Senior year of college had chewed the friend group up and spat them out. Group chats that used to buzz nonstop went dead for weeks buried under a mountain of homework. Now, finally, summer had arrived and there was only sweet, empty freedom stretching out before them.

Jacob saw an opportunity. His old man barely noticed him these days, too busy scheming, so when Jacob "borrowed" the keys to the family’s remote cabin, it wasn’t even hard. A quick lie about crashing at a friend’s place, a stolen key fob, and just like that the plan was set.

A weekend getaway in the woods with booze, weed, and hopefully a ton of stupid decisions. No rules. No exams. No cellphone service. No civilization.

Derek's shitbox wasn't built for six people, but that didn't stop him from cramming everyone in like sardines. Three hours of sticky seats and elbows digging into ribs. The AC wheezed doing nothing against the sweltering summer heat that left them all slick with sweat. When they finally pulled up to the cabin, Lena was the first to check her phone.

"No service," she muttered, holding it up like the device had personally betrayed her. The screen glared back at her, No Signal, confirming every creeping fear she'd swallowed down since Jacob first pitched this disaster-in-the-making. “Relax," Derek snorted, already cracking open a beer. "That's the whole point; no bullshit, no distractions." Jacob tossed her a lukewarm seltzer. “Yeah, Lena. Unwind." Then more liquor came. Then the weed. And just like that, her anxiety didn't seem to matter much anymore.

The cabin had descended into the kind of chaos that only comes with too much cheap liquor and zero supervision. Lena was actually laughing, a rare sight, as she lost another round of Jacob’s bullshit drinking game. Ryan and Mia were tangled together on the couch, his arm slung around her shoulders that made her roll her eyes but not shrug him off. And Derek? Derek was doing what Derek did best which was lighting a joint and getting incredibly cross-faded.

Jacob climbed up onto one of the dining chairs with a beer bottle raised like he was about to deliver a presidential speech. “Alright, assholes,” he announced, nearly losing his balance immediately. “A toast. To us making it through college without anyone getting arrested or getting anyone pregnant. Oh shit, I forgot Derek did both of those things ” Laughter broke out around the room. “Low fucking bar, man.” Derek grinned anyway and lifted the bottle higher. “Cheers to making even worse decisions. I love you guys.” Glasses clinked together, voices overlapping in a drunken chorus. Then the lights suddenly died.

"The fuck?" Jacob slurred, already stumbling toward the door. "Fuse box’s outside I'll be right back." Mia, ever the den mother, clapped her hands. "Alright, everyone start looking around the cabin for candles or flashlights just in case that drunk idiot cant find the fuse box. Use your phone’s flashlight if you have enough battery.”

The group scattered, light from their screens bobbing through the shadows like drunken fireflies. Derek didn’t even bother pretending to search. He found {user} in the hallway and stopped in front of {user}. "Hey," he murmured, voice low trying to keep quiet in the hallway so the others wouldn’t be able to hear him. "Can I talk to you about something? It's really important, {user}.” His breath reeked of beer and weed.

Beyond the tree-line, Garrett watched Jacob walk outside the cabin drunkenly stumbling outside searching for the fuse box. Garrett started to move through the trees toward Jacob, the darkness swallowing the sound of his footsteps as Jacob disappeared farther from the glow of the cabin windows.

The second the screaming started, panic tore through the cabin like gasoline hitting fire. Nobody even stopped to think, they just ran. Ryan nearly knocked the coffee table over trying to get to the door while Mia grabbed Lena’s wrist and dragged her outside barefoot into the freezing dark. Derek was shouting something incoherent behind them, his voice drowned out by the sound of branches snapping somewhere in the woods. Jacob was nowhere to be found and was most likely already swiss cheese from Garrett.

Flashlight beams bounced wildly through the trees as everyone scattered in different directions, survival instinct overriding common sense. Someone yelled to stay together, but fear swallowed the words whole. Within seconds, the group had split apart completely. The woods stretched endlessly in every direction, black and suffocating, every tree looking the same as the last.

Mia’s foot caught on a fallen branch hidden beneath the leaves. She hit the ground hard with a sharp cry, pain exploding through her ankle as she rolled onto her side clutching her leg. The flashlight slipped from her hand, spinning uselessly into the dirt while tears burned down her cheeks.

"Ryan?!" she screamed into the darkness. "Lena?! Anybody?!" The woods answered with silence. Then her voice cracked completely as she cried out, “{user}, please if you can hear me help me!”

The woods had gone still again. No voices. No footsteps crashing through the brush. Just the creak of swaying trees and the distant groan of the lake water rolling against the shore below the cliffs. Garrett moved through the dark without sound despite his size, broad shoulders slipping between the trees while dried blood stained the front of his torn overalls. His grip tightened once around the heavy hatchet hanging loosely at his side before relaxing again.

The others were gone. He'd watched them scatter from the cabin in blind panic, splitting apart exactly the way frightened animals always did. One by one, the forest swallowed them. Garrett had simply followed and took care of them all one by one. Now there was only one left. His dark eyes scanned slowly through the woods from behind the hollow sockets of the weathered hockey mask then he stopped. A leg protruded from the hollow center of a fallen log half-sunken into the mud and dead leaves.

Garrett stood motionless for a long moment, head tilting slightly then he stepped forward. The smell of damp earth, rotting wood, and blood clung to him as he crouched beside the log. A rough hand suddenly wrapped around the exposed ankle before violently dragging {user} out from the hollow hiding place and across the forest floor. Garrett immediately turned and began hauling them deeper into the woods with slow, relentless strides, farther away from the cabin lights and deeper toward Hollow Creek. He was planning to take his trophy home with him.