who set a much more sedate pace through the woods, slowly climbing but not for long, as we crested the hill, I heard activity, a lot of activity.
The distant, low rumble of several diesel engines - firetrucks and ambulances - the sickly red-blue flashing of several police lights, the whuffling of several large police dogs as they scouted out the area and worst of all, there were several police officers with flashlights, moving in their general direction, coming up the other side of the hill.
"Is that your dad?" Scott whispered pointing at a specific man in the back.
I squinted my brows and narrowed my eyes as I gazed at the search party and yep, standing in middle with his boy's Scots glory and carrying a matching set of Mag-light like mine while barking orders was my old man.
"Yep." I nodded, pulling him back into the ditch.
"Looks like they sweeped out the north." Scott made a note as I hummed in response.
We came through the west gate and they have been searching through the north, which means the body can be either in south pines or the east bay.
The Bay is out of question as people are there almost always, somebody would have notified the cops if they found a body on the beach, which leaves us with the south.
"Scotty, let's go." I tapped him out and pulled him towards what I thought was the south and slowly began to move without alerting the search.
"Where are we going?" He asked, taking another puff from his inhaler.
"The pine forest."
We walked for a minute without making a noise or trampling over a bush and the lights from the party were almost not visible anymore.
"I'm asking this again just to make sure." Scott mentioned. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Let's hope for an extremely positive outcome of not getting mauled by a bear while we run bleeding or being stabbed in the gut by a Jason wannabe as we lose one of our organs." I replied nonchalantly walking in front, before snatching the torch from his hands.
"I expected the answer to be a yes or no but I guess a detailed description of how we might die works as well." Scott scoffed, making me smirk.
As we dwelled deeper into the pine groves, I was actually second-guessing this quest. It was late, we got school tomorrow and I had absolutely zero idea where we were right now.
"I think we wandered off a little bit." Scott noted looking around.
The tall trees were clouding the moonlight from us, it was dark till our eyes could see and it was slightly getting stuffy, which meant a high chance of a summer pour.
"Maybe we should go back, Your dad's gonna get home any minute." Scott said, shaking off a spider web from his clothes and hair.
"For the first time ever, I agree with that." I sighed, dusting off my pants.
But before we could leave, the area suddenly felt heavier and colder and the quiet stillness was broken as we suddenly heard a lot of noises that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
I thought it was the search party for a second before realising they weren't footsteps but hooves.
"Oh shit!" I shrieked and pulled Scott down to the ground and covered our heads as a herd of stags suddenly appeared behind us. Scott dropped his inhaler in the process.
"Oh my god! Oh my god!!" Scott cried out as we were kicked repeatedly, nearly trampled by the herd.
By the time they passed, Scott was a sobbing mess, gasping for air when he finally sat up, I immediately stood up and looked at his face, he was trembling which meant he was going under a major attack.
Okay, this adrenaline rush was officially not fun anymore.
"Scotty! Hey look at me!" I grasped his hands and pulled him over a branch, making him comfortably sit over it.
"In.. haler." He trailed pointing at the ground, taking huge breaths.
"Oh shit!" I yelled, shining my flashlight on the ground looking around for a shiny, white, L shaped thing.
'Maybe the stags kicked it further away?' I theorised looking around a bit further and I finally found it under a bunch of leaves.
"Here, take a deep one." I passed it to him and watched as he took a long breath before giving me a thumbs up, the inhaler not leaving his mouth.
"What the hell was it?" He asked, clearly irritated by the turn of events.
"Ah Bambi and friends I guess." I smiled. I really do wonder what made them go all Mufasa on us.
"Stiles, it's not funny."
"It was a little funny." I shrugged.
I turned around towards the direction they came and shined the light, hoping to find a coyote or something but instead I found cold black eyes staring at us with a lifeless shine.
The missing top half of the body laid there motionless, the short hair falling over her back covered in mud and leaves, blood leaking out of her nostrils and mouth with flies squirming over it.
"Arghh!" Surprised, Scott sprung back and fell from the branch into a low slope.
"Scott!" I called, swiftly hopping down and falling beside him.
Scott was already up and gaping when I reached the end of the low hope, it was clear he was terrified out of his mind by the murderous look he was giving me.
"This is why I said it was a bad idea!" He yelled and I totally understood his emotional spectrum but I was too busy celebrating the end of the quest.
We had done it.
The Batman and his asthmatic Robin of Beacon hill have found the missing body.
"Come on Scott, it was not that ba-." My eyes widened as I looked at his general direction, my hand began to shake while my sweat glands were overworking.
"Not a bad idea?!" Not noticing my sudden silence, Scott kept ranting.
"I almost had a wheezing attack!-"
"Scott." I whispered.
"And was trampled by a herd of deers!-"
"Scotty." I called a little louder.
"Then fell back a hill!-"
"Scott!!" I finally snapped.
"What?!" So did he.
I quickly moved closer and turned his face towards his right and he shrieked just the same.
A pair of gleaming red eyes peered at us through the darkness, glinting with the moonlight.
In the gloom, I could just about make out the shape of an enormous beast, on all fours but it was shaped all wrong, it was more humanoid than canine or ursine with knees, elbows that bent the right way round and it had no tail.
Not that it was indicative of anything but it was still horribly weird and terrifying. All this hit me in a flash, a brief instant of sheer mortal terror. And then with a low, unearthly growl, the thing sprang at us.
Scott screamed, tried to scramble away while I did the same but my natural clumsiness was definitely not cute anymore, not in this life or death situation.
I fell on a hard wooden surface of a giant tree trunk while a animal the size of a freight train pounced on me and bit my right shoulder.
"Arghhh!" I screamed in pain as it continued to claw me over and over.
"Scott run!!" I ordered while I made a final attempt to fight the huge animal, I turned around under its shin and kicked it in the joint of its leg, stumbling it down.
As I was struggling to stand up, Scott came closer to give me a hand and suddenly the animal grabbed his arm with its teeth, penetrating it while my blood dripped on its maul.
"Stiles!!" He yelled for help as I once again kicked the beast but this time it was right in its wet nose.
A loud whine came out of its mouth, howling in pain, the animal quickly backed away into the darkness while a slow shower of rain began to pour down on us.
We didn't look back and kept running, it wasn't chasing us anymore I knew it but my instincts kept screaming at me to move away from the source of the attack. I was beginning to break as my thoughts were scattering like nerves.
What in the hell was that?
What protein power did it eat to grow that big?
Is it on steroids or was it a natural gain?
Why did it leave the corpse intact and decide to attack us if its motive was to eat us?
Was it a genetic experiment gone wrong or is it like a lake placid situation?
"Stiles!"
My thoughts were cut off as Scott pulled me by my collar, saving me from getting trampled by a minivan, which drifted sidewards before continuing on the road.
We both fell on the empty roadside, panting for air as the rain stopped, we were wet above what we could handle.
I looked sideways to check if Scott was ok and he seemed so as he gazed back at me.
"Add animal attack and hit and run to your long list of things that could have killed us tonight." I commented, which earned a fist from him.
He chuckled first and I followed not long after, the short giggles soon turned into a full blown laughter.
We laughed at the near death we suffered at the hands of an unknown monster but we were stumped as we heard a long howl.
Scott sat up and looked around while I did the same, only when we confirmed that we were really out of the forest did we relax.
"What the hell was that?" Scott asked, clenching his bleeding arm.
"I think… It was a wolf."