JV Hampton-VanSant

A path of pine needles point you onward between a forest of bloody trees.

You recognize these corpse-splashed woods.

You've hiked them a dozen odd times thanks to the power of your old VCR.

Holy slasher.

But there's zero time to freak out.

You've got a bigger problem.

You pull yourself off the camp counselor's skewered corpse, and instantly you know.

Something's hideously wrong with your right leg.

What did that monstrous freak do to you?

Your watcher yanks his machete free and towers over you, blazing-eyed in his hockey mask.

You lurch away on your good leg.

The elongated shadow you cast in his furious light cuts a line of sticky-floored reality between the woods.

Using the chair backs as crutches, you hobble out into the aisle and stagger toward the tangible reality of the silver screen.

Your watcher stomps after you, sweeping the theater with his leer, illuminating unexplored trees.

Over where you last spotted Rialto's emergency exit, a ghostly archery range appears.

Heavy boots clomp into the aisle behind you.

You don't look back.

You grit your jaw and shamble in the general direction of the emergency exit.

In the illusory blaze of his movie light, the archery range draws closer with every step.

You're not certain how the physics of this nightmare operate, but if you can't reach the emergency exit, you figure the archery range is the next best option.