It is a calm and beautiful night under the stars, as two campers sit by a campfire discussing their day, and talking about what’s in store for tomorrow; the campers don’t have a care in the world and don’t see what is going on right in front of them. Suddenly they hear “ahhhh” in a young girl’s voice and begging for help. “What was that?” asks Rick one of the campers. “I don’t know but now I’m scared” says Ashley the other camper. “It’s probably just some young kids messing around, don’t worry about it lets just get back to what we were originally talking about” says Rick, “I don’t really want to talk now I’m kind of tired let’s just go to bed” says Ashley. “Ok sounds good” says Rick. As the two campers nervously sleep through the now chilling night, the screams they heard earlier cranking gears inside their heads as to what happened to the young girl who screamed. As the campers sleep, the young girl’s body, whose screams were heard earlier in the night, is now being carried through the woods by her mysterious and unloving attacker. At sunrise as Rick and Ashley wake up to another beautiful morning in the woods they leave their tent to find a disturbing sight, “oh my gosh” says Rick as Ashley lets out a ghastly scream, as they spot a message in the dirt in blood saying Beware, this is my land, leave now or else you might end up like her. “What’s that supposed to mean, these woods are a public place they can’t force us out” says Rick, “Maybe we should just leave and cut our vacation short” says Ashley. “No, stop being a baby, we shouldn’t let some crazy woodsmen scare us out of our lovely vacation, just forget about it and let’s go on a hike” says Rick.

The two campers grab their backpacks and head for the trail. As they walk through the woods they can’t help but remember the message they saw earlier that day. It’s about noon when the campers finally decide to stop for a lunch break on a cliff overlooking the lake in the woods. As the two are enjoying their lunch Ashley decides to bring up what happened earlier today “where do you think the blood from the message came from, a person or animal,” “it’s probably just a hunter trying to scare us away, just forget about it” says Rick. As the two finish up lunch and are about to go back to their campsite an old man appears out of the bushes. “Can you two please help me, I need help pitching up my tent at my campsite, and I can’t do it alone” says the old man, the two young campers reply “sure”. As the old man leads the campers towards his campsite Ashley gets the feeling that something is wrong, suddenly she says “why would his campsite be this far back in the woods, maybe we shouldn’t have followed him,” “It’s fine it’s just an old man who needs our help” says Rick. When they finally reach the old man’s campsite it is starting to get dark out, and there is a slight chill in the air. “Let’s set it up right here” says the old man, after they helped put up the tent the old man offers them to stay the night, and since it has gotten dark out, and the campers figure they would never be able to find their way home, both campers agree to stay. The old man fixes up some dinner for the campers, and sets up a couple sleeping bags for them next to the fire. About twenty minutes later both Ashley and Rick complain about having headaches and nausea, and they feel like the world is spinning rapidly around them. The next thing they know they are unconscious. When they finally wake up both campers have their feet and hands tightly bound together with rope, and are tied to a tree. “Are you okay” asks Rick, “how do you think I am? We are tied to a tree and are being held hostage by an old man” replies Ashley. After a couple minutes of both campers trying to get loose from the ropes an idea pops into Rick’s head, “do you think this man is responsible for the young girl screaming for help and the message at our campsite?” “I’m starting to believe so” says Ashley. With the old man nowhere in sight Rick says “we need to come up with a plan on how to get out of here.” “But how exactly are we going to do that we are tied together and have no way to get out unless he lets us out” replies Ashley. After a few minutes of deliberating on what to do Rick says, “I think I have a plan that might get us out of here, if he’s going to do something to us he has to untie us, right?” “I guess” replies Ashley in a hesitant voice. “At that point you can talk to him and try to distract him, just try to get him to focus on something else. At that point when he’s vulnerable I will turn around and attack him, so you can try and get away for help.” “What am I supposed to say to him?” says Ashley. “Anything that gets his mind off of us” says Rick. “I guess we can try it, but what if it doesn’t work?” says Ashley. “We can think about that when the time comes, but he’s old he shouldn’t put up much of a fight, I should be able to take him” says Rick. A few minutes later the old man comes back with a large, bloody hunting knife, and tells the two campers, “Don’t be scared I don’t want to hurt you, but I did warn you to leave me and my land alone and since you didn’t heed my warning now you are going to pay for it”. The old man continues, “Listen carefully, now I’m going to untie you and you are going to get up and come with me for a walk down by the lake, then I will figure out what to do with you two next”. As the two campers and the old man take the long and agonizing walk down the mountain side, sounds of owls, wolves and the other terrifying night creatures stirring in the woods mock them as they walk towards their premature death. With the old man holding the rope that ties Ashley’s hands together and following close behind Rick with his hunting knife to his back, the two wonder if their plan to escape will work. Ashley finally breaks the silence, “why are you doing this to us, we didn’t mean to disturb you, we were only looking for a relaxing vacation.” The old man replies “it’s nothing against you personally, but I have lived in these woods for nearly twenty years, and each year people keep taking away the natural beauty of the lake and the woods behind it. They buy acres of land to build lake houses for vacations, and annoying kids come here and destroy the place. I’m sick of dealing with these people who are disrespectful of the nature surrounding them”. Rick replies sarcastically “this area technically doesn’t belong to you.” “You just be quiet and do what I say,” says the old man “don’t mess with me; you will only make things worse for yourself”. As they reach the lake they see the large, bright moon reflecting perfectly on the lake. Ashley decides that now would be a good time to try and initiate the plan, since it seems their time alive is running out. “Here goes nothing” she says to herself, “why have you decided to live in these woods” asks Ashley. The old man surprised at the question just looked at her with his old tired eyes and started to laugh, when all of a sudden out of nowhere, Rick decides now would be a good time to make his move. Even though his hands are tied together, he jumps on the old man’s back and manages to get the knife out of his hand. After a few minutes of scuffling on the ground Rick manages to kick the old man in the head and knock him out. Rick runs over to Ashley to untie her hands and have her untie his hands. Using the rope that had once held the campers hands tied, Rick ties the old man’s hands together to keep him from escaping. The two campers feel joyous as they have just escaped death, at last the two campers are free and they had the man who had been tormenting them. The two campers now are staring at the unconscious old man when he starts to stir, they walk over to him and the old man starts to cry. Rick tells him “stop crying, you have hurt several people and were about to hurt us why should we feel sorry for you after all you did to us.” The old man replies “I am sorry for what I did, and I was wrong if you would please just untie me so I can tell you my reasoning for doing what I do.” Rick replies, “You are stupid if you think I am going to untie you, Ashley go over to a lake house and get someone to call the police so we can get rid of this guy.” Ashley replies, “Okay, I’ll be quick I don’t want to leave you alone with him.” As Ashley runs off to get help the old man tells Rick, “you can try and have me arrested, but it will not work, I will escape and when I do I am going to come after you and your precious little wife.” “Yeah right, you will not ever get the chance to escape, you will die in jail.” A couple of minutes later, Ashley comes back and tells Rick that, “the police are on their way, they should be here in about ten minutes.” After the police arrive, they take the old man into custody and thank Rick and Ashley for catching the man. They tell them that the man was responsible for twenty deaths in and around these woods. “Thank God he is gone, and we can finally relax now” says Rick, “even though he is gone I do not want to vacation in the woods anymore, let’s go on vacation to the beach or something.” “That’s fine with me” replies Rick. The cops offer to give Rick and Ashley a ride home, but in the other cop car, that holds the old man, the cop that is taking him to the station is a good friend of the old man. “So how are we going to make it look like I accidently escaped, because I have some unfinished business to attend to?” The cop just smiles and replies “do not worry about it, I will figure out a way to get you away safely.”