CHARACTER STUDY (III)

     With the heartfelt greetings completed, Allyson and the other women started hiking.  At first, Allyson felt like there was an elephant in the room or on the trail.  She knew that the possible death of Lindsey, their friend, was hanging over all of them, but nonetheless she trudged on with them because she knew it was her duty to Lindsey.  Melissa, the most athletic and the naturalist of the group, led the way.  Rebecca followed closely behind her, but willing to go ahead of the group to explore the sights along the trail.  Allyson thought, that is the same Rebecca from high school, adventurous and independent.  In the middle, Allyson walked with Brenna, and behind them, Rachel and Miki brought up the end of the line of friends Allyson was to spend the next twenty-two weeks hiking with. 
     It had only been a half an hour when the group heard loud, obnoxious laughter, and other noises that weren't part of the nature soundtrack that had been playing in the background until then.  A group of guys emerged around the next curve on the path.  There were three of them, two of them dark-skinned and one light.  When they saw the group of women, they started whispering to each other.  This made Allyson and her friends nervous, but it was six against three so they felt safe.  When the men reached them, they stopped and one of them exclaimed,
"Hi! I'm Javaris Jamar Javarison-Lamar.  Are you girls looking for the body?"
His cheerfulness made Allyson suspect that he was up to something, but when her friends' curiosity got the better of them, and they responded the affirmative to his question, his response assured her that the group would be out of their way soon.
"Yeah, we wanted the reward too, but Quatro Quatro here," he said as he gestured to the other dark-skinned guy who looked like a former gang member, "Is so deathly afraid of the bugs that he kept having panic attacks every five minutes.  Then, if that wasn't enough for me to deal with, Dan Smith, Mr. Brilliant, here," he stated as he motioned to his pale friend, "Kept reminding me of all the possible ways we could die on this trail by pointing out an immense number of poisonous berries and mushrooms along the trail.  Finally, I'd had about enough of it all, and I told them so.  I said, 'No reward is big enough for me to endure twenty-two weeks of torture with you guys.  We are turning back.' So here we are now. I wouldn't go on if I were you.  I don't think you girls can handle it.  It's a rough trail, and at nights, strange sounds, like you've never heard, come from all directions at you.  It'd drive anybody crazy.  It drove me crazy."
Then, Javaris grinned, and Allyson shivered.  She didn't have a good feeling about these men, and so she stepped to the front of the group and said,
"Thanks for the advice.  You're not too far from the beginning of the trail; it's about a mile and a half walk more.  I hope you all get your sanity back when you leave the trail."
With that, she tugged on Melissa and Rebecca's arms to get everyone moving again, and once the group of guys passed them completely, Allyson soon forgot about them.  It seemed that the odd encounter had given Allyson and her friends something to relate to, and soon their conversations reminded Allyson of how they used to be in high school, except that Lindsey wasn't there.  Rachel was still the jokester of the group and the social butterfly.  She had kept in touch with every one of the friends, and so when Melissa couldn't find one person from the group, Allyson learned that Rachel contacted them instead.  Brenna's comments revealed to Allyson that she was still as cynical as she was in high school and that she still brought her dark sense of humor everywhere.  Miki was as sweet as she had always been, but Allyson observed that she was slightly more dependent on the rest of the group for what to do.  In the end, the reunited friends chose the icebreaker of sharing the story of where they had all been when they heard that Lindsey was missing on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Allyson listened closely, waiting to share her part, but all the while, keeping one eye out for anything out of the ordinary that indicated the presence of Lindsey.  She could only picture her alive, of course, the alternative was too dismal for her mind to handle.