Out of Service

Out of Service is a scary story about a young couple who are camping in the woods when they hear a news report on the radio about a missing hiker and a serial killer on the loose. It is based on an episode of the TV series Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

Mark and Jackie had been dating for months. They met in college and both of them loved the outdoors. One weekend, they decided to go on a camping trip together in the woods.

On the first night, they were sitting around their campfire, listening to the radio, when a news report came on. It said that a hiker named Stuart Becker had gone missing in the woods. There had been no sign of him for three days. There had been other hikers who went missing under mysterious circumstances in the same part of the woods and police feared that there might be a serial killer on the loose.

The next day, they were out collecting firewood when they spotted a suspicious man in a lumberjack shirt. He was crouching down by the river and washing his knife in the water.

“OMG, Mark,” Jackie hissed. “He’s cleaning blood off that knife.”

“Don’t get worried,” Mark replied. “He’s probably just a hunter.”

Just then, the man looked around and noticed them. He had an angry look on his face and he began running towards them, clutching his knife.

“Jackie! Run!” Mark shouted.

They raced through the forest, jumping over ditches and pushing their way through the undergrowth. They kept running as fast as they could, but the man was always close behind them.

Eventually, they came to a clearing in the trees and stopped to catch their breath. Jackie took out her cell phone and tried to call the police but she couldn’t get a signal. They were lost and had no idea where to go.

All of a sudden, they noticed a figure standing on a ridge above them. It was a man in a yellow jacket and he was beckoning them to follow him.

The killer was getting closer and closer and Mark and Jackie were desperate to escape. They scrambled up the ridge and ran in the direction the man in the yellow jacket was pointing.

They burst through the trees and found themselves on a main road. Mark ran out into the middle of the road and flagged down a car. When the killer saw them getting into the car, he gave up the chase, turned around and went back into the woods.

With the help of the driver, Mark and Jackie made it to the nearest town and called the police to tell them what they had seen. When the police arrived, they returned to the woods, but there was no sign of the killer.

Just then, Mark noticed a figure lying on the ground. It was the man in the yellow jacket and he had several stab wounds in his back. The policeman turned him over.

“It’s Stuart Becker, the missing hiker,” he said. “Looks like he’s been dead for about 3 days.”