What Happened In The Woods

Chapter 1

As Lily turned off the old fashioned radio that was all the caravan had to offer in the way of technology, apart from an even older tv, she thought she heard a noise. There wouldn't usually be anything wrong with this, the floorboards in the old caravan often have involuntary creaks, but this was different. It was a grating sort of noise, as if something had been taken of the windowsill a little too quickly. Lily started to go over to investigate, but stopped. She was home (well, caravan!) alone, and her mother, Laurel, a big time music producer, had just gone off to seal a deal with a client. And not just any client, but one of the biggest pop stars of the century! He was a very cloak and dagger, sneaking around, avoid-the-paparazzi-at-all-costs type man, and he had insisted that Laurel met him in a discreet location so as to avoid the paparazzi, hence the caravan. In the middle of a forest. Three hours drive away from her home. And after the contract had been signed, he was taking Laurel out to dinner, leaving Lily all alone. Lily looked at the clock. It read 8:30. Her mother wouldn't be home for hours. Lily debated whether to find out what the noise was or not. She decided she would. She went down the steps at the front of the caravan, but suddenly turned around and ran back up them, as if fleeing for her life! But all that had happened was she had remembered she hadn't left the caravan door on the latch. As she flipped the latch up, she sneezed. She reached up into the nearby cupboard to get a tissue, and as she did so, her phone fell out of the cupboard, where it had been charging. She picked it up and put it in her pocket. Then, she set off down the steps again, this time at a much more dignified pace than a few minutes ago! She walked around to the back of the caravan, to the place where the strange noise seemed to be coming from. She looked at the windowsill, which was artfully covered in flowers, growing from a small trough that had been glued to the sill by the caravan's previous owner. The earth in the trough, was still damp from the rain from earlier. Lily carefully examined the sill, on the lookout for anything suspicious. Other than a small rectangular piece of curiously flat soil, she found nothing. Next, Lily turned her gaze to the ground beneath the sill, where she found something rather odd. Under the trough on the windowsill, there lay a small roll of film, the sort that was used in Polaroid cameras. Lily picked it up and examined it more carefully. It hadn't been used, and was still in its plastic wrapper, and it hadn't been there for long, as it was perfectly dry, and it had been raining up until about 20 minutes ago. That's odd, Lily thought. Who would be around here at this time of night, dropping rolls of Polaroid film around the place? And anyway, film wasn't any good without... A camera! That's what the flat pice of earth was from! Someone had been resting a camera there! This realisation didn't exactly make Lily feeling better about being on her own. Someone had been taking pictures of her. But who..? Lily didn't know. She hurried back around the caravan and then up the steps, but paused just inside the doorway when her phone started to ring. She pulled it out of her pocket and answered it.
'Hello?', Lily said, her voice trembling.
Her best friend, Kate, answered it.
'Hey, babes! How's your camping going? What have you been up to? Met anyone nice yet!?' she gushed, all in one breath.
'Oh, hey, Kate', Lily managed to gasp. 'Actually some pretty weird things have been happ-'
'Well, isn't that great!' Kate interrupted. 'So anyway, could you give Laurel a message for me?' she continued as if Lily hadn't spoken. 'Can you tell her my brother , Max, won't be able to make it for his studio time next week? He has some college thing he can't get out of...'
Lily waited for a few seconds before replying to make sure Kate had finished before she answered. 'Sure, Kate. I'll tell her. See you in school.' Lily hung up before Kate had a chance to reply. Lily stood in the doorway thinking about the phone call for a few seconds before she slowly walked in and gently pulled the door shut. She was lost in thought, so much so that she didn't notice the black shape sidling in the door after her...