What Happened in the Woods

What Happened in the Woods

	“Please turn this down, Chase, it’s giving me a headache”
“Hell no, you ever heard this guy? Went platinum off one album then died in a drunken car crash, dude was livin’!”
“How can you possibly like this? It sounds like someone scraped a fork all over a plate and auto-tuned it. Listen to something good, like Beethoven or Chopin, not this noise”
“You call classical real? I’d honestly rather jump off a bridge than listen to a bunch of old dudes and violins.”
“Just turn it off for gosh’s sake, it’s hurting my brain and I can’t drive with the constant pounding. I hand you the aux for one minute and this happens”

The GPS in the beat-up, red pickup instructed Ben to turn left into the dark forest path. As he drove, he tried his very hardest to tune out Chase’s throbbing music and take in his surroundings. Out his window, he could see a great canopy of trees blocking out the harsh California sun and shrouding the area in a light fog with thin rays of light creeping through the holes in the top.
Beneath the great layer of foliage was a small, reflective pool swimming with fish of all different colors and sizes. As the truck went farther into the green and the fog thickened ever so slightly, it began to shake with the gravel road beneath it becoming less and less smooth. Something in the backseat shook, then a voice was heard.

“The hell goin’ on up there?”
	The music stopped.
“Morning, Rat. How’s it going back there?”
“Your shit drivin’ woke me up, Ben, what gives?”
“The road’s getting uneven, we’re just arriving now. Just go back to sleep for a little longer so we can figure out where the others are.”

	The truck slowly came to a stop in the middle of a clearing. Birds cheered loudly at their arrival and the rabbits came up from the trees to observe the visitors.
	Ben took the keys out of the ignition and slid them into his coat pocket. He opened the door and grabbed his backpack that was resting on the floor of the truck, zipped it open, and revealed an expensive-looking camera.

	“Come on, Chase, get out. We’re here, and I want to unpack now so I can snap a few photos before dark.”
	Chase pushed his door open and hopped out, immediately eyeing the expensive-looking camera. “Holy shit, how much was that?” he said, staring intently.
	“About $500. Saved up from working down at the pool, hours were long but it’s gonna be worth it when I can take this thing for a spin,” Ben replied, looking at his possession with a proud face.

	Ben tucked the camera back into his backpack and turned around. Before him sat a big yet old, beat-up wooden cabin with a broken window and crumbling chimney. A lot of the wood was rotting and some were peeling clean off, creating holes and revealing the dim interior and broken furniture. The door was off one of its hinges and at the sight of the 3 men, a raccoon skittered through it and into the house.

	“What gives?” Chase yelled at Ben. “This place is a dump!”
	“Umm, well, I don’t exactly know. Alex rented this place for us for the weekend off some sketchy website, he told me it would be much nicer.”
	Ben walked to the car and slammed his fist onto the window. “Rat, wake up, we have to start unpacking.”
	Rat shifted, then groaned, then finally got up and glared at Ben. Ben pulled Rat’s door open, turned around and went into the house. Chase stood still for a moment, staring at the house, looking it over top to bottom, left to right, inside and out, and thinking about how much of a dump it is. After a moment he was interrupted by Rat behind him yelling “Ben, get out ‘ere!”
	Ben poked his head out the front door. “What?”
	“This place is nasty, why we here? Who planned it?”
	“Like I told Chase, Alex rented the cabin. He’ll be here soon, just wait a bit.”
	Rat grunted and turned around, then opened the trunk and grabbed 2 of the suitcases, pulling them with him inside, yelling at Chase to take his own. Chase followed suit, and the three went together into the house.
	Inside they were met with a wide-open living room with 3 torn-up, beaten couches surrounding a chipped table. In the corner was a mini-kitchen setup with a set of peeling drawers, a seemingly broken oven and a dirty refrigerator emitting a low, constant hum. On the side of the room, there were 3 entryways into what seemed like bedrooms, with one of them missing a door. Left on the counter and scattered around the floor were empty water bottles and moldy, half-eaten bean cans with flies fluttering around them, picking at the soiled remains.
	“It seems like nobody’s been here in, like, a year, didn’t Alex say this place was managed well?” Ben said in confusion.
	“Don’ know, don’ care. No way I’m stayin’ in this place, looks like a tornado wen’ through here and messed everything up”
	Chase emerged from one of the rooms to the side. “This place is sweet, totally looks like a murderer’s place. I’m taking this room, tell Alex and Daniel they’re bunkin’ together because I’m going solo baby”
	“You’re not taking your own room,” Ben said to Chase in protest. “If anything, I should get it; I need the most space.”
Rat watched the two quarrel, annoyed. During the argument, he heard the beep of a car outside, and he walked out to check what it was. A moment or two later, someone stuck their head through the door.
“Hey, guys!” the man said, looking around the place confusedly.
“Hey, Alex,” Chase said. “Took you long enough”
“It’s not exactly easy to find where I’m going when the GPS says to turn left into “Forest”. You sure this is the right address? This place is messed up”
“You’re the one who gave us the address” Ben replied. “And the one who rented the place. I thought you said it was in good condition, what gives?”
“I thought it was, the website I got it from had pictures of a well-furnished cabin that looked fairly clean, guess we got scammed”
A second new man walked in with Rat, both carrying suitcases and bags.
“Hey, Daniel,” Alex said. “Let’s grab the room on the far left.” Daniel walked off, and Alex followed behind into the room.
“Yo Alex, is it cool if I take the room on the right alone?” Chase asked.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Alex called out from the room.
Rat looked at Ben, clearly upset he had to share a room with him. Ben exchanged the same look, and the two mentally decided to stay quiet and drop off their things. Rat left to grab some more things from the car, and Ben sat down on the bed, looking out the window. From his room, he could see the small pond a little bit away. He grabbed the camera from his backpack and took a photo of the pond. He then got one of the interior of the cabin and went outside to get one of the exterior.
“Whatcha doin, Ben?” Daniel asked, eyeing him from inside.
“I’m headed to that pond over there to grab a couple of pictures with my new camera, want to come with?”
“I don’t see why not. Alex, you coming with?” Daniel called behind him. He turned back around and said to Ben, “He’ll meet us there.”
Daniel went out and the two headed down a bit to the pond. Ben bent over and looked intently at his camera, snapping photos every couple seconds.
“See those colorful fish?” He said to Daniel. “Looks like there are 5 of them, and if my memory serves me right, they are super rare and are not found anywhere near here. Wonder how they ended up here”
Daniel looked down at the water. “Weird, maybe someone brought them down? Previous owners of the cabin probably”
Alex then walked out of the cabin and ran up to the pond. “What’s going on over here?”
Ben took another photo. “We’re looking at these fish, they are native to some places in Africa but nowhere around here I believe”
“So someone brought them here?”
“That’s what I figured,” Daniel chimed in.
“Regardless of how they got here, they’re super interesting and a little mysterious” Ben said.
“And pretty, they’re all different colors and shapes,” Daniel said.
“Yeah, I’d take one of these home and put it in a tank if I didn’t know better” Alex joked.
“Please don’t, they’re endangered and you might accidentally kill it” Ben warned.
Alex and Daniel looked at each other and chuckled.
“I’m gonna head back in,” Alex said to Ben.
Alex left and Daniel followed behind. Ben stayed for a bit taking more pictures of the fish. 5 minutes had past and he noticed a rustling in the trees nearby.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
	The rustling continued.
“Anyone? Hello?”
	Ben took pictures of the trees and stood up, walking back into the cabin.

The next couple of hours were spent settling in and making the cabin suitable to live in for at least a few days. Alex and Daniel were in charge of cleaning and dusting, Ben was told to try and fix the oven and refrigerator, Chase repaired the doors and windows, and Rat moved the old furniture out to be fixed as well. After a bit, the cabin looked a little better than it did, and the 5 sat down for a break.
“Who’s up for a game?” Ben asked, reaching into his backpack.
“Maybe if it isn’t nerdy shit” Chase replied.
“Nerdy? No way. This is Risk; the game all about conquering territories and becoming the most powerful!”
“You lost me at conquering. Consider me out,” Chase said as he got up to leave.
“Sit down, Chase,” Alex called to him. Chase looked back, annoyed, but gave in and sat down.
“Here’s how the game works; you all take these pieces. When it’s your turn choose a territory to place your pieces in,” Ben explained.
“I don’t think that’s how the game works,” said Daniel. “We played where you deal the cards to determine where you start.
“I used to play with teams,” Rat chimed in.
“Ok, maybe no game then,” Alex said, defeated. “How about a little truth or dare, spice it up a little?”
“I’m in, this is my kind of game.”
“Wonderful, thank you, Chase. Let’s start then, shall we?”
“Nope. Not into it,” Ben said, getting up and heading back to his room.
Ben sat there for a good part of the evening on his computer, connected to his phone’s hotspot. He could hear the laughs and screams of his friends outside. After a while, he got bored with playing computer games and decided to check his camera and have a look at the photos he captured earlier. He reached into his backpack, grabbed the camera, and pulled up the images. He looked at them proudly; they were all well caught and of high quality. The luscious green trees and bushes complemented the serene, blue reflecting pond. The vibrant colors of the fish stood out above the rest, and each’s individual hue popped out against the background. As Ben clicked through, he came across a zoomed out photo of just the woods where he remembered what he’d heard earlier. The rustling. He clicked through more, paying extremely close attention to the trees as he went until he found the image. Clearly visible in a hole in the woods was a face. He couldn’t quite make out any features, but it was undeniably a human face in the trees. The next photo on, he saw a hand protruding from the wall of green holding what looked to be a short knife.
Ben’s stomach began to ache. He picked up his camera and ran outside the room, where he was met by the scene of Chase licking Daniel’s foot.
“Guys, check this out. Something isn’t right here,” Ben said to the group.
“What are you on about?” Chase asked Ben.
“Look here, the photos I took from earlier. There’s someone in the trees,” Ben replied.
The group huddled around Ben for a closer inspection of the photos. Upon finally seeing what was in front of him, Chase stepped back and exclaimed, “So there’s someone here? Like, not one of us, but, like, a murderer?”
“Maybe not a murderer, Chase,” Alex said reassuringly. “Don’t overreact yet.”
“Overreact? Are you fucking kidding? There’s a guy in the trees with a knife, I think that calls for some reaction!” Chase snapped.
“Jesus, Chase, chill out,” Daniel said from on the couch.
“Daniel’s right. Relax, nothing’s gonna happen to you,” said Alex.
“Can someone just go, I don’t know, check? I’m not gonna be able to sleep with this thought haunting me,” Chase pleaded.
“Check? Chase, it’s like midnight. It’s too late for anyone to check,” Alex responded.
“Please? I swear I’ll shut up about it”
“Ugh, fine. Rat? Would you go check?”
Rat glared at Alex for a moment, but his expression soon changed to a normal one. He nodded, got up and grabbed a flashlight from his backpack, then left.
“How are none of you freaked out? There’s a potential murderer in the trees literal feet away from us and you’re all just hanging out here,” Chase questioned.
“I think the rest of us are just rational people; we aren’t gonna get freaked out by some animal in the woods,” Daniel explained.
“Oh, no, that’s a human,” Ben said. “No animal has that head shape or size than a human, plain and simple.”
“Then what human would be after 5 random people in the middle of the woods?”
“Any human who’s messed up bad,” Chase interjected. “There are some guys screwed up enough to be”
“Let’s all just relax for a bit, try and go to sleep. Please. I’m tired out of my mind, Rat’ll be back soon so let’s get ready now and we can go straight to sleep when he gets back.”
That was midnight.
The group called it at 3 am, Rat had not returned, and everyone was too exhausted to wait. Alex locked the door and returned to his room to sleep.

The next morning, Alex emerged from his room drowsy-eyed and dead-looking. He saw Daniel and Ben sitting on the couch in front of the table, all seeming to be half asleep.
“I couldn't sleep last night with the thought of Rat gone,” Alex exclaimed.
“Neither could we,” Ben said to Chase, clearly wanting to sleep. “I kept hearing thuds and animal calls all night”
“Yeah, I heard those too,” Daniel said
“I suppose I did as well… any ideas as to what they were?” Alex asked.
“I’m honestly too tired to think,” Ben replied.
“Maybe Chase… wait, where’s Chase?”
“Check his room”
“There’s no door on it, he’s not in there”
“Just walk in”
Alex shrugged and walked into Chase’s room where he was greeted by Chase sitting in the corner closest to the door, not in view from outside, laying on the floor. He was visibly shaking and mumbling something to himself. Alex stepped back and asked, “Chase? You doing alright buddy?”
“Go outside,” Chase mumbled to himself, too quietly to be heard.
“What?”
	“GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE” Chase screamed at Alex, looking up and grabbing him by the leg. His eyes were clouded red and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“Chase, your eyes are bloodshot, what the hell happened?”
“DID YOU NOT FUCKING HEAR ME??” Chase held tightly onto Alex’s leg and pulled himself up. “Out… out there… the… rat…” Chase spoke frantically and with loss in his voice. He looked over at the broken mirror at himself and ran towards it, placing his hand on the glass. “This place, this fucking place… going to kill me…” He looked back at Alex and grabbed him by the chest. “Go out to the front… the red sea… the blood… it fills this place with… sins…”
“Chase, you’re not making sense, just explai-”
“FOR FUCKS SA-” Chase began to shake and twitch. Still holding onto Alex’s chest, he pulled him out to the living room and towards the front door.
“What’s happening over there, Alex?” Daniel called over to them.
“I’m… not exactly sure..” Alex said back to Daniel.
Chase pulled open the door and forced Alex’s head to face the outside.
Blood coated the wooden entry steps and grass nearby. Individual chunks of skin and organs were scattered about the nearby land, and laying a few feet away on the grass was the remains of a human head.
Rat’s head.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Alex screamed, taking a step back and tripping, falling back onto the wooden floor.
Daniel and Ben stood up, walking towards the commotion. Upon seeing the gore that stared back at him, Ben immediately passed out and fell back, hitting his head on the table as he fell. Daniel was too mesmerized by the sight to notice Ben’s falling, but the sight soon turned from confusion to panic in Daniel’s eyes and he too stepped back, stepping on Ben’s limp hand.
Alex looked again at the mess, then darted his head towards Chase. “You didn’t do this, did you?”
Chase began to laugh hysterically. “Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? Something did that, and I saw it with my OWN FUCKING EYES.”
Alex was dumbfounded. “What?”
“L… last night. You all went to sleep and… and… I was on the couch, up on my phone when I heard some scratching or… or… something… on the front door… out of pure fear I stopped still and stayed until it stopped then… then… I saw the thing… in the window… it looked like a… a… person with a mask or something on… hiding its eyes… but I could tell through the mask that… the thing made eye contact with me. It looked at me and… I felt something in its eyes, like a… presence, and I…”
Chase began to hack and cough furiously until he lost his breath and just wheezed loudly for a few seconds until he bent over and threw up all over the floor. The vomit had a hint of red in it.
“I’m… I just… I… need to go lay down…”
Chase stumbled over to his room and plopped down on the floor. Alex was too lost to speak, and he stood there for a moment, taking in the bloody scene around him. Daniel finally came to, and realized he was stepping on Ben’s hand. He called to Alex, “Dude, Ben hit his head on the table, we have to get him to his room, let’s go!”
The two picked Ben up and carried him to his room where they let him rest there for as long as he needed.

A couple hours passed by with Alex and Daniel sitting on the couch in silence. Both were too disgusted and sick to do anything, but they also worried sitting still made them a target for whatever murdered Rat.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what Chase said,” Alex said to Daniel.
Daniel chuckled. “Well yeah, I don’t think there’s much else to think about”
“Remember when he mentioned the scratching on the door?”
“Vaguely, why”
“Someone in this place is a murderer. Might not be one of us, but we should check to see if Chase’s story holds up, see if he’s telling the truth or covering something up”
“Dude, I’m not walking in that mess over there. I will vomit on the spot and probably pass out, I’ve been ignoring it for the past hour or so but it’s still just stuck in my brain”
Alex looked over to the front door. It seemed that blood had seeped under the doorframe and dried around the door, making a deep reddish-brown colored stain in the wood. “One of us has to do it, man. I say we both clean this up so we can get out of here faster and look.”
“How about we just clean this up and get the hell out of here?” Daniel had stood up and was looking directly at Alex’s deep green eyes. “There’s very obviously a murderer here and we have no clue if he’s gonna come for someone else. If we want to live, we have to leave. As soon as humanly possible.”
“You think I haven’t thought of that already? We can’t leave so long as Chase and Ben are passed out in their rooms. We’d be letting them die.”
“Staying here is letting all of us die”
Alex took a deep breath. “Listen. We’re both terrified here, there’s an actual, genuine murderer somewhere around here. But we can’t leave these people behind or else we’re just as guilty as whoever or whatever’s killing us.”
“Promise me, Alex, the second they wake up we leave. No more fucking around here, this is life or death.”
“Fine. The second they’re awake we leave.”
The two ended up gathering sinkwater into a bucket and dumping it around the door to clear the blood away. They then walked outside and, to Daniel’ss dismay, had to manually get out some of the stains on the door and balcony. They had been so distracted by the foul stench and appearance to notice the scratches on the door fading away with their touch.

Alone in his room, Ben awoke on his bed with a pounding headache.
Was this just a dream? He thought to himself. There’s no way that just happened…
He looked out of his window at the pond and instead of being greeted by a clear, colorful body of water he was stared at by a feverishly reddened pool splotched with darker shades around the edges. Stricken by curiosity, Ben opened the window and crawled out, falling to the ground and picking himself back up. He started to trudge over, still sick with a throbbing headache, and when he finally hit the pool he collapsed to the ground. His eyes started to close and his head started to spin, but before he went out he counted 4 fish in the pool. Red, green, blue, and orange. The last thing he saw was the head of a fish resting on the edge, just outside of the water before he passed out laying there.

“Daniel, get over here,” Alex called back. Daniel was washing his hands furiously to get the blood out. He turned around and came outside.
The porch was still shaded a deep red but it was no longer damp with blood and one could walk over it without getting their shoes wet.
“What is it?”
“The door. There’s nothing here, no scratches like Chase mentioned.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? There’s nothing here! Chase lied to us”
“So you’re accusing Chase of killing Rat?”
“I’m saying it’s possible”
Alex took a step back.
“Listen, Alex. Rat always hated Chase, now he shows up dead on the doorstep? Who was the only person awake and there to see it?”
Alex said nothing.
“Then, he claims that there was scratching on the door. Did we see any scratches? NO!”
“Daniel, you’re delusional”
“MAYBE I FUCKING AM,” Daniel screamed. “Maybe this place is messing with my mind, maybe ‘I’m slowly becoming insane’” he said as he flailed his hands around. “But maybe I’m not, maybe Chase lies about the scratching, dragged Rat’s sleeping body to the front door, and murdered him.”
Alex turned around and looked into Chase’s room. He was laying on the ground still, but his window was now open. He looked back at Daniel. “Listen. I can understand your paranoia, but I can’t just call a good friend a murderer, I trust him too mu-”
“Look at yourself, Alex!” Daniel chuckled. “The man murdered Rat, and if you can’t see that I have no business staying with you here. You’re just gonna hold me back from survival”
Alex was taken aback. “Daniel, we’ve been friends since second grade, what do you mean you have no business being with me? You’ve been with me for nearly two decades!”
Daniel looked at Alex, stepped back, then ran to the kitchen and grabbed a butcher’s knife. “Alex, this isn’t childhood fun anymore, this is literally life or death, and if you’re going to choose death, I can’t just hang around you”
Daniel walked towards Alex and held the knife up.
“Daniel, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I’ve survived for too long to choose death now. I’m going to fight, and you’re just going to hold me back.”
Before Alex could speak in protest, Daniel walked up to him and jammed the knife into Alex’s neck. Alex stood still for a moment, too paralyzed to look down, then crumpled down to the floor. Blood began to pool around him, and Daniel’s shoes were stained red. Daniel pulled the knife out and threw it to the couch. Alex laid motionless in his own little reflecting pond of blood.

Chase overheard the commotion and picked himself up, sliding out of the open window. Standing straight back up, he stretched his arms and legs out, hearing them all individually pop. He looked all around him, watching the pine trees blow back and forth and hearing the calls of the songbirds. In his mind, he saw people running through the trees and the songbirds crying a scream of terror and fear. He stopped looking when his eyes locked onto a figure laying on the ground. He walked across the open field to the pond and bent over next to the figure before realizing the pond was shaded a deep red. Upon noticing this, he bent over and cupped his hands in the water, taking a small drink from it.
Normal water, he thought.
Upon further inspection, the pond was occupied by 3 fish swimming around. Red, green, and blue. On the edge of the pool opposite of the figure was the body of a yellow fish coated in red with a small hole in its neck. Chase bent over the figure and turned it over, looking it in the eyes. It seemed familiar, but his mind was running too fast to tell.
Chase pushed himself up and removed his jeans and shirt. In just his underwear, he lowered himself into the pool and lied down. The pool was warm under the moonglow, and he shut his eyes and let the water clean him of the thoughts plaguing his mind.
He lied there for nearly half an hour, and when he stood up, his mind was entirely empty. The only thought that was present in his mind was how the cool air blew across his wet body. He looked around him, taking in the fresh new colors and sounds around him, and when he set his eyes on the figure in front of him, he could only think of one thing, one desire, the desire to kill.
Chase lifted the body off of the ground and dragged it into the water. It seemed to him as if the body was void of consciousness, so he grabbed a large stone on the bank of the pool and set it on the figure’s back, preventing it from moving. Chase forced the head underwater and let it rest there until he knew the body had no life left. Once the life had emptied itself from its vessel, Chase grabbed one of the fish and held it in its hands. A green one, and it was small and skinny. He set the fish down on the land where the body had been and stood up, leaving it to suffocate in the cool evening air.
Chase had finished the job, and so he walked back into the cabin. The room was empty except for another figure lying on the ground. He stepped over it and walked into one of the rooms. He looked around and spotted a coat which he picked up from off a wooden table and revealed a set of keys from one of the pockets. He slipped the keys into his pocket and walked back outside, over to the truck. He opened the truck, inserted the keys, turned them into ignition, and began driving. He drove through the open path in the woods until he found himself over an open cliff, falling down as time slowed more and more until there was nothing but the car in a black void of emptiness. The black void soon turned to white, and he was out of the car, lying on a white bed. He was strapped into the bed by his arms and his legs, all he could do is turn his head to look around. The white room was empty aside from another bed with another figure strapped in and a table with a manilla folder on it. Everything was colored white from the walls to the floors to the bed and the table, and the door in front of the room too.
The door opened a minute later, and in walked a younger woman with a white lab coat and white gloves, as well as a younger man wearing the same attire.
	“These are the two?”
“Yep, that’s them.”
The woman grabbed the file and opened it up. She started to chuckle and showed it to the man who laughed as well.
“What’s going on?” The other man strapped to a table asked.
The two in coats didn’t respond, and they were discussing the contents of the file. The man pulled out a tape recorder and pushed the record button.
“Subjects A and B both responded explosively to the events of the simulation. Subject A was found driving a knife into the neck of his simulated best friend, and subject B emotionlessly drowned an innocent simulated man. Both were drove to insanity after witnessing the first death, and that insanity drove them to the highest stress levels ever recorded by the simulation to this date, high enough to match the stress level recorded by a subject who was forced to murder his childhood cat.”
He clicked the button on the recorder again and slipped it back into his pocket.
“Looks to me like we have everything we need here,” the man said. “Daniel and Chase Rivers, you have been found guilty of murder in the first degree against an Alex Wang and Benjamin Christiansen, two college professors employed at the Univerity of Minnesota.”
Chase was unable to react or move, and he was forced to lay there in agony hearing what he knew to be the truth. Next to him, Daniel was also unable to move, but his eyes were wide and his mouth was open slightly. He was also facing the cold truth; something he had avoided for years.
“On the date of July 19th, 2016, you entered the psychology wing of the University of Minnesota and drove a knife into Alex Wang’s neck, shattering his vocal cords and preventing him from yelling for help. You then force-fed strong anesthesia pills to Benjamin Christiansen, putting him to sleep for you to carry out to the pond outside the wing. His body floated upside down for long enough to suffocate him in his sleep,” the woman read aloud.
The woman closed the file and set it down on the table. “Looks like our work here is done,” she said to the man. The two started to walk out, but the man said, “wait, what should we do with them?”
“Leave the simulation on for a little while longer, it wouldn’t kill them to experience the pain again.”
The woman reached outside the door and pressed a button. Instantly, Chase’s head began to pound with intensity, and he started to scream. He couldn’t form words out of the pain, and so he was confined to his chair, writhing in agony.
The man laughed again and walked out of the room. The woman reached back and turned the lights off, then finally turned around one last time to face the men.
“Happy Halloween!”