I woke up as we hit a particularly rough patch of ground.
I’m a second year college student, and I was on a trip with a few of my friends into the wilderness to go camping.
It went about as what you would expect, and was overall a fun experience. Dylan was taking us all back home in his van.
There was still a large patch of wilderness between us and the city outskirts, which was why I had fallen asleep.
And that’s when I noticed… him.
Outwardly, there was nothing really off about him. At least not that much. He looked like he could’ve easily been from our group.
But he wasn’t.
Because five of us had gone on this trip. I did a quick headcount, wondering if I was just drowsy, and counted six.
“So, who’re you?” I asked him. It was odd to see someone new here- but the thing was that I guessed we had decided to pick up a hitchhiker while I had fallen asleep.
Lucy gave me a weird look. “You alright there? This here’s Grayson. You know him.”
I turned to him again- wondering if by some odd chance I did know him and reached the same conclusion I had earlier- I had never seen this man before in my life.
And again, we had done headcounts regularly. Over and over- because Blake wouldn’t let us not do them. It was drilled in my head that it only went up to five.
That’s it- five. Not six.
And we did this over and over so often there was no way I could be making a mistake.
I opened my phone and went through the pictures I’d taken during the trip- no, there was not even a single sight of him at the edge of any frame let alone a full-blown photo of him. And the most people in any photograph was still five.
I turned to Lucy and said, “What’s with this weird joke?”
“What weird joke?” she asked.
“Why did you pick someone up? And why are you pretending like he’s always been here?” Lucy wasn’t really one to joke, but I guess this could’ve been part of an elaborate prank.
Lucy frowned. “Who are you talking about?”
“Grayson,” I hissed as softly as I could. “I know he wasn’t here with us before.”
“What’re you talking about?” Lucy asked. “He was here with us the whole trip…”
Frustrated, I tapped Blake on the shoulder. “Hey Blake, why don’t you do another head count?”
“Oh buzz off…”
“I’m serious!” I said.
“Alright… one!”
“Two!”
“Three!”
“Four!” that was my number.
“Five!” came from Lucy.
“Six!” Grayson said.
I glared at him- again, I knew I wasn’t mistaken. Dylan was driving, but he was the most reliable member of the group, so I tapped him on the shoulder.
“What happened mate?”
“What’s the deal with Grayson? When did we pick him up?”
Dylan frowned. “Bro, he’s always been here with us. What’re you talking about.”
Okay, no, they were definitely gaslighting me.
Blake actually seemed to remember something. “Hey yeah- Grayson’s always been here with us, hasn’t he? We both went into the bush together, I remember.”
I frowned as it sounded like he was saying something but I then turned to see Grayson’s reaction to this.
He hadn’t said a single word at all. He was just staring out the window, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He then turned very abruptly and told Dylan, “Hey, could we stop here? I need to take a leak.”
“Again?” Dylan asked, but he stopped the van anyway. Grayson got out, and I saw him turn towards the woods.
“Maybe he just has an overactive bladder,” Blake said.
“Wait, you’re telling me that you stopped before?”
“Oh yeah- wait, you were asleep, right? Yeah, I had to go in the woods, and Dylan had to too,” Blake said.
I think I began to understand what had happened- I had fallen asleep, and Blake went to go outside so they stopped- but then Blake came back with Grayson at that time. And… everyone apparently accepted them?
“Oh yeah, you guys were gone for a long time,” Lucy said.
My heart started racing as time dragged on- it soon became ten minutes since Grayson had left us.
“Should we go and c-“
Dylan got no further as a howl erupted from the woods around us. It didn’t sound like anything I had heard before- rather, a mixture between a grown wolf’s and a human infant’s cry.
And there were more of them.
“Um… guys…” Lucy said, pointing to a point in the woods where I could make out a pair of orange eyes looking at us before they disappeared so quickly I wondered if it had just been a mirage.
“Dylan, let’s go.”
“We can’t leave Grayson behind-“
“Grayson’s the one who probably brought those things to us!” I said. “How come you guys can’t see that?”
Other strange, shadowy figures were there just behind the tree line. I had a feeling that they weren’t going to remain behind the tree line for long.
“Dylan! Floor it!” this time it was Lucy who screamed, and Dylan started the van. Behind us, I could hear the same strange screams we had heard earlier.
We didn’t get very far as Dylan stopped.
“What happened?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know,” Dylan said.
I got out, against my better judgement, and saw that both of our rear tires had been slashed. Grayson… that snake!
And then I saw it- coming out from the trees- a creature that looked almost humanoid but had a wolf’s head- no, I think it was wearing a wolf pelt. It let out a scream and I dashed back inside.
“What happened?” Dylan asked.
“That thing you guys let join us slashed both of our tires!” I said.
The cries grew louder around us, and more of the same figures came out onto the road.
I’m typing this as fast as I can on my phone- I have no idea what those things are, but they look like they’re ready to tear us to pieces. Lucy’s a sobbing mess next to me, and to be honest if it wasn’t her it would likely be me, but I’m trying to hide how scared I am right now. Won’t lie though- I think the end is near for us. We can’t drive any further- any bright ideas on what our next move should be?