<span style="font-family:Philosopher">As the three tardy members of the hiking party entered the camp to be, they were gladdened to see that, as usual, Sarah had almost completed getting the tents up. However, they were not so dense to miss the sarcasm and bitterness in her tone. Ethan and June rolled their eyes at her frustration. Sarah, poor little type A personality Sarah, just couldn't take her time and enjoy the hike itself could she? Everything had to be rushed, rushed, rushed! Mark, for his part, had came over to Sarah and smiled down at her and, in a placating tone, edged her chin up to look up at him."Hey, babe. Don't worry about it. The kids will get the firewood we'll need, right guys?" He asked pointedly of the others in their party. Understanding the message, Ethan was quick to comply as he saw it as an opportunity to get some alone time with June. June, however, was not in the mood to pick through the quickly darkening woods for kindling.<br/>
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"I'm going to stay here and help Mark and Sarah with the camp!" She said in a tone that would not brook any argument from Ethan as he saw it as a loosing cause.<br/>
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"Fine. <i>I'll</i> go and find wood." Ethan grumbled and stalked away in to the dusk.<br/>
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Meanwhile, Mark had piled a few logs that had been left by the last party to use the small clearing as a campsite. With the job finished, he used straw and dried leaves to catch light with his lighter. Soon, the burning brush had caught on the gathered logs and the fire was a small conflagration that lent a festive glow to the surrounding clearing. As he had struggled with the fire, June had helped Sarah complete getting the tents pitched with feigned indignant airs, sniffing repeatedly in contempt at having to do something that she referred to as man's work. The fact that Sarah had done most of it seemed to be lost on her.<br/>
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Ethan had made it about two hundred feet from the camp, kicking at stray pieces of brush and rocks as he continued to mutter to himself. This was supposed to be his and June's night! She had been such a stuck up bitch here lately! And he couldn't help but notice the stares she kept throwing at Mark when she thought Ethan hadn't been looking. Why, when he got the time, he would have a few things to say to h-.<br/>
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The thought was violently interrupted by a garrot made of piano wire slid around his neck and tightened. Ethan, eyes growing huge in the dark, instinctively reached up in an attempt to claw at the wire as it cut in to the soft flesh of his neck. It was a vain gesture as the wielder of the wire merely tightened it further. Vision growing dark, he fell to his knees and kicked feebly as the wire finally severed his carotid. Blood suddenly drenching the front of Ethan, Ethan fell face first in to the ground but his murderer wasn't done. Unwinding the garrot from around his victim's neck, the killer took up hatchet and, with a few practiced swings of the blade, had decapitated the boy completely. With that gruesome task completed, he dragged the twitching corpse to a prepared grotto to hide the body. Before, he kicked dirt and brush over the blood that had fallen on the ground. <br/>
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The body would go in the grotto. The head had another destination in store for it.</span>