No one said a word as they followed Matt, still keeping a reasonable distance between him and them so that if they happened to be spotted by someone, they wouldn't think they were together. That and they knew he'd be smirking at them so hard right now.

Matt hadn't said anything either, but he kept looking back to make sure that his followers were still there. Although they all knew the way to the woods, he'd led them to a dirt track that wasn't as well known to the general public, forcing Kyle to whisper to the girls.

"You ever think we'd be following Matt Maguire into the woods like this?" He chuckled.

"It would've been a lot less weird before his brother got sent to jail" Jess noted.

"You make it sound so romantic" Katie said dryly. "Why is everyone still obsessed with that anyway?"

"Well, probably because murder is a pretty big deal" Offered Kyle.

"Yeah and it was only a couple of months ago" Jess backed up.

"Yeah but if he can move on from it, why can't anybody else?" Katie asked, gesturing toward their makeshift scout leader.

"You call this moving on?" Jess raised her eyebrows. Katie conceded Jess' point with a nod of her head but then shot back with a point of her own.

"Sure, he's the Captain Ahab chasing the white whale of Falls Peak but at least it's proactive. Half of the people around town haven't set foot in these woods since they found the body. It's stupid. The killer's in jail and now we've got to go back to normal".

"The killer might be in jail but the beast is still out there" Kyle put on the creepiest voice that he could, forcing the girls into a minor fit of giggles. Quickly, they hushed up once they caught up with Matt who'd stopped to wait for them. "Why'd you stop?" Kyle asked him.

"We need to go in this way" Matt pointed to an opening between a couple of trees that was only visible because he'd pointed it out. Walking past, they would most certainly have missed it.

"I'm quite sure that's not the way we went last night" Jess told him.

"But it's faster" Countered Matt. "It's the way I went yesterday and we ended up in the same place right?"

Kyle shared an uncertain look with Jess. Katie however, was more than happy to be the first one to squeeze through the gap.

"Come on guys, what's the worst that could happen?" She chirped as she disappeared into the shrubbery, knowing full well that their previous conversation was about the worst thing that could happen.

However, with little else to lose, they both followed behind Matt and came out the other side unscathed, aside from Jess' ruined hair that is.

"Eww" She huffed as she tried in vain to make it look less wild.

Although they were convinced that they hadn't been here last night, none of them could really be one-hundred-per-cent sure. It didn't matter how many times you went into a forest, it always looked like a completely different place at night.

What had been a claustrophobic and suffocating place less than twenty-four hours ago, now looked completely calm and peaceful. Even with the invisible shadow of the beast looming over them.

"You know, you could actually mistake this place for beautiful" Jess said, echoing their thoughts.

"This way" Matt barged ahead of her with more intensity to his walking than he'd shown whilst they were walking the streets. He'd spent so much time in the woods that he'd become accustomed to the rougher terrain. Once again, the others followed, despite their trepidation.

"Did anyone bring any music?" Kyle asked. "This silence is freaking me out". He would normally have expected to at least hear birds chirping overhead but here there was nothing.

"I actually like it. It's kind of a break from everything, you know?" Katie smiled at the thought.

"Is that why you and your friends were hanging out here last night? For a break?" Kyle retorted.

"That and it's far enough away from home so that we can smoke in peace" She shrugged, lighting up another cigarette, as if to drive her point home.

"Can you guys be quiet please?" Matt cried. No one had noticed, but he'd dug a map out of his bag and placed it on the ground to consult it.

"What's the problem?" Jess asked.

Matt explained to her that he was trying to see what route the monster was likely to have taken after they'd left it.

"You see normally I spray paint on the ground and hope it walks through it and then there's at least a slight trail, but last night I couldn't" He explained. "Which leaves a few options" He showed them three different paths on his map.

Looking up at the path ahead, Jess saw that they were the same as the one they'd crawled through. Almost invisible.

"What makes you so sure that it's still here?" Kyle asked.

"I think we'd have heard if a giant monster was waltzing through town" Matt remarked.

"Fair point" Kyle couldn't argue for once.

"Just had a flashback to watching Power Rangers as a kid" Katie said to no one in particular.

As the unwilling trio all laughed at her comments, Matt balled his fists, trying to contain his growing rage.

"If you guys aren't going to take this seriously then maybe you should just go home!" He yelled, his white knuckles unable to quell his temper. His sudden fit silenced all of his companions instantly.

Finally, Kyle approached him cautiously. He didn't want to admit it, but he wondered if Matt was maybe secretly more of a monster than the one he was chasing. He certainly wouldn't be the only one in town to think that.

"Come on man" He sympathetically pleaded. "Take what seriously? Look around. There's nothing here. If there was anything here last night, then it's long gone now".

"Kyle's right. We should get out of here" Jess sighed.

Matt took just a split second to give his thoughts on her suggestion.

"No. No way. You guys go ahead but I'm staying" He began packing his maps away, as if he was suddenly ready to take off at a hundred miles an hour, deeper into the forest.

"Well, you don't need to tell me twice" Jess said, leaving the others in her wake as she whizzed back the way they'd came.

"Jess wait up" Kyle requested in vain. "Come on guys" He turned to the other two.

Unsurprisingly, Matt ignored him and walked the opposite direction from which Jess had retreated. Katie however, certainly surprised Kyle.

"Actually I think I'll stay too" She said, stopping Matt in his tracks. They both looked at her, willing her to give them some sort of explanation as to her decision. "Nobody should be on their own out here" She obliged.

"Whatever" Kyle shook his head before leaving them to resume their search. Truthfully, he actually agreed with Katie; which meant that he needed to catch up with Jess quickly.

*

"Jess!! Hey wait up!" Kyle called for what felt like the hundredth time.

He could see her clearly now, power-walking back down the stretching dirt track. Once again Jess ignored him so he took off into a sprint in order to attract her attention. He was well aware how different this was to the previous night when he'd been stealthily trailing her.

"What do you want Kyle?" She gave him a warning groan.

"Are you ok?" He asked, unsure of what else to say to her.

"What the fuck do you think?" She barked back at him. "I've just wasted almost an hour and a half chasing some fictional monster, my parents are probably wondering where the hell I am and I just want everything to go back to the way it was".

"With Duncan?" He ventured, presuming that Matt's wild goose chase wasn't the sole reason for her outburst.

At least this made Jess laugh for a second.

"That's definitely not happening" She snorted.

They continued walking at a slightly slower pace for a few minutes until they were back in view of the town, where Kyle once again plucked up the courage to talk.

"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to" Jess didn't say anything so he took that as permission to proceed. "What actually happened with you guys?"

Exhaling, Jess answered with a shrug. "He just doesn't get me anymore. He thinks I'm just there. It's not like I'm an actual person to him anymore. Do you wanna know what I was doing last night? Why I was out there?"

"I've only been asking you that all day" Kyle thought to himself, deciding instead to just nod, happy enough that he might actually get a straight answer from her for once.

"I was just out for a walk to clear my head. I didn't mean to go out there" She said. He could tell that she was being truthful by the look on her face.

"Then why did you?"

"Because I'm not an idiot. I realised that I was being followed. I didn't know who by, but I knew that I was" Kyle felt a pang of guilt at her story. "So I figured that if I went there, whoever it was would just go away because no one wants to go near the trees these days. But I wasn't thinking straight. I realised that if something bad was going to happen to me, then it would be there. That's what happened to that little kid and I could have just walked into the exact same trap" Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes as she recounted her feelings.

"But you didn't" He reminded her, but this only seemed to anger her more.

"But I could have!" She yelled.

"I'm sorry"

"It isn't your fault" She told him. "It's this town. I hate that everyone's constantly looking over their shoulder. Every time something happens, people are going to accuse anybody of anything and I'm just so sick and tired of it!"

"It's not going to be like this forever" Kyle said more out of hope than expectation. "Believe me, I feel the same way, more than you can imagine".

"Why were you following me last night?" Jess asked. Her tears had miraculously vanished back behind her eyes without spilling onto her face. "The real reason" She added. "Not this bullshit about being worried about me or whatever excuses you keep telling yourself. The truth."

It was only now that Kyle realised how perceptive Jess must really be. He knew that whatever ideas had been in his head were just a front for something deeper. Something greater. He hadn't wanted to think what it might have been but now, feeling the heat of Jess' laser-like stare, he started to speak, instantly saying whatever came to mind as he searched inside himself for the truth.

"I don't know" Was the first muttering before he started. "I guess when I heard you guys arguing . . . it reminded me that I'm not living in a bubble. Other people have problems too and it was nice to focus on somebody else's issues for a while" He shrugged.

"Wow" She replied.

"What?"

"You almost had me there" She rolled her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" For the first time since they'd come back into contact, Kyle found himself a little angry at Jess. Who was she to talk about honesty?

"You're Kyle Brennan" She laughed, as if that was supposed to help him understand. "You're a hero in this town. You don't have problems" She said with what sounded like contempt.

"You think you know everything don't you?" He asked, his anger now much clearer than before. "Who are you to judge who has any problems, or whose problems matter? You've just went on and on about how you hate how worried everybody is but now I'm not allowed to be?"

"Whatever" Jess snarled back. "Let's just pretend that the past couple of days didn't happen and we can just go back to being just neighbours. I'm going to call the girls and see if someone wants to get a coffee or something. You should go home. Maybe you'll find somebody else's business to stick your nose into" Jess huffed once more before abandoning him at almost the exact spot that she had done the night before. However, today Kyle had completely different feelings about it.

"Fine by me" He growled under his breath. Jess wasn't the only one to think that they'd wasted their time.

___________________________________________________________________

Chapter 6 is here!

I originally wanted to shoot back over to let you guys see what Matt and Katie were up to after they'd been left alone but I didn't want the chapter to get too long. So the next one will start with them!

The intention of this chapter was to delve a little deeper into the mindset of the kids, and the town's growing unease as a whole. Although it sounded great in my head, after writing it I felt a little worried that Jess' outburst seemed a bit random. I hope it comes across as someone with underlying fears instead of someone just being a whiny little bitch!

As usual, all votes and comments are appreciated and I promise the next chapter wont be long as most of it is written already!