My first (and last) trip with the Outdoor Adventure Club.
Our trip took us to the rivers of Tennessee, where it was the club's intent to have a three day rafting tour of the Ocoee river. The members seemed to be nice enough. The club president, Megan, seemed pretty interesting. She's a criminal justice major, with plans to go into the FBI after graduation. Megan's nice and friendly, though a little too “cheery”. The faculty advisor, Alan, is from the Economics department, though he doesn't seem to be much of an outdoorsman. I was a little confused why he would be part of this club, but after seeing him interact with Megan, it became clear. The pervy bastard clearly has a thing for her, though she and the rest of the club seem to be in denial about it.
The second oldest member is an Anthropology PhD student named Giuseppe. He's from Italy, and is pretty outgoing and gregarious. Everyone, particularly the girls, seem to like him. With his guitar and “stories”, he's a little too bardy for me. Does he think we're at the Ren-Fair or something? Then there's Holden. He's one of those drama majors who fancies himself an “actor”. Like Alan, he seemed a little out of place. He's pretty tight with Chantelle, I mean “Rainbow”. She's kinda a hippie, and I have a suspicion that if she wasn't in the club, Holden wouldn't be.
Another senior member is Svetlana. She's this cute Russian girl, and unlike some of the others, Svetlana seems to actually belong, being pretty athletic and outdoorsy. Jacob, who seems to be part Native American, is another person who's not out of place. He definitely knows his stuff. The rest of the members though range from somewhat competent to “what are they thinking being out here?” There's Eileen, who looks a bit bookish, but maybe that's just because of the glasses. Briana is fresh faced and cute, and the younger of the two Walker brothers in the club, Larry seems to like her. He's a little unsure of himself though, but his older brother Jim seems to be trying to help him get “in” there. Finally, there's Tom, this real geek. He's a self described recovering anime dork, and I guess he's in this club to try and break from his nerdy roots. I was just hoping he didn't accidentally hurt himself on this trip. (Ironic, given what happens, but I'm getting ahead of myself)
Once we got to the river, we split up into four boats. I didn't want the geek to be holding me back, so I didn't be on the same boat as him. Unfortunately, he ended up on a boat with Holden and Rainbow, and while Rainbow seemed to have an inkling of what to do, it didn't hit me until later that maybe it wasn't wise to leave her alone with the geek and the “actor”. Svetlana was with Giuseppe and Jim, while Jim pushed his little brother on a boat with Briana and Eileen. While Svetlana seemed to know what she was doing, I didn't want to be on a boat with bard boy, thinking he's so cool because he's European. Nor did I wanna be on the “sex-boat” with Larry and the two girls, busy as they were trying to get in each other's pants. So, Megan's boat seemed to be the obvious choice. That meant riding with Alan though. But she and Jacob knew what they were doing. Heh, and Jacob seemed to be unwilling to ignore the elephant in the room, so that was funny. I mean, skeevy Alan trying to get into Megan's pants did bug the hell out of me, but Jacob was willing to voice that which I wasn't willing to.
The first night was pretty uneventful. Jacob decided to help Megan out by dragging Alan away under the guise of needing Alan's help with some camping stuff that needed to get done. I decided to pick Megan's brain about her major. Mom, Dad, Jackson, and the rest of the family wanted so much for me to get into the “family business”, and it life would have been so much easier if I just did. So I was hoping maybe talking with Megan would pique an interest in criminal justice. It definitely helped, talking with her introduced me to several interesting options I hadn't considered. (Its all moot of course)
The next day, Jacob continued his lambasting of Alan. Good for him, I thought, he's gutsier than I am. Anyways, Alan proposed a contest to try and get back in everyone's good graces, a race to the next camp site. Between me, Megan, and Jacob (no offense to Svetlana, but she was saddled with euro-trash and the pretty boy) I thought we had the contest in the bag, but stupid old man had to get himself thrown overboard. Surprisingly, sex-boat won. I guess Eileen had some boating experience, and I think she was a little frustrated over the developments between Larry and Briana.
The next campsite had some other people already there, and they were toking it. Holden partook over the herbal refreshment they offered, and later he and Rainbow walked off into the woods to fool around. So did Larry and Briana. Alan and Tom actually turned in early, Alan a little intimidated by Jacob's continued harassment and Tom because the trip was proving a little too strenuous for him. I continued to talk up Megan, and she gave me the names of a few profs and Giuseppe told a story of some Huntsman dude and the Snow Fairy. (little did I know we'd be meeting the bastard for reals)
The third day seemed to be going well. Well, except for the fact that Holden wanted to get some alone time with Rainbow, and tried to pawn Tom off on the sex boat by making up a lie about Eileen having a thing for him. I didn't like the dork, but what Holden was doing was kinda uncool. Jacob instead got Alan and Tom to trade places. I wasn't too keen with riding with Tom, but it did ruin whatever lecherous thing Holden had planned. Anyways, as I said, the rest of the trip was going well. But then things suddenly started being “off”. The surrounding area seemed to change, the foliage different from what it was not a few moments earlier. Megan was checking things out when an arrow clipped her and sent her into the water. Jacob reacted quickly, telling me to dive over the side and pushing Tom with him as he did the same so we could flip the boat and use it for cover. We caught up with Megan, but it was too late, she was dead. I was so filled with rage at that point. I mean, she was a little corny at times, but she was a really nice girl, she didn't deserve to die like this. Eventually, we made it to shore without further harassing from the archer.
Was it some wilderness/militia-man nutcase? All I knew was once we got to civilization, I was gonna help the authorities get this guy anyway I could and get justice for Megan's senseless death. (I wouldn't get the chance) I blamed Alan. The archer was probably trying to foster fear and confusion by killing who he thought was the leader. Since he was useless, Megan had taken that role. And as such, the psychopath targeted her.
It wasn't long before we noticed a freaky dog looking creature watching us from the opposite riverbank. The area was surrounded with thick brambles that would be difficult to navigate through, but Jacob wrapped himself with some of the tent fabric for protection and scouted the area out, finding a trail just beyond the thicket. While I admire his cool head in this situation, his attitude bordered on callous. After he returned, the dog attacked, impossibly jumping the river, grabbing the elder Walker and dragging him through the brambles. Larry wanted to go after them, but that would be tantamount to suicide, the brambles would've cut him to shreds. Again, Jacob was the voice of reason, but as I said it was still pretty callous. Yeah, there was nothing Larry could do, but it was still his brother. We decided we needed to get away from the river, and slowly navigated the brambles for safety. We eventually found Jim's mauled body, I tried to warn Larry and the ladyfolk not to look. We eventually made it to the trail Jacob found, and Lana and I took the lead while Jacob brought up the rear.
The devil dogs continued to hunt us. I was still too angry over Megan to let fear take me, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have that rage to protect me. Another attack soon came. One of the dogs grabbed Rainbow and dragged her off. I managed to wound it by throwing my bowie at it, but that wasn't enough to save Rainbow. She was another innocent. Why the hell was this happening? We eventually saw a clearing, and I snuck ahead to see if it was safe. It wasn't. There were four creatures that I thought were wolves at first, but had humanoid qualities as well. There was no way to get around, but there were more of us than them. We decided we would attack, hoping we could drive them off.
We attacked quickly. I fought with reckless abandon, filled with anger at the deaths of Megan and Jim and Rainbow. We managed to kill two and run the other two off. I got scratched up, but I was still better off than Larry, Eileen, Alan, and Giuseppe, all of whom were grievously wounded. Even though we ran those wolf creatures off, more showed up, along with the crazy archer. He looked like the huntsman out of Giuseppe's story. I wanted to attack him (the huntsman, not Giuseppe), but that would be an exercise in futility. Even if I wasn't wounded, if the dozen or so dogs with him didn't get me, he would, with the wicked looking sword strapped to his back. He applauded our tenacity, and then had his dogs finish off the severely wounded. It happened so fast, before we could do anything. I thought we were next, but instead, we were herded deeper into the forest, no choice but to follow this “huntsman”, not knowing what he had planned…