Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The Rules of the Damned

The opportunity came the next afternoon, wrapped in the guise of Peter’s sadistic brand of team-building. He announced, with his usual terrifying enthusiasm, that they were all going on a "trust-building expedition" to clear a rockslide on a path at the far end of the camp. All of them. Including Nicole.

“Teamwork makes the dream work!” he bellowed, brandishing a shovel. He assigned tasks with a dictator's glee, specifically putting Nicole on light-duty sorting pebbles, a task that would keep her in his direct line of sight, far from the bunkhouse.

As the small, defeated procession trudged towards the rockslide, Ash caught Mary Beth’s eye. A silent, urgent message passed between them. Ginger, trailing a few feet behind, saw the look. She slowed her pace, letting the group get ahead, and gave Ash a single, almost imperceptible nod before adjusting her headphones. She would be their lookout.

This was their chance.

“Peter!” Ash called out, doubling over and clutching her stomach. “I think the hot dogs from the other night are staging a comeback. I really need to use the bathroom.”

Peter’s smile tightened for a fraction of a second, annoyance flashing in his cold eyes before the mask of jolly counselor snapped back into place. “Of course, Ash! Tummy troubles are no fun. Mary Beth, you’re her buddy. Escort her to the facilities and be right back. Don’t dawdle!”

“Yes, sir,” Mary Beth said, her voice dripping with mock sincerity.

They turned and walked back towards the main clearing, their steps measured and calm. The moment they were out of Peter’s sight, they broke into a dead sprint, their feet pounding on the packed earth. They didn't head for the latrines. They ran straight for Bunkhouse Beta.

Ginger was already there, leaning casually against a nearby pine tree, a silent sentinel. She saw them coming and subtly shook her head, pointing a finger in the direction of the main lodge. Peter was still visible, watching them. They ducked behind the mess hall, hearts hammering, and waited. After a long minute, Ginger gave a thumbs-up. Peter had turned his attention back to his prisoners.

The bunkhouse door creaked open, protesting their intrusion. The air inside was stale and thick with dread. Sunlight, cut into dusty stripes by the grimy windows, illuminated the small, pathetic space that was their prison. Nicole’s bunk was neat, her single blanket folded with obsessive precision. At its foot was the small wooden footlocker she’d fumbled in on the night of the knocking.

“It has to be in there,” Ash whispered, kneeling beside it. The lock was a simple, cheap latch. A few seconds of wiggling with the tip of a nail file from Mary Beth’s pocket and it sprang open with a soft click.

The contents were sparse. A few faded t-shirts, a worn pair of jeans, a single photograph of a stern-looking couple. And underneath it all, wrapped in a threadbare swatch of wool, was the book.

Mary Beth lifted it out as if handling a venomous snake. The dark leather was cool and smooth, but felt unnervingly like old skin. There was no title on the cover, only a strange, circular symbol etched into the center, a spiral made of what looked like tiny, jagged teeth.

“Open it,” Mary Beth breathed, her voice tight.

Ash took the book, her fingers trembling slightly as she opened it to the first page. The paper was yellowed and brittle. The handwriting inside was spidery and cramped, written in faded brown ink. It wasn't a diary. It was a manual.

“What does it say?” Mary Beth urged, peering over her shoulder.

Ash swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She flipped through the pages, seeing hand-drawn sketches of strange sigils, maps of the woods with areas crossed out and labeled with single, terrifying words: Hunger, Silence, Shift.

Then she found the page she’d glimpsed before. At the top, in stark, block letters, was the heading: RULE 7: ON KNOCKS IN THE NIGHT.

Below it, the text confirmed her deepest fears. The one called Grinny Grin comes when his rhyme is spoken aloud. He is drawn to belief. He will knock thrice upon the glass. Do not look. Do not acknowledge his presence. A tribute of salt, taken from the deep earth, must be placed upon the threshold stone. It is a taste of the world he cannot have. It will sate him for one cycle. To look upon him is to invite him in. To fail the tribute is to offer yourself instead.

“The salt lick,” Mary Beth whispered, her face ashen. “That rhyme… we summoned it.”

Ash felt a wave of nausea. They hadn't just heard a scary story; they had participated in a ritual. She turned the page, her eyes scanning frantically. A new rule leaped out at her, and the blood drained from her face.

RULE 4: ON FACES YOU KNOW.

Be wary of the familiar form. The woods keep echoes, and sometimes they wear the faces of those you trust. If you see someone where they should not be, if their smile seems too wide for their face, if their eyes are hollow pits of want, they are not who you think. They are mimics. They are hungry. To acknowledge the mimic is to give it shape. To speak to it is to give it a voice. It will then seek to replace the one it copies.

“Suzy,” Ash choked out, the words like shards of glass in her throat. “That’s what she saw. A copy of Peter.” She looked at Mary Beth, the horror dawning in its full, monstrous scope. “She acknowledged it. That’s why she ran. It wasn't just a hallucination.”

They kept turning pages, each one a deeper descent into their nightmare.

RULE 11: ON THE FOREST THAT SHIFTS.

The forest does not obey the laws of men. It is older. If you find yourself lost, do not trust the path. Do not trust the sun. The trees will move when you are not looking. Landmarks will vanish. To be caught in a Shift is to be unwritten from the world. If the ground trembles and the birds fall silent, stand still. Pray to whatever god you have left. The woods are rearranging themselves, and you are merely furniture.

“Tommy and Grant,” Mary Beth said, her voice hollow. “They’re not just lost. The forest… it moved them.”

More rules followed, a litany of impossible horrors. A rule about never singing certain songs after dark, for they were hymns to the things that fed on melody. A rule about never looking into a mirror in total darkness. A rule against answering if you hear your own voice calling from the woods.

Ash slammed the book shut. The sound echoed in the silent bunkhouse. This wasn't a camp guidebook. It was a bestiary. A survival manual for a game where the penalty for losing wasn't just death, but being unwritten, replaced, or consumed.

The smiling townsfolk, the absurd sentence, Sheriff Gable’s dead eyes—it all clicked into place with horrifying clarity. They weren’t here for community service. They weren’t here to build character. They were offerings. They were the new players in a game that had been going on for generations.

A sound from outside cut through the haze of their terror. A cheerful, tuneless whistling.

Peter.

“He’s coming back,” Mary Beth hissed, her eyes wide with panic.

With frantic, fumbling hands, they shoved the book back into the footlocker, wrapped it in the wool, and closed the lid, snapping the flimsy latch back into place just as the shadow of Peter’s stout frame fell across the bunkhouse door.

They froze, their hearts lodged in their throats. But the shadow passed. He was heading for the main lodge.

They sagged against the bunks, gasping for air they didn’t realize they’d been holding. They were safe, for now. But the knowledge they now possessed was a crushing weight. They knew the rules. They knew the nature of the monsters that surrounded them.

Ash looked at Mary Beth, seeing her own terror reflected in her friend’s eyes. Her earlier thought returned, no longer a suspicion but a cold, hard fact. This wasn’t a camp.

It was a hunting ground. And they were the prey.