Chapter 20: Chapter 19- Reunion

We made it back to the bus a short while later.

Susy looked at it in wide-eyed amazement. "It really did fall over..." She pressed her hands together. "I hope everyone is okay."

"Yeah," I said as I walked past them and to the hatch we had once crawled out of. 

I poked my head in, sent the butterfly in, and turned my back on the bus. Haunting, meanwhile, was looking around a stump.

"They probably took your bag with them, Haunting."

"Yeah... looks like it..." she said with a sigh. "I feel so guilty..."

Susy walked in front of me with a smile on her face. "So, where do we go next, Mari?"

I pointed behind me. "Lucky for us, I remember how to get up to the main road from here."

Haunting raised her hand. "I personally don't need a break. I'd rather get out of here."

"I can keep walking too," Susy said.

"Yeah, alright," I said as the butterfly came out from the bus and slipped into my hair. "Doesn't seem like there's anything here, so we can keep moving."

With nothing more to be done, the girls and I went around the bus.

"We'll be on the trail soon, girls--"

I came to an abrupt stop as a bushel of white hair came out from the other side of the bus.

"Mari!" exclaimed Lorio.

"Lorio?!" I yelled back.

"What are you doing here--"

"I could ask you the same thing! Why were you so quiet?!"

He looked past me and at the girls. "Oh my god... Haunting and Susy? You two are alright? Really and truly?"

"We are, Mister Lorio!" Susy said. "It's nice to meet you!"

"Yeah, we're okay," Haunting said, a hint of trepidation in her voice.

Lorio looked at me again. "What about Kaz, Mari?"

I shook my head. "He didn't make it. Was killed last night."

Lorio's happiness faded, and he nodded. "I understand... Let's put a pin in that for now. Are you all okay? I'll go get the others--"

I grabbed his wrist before he ran off and narrowed my eyes at him. "You don't need to do that."

"O-Oh... You can walk then?"

"Oh, we definitely can."

He looked at me slack-jawed and then chuckled. "Yeah, great! Let's go then! Umm, follow me, girls."

Lorio walked ahead of us up the gentle incline, and Susy happily followed him while Haunting and I trailed behind.

Haunting walked closer to me. "Mari, this is weird, isn't it?" she whispered.

"It is. What circumstances got him right at the bus, by himself?"

"And why was he so quiet?" Haunting replied. "If he was looking for us--shouldn't he have been calling out?"

"I'll question him," I said.

"And I'll listen carefully for anything that might be suspicious."

We both sped up so that we were walking closer to Lorio.

"So, Lorio, what were you doing out here by yourself?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I got a head start on the search party. I had rounded people up this morning, but those people weren't the most willing types, so I ran out here while they got their stuff together. Figured that if you were alive, it'd be better to get to you sooner rather than later."

"So, you ran out here by yourself, and you were looking around the bus?"

"Yeah... because I figured I could start the search there and at least trace your steps."

I laughed. "You were pretty quiet, you know? I almost had a heart attack when you leaped out."

"I definitely had one!" Haunting blurted.

"I was fine," Susy followed, giggling.

Lorio shared a giggle with Susy before responding. "I was just really focusing on finding clues."

"You didn't hear us?" I asked.

"Uhh, I'm afraid I didn't..." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Are you trying to insinuate something, Mari?"

Haunting tensed up on the other side of him, looking like she was ready to pounce the moment I gave the word.

"No, I just don't understand what happened. You were so desperate to find us that you ran out here by yourself, but you weren't calling for us? I mean, we were trying to be quiet too, but we were talking loudly enough for most to be able to overhear if they were close enough. And you were right around the bus."

"Yeah, sorry, Mari. I don't have good hearing, and I wasn't shouting because weird stuff happened yesterday... I had just freaked myself out a little and wanted to be careful." He chuckled. "Maybe more careful than I should have been.

"That's fair," Susy said. "We saw stuff that freaked Haunting out too."

"What kind of stuff?" Lorio asked.

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"There was someone in white walking around the forest, and then someone was spying on us. Oh! Mari kept a wood sculpture too!"

"Huh..." he said, narrowing his eyes at me. "Well, scare tactics. The forest like's doing that. Glad you three are safe regardless." Lorio suddenly looked to the right. I looked that way and couldn't see anything, but I could hear the rumble of someone's voice.

"I found them!" Lorio belted out. "Over here!" Lorio smiled at me. "This is good! The rest of the search party is over there! Follow me, girls!"

Susy followed behind him while Haunting and I exchanged looks.

"So, the search party element was true..."

"I... still think this was a weird encounter," Haunting said. 

"And I would still agree with you..."

"Do you think those people shouting are real? Or is this all a trick?"

"Hmm... Let's... keep our minds open for now and see where he'll take us."

We were both skeptical of Lorio, but against our suspicions, he actually led us back to the search party Pitter was leading.

"Lorio! You found them!" Pitter, that gentle giant, exclaimed. A familiar face--Mitch--popped out from behind Pitter and ran up to us. "Girls! Haunting, Susy! Awesome! And the other one from the village! I'm glad you're safe." Mitch looked around. "Hey, where's Kaz?" Haunting shook her head, and Mitch understood immediately. "No... And he helped out with the water yesterday too..."

"Mitch, where is everyone else?" Haunting asked. 

"Oh, they're safe in town. These guys just took me along because I had the gun."

"Aye," Pitter replied. "I wanted someone I knew was good with a weapon, so we made the call to bring him along."

"And this guy," I said, pointing at Lorio. "He just ran off by himself, and you all let him?"

"Hey, Mari," Lorio started, looking a little offended.

Pitter looked at Lorio with a perplexed look. "I guess you did run off, didn't you? Yeah, but it's Lorio, so I trust him to know what he's doing." Pitter belted out a relieved laugh. "And look at that--he found you after all. We were just about to start our own trek deeper into the woods too. Good thing we started yelling."

"Yeah, I appreciated that too," Lorio replied, chuckling with his friend. 

"Yeah, at least someone didn't scare himself into silence," I muttered, eliciting a giggle from Haunting.

Lorio smiled at the group. "Well. That's it. We did it. Let's get back and debrief--"

"Hold on."

A villager came up from behind Pitter and Mitch and stood in front of Lorio. 

"I knew I was going to have to be here," said the bald and pale older man. He was wearing a brown, ragged vest and similarly colored pants. A few of his teeth were missing, giving him an uglier mug than most, and accentuating the irritation in his eyes. "Are we forgetting something? There's a corpse out there, isn't there? The Kaz one?"

"Ahh... Right," Pitter said, darkness dampening his smile.

Lorio sighed. "Look, I'm sure we can leave it alone for a day, Dampee--"

"No, no, no," the man, Dampee, barked back. "You were accusing us this morning of all kinds of shit, weren't you? And now you're just going to go on as if that wasn't a fear? No, we are finding that corpse!"

"But who knows how long that'll take, and we still need to orient everyone--"

"We know where the corpse is," Susy said. Everyone turned toward her. "Mari, Haunting, and I buried it."

"They went and buried it," Dampee said. "Well, good, we better go find it and burn it."

I was a little taken aback, almost matching Lorio in disposition. "Do we really have to--"

"We do, Little Missy!" Dampee yelled back at me. "If we don't, that corpse will start moving and claw someone alive!"

I blinked at the man, looked over at a similarly stunned Haunting, and looked at him again. "Seriously? Zombies now?"

"Better believe it. All kinds of sorcery lives in these woods," he said, spitting on the ground.

Lorio stepped in between us. "That said, zombies don't occur that often--"

"Once was enough, Lorio!" Dampee yelled back.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, if we know where the corpse is, then that wouldn't be so bad. Let's burn it and call it a day. Pitter?"

"I'll come with you."

"Me too!" Mitch followed, adjusting his hat.

"You best believe I'm coming. I won't let you boys bungle this up," Dampee said.

Lorio looked back at the rest of the search party and at many people who were shaking their heads.

"You found the missing people. That's all I was here for."

"Yeah, we'll go home early and help out around town."

The members of the search party peeled away until only one person was left--a familiar face with reddened eyes.

"I'll stay and help too," said Annabelle as she walked up to the group. 

I grinned at the young lady. "Annabelle. Good to see you again."

Annabelle smiled. "Yeah, I'm glad, Mari--"

"Hey! I'm Haunting Tone!" Haunting said, latching onto my arm. 

I looked at Haunting. "Pardon me?"

Anabelle looked on, a little stunned.

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