Woodswomen

They'd gone on the trip because of Sophie, who fancied herself a survivalist and had her own blog on the theme, called Woodswoman.

That one of their group was overweight and another more used to surviving the Black Friday crushes at London department stores was irrelevant. They went to a small town near the Welsh border. To one side of the town were deep woods, which the group set out to explore. Some years ago a nightclub bouncer had gone on a killing spree and hid in those woods for more than a month before dying in a shootout with police.  
 
'It'll be just like when we were kids!' said Sophie as they clambered out of the land rover that Simone had driven them in. Simone hefted her bulk out of the vehicle and started taking down their rucksacks. She shouldered the heaviest one, which was stuffed with their cooking equipment and food supplies, so that when she moved she clattered like a walking kitchen.  
 
Children of the "Essex missions", outreach programmes by churches, the women had met when they were nine or so. The day of their hike through the woods was wet and windy, as tends to be expected on the Welsh border. They wore rain ponchos and slogged towards the line of trees. Bethany, who'd needed to be told that you don't wear expensive outfits for hiking, glanced back at the car park and the town before crossing into the woods.  
 
Sophie walked up to an immense tree and took out her smartphone. 'Come on, girls, let's take one for Twitter!'  
 
The women all wore rain ponchos in different primary colours. 'We look just like the Powerpuff Girls!'  
 
'Yeah,' snorted Simone. 'She-Bear Grylls, Carrie Bradshaw, and a fat lesbian.' Bethany, standing to the other side of Sophie, swatted the back of Simone's head. 'I keep telling you not to call me that,' she said. 'For one thing, I don't look like a horse.'  
 
'I dunno, I like Carrie.'  
 
'You'd break the poor thing' said Sophie. 'Anyway, smile!' The picture was taken and posted on social media before they'd re-shouldered their backpacks.  
 
They were hiking towards a cabin that had been maintained as a sort of tourist attraction since it had been there since the 1790s. When they reached the cabin, which stood at the crest of a rise with a line of trees behind it, the women were exhausted and sat about on the floor. The cabin had one large room that the front door opened onto as well as a short corridor to either side of which were separate rooms.  
 
The large room contained a small kitchen area, including a rusted but still operational stove that looked like it had been bought by a 1950s housewife. 'How is this place even hooked up to receive gas, and where are we supposed to go to the loo?' asked Bethany.  
 
'She-Bear shits in the woods,' said Simone.  
 
'Ignore her,' said Sophie, gesturing at the corridor, 'there's a working lav down...' Her sentence was cut short by a scream from Simone, who'd moved to the stove and opened it before slamming it shut again. The colour had drained from her face.  
 
'What, what is it?!' said Sophie as she and Bethany ran to her. Simone took her hands from her mouth. 'The oven,' she whispered. 'There's a fucking human head in it!'  
 
Sophie confirmed this hypothesis for herself while Bethany comforted Simone. 'Oh Jesus,' she muttered. 'It's that guy, Douglas Coleman.'  
 
'Who?' said Bethany.  
 
'That bouncer. The one who killed all those people about five years ago after he caught his girlfriend with another man.'  
 
'Listen to yourself, Sophie! That doesn't make ANY fucking sense. Firstly, who would have decapitated him and left his head in the oven? Secondly, it's been five years! The flesh would have rotted off the skull by now!'  
 
'...well, maybe it just looks like him. At any rate, I can't get any reception this far in, so we need to get back to town and report this. Are you able to walk, or do you need a minute?'  
 
Simone indicated that she was fine and the three of them braced themselves for another several-hour trek, back the way they'd come. An hour in, the sun started to descend and spread a shroud across the woods. The cold air sharpened and a light drizzle spattered their plastic ponchos.  
 
A couple of hours later they were descending another rise when Bethany finally said: 'how much longer is it? Shouldn't we be there by now?'  
 
'Oh God...' Sophie was a little way ahead, staring down at something in the dark. There was a full moon above them and it lit her up in her red poncho like a Christmas bauble. Neither Bethany nor Simone spoke, perhaps knowing in their guts what Sophie was looking at.  
 
They walked up beside and followed her gaze to a square of light between two trees, bisected by a black bar. They were looking at a window, and as their eyes focused they took in the contours of a cabin. 'How did you know his name?' asked Simone of Sophie. 'Why didn't you just say "that guy"? We were here, weren't we?'  
 
Sophie's face had frozen into a death mask of pained realisation and regret. Regret that she'd bullied her friends into joining her for this trip. Regret that she was destined to feel again and again and again and again, always anew each time, until whatever strange intelligence ruled the universe decided to stop replaying the same footage. 'We're STILL here,' was all that she said.