(recording clicks on)

Crickets, the susurrations of wind. Deep in the woods. LEE (24) has her knees tucked to her chest to keep warm, watching the fire. MIKE (27) sits across from her. Lee is secretly recording for her own safety.

MIKE
So what do you think Orlok wants out of this?

LEE
I'unno.

MIKE
Wonder if they'll give us any slice of the pie.

LEE
I'd buy a cabin in the woods. 

MIKE
Like Evil Dead.

LEE
Exactly.

MIKE
Groovy. Don't you know there's ghosts out there?

LEE
Better to have company. What would you invest your hard-earned dollars on, Sutton?

MIKE
Five million acres in the Colorado so I never have to see that gristly fuck's face again. (Lee bursts out laughing) Maybe a nice house, for my mom and dad. I don't get to see them enough. Contract work and all of that.

Whistling, bird-song.

LEE
Was that you?

MIKE
Hearing things?
LEE
No, no, don't fuck with me, listen-

A young woman making bird-call noises out in the woods. And, then, more noise. River-boat carnival humming, the sound of lights clicking on.
MIKE
(low) What the hell?
LEE
It's gone quiet.
MIKE
I wanna check it out.
LEE
No-

Mike stands, sharply, 6'3" square from North Carolina's mountainous expanse. Lee stands with him, smaller, 5'8" and freckled under her eyes and all over her neck and body.

MIKE
You can sit here at the campsite if you want, but I'm going.
LEE
I don't want to be alone in the woods-out here-(sound of recorder shuffling in her pack, it's mobile and on her) I'll come with you.

He offers his hand. She takes it. It's nice, and warm, and the fear that made her turn on the recorder in the first place thins a little bit. He has long fingers, a little scruff of hair specifically below his index finger on the back of his hand.

LEE (CONT'D)
(more reassuring herself than Mike) Probably just some dumb kids anyway.

MIKE
I'd bet. When I lived in Tucson, there were-oh, watch your step-there were this pack of children that would knock and run every night, 1am on the dot. I shot a gun into the ether on the third night and they never came back. Fuckers.

LEE
You lived in Arizona? Why move here?

MIKE
Too hot. I like the rain.

LEE
Like the trees are whispering to you.

MIKE
You've got a way with words. Wait, what is that?

LEE
Fireflies.

MIKE
Yeah, if they were- no, they're-

LEE
Those little string lights that you can get at Costco, for like two dollars a pop. (loud noise, bag dropping, voices become more muffled) Where's the power source coming from?

MIKE
The wires are running into the trunks.

LEE
Who set these up? They're-they run all the way up, into the branches- (Abrupt, abrupt: bird-song, electricity hum, the sound of vanishing and fluttering.) Mike? (someone being pushed, LOUD popping and stuttering, female screaming, running, and the guttural bird-song/howling/river-boat thrum and radio sounds getting higher)

Lee Copeland's phone was found at the site. This is the last photo taken.