Daylight: the morning sun penetrates the thick of the woods, an aerial shot shows the scale of the large, expansive forest. Tree tips as far as the eye can see, with hills to the one side, and mountains in the far distance. In the middle, shimmering, reflecting the morning light is a vast body of water, miles wide, and miles away.
The camera slowly pans down below the tree tips, again picking up movement, this time a single figure is travelling between the trees, trudging through the mossy morass, morning mist, and fallen leaves. Shambling forward, mumbling to himself, and cradling the kid's limp body, the Hunter looks drained, spent, finished. Head down, barely enough energy to lift his eyes to see where he's going. Although, his direction has purpose, and he's been moving along a straight path for at least 15 minutes.
Another 10 minutes pass, never deviating from the path, the Hunter stops, raising his head for the first time to scan the area. He catches a sight of a dirt path, which he strides towards, picking up the pace. Following the dirt path down a muddy slope, a road can be seen through the leaves, and he brushes past the branches to step onto it. To the right further down, pulled over off the road, is a yellow, Oldsmobile Delta 88, covered in fresh mud and old dirt. He looks at it for a second and lets out a breath of relief. He can get the hell out of here now.
Still holding the kid, the Hunter staggers to the side of the car, and begins to lower him down while supporting his head, delicately placing him on the ground. Checking his own pockets, he finds the car key, then leans in to unlock the door. Shattered glass is spread over the seats, the passenger side window has been battered, the dash bashed, and the electrics busted. It looks as though a bear had gone to town on it, and the Hunter realises that they've been followed the whole time. He walks around to the front and the bonnet is ajar. Opening it up, the engine is the same, mauled, mangled, ravaged. Visibly shaken, he silently erupts, slamming the bonnet down as hard as he can, the boom echoing through the forest, making the birds flee the trees.
Both hands planted on the bonnet, hunched over it and head down, he exhales yet another deep breath, this time it's not a sigh of consolation. He bolts upright, then bounds over to look inside the car to see what he can salvage. The glove compartment is open, contents mixed in with the broken glass, he grabs a worn down pencil and the napkin he picked up from a local diner a few weeks earlier. The boot is intact, untouched. There's nothing in it anyway, an empty gas can, an oily rag, a tire iron, an assortment of tools strewn around, wrenches of random sizes, a single screwdriver. He stuffs the screwdriver in his pocket, and shuts the boot.
Slapping the napkin on top of the car, he scribbles a name and a phone number, then turns around to look at the bloody, lifeless body on the ground, staring intensely with pain in his eyes. Picking up the lifeless kid, and carefully laying him on the back seat, he grabs the blanket he keeps in the back for sleeping in the car, and covers his nephew with it, then places the napkin on top, while mumbling the words "He's a dead fuck!".
The Hunter walks away from the car, leaving the doors and boot wide open so it attracts attention. He knows it's too far to start walking the winding forest roads to get to a town, and has no intention of sitting waiting for somebody to drive by. Only one thing is on his mind now, his objective is quite clear, and he's not going to let that Thing disappear off into the woods without some kind of atonement. He has everything he needs, and an intense anger to help him do the only thing he's ever been good at.
About to step off the road, the Hunter takes one last look back, lets out a deep breath for the final time, then steps into the wild.