“We have to find her!” Dominic yells. Branches and tree roots grab at their arms and legs. Trey tries to shine his light up ahead, but thick underbrush blocks the light after only a few feet.
“This way,” Trey calls. His flashlight shines on a figure moving quickly through the forest. “Willa!” he yells, though he knows it isn’t Willa—the shoulders are too wide, the arms are too long. It looks more like the Woodsman.
“Did you see her?” Leslie says.
“I saw someone,” Trey says.
“Shhh,” Dominic says. “We need to stop and listen for her.”
The three of them freeze, but they can only hear the sound of their breath and their beating hearts.
“Willa!” Dominic yells again. “Say something. Make a sound.”
But there is nothing. It is as if she has just disappeared, and then Trey’s flashlight glints off something hanging from a tree branch. It’s Willa’s silver bracelet, still swinging back and forth, as if it just fell from her wrist.
Dominic takes the bracelet from Trey.
“I gave her that for her birthday,” he says.
Leslie declares, “I should’ve never let us come here. I should’ve listened to my father. He knew. He knew!”
Trey tries his phone again, but there’s no reception. “We have to get help,” he says.
“We aren’t leaving her. Not alone,” Dominic says.
Just then they hear a muffled, faraway scream.
“This way,” Leslie shouts, leading the way. They move as fast as they can, deeper into the woods, but Trey’s flashlight only illuminates a narrow path.
They stop to listen again, and the flashlight flickers and goes out. Trey looks around, blinking in the sudden darkness, and realizes they are lost. There is no sign of their campfire, not even a whiff of smoke. He has no idea what direction to go.
Dominic checks his phone and turns it off almost immediately. “No reception. And my battery is really low,” he mutters.
“Mine too,” Trey says, almost whispering. “We need at least one phone. So shut yours down and I’ll use mine as a light, and maybe if we get to higher ground, we’ll get some reception and be able to call for help.”
“Do you have a compass on your phone?” Leslie says. “We need to follow a straight line or we’ll just end up going in circles.”
Trey opens the compass application. “It doesn’t work,” he says, “the arrow just spins around and around.”
“We have to keep searching,” Dominic says, moving between trees.
“But we don’t even know which way to go,” Trey says.
From even deeper in the forest, all of three of them hear the sound of someone chopping wood again. Chop. Chop. Chop. Slow and steady.
“This way,” Leslie says, and Trey and Dominic follow her. They don’t know what else to do. They move through the forest, trying to follow the sound, but after a few moments the chopping stops, and it is quiet again.