Blonde-haired Lacey Miller yawned and stretched, rubbing her green eyes. She looked outside the tent and noted it was a beautiful morning in the mountains - clear and warm, but not hot - perfect for the hike she had planned. She leaned over and poked her best friend Morgan Edmonds, who kept her brown eyes closed and rolled over, groaning.
"Wake up, Sleepyhead!" Lacey exclaimed. "It's a glorious day!"
Morgan sat up, still protesting, and shook out her short brown hair. The girls crawled out of the tent and Lacey started coffee and breakfast over the campfire while Morgan was waking up.
When they finished eating, they packed up the tent and their supplies into their sturdy backpacks and headed up the trail, feeling adventurous.
After about an hour, they had only managed to traverse about a mile, because they kept stopping to look at the local wildlife. Morgan had an extensive butterfly collection, and Lacey was interested in the flowers and plants that grew alongside the trail.
Morgan veered from the path, following a butterfly that she was sure she didn't have yet, and suddenly stopped and screamed!
Lacey flew to her side, asking anxiously, "What is it, Morgan? Are you okay?"
She lapsed into silence when she followed Morgan's gaze and saw what she was staring at, her eyes wide with horror.
There, sticking out from under a bushy bit of bracken, was a pair of feet.
Cautiously, the two edged around the bush, one on each side. When they met on the other side, it was obvious that the man was quite dead.
Lacey immediately dug out her cell phone and called her friend Paul Parrish at the police department, while Morgan slipped her camera from its case and began snapping photos.
"Paul? Lacey. We've found something we think you will want to see!"
Morgan leaned over and whispered nervously in Lacey's other ear, "Shh! There's someone else here, I just heard movement in the woods! We have to get out of here!"
Lacey nodded, whispering, "Paul, I'll call you back!" before snapping her phone shut and backing away from the body. When they reached the trail, they ran as quietly as possible the way they had come, where they had left their car.
They arrived, panting, a few minutes later. They flung their backpacks in the back seat and hopped in, locking the doors behind them. The engine roared to life as Lacey turned the starter, and they quickly headed back to town to meet with Paul.