Meanwhile a relatively short distance from the crash site a camp had been set up by four vacationing students. John Applegate, Ted Roosevelt, Ralph Bennet, and Carl Odell had all decided to go camping after a murderous week of tests in school.
The day had gone surprisingly well even though Ted, who was a total klutz, and Ralph, who had never been camping, had almost lit one of the tents on fire. Although it had become odd that the later it became in the day fewer animals noises could be heard and John had been almost sure he had seen something in the woods looking at them.
Even though it was weirdly quiet that night the boys had had a good day and after eating, with water they had brought with them as none of them were silly enough to drink water from a stream no mater how clean it looked (you could get sick that way), and a game of poker they had gone to sleep early in their tents as they were planning an early morning hike.
That was until they were all woken up by very violent sounds. They had each rushed out of their tents quickly and saw the odd lights that signaled fire. Putting two and two together they had figured a car has crashed. Quickly the four had come up with a plan. Ralph who had first aid training would head to the crash with the first aid kit and see if anyone needed help, Carl who had seen a ranger station a ways back was to walk there and see if he could get help and / or phone the authorities, John was to do the same but he was to go the opposite direction just in case no one was at the station and there was no phone handy there could be a chance of one in another direction, and Ted would stay at the campsite and pack things up in to the car so if a fire started to spread they could get their things out of there quickly.
A sensible plan expect for the fact that they all were split up. But both John and Carl had camped before many times and knew how to survive and not get lost, Ralph was heading towards a fire so it would be difficult for him to get lost as long as it still burned, and Ted was staying at camp. What could go wrong?
Plenty
First the fire went out leaving Ralph, who had no training in orienteering, a bit lost and confused in the woods
Both Carl and John had missed Ranger Doug when he headed to the fire and were now wandering the woods searching for help late at night which is always dangerous. They had both missed the fact that the fire was out.
As for Ted somehow within five minutes of his friends leaving to get help he had accidently tangled his legs up in one of the collapsed tests and was now struggling to get out of it all the while becoming more and more stuck.
All the while, unknown to the four good Samaritans, the virus continued to exist and multiply in every mammal in these woods that took a drink from the infected stream.