Click Bait

P r o l o g u e

The man in the raincoat had been taking pictures of him all morning. Not the lake. Not of the evergreen mountains cradling it. Nor the sunrise as it washed the brochure-perfect scenery with a cool, autumnal blush. Him. And to be sure of it, the artificial shutter sound of a phone camera followed him as he trudged through the brush a little way back from the shore. Vitto yanked his jacket hood down further against the forming rain, relieved, at least, that the settling mist would cloud the man's pictures.

It was hardly his own vanity feeding itself; he had his blog following for that. It wasn't a rogue flutter of paranoia either. He hadn't touched pot for months after the scene he caused in that street market in Shanghai. He'd hoped at first that the sound of the shutter at regular intervals was just the squelch in his trusty leather boots – synthetic, he'd insisted – but his denial was short lived.

The man in the raincoat hadn't even tried to hide. His silhouette was stark against the dawn's pastel palette; a gesture of provocation rather than an amateurish oversight. And the shutter ... Anyone trying to take phone pictures in secret remembered to toggle the sound off.

Vitto leapt the last few feet back onto the woodland path, spattering a thick layer of mud up the inseam of his jeans. He strode out of the man's view, burying his hands in the pockets of his military jacket for warmth. He'd had a lucky getaway. Unsettling freaks like that were making local headlines every week and he didn't fancy joining their growing numbers. After all, the pictures he'd taken for himself that morning wouldn't be easy to explain either.

His escape was close. With the road in sight the path inclined, now slick with rainwater running off the tarmac. Vitto marched up the bank with the aid of hemlock roots jutting out of the earth like witches' fingers. Almost safely at the top, the roots betrayed him and he tripped, unable to catch himself before he slumped shoulder-first into stinking, earthy peat.

"Shit." He glanced behind him. The figure on the shore below had vanished.

Through the downpour came the single, unmistakable sound of a camera shutter. Vitto snapped his head up towards the road, throwing off his hood. His escape was barred. Standing at the top of the bank, with a handsaw dangling from his belt, was the man in the raincoat.