What hides in the woods of Camp Ravenwood after dark?
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In the last week of summer at Camp Ravenwood and after a series of disappearances, a motley group of campers and counsellors set out to investigate-except they might be the next ones to disap...
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Chapter Zero: July 23rd, 1967
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Running. She had to keep running.
Branches cracked under her blood-spattered Converse, snagged her matted hair and scraped across her arms and face, lacerating her with scratches she hardly felt.
That pain was minuscule compared to the searing pain in her side, pulsing with fire as blood oozed out of it, staining her green Camp Ravenwood shirt dark, mixing with the blood and dirt already smearing her shirt and legs, joining what was spattered across her face, a pain that was more fiery than the one in her lungs, in her legs, as she forced herself to keep running through the woods, to run toward the camp, to just keep running.
He's after me. He's after me, was her mantra as she forced herself to keep running, the snap and crack of bones loud in the eerie forest, as loud as bones breaking—as loud as when the axe bit into her side, as loud as the gurgling scream of Barry, oh God, his screams—knowing that if she didn't get to camp, if she didn't get help he'd catch up to her and he'd finish her off, she had to ignore the pain and blood and foggy exhaustion, she had to RUN!
He's after me. He's gonna kill me if I stop running, I can't stop running, I need to reach camp. I have to keep running—HE'S GONNA KILL ME!
Snap! Crack!
Was that the branches she was breaking in her frantic sprint to the safety promised by camp—or was it the murderer after her, limping on one leg after the knife he used to slit Barry's throat was stabbed into his leg courtesy of her as she made her escape? She didn't know, and she was too frightened to look back. To see how close he was behind her.
Keep running, keep running, keep running, her mind screamed as she ran, pain lacerating her with every step, warring with the exhaustion, and she wanted to sob, to stop and break down.
Stupid. She was so stupid. She knew there were rules in place, that something must have happened for such strict rules to be in place, but she just wanted a moment of carefree fun with her friends, in their last week at camp, their last ever summer at Camp Ravenwood, but now they were dead—Molly, Flynn, Winnie, Peter, Dinah, Josie, Terry, Georgia, Barry.
She was the last one left, the one who had managed to escape a murderer they all believed was just a campfire ghost story proven real when he had taken them and the gaping, bleeding axe wound in her side that he had delivered upon her before she stabbed him and got away, blood that was hers and her friends and dirt from where she crawled out of the murderer's underground lair and into the woods covering her, staining her camp shirt and white shorts dark red, spattering her once-pristine shoes, matting her dark hair and streaking her skin.
But she hardly cared about appearances, not when it meant she was still alive. And she had to keep being alive. She had to keep running.
Finally—finally—she saw the glow of lights, the ring of cabins. She wanted to sob at seeing it.
