He decides to continue immediately and finds Chloe shortly after

“Sorry, Jennifer, although I really want to find more about the costumes, I have to continue my search,” Zack answered her firmly. “Who knows what might have happened to my friends?”

Jennifer nodded. “Ok, I fully understand, Zack,” She said. “At the first wider area, you said?”

“Yep, you can’t miss it.” Zack replied.

“Alright, ready to go, Victoria?” The ranger asked, turning to the younger blonde.

Victoria nodded, putting on her helmet. “Be careful out there, Zack,” She warned him. “If you need anything, call us at the cabin.”

“I’ll be, Vicky, don’t worry.” He smiled. He watched as Victoria climbed on the motorcycle and Jennifer walked over to the vehicle. Making a quick decision, he called the ranger’s attention. “Jennifer, I’ll look for them for a while and if I don’t find anything, I’ll come back here.”

The ranger smirked. “Can’t stay away from the mystery, can you?” She teased him again. “Ok, then, let me take Victoria back first.”

“If I’m not here when you get back, don’t wait for me.” Zack added.

Jennifer nodded and put on her helmet. Zack then observed as she climbed in front of Victoria and two blondes sped off on the motorcycle soon after.

“Alright,” He said to no one. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Zack managed to return to the sign and then this time he set off on the third path, the one which would lead him deeper into Silver Lake Park. He opened Heather’s package and saw that she had made five sandwiches; he then ate two and put the other three in his backpack. Chloe and Gavin would probably be really hungry, he thought.

He figured that he probably shouldn’t abandon his search to go back to the cave to investigate the bear costumes with Jennifer, but as the ranger said, he couldn’t stay away from a good mystery. He had to find out at least if the costumes were being used to scare the tourists.

Thinking more about the matter, Zack couldn’t wrap his mind around the absurdity of people dressing themselves as bears just to scare tourists around the cave.

”It’s not even Halloween.” He thought. ”Unless…”

The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he was missing something vital to solve that mystery.

”Unless…” He repeated. ”They’re not using it to scare people just for fun, they’re doing it to keep people from visiting the cave?”

Zack was so deep in thought that he didn’t noticed the minutes passing. The only thing that interrupted his musings was the sound of running water in the distance.

“A river?” He asked out loud, remembering how much he was thirsty. He had eaten two sandwiches, but hadn’t drunk anything.

He began running ahead in the direction of the sound’s source. As he got nearer, the sound became louder and louder until he reached the stream in a slightly open area devoid of trees. He would start drinking right away if it wasn’t by the figure lying **** a few feet from where he came out of the woods.

“Chloe!” He shouted, running to his friend’s side.

He checked her pulse and it was still there, but the redhead was a bit more pale than usual. He patted her cheeks several times.

“Chloe!” Zack repeated, panicking a little. “Can you hear me, Chloe? Please!”

After a few seconds, Chloe stirred at last. She moved her arms and legs before her blue eyes slowly opened, hurt by the morning light. She yawned. “Where am I?” She asked drowsily.

“You’re in the middle of the woods, Chloe, what happened?” Zack asked with urgency on his voice.

Chloe looked at him, her eyes slowly focusing as she recognized him. “Zack?” She asked, frowning for a while before her eyes widened. “Zack! You’re here!” She exclaimed as she launched herself into his arms.

Zack smiled while he hugged his oldest friend tightly to his body, his mind already conditioned to not notice her big breasts squashed against his chest. “It’s ok, nothing’s gonna happen to you now, relax.”

She began to sniff with her head buried into his neck. “I thought I was screwed.” She said, her voice coming out muffled as she started crying. “I can’t believe you’re here!” She sobbed.

A couple of minutes later, they broke the hug and Chloe was already smiling at him. “Alright, I want you to tell me what happened,” Zack said as he reached into his backpack and fished out Heather’s package. “But first, I think you must be pretty hungry.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Zack, thank you so much!” Chloe exclaimed while she snatched the package from Zack’s hands and tore into the sandwiches with a hunger that Zack had never seen on his friend.

He smiled and went to the stream to drink some water while she ate. When he returned to her side, she was still eating the sandwiches. He didn’t have the heart to tell her to leave one for Gavin, so he let her eat all three. When Chloe finished a few minutes later, she latched herself to him again and there they stood, two old friends sitting by the margin of the stream, hugging each other.

“You’ve made me really worried, you know?” Zack said, caressing her long fiery tresses.

“Sorry,” Chloe giggled nervously. “It’s just that, so much shit happened that I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Calm down, Chloe,” Zack told her. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

And so she did, since Kurt’s scheme of hiding Gavin’s phone to him using it to take pictures of her, here she figured that it was best if she bended the truth a little bit and told Zack only that he tried to take sexy pictures of her before she ran from him. Then she told him about running from the bear and stumbling onto Colin, the ranger, before deciding to sleep by the stream.

“So I was right, the son of a bitch lied to us,” Zack remarked. At Chloe’s look of confusion, he elaborated. “He told us that you and Gavin had decided to stay in the woods to see the cave.”

“I can’t believe that jerk,” Chloe whispered. “Did Gavin get back to the cabin?”

Zack shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”

Chloe let go of him and stared at his blue eyes with her clear blue ones. “Then we have to go look for him next.”

“Yeah, but first I promised someone that I would help with something.” Zack said.

Chloe frowned and Zack told her the story of sleeping in the cave with Victoria after finding the bear costumes, leaving out the fact that the blonde gave him a blowjob. Then he explained about Jennifer wanting to look at the cave and see if she could find the costumes.

Chloe grinned at him. “So you’ve finally slept with Victoria, huh?” She asked in a teasing tone.

“Really?” Zack shot back with a sarcastic expression. “From the whole story, that’s the only thing you’ve heard?”

“Of course not, I was just kidding,” Chloe said with a smile. “I wonder if the bear that scared me was a person wearing a costume.”

“We’ll probably never know,” Zack said, standing up. “What I know is that Jennifer will probably be back at the cave really soon.”

“We better go, then,” Chloe agreed, standing up as well. “The sooner we help her, the sooner we can go look for Gavin.”

She then picked up her backpack and the empty food basket that she carried since the day before and they set off on the path from where Zack had came from. As soon as they started walking, Zack pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Chloe asked.

“Heather,” Zack replied. “I think she’ll want to know your story before she asks Kurt about it. She said that she would confront him today.”