The snake-like voice sent goosebumps running down Kate's arms and adrenaline pumping through her veins. She immediately ran back to the car and retrieved the rest of her gear, not wanting to be caught defenseless by whatever was lurking in the dark. "I'm really glad I brought the bag from the kitchen," she said, stuffing the salt into her jacket pocket. "It'd be a pain in the ass to lug around one of the big ones from the garage… and I guess I don't really need more than one of these at the same time either," she mumbled, replacing her baseball bat with the shovel. Once that matter was settled she locked the car back up, propped the shovel up on her shoulder, turned on the flashlight and camcorder, and attempted entering the park for the second time. As she made her way down the cracked asphalt roads, she felt a somber feeling building up inside with each passing ruin. First came the Park Lodge; a once-beautiful building that looked like a chalet combined with a visitor center, which was now little more than a dark, empty husk scarred with rotting boards and shattered windows. The pool beside the lodge was half-filled with stagnant rainwater, and in the overgrown clearing to the left of it sat a long-abandoned playground covered in rust and mold; the few swings that remained intact creaking eerily in the breeze. A short distance away from the lodge was the RiverView Event Hall; the place where nightly camp activities had once been hosted, and surrounding the building were several bike racks as well as a variety of recreational activities to take part in, including two basketball courts, a picnic area, a climbing wall, and an entire baseball field behind the event hall. Needless to say, all of these were in a rough condition, and unfortunately for Kate, none of them held what she'd been looking for… not that she expected things to be so easy. Despite the fact that they were little more than overgrown dirt lots with concrete fire pits, she noticed that the campsites themselves were in a relatively decent condition aside from the occasional abandoned tent or fallen tree. However, the sight that truly broke her heart was the formerly gorgeous namesake of the park; the river that flowed through and around the campground. Long ago, it had been crystal clear and teeming with fish, but now it was choked with weeds and algae, giving the water a vile green hue. Even the covered bridge that stretched across the largest section of the river had been devastated by the elements.
It was after about an hour of exploring that Kate finally came to terms with the fact that the main area of the park held absolutely nothing of importance, which meant that she'd have to explore the undeveloped hiking trails deep within the woods. "Ground Zero," she muttered, growing more fearful by the second. To both her delight and despair, finding the trails turned out to be a simple task, as it was rather difficult to miss the chain-link fence that blocked off a massive chunk of the forest. As she approached the rolling gate, the asphalt road became a rough dirt path just big enough for service vehicles to drive on. Thankfully, there was a gap between the gate and the fence just wide enough for her to squeeze through, and she did so easily, crossing through and into the dark forest contained within. "This isn't so bad…" she began to say but was cut short by the sound of a soft click behind her as the gate mysteriously slid shut. Her eyes widened at the sight and she bolted back over, pulling on the massive obstacle in an attempt to wheel it back open, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much strength she put into her efforts, it wasn't enough. "I should've knocked on wood," Kate panted, catching her breath as she let go of the gate. "Well that's just fantastic, now I'm stuck in here all alone and I can't even call for help because I left my damn phone in the car," she grumbled, more irritated than afraid that her only exit had just sealed itself. "Wait, why don't I just climb over the… dammit," she said, glancing upward at the wicked barbed wire lining the top of the fence. "I don't suppose this thing just slid shut from a lack of wind either, so something definitely doesn't want me to leave, which means… wait, what is that?" she questioned, shining her flashlight on the gate's latch. Carved into the rusted metal was a strange, vaguely familiar symbol; two eyes intersecting in the shape of a cross. As she reached out to run a finger over the sigil, a psychotic laugh echoed throughout the forest, making her blood run cold. She spun around to face the trees and shined her flashlight into them, desperately attempting to catch the perpetrator red-handed. "Show yourself, asshole!" she yelled, anger quickly replacing her fear. "Yeah, you think you're all big and bad now? Let's see how badass you are when you go up in flames!" Now more determined than ever to defeat this malevolent entity, Kate began her hike down the dirt trails, failing to notice the eight figures lurking just behind the tree line. The one responsible for the laughter stood at his master's side with a demented smile plastered on his face. He, in particular, was growing quite fond of their latest plaything. She had a certain spunk to her that he found refreshing, and her bravery easily outshone most of those who'd come before her. Perhaps that was why he was so content with sitting back and watching the show… observing this new candidate.
The forest was dark and eerie; the only sound came from a light breeze blowing through the woods accompanied by the occasional hoot of an owl or chirping of crickets, all while the crunching of loose dirt beneath Kate's shoes barely managed to break the silence. The dull moonlight shone through the gaps in the trees, struggling to illuminate anything other than the light fog creeping across the ground. More thankful than ever for her flashlight, the determined teenager followed the path straight for a while before coming across a fork in the road. She barely gave a thought to which path she chose, correctly guessing that a hiking trail like this one would inevitably loop back around to the entrance, and headed down the path to the right without a second thought. Just like the original, this section of the trail went straight for a while before culminating in another fork. However, the path leading toward the center of the woods would have to wait, as the one that continued following the forest's border led to a tall red structure nearly hidden by the thick vegetation. Wondering what exactly RiverView Management had been building on the trails, she stepped forward to investigate.
Standing just taller than the trees, the structure turned out to be nothing more than a heavily rusted silo. What once had been the central segment of a miniature petting zoo for passing hikers was now the only surviving monument from the attraction, as everything else had been reduced to a decaying mess of wood and metal. Although the abandoned landmark was somewhat interesting, Kate was just about to move on when she caught sight of something peculiar; a yellowed sheet of paper was stuck to the eastern side of the silo. She focused the flashlight's beam on it as she came closer to investigate, discovering that a strange message had been scrawled across its surface; "Don't Look Or It Takes You." Accompanying the cryptic note was a sketch of a tall, faceless stick figure drawn in the bottom right corner of the page, and unaware of what was about to happen, Kate plucked the paper from the silo and stuck it in her pocket, intending to examine it further once she was out of harm's way. However, she soon discovered that doing so would trigger the exact opposite of what she wanted to happen; As soon as the note was in her possession, the wind stopped blowing, the crickets ceased their chirping, and the hooting of the owls was silenced. A new sound that drowned out all others tore through the woods, one that sounded like the slow, steady, singular beat of a drum, repeating over and over as if to signal a looming execution. Kate couldn't explain the phenomena she was witnessing, so she didn't try, instead electing to focus on getting as far away from the silo as she could. She quickly became more thankful than ever that she'd decided to wear a sweatshirt on this little excursion, as the temperature inexplicably began to plummet. She continued down the path, searching desperately for any hint of whatever remains she needed to salt and burn to finally end the nightmare. However, it was due to her focus on the task at hand that she failed to notice a faint voice hiss the phrase; "One of Eight." Her camera, on the other hand, heard it loud and clear.
"Oh come on, you're brand new… don't start this crap already," Kate grumbled as her camera started to exhibit video tearing and picture discoloration, as well as audio distortions and occasional bursts of static. She wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that the camera was picking up the incessant drumming, but at least this way she'd have proof of the stories she was going to tell once it was all over. Fortunately, the camera was only malfunctioning on an infrequent basis, and since the device wasn't suffering any actual damage she tried not to worry about it too much. Soon after making peace with the fact that the distortions were probably there to stay, she stumbled across the second landmark; three oversized boulders standing tall in the rough shape of a circle just to the right of the trail. "Now what do we have here," she narrated as she approached the rock formation, noticing a second note stuck to the side of one of the stones. At the center of the aged piece of paper was a large circle with two x's drawn over it to resemble eyes, and both above and below the illustration were the two halves of the phrase; "Always Watches, No Eyes." "This one's just as ominous as the first… how cheery," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she retrieved the second note. Perhaps it was the growing sense of paranoia, fatigue from being awake later than she usually was, coming to terms with the fact that she was both hunting and being hunted by some supernatural entity, or a combination of the three that enabled her to hear the voice this time; "Two of Eight," it said, sending chills down her spine when she recognized it as the same voice that had cackled at her misfortune with the gate. "Wait a minute, the gate…" Kate pondered, her expression of fear quickly being replaced by a sly smirk as she understood what she had to do. Her number one priority was still finding and burning whatever remains were anchoring this spirit to the land of the living, but now she had a secondary objective; locating the eight pages scattered around the hiking trails in order to break the paranormal lock put on the gate. She decided that she was going to play this game willingly and headed down the trail more confident than ever, eventually coming across yet another fork in the road. "Two notes down… six to go," she announced, finally giving in to her curiosity and taking the path to the center of the woods.