Remember the Best Hours

Haylee's Point Of View

It seems glaring at Jay isn’t really getting me anywhere, so I sigh and follow behind her and Bradie as they try to find their way back out of this place. I myself am freezing, because I’m not from Alaska, I’m not so used to the freezing cold middle of winter night time temperatures. Andy silently walks next to me as the sounds of the running water fades and we are surrounded by silence once more. It’s more of an awkward silence, apart from the sound of our feet scuffing on the dirt ground. After maybe 5 or 10 minutes of complete silence, I cannot take it, so I try to make conversation, though I don’t think it’s really going to go anywhere.
“You know, I really thought Jay was the serial killer,” I say. “Actually, I can imagine it…”
Jay laughs, and I hear Andy murmur, “I can imagine that too…” Suddenly Jay and Bradie stop, and I have to make quite an effort not to run into them.
“What? Why have we stopped?” I ask, trying to see over Jay’s shoulder.
“There’s a massive tree on the track,” she says.
“Are we still following the track?” Andy asks, looking down. “Wasn’t it this that got us lost in the first place?”
“No, you were what got us lost in the first place,” Bradie retorts, turning around.
“What? Me? How is it suddenly my fault?” Andy replies.
“Because it was your brilliant idea to follow the track, and look where we are now!”
“It wasn’t Andy’s fault,” I try to say, but it comes out almost as quiet as a whisper, I doubt that anybody heard me.
“We were lost before we started following the damn track! And wasn’t it you that was leading in the first place?” They kept arguing and I wanted to sink back into the shadows. Bradie is cut off mid sentence as he is yelling at Andy, when Jay speaks.
“We’re back where we were before,” she says.
“What?” Bradie says.
“The log, this is the same one we found before, remember? That’s when we decided to follow the track.”
“Yeah…” I say as I remember. “But the only problem is, it doesn’t help us to get out of here, we just know not to go back that way,” I point behind me, where we had just come from.
“Well we only have 3 directions left to choose from,” Andy says. I hold back the urge to face palm. I’m not sure if he was joking or not, but I just pat his shoulder and step forward, trying to see if there’s another path showing where we had come from the first time we passed the log. That’s when I hear something in the distance. I turn around to where the sound is coming from, and see a light on the ground a bit further into the trees. Then the familiar song reaches my ears.
“My phone!” I squeal with joy, and jump over the log, running over to the little light.
“Haylee!” I hear Jay yell. “Dammit, I hate it when she runs off like that…” I don’t hear the rest of her sentence. I’m now fairly close to the light as I hear my ring tone playing.
“There’s no sym-pa-thy for the dead,” I sing along. Just before I reach it, I run through something thin and sticky.
“Ah!” I shriek, as I realize I just ran through a spider’s web. I can feel it all over my face and my arms and I start running and jumping around madly trying to get it off. I barely notice that the others have now reached me, and Jay starts laughing.
“This isn’t funny!” I say, still jumping around. “Please tell me there isn’t a spider on me!” I hop from foot to foot as I stand in front of Jay, waiting for an answer.
“I can’t really see anything…” Jay says, squinting her eyes.
“Is that your phone ringing that I can hear?” Andy asks.
“I don’t care about my phone! Is there a spider on me?!” I say impatiently.
I watch Jay looks over me, trying to see, “Okay Lee don’t freak out…”
“Too late!” I say as I tense, but try not to jump around.
“There’s one on your shoulder…” she says slowly, “I’m going to try and get it off.” I feel the eight legs of a spider crawl its way onto my back and I let out a scream. Oh yeah, I have a massive phobia of spiders.
“GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!!” I scream as I run around.
“Haylee! We can’t get it off if you’re running around!” I hear Jay say. By now I am beyond panicking. I continue squealing-much to my dislike as I don’t usually squeal like this-and run past the three of them yelling,
“GET IT OFF!” I feel someone flick my back and then pull me by the arm to stop me from running. “Is it gone?” I ask, not knowing who it was that was holding me.
“It’s gone,” Andy says smoothly. I let out a huge breath of air, and he releases my arms.
“I am so pathetic…” I say quietly so no one can hear me. I hate the fact that I’m so scared of spiders! Why? Why?! I would prefer not to freak out when I walk through a web thank you!
“Why?” Andy asks.
“…You heard that?” He nods. “I may have a tiny phobia of spiders and I hate it so much…”
“Tiny?” Jay asks, “Remember the time there was a daddy long legs on your-“
“Please don’t remind me,” I say, cutting her off.
“Okay, but I’m just saying, it’s more than just a tiny phobia.”
“Whatever!” I say, and then realize that my phone had stopped ringing, and so there is no light indicating where it is. “Okay, nobody move.”
“Why…?” Bradie asks.
“My phone has stopped ringing so I can’t see it; I don’t want you to step on it.”
“What if you step on it?” Jay asks.
“Then I will curse very loudly,” I say calmly. I kneel down and search the ground around me. I can’t remember how close to it I was. Oh, wait a minute, I freaked out after I ran through the web, so it could be ten meters away now.
“How about we call it on my phone?” Bradie asks.
“Oh,” I say stupidly as I stand up again. “That’s smart.”
Jay laughs, “Just like you, Lee.” I glare at her as Bradie pulls out his phone.
“What’s your number?” He asks.
“Hand it here,” I say. He hands me his phone and I punch in my number, waiting to hear the familiar song start playing again. I hear the guitar entrance to ‘There’s No Sympathy For The Dead’ play, and I basically throw Bradie’s phone back at him and run over to mine, picking it up and answering it. “Hi!” I say into the phone. All I hear is the dial tone.
“Aw, he hung up on me!” I complain.
“Who was it that was ringing you before?” Andy asks as they all walk over.
“Um…” I go into my missed calls. “Caity! Probably to tell us that they found Mars.”
“Well call her, maybe she can help us get out of here.”
“I don’t see how…but okay,” I say as I go into my contacts and call her. It rings a few times before she picks up.
“Finally! I’ve been trying to call you for ages! What have you been doing, making out with Andy or something?” She says as she answers. If I were drinking something I bet I would have spat it out.
“Not funny.”
“Fine, where are you?”
“Um, problem is we don’t know…”
“Are you still in the forest? It’s awfully dark outside…”
“Yeah we’re still in the forest, but we’re kind of lost.”
“What?”
“I know it’s ridiculous but-“
“No I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Oh, I said we’re lost.”
“What?”
“Caity you better not be playing a trick on me this isn’t the time.”
“I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.”
“Caity-“
“I th...” All I hear is static.
“What?” This time I was the one that couldn’t hear.
“I can’t…” Is all I manage to make out before the line goes dead. I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen oddly.
“Out of range? What? That’s ridiculous!” I complain.
“What happened?” Jay asks.
“First she couldn’t hear what I was saying, then I couldn’t hear what she was saying and now it says that I’m out of range, I’ve got no signal.”
“And that isn’t normal for the middle of the forest,” Bradie says sarcastically. Jay gives him a look. “That was our last chance. Now we have no way to contact the others, it’s freezing cold, we can’t see a thing, and we’re still lost!” I say, “That’s it, I give up!” I sit on the ground crossing my arms.
“Well you’re very optimistic, aren’t you?” Jay says. “We can contact the others on Bradie’s phone, remember?”
“Not unless you have memorized Mars, Caity and Lenny’s numbers,” I say.
“Oh…well Bradie can still call Shaun.”
“Actually I can’t,” Bradie says.
“Why not?” Andy asks.
“Blame the dimwit himself. He messed up the numbers on my phone so I don’t know which is which. If I call the number under Shaun’s name, it’ll call my aunty or something.” Jay, Andy and I laughed.
“Like I said, that was our last chance. Now we’re doomed,” I say, before raising my voice. “Hear that serial killer? I give in! Just kill me already!”
“Okay Lee, calm down,” Jay says
“For the last time, there is no serial killer,” Andy says.
“Fine,” I say. “But we still can’t get out of here anytime soon.”
“Or can we?” Jay says to herself.
“Are you just being weird or do you actually have an idea?” Bradie asks her.
“A bit of both actually,” she says, “Haylee, don’t you have a GPS like thing on your phone?”
“Yeah, but I need a signal to be able to use it.”
“Damn…” I looked at my phone.
“And I have signal!” I jumped up and did a happy dance.
“Yes!” Jay says, pumping her fist in the air.
“And now it’s gone…and now it’s back again!”
“What?” Jay asks.
“My signal keeps coming and going but I think the closer we get to the mall the better it will get,” I say. “It’s good enough!”
“Finally, I can’t wait til I’m not surrounded by trees,” Andy says.