Come back.

The words have been echoing in Benaiah's head since that day in the woods.

It had only been three days ago since the gang encountered strange event in the forest.

Gosh darn.

They talked about it and chalked it up to it being ghosts, it wasn't that hard to believe. Camden even believed it.

Benaiah had told them what he heard, they said they didn't hear anything but Benaiah was certain he had.

The more he thought about it the more it saddened him. The ghost sounded like a child, a scared child.

And it wanted him to go back.

So he came up with a plan to go back out there, just him, no one else. If no one else had heard the ghost child call him back then maybe the ghost child didn't want them to come back.

So he decided to go out their Sunday morning, when his mother would be out at church. It wasn't hard to fake a sickness to get out of going, all he had to do was tell his mother in the most sad voice possible he didn't feel so well. She immediately made him some soup and told him to rest in bed.

After she left his plan was in motion.

He packed up his juice boxes and his notebook, along with some ghosties he bought yesterday after they were in stock again. Maybe if he brought them a snack they would want to talk.

The morning was air was fresh against his face, the grass was dewy and sky was bright. It was pretty. Perhaps he would write a poem about it later.

As he approached the scary path he started having second thoughts. His logical side told him there was nothing out there that could hurt him, his imaginative side however told him millions of demons and devil's lurked out there to hurt him.

He pushed that aside as he thought of that sad child's voice, and he pushed through towards the woods.

As he walked through he looked for a sign of where they were that day, as he neared the end of the path he saw a ghostie wrapper fly out and smile.

Gotcha.

He left his bike at the end of the trees and talked himself up before walking into the woods. There was still some ghostie wrappers here and there skewed about the place so he was able the find the place they were in before. He could tell by the way the ghosties wrappers were placed in a circle, the same way it was when the ghost interacted with them.

He gulped and began to speak. "Hello? Hello, um, my name is Benaiah, I think I heard you, that day in the woods."

Nothing happened. He felt slightly like a fool, but nonetheless he kept speaking.

"I heard you, I heard you calling me so I came back, please come out, I have stuff for you."

He brought out a ghostie from his bag and waved it in the air, and again, nothing happened.

He looked down. He was beginning to be unsettled and embarrassed. He gulped and turned to walk away. When he heard that voice again.

"Please, don't leave, come back."

He turned around and his eyes widened. There was girl, almost translucent, she had big wide eyes and looked beat up. Moss grew on her hair and everything about her looked washed away, like when you try to erase color pencil. The color wasn't quite gone.

"Woah."

"Its you." She whispered. "The polite boy, Benaiah, yes?"

He nodded slowly. He couldn't believe it, a ghost, a little girl, but she couldn't look any older than him.

She eyed the ghostie in his hand. "Is that for me?"

"Um yeah." He handed it to her.

He watched as she unwrapped it and ate it, it was strange, all this was so, so, strange.

"So, um, hi." He scratched the back of his neck akwardly. "So you asked me to come back, right."

Shd nodded. "Yes, you were very nice, you tried to protect the animals, I didn't like your other friends though, those two boys taunt me, they remind of the boys that used to mess with us when we were alive."

Shs looked at the ground, she looked so confused. He was so sorry for the poor ghost girl. He wished he could do something to help.

"Why did you what me to come back, you asked me come back, what for?"

"I'm lonely, so lonely, there used to be my friends here with me, Louise and Mary Beth, but I haven't seen them in forever."

His eyes widened. "Wait, you're one of the girls that was murdered here in '79?".

The news articles that Donna used to scare him with flashed in his head. Louise, 12, Mary Beth, 11, and...

"You must be Zoe, you were the youngest, you were ten years old."

She looked down sadly and nodded. "I've been here forever, and I can never leave, I'm so bored and sad, and hurt."

She cried and it was weird, because she cried actually tears, she was completely human, well not completely, more like a fading human.

"Those men hurt me and my friend, and my sister, and they left me here, I'm all alone, Louise would've never left me here."

She was full on sobbing now, she looked so drained and it was so sad to see.

He bite his lip. "What if, what if I could help you find your friend and your sister?"

She looked up at him with hopeful eyes. "Could you?"

He smiled and nodded. "Of course, but I think I'll need some help, is it okay if I tell my friends about you?"

She looked scared, but happy. It was weird. She was so small, she looked younger than ten, too young, too small. His heart ached for her. Tears started to form in his eyes.

She nodded. "Yes, if you could get me to Louise and Mary Beth than I don't care who you tell, you really are a polite boy."

He smiled and wiped away his tears. This felt nice, helping her felt great, he forgot all about him being in creepy woods with tall trees and bears and...

Gosh darn, why does he always have to go ahead and scare himself?

After some talking, and some hugging (it was weird, he could grasp onto her as well, but she just felt like really thin cloth, not flesh and blood) he agreed to go and collect all his friends and she would be here with his juice boxes and ghosties.

It was all working out, he felt great.

And for the first time in his life, he felt brave.