Chapter Nine

Josh just smiled at her reassuringly. "Well, we're at camp now, so hopefully we can be safe." He said and she nodded. Though it appeared Leah and Jake didn't agree, since Jake scoffed at his words, and Josh turned to give him a hard stare. "Got something to say, man?" He asked him.

Jake took a minute before he looked at Haley and then, Leah before he nodded. "Yeah, I have something to say. Obviously, we're nowhere near safe, so get rid of that notion and think for yourself. We have something demonic here, and it's angry at us for trespassing." He said harshly to the three of them.

Josh nodded and crossed his arms. "Alright then, what do you think we should do? Go back to our home village when it's going to get dark soon?" He said, his expression not showing any emotion. Jake continued to look at him as though he was thinking. "I think we should go back home, at least it shouldn't follow us there if it realizes we're gone, right?" Leah asked them shakily, and Haley grabbed her friend's hand.

Both of the guys turned to look at her and nodded. "Alright, then. We leave first thing in the morning, so get a good night's sleep, everyone." Josh suggested and everyone agreed and got started on packing.

LATER THAT NIGHT

Haley snuggled into her sleeping bag inside her tent. Dinner had been quiet and tense, everyone was afraid something would jump out of the trees when their guard was down. The demon was out there, she knew it was watching them and it terrified her. She decided to do some writing in her diary and pulled out the small leather book.

Dear Diary,

Hi, it's me again. It's been at least a few days since I last wrote this, and the camping is just about finished. We'll be leaving and returning home in the morning. My back still burns a bit from when the demon scratched me. Oh, you probably wouldn't know, would you? It started out just regular voices whispering my name, but then the second night, it actually showed itself to me and what I saw terrified me to the bone. It was a large, thin-like figure. His face was blood-red, I couldn't see the rest of his face, but his eyes were cat-like, and he had a long tail that was forked at the end, almost like it was a demon or something. It had chased me deep into the forest and just when I thought I was about to escape, there was pain searing on my shoulder and that's how the scars appeared. Although we could lie to ourselves and say a bear attacked us if we didn't want to look like lunatics. I know this demon is not finished with us. I feel as though it was just getting started, but we're leaving tomorrow. Would it actually follow us into the village? Or would it try to stop us? So many scenarios run through my mind and I worry about what will happen. Instincts are telling me to be on alert and should be careful, and I agree. Let us pray that nothing happens.

Sincerely,

Haley James

She huffed out a breath full of air shakily before she went ahead and put her book back underneath her pillow and blew out her candle. She laid her head down in the hope that sleep will claim her, so she closed her eyes.

THAT NIGHT

Trees ruffled through the wind as clouds started to cover the full moon. A flash of brief lightning shows a figure sneakily make itself into the camp, and it checked out for the woman he marked and grinned a sadistic grin. He crawled on his hind legs and opened up the tent that Haley slept in, and he used his energy to lift her up in the air and made her body follow the being into the forest. He jumped through the trees with his tail waving in excitement as he weaved his body until he found the clearing he was looking for and settled the human in the middle.

Haley groaned a bit when her eyes flickered open as her head started pounding. She started breathing rather heavily when she realizes she was not in her tent, but in a clearing, as she looked around. "He... Hello, is anyone there?" She stuttered out. Lightning started flashing like crazy and a loud booming noise like thunder roared. She spotted the same figure the night before, staring at her across the clearing, and she screamed.

She hurriedly got to her feet and immediately bolted across the clearing as fast as she could to the trees. But, she wasn't fast enough, for the creature knocked her down to the ground on her back. She gasped out in pain. Her body was suddenly lifted in the air and ironically enough, gravity had her body flipped over, so her back landed on the ground rather hard, and horror filled her.

The demon was exactly that now that she had a closer look. He was as long as she expected, with spidery long fingers and a forked tail. What surprised her was the face. One-half of it was almost cat-like, with his eyes slit in the night. When he turned his face, though, she screamed. Fear punctured through her bones at the rest of it in front of her.

It was covered in white paint, the nose was pointed and painted in blood-red. His mouth was forever frozen in a snarled grin with sharp teeth, and his face was covered in burn scars. The demon roared in her face when she screamed. What happened next cost her to want to vomit. He puked out tons of flesh and blood and whatever else to make it fall straight into her mouth like a waterfall.

When he was finished, her body started spasming, foam started coming out of her mouth, and her eyes glazed over. Finally, when the spasming stopped, darkness overcame Haley.