“They sure did a number on your car,” the mechanic said as he wiped his face with a dirty handkerchief. “But it should be good to go now.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling with relief. “Thank you so much.”

He cocked a bushy eyebrow. “You got an ex out for you or something?”

My smile wavered. “Sorry, what?”

He shrugged, stuffing his handkerchief into the front pocket of his overalls. “Just seemed a lot for...what did you say - a prank by a camper? Seems more like a personal vendetta to me. And you’re...real on edge, y’know?”

I frowned, not replying, and he seemed to get the message. He shrugged again, awkwardly looking away as he pulled out a receipt book, thumbing through the white and yellow pages until he got to a clean one.

He scrawled a few lines of shorthand and numbers with a half-chewed pen and ripped out the white page, leaving a yellow one behind, and passed it to me. “You have a copy and I have a copy, so when your insurance makes you pay for it we both have evidence.” He winked, but it fell flat.

“Right, well. Thanks again.” I folded the receipt between my fingers. “Could you hang back while I pack up my car? So I can follow you out?”

He shook his head, a flash of uncertainty in his eyes as he backed up a step. “No can do. I need to run - got another job and need to hit the motorway soon as.”

“Just a few minutes? Just one?” I could hear the desperation in my voice, and I watched the mechanic turn away, his expression suddenly tense.

“No,” he said, stern. He kept glancing back at me as he approached his truck, as if suspicious that I would stab him with the knife I had stuffed in the loop of my belt as he left. “It took ages for me to find this place and I’m already late.”

“Sir-”

He threw open his truck door, climbing into the cab. “I’ll take your trashed parts with me and get rid, free of charge.”

“Sir, please-”

He eyed me through the windscreen, his gaze focusing on the knife, then the lodge, then the treeline. His jaw was working, sliding side to side. He had been uneasy from the moment he arrived, and that was before he'd noticed the knife hanging in my belt loop. Then he just lifted a hand in farewell and did a rapid three-point turn out of the clearing, leaving a whirlwind of dead leaves behind him.

“Damn,” I shouted, running into the lodge. I needed to hurry.

I grabbed my suitcase, spinning on my heel almost immediately as I took hold of it, and went to dash right back out onto the front porch when the door slammed shut, smashing against my nose as it swung and throwing me to the floor.

I gasped, pressing a hand against the hot blood streaming from my nose. There had been no one there - the door had just swung shut on its own as if caught in a strong wind. I scrambled up, gripping the handle and pulling - it wouldn’t budge. I rattled it, tried the key, kicked it, and it didn’t move.

“No, no, no.”

I spun, grabbing my suitcase again and charging into the kitchen. I launched myself at the sofa, yelling out wordlessly as it fell heavily to the side, giving me room to start shoving the wardrobe away from the glassless door. I grunted, panic and strain beading sweat on my brow and making my hands slippery as the wardrobe finally parted a large enough gap for me to slip through.

My suitcase didn’t wish to follow after as easily and I swore, not caring that the brute strength of me forcing it through the gap was leaving large scuffs and probably ripping the material. This was wasting time I didn’t have.

A snap of twigs underfoot told me that I had mere seconds before the figure was literally breathing down my neck, a terrifying sensation rippling up my spine as I just knew the figure was approaching me from the treeline.

I finally wrenched my suitcase through the door and sprinted away, striding fast and hard around the lodge, daring to spare a glance towards the treeline as I did. Sure enough, the figure was making jerking steps, the movements rolling its thin, sinewy body towards me with unnatural determination.

I ran harder, suitcase bashing painfully against my legs.

I threw myself around my car, almost crawling over the bonnet in my desperation, and opened the door. I hurled my suitcase into the car and it collided loudly with the inside of the passenger door. I’d already brought my backpack into the car earlier and I checked it was still there, slamming my door as I did.

I hit the internal lock as if locking myself in the car would stop the figure getting in, and turned the key in the ignition. For a dreadful moment, the car spluttered, grumbling emptily despite its fresh repairs, until finally it coughed and all the lights on the dashboard blinked on and off.

I released the handbrake. The figure had rounded the lodge and the movements were faster, less pulled by tugging wires and more a fluid wave rushing towards me. I slammed my foot on the pedal, the tyres spinning in place for a split second before the car shot forwards, roaring out of the clearing.

Trying not to career straight into a tree proved difficult on the narrow roads, but I didn’t want to lift the pressure I had on the pedal, instead risking a messy accident just to get out as fast as possible.

I didn’t see any sign of the mechanic, his truck long gone out of sight, and the feeling of lonely isolation crept up my neck like a cold chill chasing me.

I followed the roads I remembered from Sunday night, the daylight falling into dusk casting brighter shadows and I kept doubting if this truly were the same maze of dirt tracks I’d originally arrived on.

Then something moved ahead.

I lifted my foot slightly, edging it towards the brake pedal.

A man walked down the road.

The car skidded to a halt, my body thrown forwards against the seatbelt before boomeranging back with a painful thud.

I took a shaky deep breath, wiping the still-dripping blood from my nose with the back of my hand, and looked out the windscreen.

Adrian Oakes, wearing the suit and the smile from his future TV interview, stood in front of the car, looking extremely out of place in the forest. His smile shrank slightly when our eyes met, a frown now furrowing his smooth brow as he shook his head. He raised a hand and pointed behind the car, towards the lodge.

The message was clear - go back.

I lifted my foot off the brake, allowing the car to slowly roll forwards. Adrian didn’t move.

I lowered my window and stuck my head out, trying to see if continuing the act would save me. “Hey, Adrian!” I called, hoping my smile looked relieved and real. “Did you change your mind about helping me out?”

“Something like that,” he called back, still not moving. “Head back to the lodge and you can show me what’s been going on.”

My smile faltered. I glanced over my shoulder, thankful that the figure either hadn’t caught up yet or wasn’t giving chase down the road. “My car has been fixed so I was just going to go home.”

“That won’t do, Charlie.” Adrian no longer smiled, nor did he frown. His expression oddly blank, he took a single step towards the car. “This is your week away.”

“This place isn’t right,” I said, watching him as he slowly yet steadily approached. Soon, he was close enough to touch his fingertips to the car bonnet, staring straight at me as if seeing and understanding everything racing through my mind. “I can’t relax here, it’s…”

He drummed his perfectly manicured nails against the metal of the car. “You’re just stressed. Panicking won’t help you. I’m here now, let’s go back and you’ll see it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Adrian-”

“And your nose! What happened?” His words and his tone were etched with almost genuine concern, while his expression still stared blankly at me, boring into me like sharp, all-seeing flame. “It looks nasty. I’ll help you clean that up so let’s go back.”

“Adrian, please-”

“I said go back.”

I swallowed whatever emotion rose in my throat, pretending it wasn’t fear. “I want to go home,” I stated clearly, pretending I didn’t see Adrian’s fingers curl into a fist on top of the bonnet.

However, Adrian’s ploy ended then and there would be no more pretending.

The bonnet creaked as if suddenly straining beneath a great weight, the metal buckling slightly as Adrian stalked around the car, aiming for my open window.

“Go back, Charlie,” he said, but that wasn’t his voice. It sounded twisted, fuzzy with static and distant. “Go back to the lodge.”

His hand reached for the window, for me, and I slammed my foot on the pedal to speed away - only for the car to scream in resistance against the hand holding onto it as if merely catching a slip of paper dancing in a gentle breeze.

“No, Charlie,” he said, as if scolding a child.

How could he be holding back a car? What was this? Who the hell was Adrian Oakes?

I whacked the car into reverse and he let go, allowing me to race backwards - back to the lodge. I stopped in the clearing, looking in the mirror to see the figure waiting for me, standing sentry on the front porch. I looked forward to see Adrian sauntering down the dirt road as if on a pleasant stroll in the forest, and not walking straight out of a scene in a horror film.

I wiped the blood from my nose again, ignoring the flare of pain at the motion, and put my window up - as if that would stop them.

They were waiting for me, blocking the way out and blocking any sanctuary I could find inside the lodge. They were both watching me, seeing what move I would take next, and I let the engine rumble, scanning the treeline in an attempt to find some form of space I could drive towards.

But there was only one way out that would fit a car and Adrian stood in it, hands in the pockets of his pristine trousers, the blank expression now twitching with a hint of smirk tugging on his lips.

The figure moved away from the lodge, almost as if making room for me to return inside, but didn’t approach the back of the car.

My move, their reaction.

I turned the car off. This was definitely a checkmate with me as the doomed loser of a game I never wished to play. What were the rules? Who were the players? How could I get myself out of this?

I opened the car door, grabbing my backpack as I dropped into the carpet of dead leaves. I swung it over my shoulders, holding it tight against my body like a lifeline. Adrian waved towards the lodge and the figure made a noise, a screeching hiccup meant to be a mockery of laughter.

I gingerly closed the car door and leaned my movements towards the lodge, crafting the image that I would go along with their plans for me and return. When I had stepped clear of the car, I inhaled, filling myself with air and the courage to - run.

I bolted, my backpack bouncing against me as I sprinted full power past the lodge and out of the clearing, gasping for oxygen and muscles burning with the exertion as I rushed through the forest and towards the lake.

I tried to glance over my shoulder, but I ended up almost tripping, so I focused on each pounding step, and hated that I couldn't hear if anyone or anything followed me over my own racing heartbeat and panting breathing.

The lake opened up like an oasis in a desert, a haven of miracles in the hell I crossed, and I didn’t slow until my hiking boots thudded loudly on the wooden pier. I threw myself into the boat, tensing as it rocked perilously side to side, and then fought with untying the rope.

Now that I had stopped I could hear something calling my name, a voice with barely restrained anger beneath it, a tone that almost teased humour at this bizarre predicament, a beckoning of inevitability.

I pushed the boat away from the pier, pulling my backpack close to my chest and clinging onto it, eyes desperately searching the surrounding treeline as the sun set behind me, the lake glistening with silent beauty despite the morbid fear writhing within me.

“Charlie,” the voice called, a voice I would have recognized as Adrian's if not for the scratching chalk and muffled static that echoed along with it. “Come back to the lodge, Charlie.”