Bad omens

“It shows a man dressed as a bear terrorizing a small village of white settlers. I guess that’s how they kept the colonists off the land until they started coming in ****.” Heather mused.

“Interesting. I wonder if it is just a folk tale, or maybe a true story of something that happened in the past?” Zack asked.

“No clue, but they obviously thought it was important enough to write on the burning hot walls.” Heather said.

“Good point. Should we tell the others?”

“Tell them what? That we found a couple hundred year old wall paintings? Nah, we can keep it between us.” Heather said. They explored the rest of the cave, not finding anything else until they discovered claw marks on the cave wall near the entrance/exit.

“Are those bear claws?” Zack asked worriedly. Heather gave him a reassuring smile.

“Those marks are old; this must have been an ancient bear cave.” She mused to herself.

“I doubt that, did you see how small the entrance was?”

“Yeah, but there was evidence of the entrance collapsing, be it natural or not.”

“I don’t think this is coincidence that we find paintings involving bears in a cave that used to have bears.” Zack said.

“Very true, and yet what still doesn’t make sense is how bears would get here, when this whole place is surrounded by water.” She said.

“Damn, I didn’t even think about that. Was the lake filled in by man?”

“I don’t know, we should find out what we can.” Heather said.

“Definitely. I think we should head back now though, before anyone gets worried.”

“I suppose so.” Heather said with a hint of sullenness in her voice. The swim back was uneventful , and soon enough they heard before they saw the sounds of their friends laughing and having fun.

“Where did you two go off to?” Taylor asked when she saw them return.

“We just went for a swim around the lake.” Zack replied.

“Uh huh.” Taylor said dryly giving Heather a look to which she shrugged her shoulders. The rest of the afternoon in the lake was fun, they played a few games of tag in the water, in which the only way to tag someone was to grab them around the waist and prevent them from escaping for three seconds. As you could imagine, the game was quite fun for certain people. Since the game was Kurt’s suggestion, he proved just how good at the game he was, or perhaps it was the fact that Maddie never quite attempted not to be caught, and when she was, she would never try to get out of the man’s arms. When it was a woman who was chasing her though, she would swim far away to get away. Brandon watched as Kurt grabbed Ashley a handful of times and spun her in the air, all the while she was laughing and screaming. Brandon had tried to get into the game, but he had never been a great swimmer and that hurt in this game. Zack swam up to his friend after a few rounds, he was it once and caught Heather before retiring.

“Relax Brandon, she loves you, you know that.”

“I know Zack, it’s just that I’ve been talking to the guy, and he’s not as bad as we initially thought.” Brandon said.

“What do you mean? We all saw the way he looked at the girls.”

“Yeah, apparently, I don’t know if he’s bullshitting or not, but he had been a player his whole life, and he had recently decided to find someone and settle down with them.” Brandon groaned into his hand.

“So what?”

“Well, if he were to tell that sob story to Ashley, she would melt like butter in an oven.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Zack said playfully for which he got a playful punch in the shoulder.

“I’m glad I’ve got you to talk to for things like this Zack.” Brandon said when they had calmed down.

“That’s what friends are for.”

“I know that I wasn’t very nice to you when we first met, and I’m sorry for that, I thought you were after Ashley.”

“I know Brandon, I forgave you then, and I understand now.” Zack said.

“Vicky would be a fool to say no to you.”

“Thanks, but I’ve moved on.”

“Really? All these years of pining on Victoria Walker, sacrificing you relationship with Lisa for her and your just going to walk away?”

“Yeah, I’m going to let what happens happen, I’m not going to limit myself to anyone.”

“Damn, maybe I should room with Hannah too; maybe change my outlook on life a little.” They laughed together.