December  21st 2000

“JC, hurry up!” Chris pleaded. If there was one thing Chris hated more was shopping in the mall with JC, especially during the Christmas season. He just couldn’t stand being in the crowd with countless people doing some last minute shopping.

“Hold on a second Chris, let me just get this last thing.” JC replied, looking at the nice Christmas ornaments on display, “Look, aren’t they beautiful? It’ll go perfect for my tree.” He beamed.

“Yes, lovely.” Chris said sarcastically.

After what seemed like forever, they finally made it out of the Hallmark store, and Chris got hungry and ordered a cheesy pretzel for himself, while JC ordered a Cinnabon; the two of them found the exit to the parking lot and tried to remember where JC parked his car. It was cold, and Chris could see the steam coming from every breath he took. They were in upstate New York and were gonna spend the holidays in Joey’s rental house that he purchased recently. Florida, was the first choice for them, but Christmas never felt right if it didn’t snow, so they decided to spend it in New York instead, with their families and friends that were coming to visit as well.

“Do you remember where we parked?” Chris asked, looking at the parking numbers and figuring out where the car was.

JC didn’t say anything, he just took out his car remote and pressed the alarm button, a loud honking sound appeared, and sure enough, there was the car, a rental car that he rented for the days he was gonna stay in New York, it was a four door silver Mercedes, in which JC has a love for, Chris just sighed and placed the bags in the backseat and got inside.

JC pushed a few buttons on the navigation system so it can pinpoint where Joey’s house was.

“You don’t know where it is?” Chris asked.

“I know it’s on Alpine drive, but I don’t know to get there.” JC replied in a snarky tone.

Chris mumbled something to himself then turned the radio station, they were playing some nice Christmas music, and they both seemed to relax while singing along to the song.

Shortly after, they drove up to a long winding road, there were deep snowy forests on either side, and the snow started coming down hard.

“Is this the right way?” Chris said, he sounded a bit frightened.

“That’s what the GPS says.

“JC, you are going to believe a computer?” Chris argued and took his phone to call Joey to see where his house was, only to find out that his cell phone didn’t have any signal.

JC saw the worried look on Chris’s face and said, “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t get a signal.”

JC then took his phone out to see if he had a signal, nothing. “That’s odd.”

“Maybe the wires have too much ice in it; do you think we should stop?” Chris told him.

JC nodded before checking the navigation system again, this time, it started to malfunction, and it turned off, shortly after the car started to have problems, it stopped right on the edge of a steep snowy hill, surrounded by woods. Turning the ignition, the car wouldn’t start.

“Did the battery die or something, and this is a Mercedes?” Chris couldn’t help but laugh.

“Shut up Chris.” JC snapped.

He turned the car again, nothing. All the lights came on the dashboard but it didn’t show what was wrong with the car.

“Must be an internal problem.” Chris shrugged.

JC popped the hood open and went outside to check for himself, Chris followed him. It was really difficult to check a car in pitch black darkness and with all of the snow falling, they were gonna have to wait in case someone comes for help.

Chris let out an aggravated sigh and headed back to the car.

JC then joined him; he tried turning the car on again, no luck.

“What are we gonna do Jace? We can’t stay here all night, we might freeze.”

“Well, it’s better than being out there.” JC chuckled looking at the blankets of snow falling; it was really coming down, looked more like a blizzard then a simple snowstorm.

JC didn’t know if his eyes were playing tricks on him or what, but as he squinted into the dark snowy woods, he spotted something, a white light, a bright one, looked like one of those fluorescent light bulbs. Maybe it was a house or something.

“Chris, I think I found something.”

“What did you find your lost screw?” Chris laughed at his own joke.

“No dimwit, I think it’s a house, look.” JC pointed to the direction of the bright light.

There it was a bright light, clear as day.

“And you want us to go there to have a look, what are you crazy?”

“But Chris, it could be a sign, maybe the people can help us.”

“Yeah, maybe a crazy witch lady lives there and she’s using that bright light and wants to feed us to her creatures.” Chris said sarcastically.

“Or maybe it’s a nice lady, you never know, it won’t hurt to look, it doesn’t look too far, we can always make a run for it, look, it’s just one path from here to there, what do you think?”

Chris sighed, “JC, sometimes I don’t know about you, but I hope you are right.”

JC smiled at him but continued talking, “And besides, maybe we have cell phone reception and we can call Joey from there.

Chris agreed and got the necessary items from the car, JC turned the lights off and double checked everything before locking up.

“You ready?” JC said once outside.

“I was born ready.”

“Ok, stay close to me; I don’t want you to wander off now.” JC laughed.

“I’m not a puppy you know.” Chris muttered.

The two of them followed the path towards the direction of the bright light, hoping to find some sort of help and get them out of this mess.