Remember the Best Hours

Caitlin’s Point Of View

“Dammit, why does Jay never charge her phone?” I say annoyed, pulling my phone away from my ear.
“Because she’s a tool,” Lenny says, sitting down on the bench in the middle of the shopping centre. “Try Haylee.” I sigh and punch in Haylee’s number, hoping that she’d answer.
“It’s ringing,” I say hopefully. Ring…ring…ring…ring… ‘Hey its Haylee I obviously don’t have my phone on me so sucks for you haha, leave a message if you want, and I’ll talk to ya later’ BEEEEEP! “Dammit!” I say annoyed. “Why the hell would Haylee not answer her phone? I know for a fact she has it!”
“Try again,” Shaun says, “Maybe she was too busy making out with Andy.”
“What?” I say, turning to him.
“Did you see the way they were looking at each other?” He says. I shake my head.
“You’re seeing things Shaun,” Mars says patting his shoulder.
“If she picks up I’ll mention it and see what she says,” I say sneakily, grinning. After another two tries at calling Haylee, I gave up. “Screw this,” I say, throwing my phone at Shaun.
“What was that for?” He asks as he picks it up from his lap.
“I was going to throw it at the ground, but that would break it, so you’re the next best thing,” I grin, as my phone starts ringing. “Gimmie my phone!” I say, snatching it off him. I look at the screen. ‘Lee is calling you.’ “It’s Lee!” I say, before answering it. “Finally! I’ve been trying to call you for ages! What have you been doing, making out with Andy or something?” I say, looking over at Shaun as he gives me a thumbs up.
“Not funny,” Haylee answers. Damn, that doesn’t give anything away!
“Fine, where are you?” I ask.
“Uh, problem is we don’t know…”
“Are you still in the forest? It’s awfully dark outside…” I look out the window, wow, it’s really dark.
“Yeah we’re…” crackle, static, “…lost”
“What?” This has me worried. It’s really dark, they are probably still in the forest and they’re lost?
“I know it’s ridiculous but-“
“No I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Oh, I said…” more static.
“What?”
“Caity, you…” her voice fades out as the phone struggles to keep a connection.
“I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.”
“Caity-“
“I think if you’re in the forest you won’t have any signal.” All I get in reply is more static. “I can’t hear you,” The phone cuts out, and I gape at the screen.
“What happened?” Shaun asks.
“I think she was out of range, I couldn’t hear half the things she said. And I think they’re lost.”
“Lost where?” Mars asks.
“Out there,” I point through the window that looks out onto the dark line of trees.
“Yikes, glad it’s not me,” Lenny says.
“Yeah, cause you’d totally freak out,” I say.
“I’m not a nature person okay?” She replies.
“What if they’re stuck out there all night?” I say, getting more worried.
“I’m sure they can’t be that far in,” Shaun says.
“But it’s dark and probably cold,” I say, looking through the window again.
“Should we go in after them?” Mars asks.
“No way, no how,” Lenny says, “I don’t want to get lost too.” My phone buzzes in my hand, and I look at the screen.
“It’s a text from Haylee,” I say, opening the message.

Okay, my phone has a bit of a signal that keeps coming and going so we’re using my GPS to get out, and I am FREEZING MY ASS OFF OUT HERE!

I laugh and read out the message. “Lee is always cold,” Lenny says.
“Well she’s always wearing hoodies,” Mars says.
“But she isn’t today,” I say.
“Hey what’s the time?” Shaun asks. I look at my phone.
“6:30…mum’s probably gonna be pissed at me, aw and we have school tomorrow!” I whine.
“At least our uniform doesn’t suck,” Mars adds.
“Yeah I guess…hey remember how we had to play Battle of the Bands in our uniforms?”
“Yeah, that was cool, even though I wasn’t actually playing cause you know, only you three can play instruments,” Mars says.
“Wait, you guys played at Battle of the Bands?” Shaun asks.
“Yeah,” I say, before realising that Short Stack had played there too.
“You guys were in Battle of the Bands too weren’t you?” I ask him.
“Yeah, we won,” he says grinning.
“That’s right!” I say, smacking my forehead.
“You said you guys played in your school uniforms?” Shaun asks.
“Yep,” I say.
“I think I remember you,” he says, realisation coming over his face. “What’s your band’s name?”
“Dead School Girl.”
“You were Dead School Girl?” He says.
“Yeah, we came fifth,” I grin.
“That is really funny.”
“Why?” I ask him. Lenny and Mars have just been watching this conversation like it’s a tennis match.
“Because, when we were watching you guys play, Andy said to me, ‘Now do you believe bass players are sexy?’ Haylee was your bass player, wasn’t she?” I nod. “I knew it! And I swear Bradie was staring at Jay the whole time, but when I mentioned it, he just said he wasn’t looking at her and was admiring your drumming skills.”
I laugh, “That is really funny.”
“How come you had to play in your uniforms?” Shaun asks. I look at Lenny and Mars who laugh.
“Well,” Mars starts, “We all got detentions that afternoon…”
“What for?”
“Jay sticky taped a piece of paper to Miss Martin’s back that said ‘COME WATCH DEAD SCHOOL GIRL AT BATTLE OF THE BANDS MOTHER FUCKERS!’” I say.
“Lee tried to steal one of the music department’s bass guitars because she thought hers wasn’t battle of the bands worthy,” Mars says, laughing.
“Caity here wrote all over the wall in the girls bathroom ‘DEAD SCHOOL GIRL AT BATTLE OF THE BANDS!’” Lenny says.
“And you two sneaked into the office and tried to yell through the loudspeaker ‘come see Dead School Girl at battle of the bands!’” I say, looking at Lenny and Mars.
“That’s quite…interesting,” Shaun says, laughing.
“It was so worth it though!” Mars says.
“Hey, do you reckon we should go outside for when the others find their way out of the forest?” I ask, remembering.
“Oh yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Mars says, standing up. We walk over to where we had walked outside the first time, and as soon as I come out the door, the cold night air hits me as a gust of wind goes past.
“Yeah, Lee is probably freezing her ass off,” I say, as we head over to the dark line of trees. I peer into the forest, trying to see any sign of them. If they are using Lee’s phone then that means they would have light. I sigh, I can’t see anything in there. That’s when a blood curdling scream echoes out through the trees. I jump, and Lenny lets out a little squeal.
“What the fuck was that?” Shaun asks, stepping forward, trying to see into the trees. I turn to Mars, her face looks paler than usual. I didn’t even know that was possible.
“That sounded like Lee…” she says.
I look back into the trees; Mars is really good at telling voices apart. And screams. “She probably just walked into a spider web,” I say. “You know how she has Arachnophobia.”
“That’s not the scream she does when she walks through a spider web…” I look to Lenny and Shaun. Lenny looks unsure and Shaun looks worried. Mars starts walking forward into the trees.
“Mars!” I say, going after her. “You’ll get yourself lost!” I go to grab her arm to stop her, but she starts running. “Mars!” I run after her.
“Caity!” Shaun yells, before I hear his running footsteps behind me.
“Guys! Don’t leave me out here!” I faintly hear Lenny yell.
“Mars stop!” I yell out to her. Why does she have to be such a fast runner? I can only just see the outline of her figure as she gets further and further ahead of me. I am frantically ducking under branches and jumping over logs as I go, my legs still hurt from all of that DDR.
“Mars!” I yell out, before I can’t see her anymore. As I still run, trying to see her, my foot hooks on a tree root and I fall face first to the ground. I groan as I hear Shaun skid to a stop beside me.
“Caity, are you okay?” He asks, kneeling down.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, ignoring the extreme pain in my knee. Shaun holds his hand out and I take it as he helps me up. “But we’ve lost Mars again.”
“Let’s hope the others find her then,” he says. It is completely silent, and another gust of winds passes through the trees. I almost shiver, but luckily I am a little more accustomed to cold weather than Lee is.
“Now I know what the others would have felt like, it’s really creepy out here…” I say, looking around. I try not to move my leg as my knee is killing me.
“Well they are all together so I’m sure they’re fine.” I look behind me to where we came from, there’s no light shining through the trees to signal where the mall is.
“I also see how they got lost, if I didn’t know we came from back there I’d say we were lost.” Shaun looks behind us and nods. “Should we stay here and wait for Mars or go back to Lenny?”
“…Lenny will be fine,” Shaun says. “We should find Mars, though.” He starts walking forward, and I try to take a step forward too, but my knee painfully objects, and I fall forwards.
“Fuck!” I yell in pain, just as Shaun catches me.
“You’re not very good at staying on your feet, are you?” He says.
“I am so,” I say. “But I don’t think my knee agrees to walking right now.”
“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.
“When I fell, I landed on it, and it really hurts.”
“Well why didn’t you say so?” he says, helping me sit down on a nearby rock.
I shrug, “I didn’t think it was that bad.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You know, at Battle of the Bands, we wanted to talk to you guys afterwards, but Trevor Steel and Chris Johns approached us.”
“That was when you got signed to Sunday Morning Records,” I say.
“Yeah, after we were done talking to them you guys were gone. Andy and Bradie were pretty bummed.”
I laugh, “I bet they would have been.”
“We were pretty bummed about what?” I hear Andy’s voice from behind me. Shaun and I turn around to see them walking towards us.
“Guys!” Shaun says.
“What are you two doing out here?” Bradie asks.
“Probably the same thing Andy and Haylee were doing,” Jay says with a smirk.
I gaped at Haylee, “So you were!”
“We were not!” Haylee says.
“Does that mean you two were as well?” Mars says to me and Shaun, raising her eyebrows.
“No!” I say. “We went chasing after you but we lost you.”
“What happened while you were in here anyway?” Shaun asks.
“Well,” Jay says, before explaining everything that happened, including their suspicions of what Lee and Andy were up to when they split into twos. But they didn’t mention why Lee screamed.
“Why did we hear Haylee scream?” I ask.
“She thought she found a dead body,” Andy says. “But it was an animal.”
“It was still a dead body!” She says.
“That’s why Mars ran off into here,” Shaun says.
“And why Lenny is probably freaking out back at the edge of the forest,” I add.
“And why Caity can’t walk,” Shaun adds.
“Why can’t you walk?” Mars asks me.
“I tripped over while chasing you and fell on my knee,” I say glaring at her.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Shall we get out of here?” Jay says.
“Yes please,” Andy says, walking ahead with Haylee as Bradie, Jay and Mars follow.
“I guess I’ll have to carry you then,” Shaun says, turning to me.
“Um, okay,” I say. How else am I going to get out of here? He stands up and puts one arm around my back, the other under my legs, before lifting me up bridle style and walking behind Jay and Bradie. I try to look everywhere apart from his face, although with the way I’m facing it’s kind of difficult.
“Comfortable?” Shaun asks.
“Very actually,” I reply.