CYOA Page 92
You're not that great at reading tracks (unless you count snow tracks. Those are awesome), but Joel's taught you a few things to look for. And it seems to you that human shoe prints should be easier than animal prints to spot... and to determine the direction of.
First, you find the tracks you and Joel made near the riverbank after securing the horses. Joel's boot print looks very different from your sneaker print, even without a full impression of either. Okay, this isn't so hard, you think...
...until you get into the grassier area. Look for trampled grass... duh. The grass here is thick enough that it shouldn't be that hard to follow a trample-trail. Even on horseback. In fact, you think it will be easier than squinting at shoe prints from atop your horse. Joel told you that grass can spring back fairly quickly; he hasn't been gone long, so if you find a trail, it will likely be his.
You search for maybe ten minutes before finding one that looks promising. Promising enough to fetch the horses and get on with it.
Why did he leave? You replay the question over and over in your head, and none of the answers that come to mind make you feel less uneasy about this. Assuming he's not looking to ditch you out here -- and you do assume that, because fuck, Joel would never do that to you, especially without cause -- someone must have hurt him. Or abducted him -- because if he was hurt, he would still be here. And if he'd gotten into a skirmish, you would've heard gunfire or explosions.
You call his name every so often. You imagine him calling back to you, then you following the sound of his voice to find him hanging upside down in some sort of trap designed to catch animals. That would be AMAZING.
It's very quiet. Not even birds chirping or wind rustling. Just the clop-clop of the horses' feet. You must feel lulled by it or something, because you realize you've stopped concentrating on following the grass clues. You're in a patch of dirt now... with no shoe prints that you can see. Or are you just too high up off the ground?
You dismount to take a closer look. ...nothing. You backtrack a little... maybe I walked the horses right over them, you hope. But then, wouldn't they continue on somewhere?!
You're about to call for Joel again when you hear something... you're not sure what it is, but it could be humans up ahead... you draw your gun. Too many fucking trees around here! You don't see anything, even through the binoculars, but you know it's something. "...Joel?" you call tentatively.
"No, but I could be, baby. I could be." A creepy male voice, followed by another indistinct male voice... laughing or something.
You get a queasy feeling in your stomach. Hunters! You still don't see anyone. You train your gun on the cluster of evergreens the voices seem to have come from. Not far, but not extremely close to you... probably like a three-second sprint away. "I'm armed!" you inform them; you have shit in your backpack you could use if needed. "What did you do to him? Come out and show your faces, you chickenshits!" Men don't like being called cowards, so that should get them to give up their cover (yep, men can be pretty dumb).
They don't do it immediately, but they do come out. Two of them. Only one appears to have a gun -- a rifle, which he's pointing at you. He makes a remark to the other that you don't understand: "Two in the same month."
The sick feeling intensifies: is he talking about Joel? Joel's the first and I'm the second?
"Horses, too!" The gunless one approaches the horses, off to your right.
"Stay away from them!" you snarl at the guy.
"Or what? You'll shoot us?" The guy ignores you and keeps walking toward the horses, who don't seem bothered by these assholes in the slightest.
"You don't wanna do that," the rifle guy cautions you. "Don't you wanna know where Joel is?"
You keep your gun on the rifle guy, but you watch the other one, who at least seems to like horses. He's petting the nose of Joel's horse, saying stuff to her that you can't hear.
"C'mere. We'll take you to him," Rifle guy continues.
They could be lying about knowing where Joel is, of course. But if they didn't do something to him, where the fuck is he?
They could also be lying about taking you to him. Maybe they're trying to get you to lower your guard... and then they'll do the same thing to you that they did to Joel. Or worse...
"Is he okay?" You don't know why you bother asking this, but it just... came out.
"Yeah, don't worry about him, honey. He's fine. He was asking about you." He snickers knowingly, exchanging a Look with the other guy.
Yeah, okay, that was a dumb question. Even if they killed him, they wouldn't just-- noooooo they didn't kill him. They didn't they didn't they DIDN'T. Joel's not allowed to get killed. You can't even stand to think about it.
They could bring you to Joel, though. Regardless of their bad intentions. Then you and Joel could figure out what to do... together.
Or you could just kill the motherfuckers and find Joel on your own.
If you go with them, turn to page 156.
If you'd rather kill them, turn to page 163.