"Oh, shit!" Atem shouted as he put the car in drive and hit the gas. The car kicked up dirt and dust as the wheels peeled out, trying to gain traction. We turned to see a pair of bright headlights inches from the bumper.

"Faster!" Zeke shouted. The bright high beams belonged to a truck that lit up the inside of our car like daylight. The roaring of its diesel engine frightened me more than the possibility of being hit by its metal bulk. Zeke's face lit up stark white from the light as he yelled instructions. "Go left, go left! He's gonna hit us."

But it was too late. The truck slammed into us from the rear. Before the jerk sent me forward, the impact of the bumpers startled me. The car headed straight toward the trees on the edge of the dirt road, but Atem expertly maneuvered us back in the center, keeping us from crashing.

The ranger station glowed from the warm yellow porch light as we sped by. We passed the building so fast I could barely make out the dark humanlike figure limply dangling from the large welcome sign. Suspended from a cable, the form eerily swung back and forth, feet above the ground. Only the light from the porch illuminated the figure enough to make it out against the darkness and fog surrounding it.

I wanted to bring attention to the swaying figure, but the car sped up, putting space between us and the vehicle on our tail, bringing my focus back to the immediate danger. As we lost the truck to the fog, only the mist glowed from the bright headlights behind us. The fog grew thicker up ahead as if it were consciously trying to force Atem to slow the car, but he refused, pushing on. I hoped to break through the haze to the highway at any moment. I longed to feel the even and smooth asphalt beneath the car's tires.

"I think you lost him," Zeke said with a sigh. Finally, turning back in his seat to face forward.

"I doubt that." Something told me relief was nowhere in sight. From the ominous fog emerged the noisy engine of the machine before the lights plowed through, illuminating us in its brightness again. The horn blared nonstop, sending a rumble through my body. I covered my ears to save my eardrums from damage. "What are they doing? What do they want?"

"They're trying to kill us!" Felicity screamed.

The vehicle was on our tail, so close I expected the smash to our bumper. However, the driver flashed its headlights off and on, over and over, from high beams to complete darkness, confusing and disorienting me.

I squinted my eyes through the high beams to get a look at the driver whenever he turned the lights off. I memorized the rhythm as the lights blinked. As soon as the lights went out, my eyes focused on the grotesque creature in the driver's seat and its hanging jaw that seemed to stay attached by only a few stretched and gangly strings of flesh. Its eyes were wide and unblinking, and the shape of the head resembled nothing of a human.

The vehicle gained speed, quickly closing the gap between us.

I screamed more from the gruesome sight than the second slam of metal to metal. Each of us shifted to the right as the vehicle hit, and amongst the sound of the loud engine revving up, Felicity's phone blasted a hip-hop song.

She cut the song short and answered the phone, put it on speaker, and cried out, "Help us! Oh, my god. We need help, please."

The calm voice on the other end was out of place as it responded, "I know what you did." Rapid heavy breathing transitioned to maniacal laughter as it emerged from the speaker, startling her as she threw the phone in the backseat with us.

I stared at it, refusing to touch it. Another slam from the vehicle knocked me out of my seat and bounced me around the back before I realized Atem had lost control. The car veered toward the side of the road where several trees lined it. He turned the car just as both right tires slid into a shallow depression. The side-view mirror shattered upon impact with the trunk of a tree, and we came to a sudden stop as the flank of the car met with a few trees.

The intimidating roaring continued as the truck passed us. I only saw the dark outline of the ghastly driver because of the bright of its wide eyes that remained fixed on mine. His head turned as he slowly crept by and down the road until a single red taillight was no longer seen.

Zeke rubbed his shoulder and grimaced in pain. "Everyone okay?"

I pushed myself up from the twisted position I was in behind Felicity's seat. "I think I sprain my neck." It ached when I turned to the side.

Both of Atem's hands were on the wheel as he stared straight ahead. "What kind of Joyride hell was that?"

"Looked like some sort of diesel truck," Zeke said, looking out of the windows and panting. "Whatever it was doing, I don't know. But maybe we should try following it out here."

"Whoever it was just tried to run us down." I shook my head at his suggestion. "Bad idea to follow them. I wouldn't even want to know where following them would lead."

"Wouldn't surprise me if it led us to a house of cannibalistic hillbillies waiting to hang us from meat hooks and make face masks out of our skin." Atem pressed his finger to his busted lip, cocking his head as if he just noticed it.

I ignored the powerful stench of urine coming from the driver's seat and looked at Felicity instead. Her window was still intact, but the cracks in the center scared me. Her head must have hit the center of the window.

"You alright, Felicity?" Carefully, I sat forward to see the side of her face and shoulder saturated in blood. "Felicity?!"

She placed her hand on the wide gash on her head where her skin peeled back. "Fuck, maybe I am the first to die."

"What? No." My adrenaline surged as I tried to open my door to get better access to her, but it wouldn't budge. Then I remembered the thick tree against the side of the car, preventing the door from opening. I grabbed the used and bloodied cloth from the floor at my feet and handed it to her. "Here, stop the bleeding."

She took the cloth and pressed it to her head.

A hip-hop song sounded from the floor, startling us. I looked down at Felicity's phone as it lit up the backseat with the bright home screen announcing the caller as Menopausal Bitch.

"It's my mom," she confirmed when Zeke lifted the phone. "But it's not."

He pressed the red button to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Felicity? Honey, is everything ok?"

"Mrs. Weiland?" Zeke asked, eyebrows dipped with unease. "Is that you?"

"Yes, this is her mother." Her voice was high pitched and saturated with concern only a mother would have. "Is this Zeke? Is Felicity alright?"

Felicity shook her head, seeming uninterested as she turned her gaze away.

"No." Zeke sighed. "She's hurt. Pretty badly. We're trapped in the Ayahuasca forests. Can you send help?"

"Sure, I can send... something." Static crackled the line, and deep laughter replaced Mrs. Weiland's voice, sounding more demonic with each chuckle. "Hey, Felicity. You'll never get away from me. I'll always find you. And when I get you, I'll never let you go."

"Ok." Zeke ended the called with a press of his thumb. "That was not your mom."

"I told you." Felicity stared ahead, slightly in a daze. "My phone stopped working as soon as we got here. I never had service, but I was getting texts and messages from whoever that was. I just didn't want to tell you guys."

Atem quickly reached into the glove box to retrieve our phones. He checked the home screen signal on both. "No service."

"I don't understand," I said, staring at the phone in Zeke's hand and watching as text notifications came in one after the other, keeping Felicity's phone active.

"I told you guys. You don't know anything." She sounded defeated, tired. "Months ago, I asked my dad if I could borrow his car to go see my boyfriend."

"James?" I asked, remembering his oversized muscles. He and every other girl grew so hypnotized over his biceps that they forgave his stench of sweaty gym socks.

"No, not James." She sighed, gazing out of the windshield. "It doesn't matter who. All that matters is that it was late at night, and I only used my phone for a second to text that I was almost there and would see him soon." Her voice shook as tears streamed down her cheeks. "You can probably guess where this is going, huh?"

Atem shifted in his seat. "Did you hit someone in your dad's car?"

She didn't answer, she only removed her seatbelt to slump forward to rest her head on her knees and bawled. She cried so hard the car trembled. "I only saw a person crossing the street when it was too late. And after, I wanted to go to the police so many times. I wanted to confess, but pussied out."

"Oh no, Felicity." My chest ached and my heart grew heavy.

"The worst part is," she continued, talking into her legs, her voice slightly muffled from her position and her cries. "I only told my mom, and she doesn't want me to tell anyone else."

"It was a hit and run?" Zeke asked, anger and concern wrinkled his forehead. "Fuck, Felicity. Why didn't you tell me, huh? Why'd you keep that from me? You have me driving that car all the way here and it was involved in a hit and run?"

"Calm down, Zeke," I urged. "Do you know who you hit? Is the person alright?"

"I never seen the person before, but I remember them laying on the side of the road with their arms and legs twisted weirdly. Their jaw mangled, blood was pouring from their head, and they weren't moving," she confessed through sobs. "I went home as quick as I could, told my mom, and she said she would take care of it and for me to go on with my life as if nothing happened." Her cries grew louder. "I feel so bad, especially yesterday when my dad insisted I take the car to come here. He said he noticed I've been moping around and acting different lately and he wanted to me to cheer up."

My hand went over my aching heart. "I'm so sorry, Felicity." I reached forward to caress her back and bring her a sense of comfort.

"He actually gave me the keys to the car and said, 'I trust you. Go have fun.'" She cried so hard, tears hovered on my lower lids.

I didn't know what to say to make her feel better. I thought nothing I said would. So, I just rubbed her back and cried with her.

"We need to get out of here." Atem glanced around the area at the moving fog. "Like now."

"I'm not leaving the car until someone comes to help us," Felicity insisted. "Someone or something is out there to get me. I know it."

I looked out the window to access our situation and location. We were nowhere near anything recognizable. Only utter darkness and fog surrounded us. The only things around were the trees embedded in the car's side and the irreversible damage to the metal and the bark.

"We can't wait here for the next truck to come," I suggested. "We gotta walk. Maybe we can go back to the ranger station and see if they have a satellite phone or a way to get a hold of some help."

"Yeah," Zeke agreed. "Felicity's hurt really bad. She's gonna need some serious help."

"I can probably get this car unstuck with you guy's help." Atem turned to look at us all, one by one. "I would only need to get out and look at the situation."

"We're stuck on a tree and in a ravine," Felicity said, holding the cloth to her head. "This car isn't budging."

Atem pointed to the notebook that the impact tossed from the backseat to the floor. "Let's see what the notes have to say."

"I can't read from that book unless you want me to get headaches and nosebleeds." I stared at it, refusing to skim its pages. Then I thought about it. Nothing sinister happened to me when I opened the notebook looking for Clay's written letter. No blood, no headaches, nothing. But I still didn't want to take the risk. I handed the book to Zeke.

"You want me to read it?" He grimaced at the book as if it were diseased. "I'm not messing around with that thing."

"Give it to me." Atem put his hand out, awaiting the heft of the notebook in his palm. "I need answers. We need to figure out how we get out of this and see what it says about the ending."

"Oh, we're just gonna skip ahead and see who dies?" Felicity shook her head.

Atem opened the book, skimming through the bizarre outline and reading from the pages. "The crew encounters the unthinkable, changing the dynamics of what they thought they knew." His nose twisted. "I don't get it." He flipped to the last page with writing on it. "In search of a satisfactory conclusion, only one survives to contemplate the new existence they find themself in."

"What?" Zeke huffed in frustration. "Is that supposed to mean no one's getting out of here but one?"

"Sounds like it," Felicity said, still pressing the cloth to her head wound.

"If we figure out what characters we represent in a horror tale, it can give us some clues on how to stay alive." Atem nodded, trying to encourage us to go along with his suggestion. "I have to be the brains of the group. I have the most knowledge about horror. Wouldn't you all agree?"

"You are the fool. The comic relief," I said, feeling the return of the familiar headache. "You're the prankster, the one who balances the horror with comedy."

"How would you know?" He glared. "You do romance."

"I'm aware of genre tropes," I went on. "Zeke is the closest thing to the jock. The typical young, hot male kind."

"Or the skeptic." Atem added. "The one who doesn't believe in the genuine dangers. The one who says, 'I'll be right back.'"

"Oh, yeah?" Zeke sneered. "Well, they live longer than the goofy geek."

"And what about me?" Felicity turned with a painful grunt to look me in the eye. "And don't say I'm the slut. I'm so much more than that."

"You're the girl who makes all the poor decisions," Atem suggested.

"Well..." She didn't argue with that.

Zeke turned to me. "So, I guess that makes you the final girl?"

I shook my head. "No matter how the cliches and tropes play out, like Atem said, in horror anyone can die. And the worse thing I hate about horror is that not only can anyway die, but there are also many twists and surprises. Things to keep you on your toes. I don't like it."

"I'm not big on surprises." Zeke huffed, nervously running fingers along his smooth chin. "As a matter of fact, I hate surprises. I need some control over my situation and life. I don't do well with unpredictable."

"And neither do I." I shook my head. "Which makes me think. Who is the author? If this outlines a horror story, who is the author and what are they trying to accomplish? If we figure that out, maybe we can change the direction of the story. Maybe no one has to die."

"Even if that was the case, it's an author's job to put their characters through living hell," Atem went on, keeping his gaze on each of us long enough to cause tension in my gut. "Isn't that what every reader wants? We're not in for a boring time here. We need to read that outline so we can keep one step ahead of the author."

"You act like authors don't change their mind," I added.

Atem lifted an eyebrow. "You forget it's the characters who really drive the story. We decide where to go from here."

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