Across the rolling hills of the Peak District, a blanket of fog nestled in the valley, resting on the top of the forest. A continuous light rain had been falling for the last two days, making it difficult for the minibus to get traction on the rutted, muddy track.

Holding his mobile phone above his head, Alec, not for the first time, questioned the choice of location for the off-site. How was he supposed to function without a mobile signal? The other passengers echoed the sentiment. The sight of green fields and open blue skies, filling them with trepidation. It was a long way from the meeting rooms of London, where Product Managers felt at home. Where they could spend hours filling meetings with their highly skilled, highly overworked, vague corporate jargon.

The minibus slid to a halt outside an Airbnb cottage that had seen better days. The mood within the van noticeably dropped when the realisation that they had arrived.

“David, you must be joking. Here!”

Turning from the passenger seat, David, the VP of Product, gave a practiced, I agree with what you’re saying, smile.

“It will do us good to get away. To realign our inner selves, so we can fully concentrate on the realising the synergy, exploring our vision and aligning our KPIs.”

The five Product Managers looked at him, like petulant school children about to throw an entitlement hissy fit.

“It will give us a chance to step back from the relentless grind of feature launches, and customer feedback and work on what is important.”

Behind him, the five chanted the mantra, “Nothing can be achieved without a vision statement.”

Sliding open the side door, John Morgan, a man with an endless supply of optimism, reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a penny whistle. Placing it to his lips, he drew a dozen notes from it, before smiling a pleased smile and returning it to his coat.

“Ah, sure, we’ll get there, won’t we?” John said, his accent rolling like waves against the quiet of the woods as they entered the cabin.

“Absolutely, John,” said Jennifer, the Senior PM. “We just need to be more agile and disruptive. You know, thinking outside the box. Let’s make sure our objectives are SMART, not too specific, but SMART in a way that pushes the boundaries.”

Everyone nodded, their faces expressions of sincere confusion, as they tiptoed to the cottage door through the mud.

Once their bags had been unloaded and placed inside the door to the cottage, the minibus drove off down the lane, towards the setting sun.

That evening, the PMs took a while to settle. The lack of amenities, no cell signal, and only basic food supplies in the kitchen had done nothing to make them feel at home.

“What was that?” Christopher asked, staring out the window, as he held his phone outside hoping for reception? A flash of movement. A dark shadow flitting around the corner of the building had caught his eye. “There’s someone out there.”

David walked across and looked out. “You’re imaging things. There is no-one for miles. It was probably a cow or something.”

Returning to his seat, he pulled his notebook out of his designer case. Looking around the room, he said, “Let’s sort out what we are going to do tomorrow. We should do something we’re used to. That will help us calm down,” he suggested, looking around the room.

Over the next couple of hours, they slipped into their habitual language, speaking in ever-broader, more nebulous terms, weaving jargon into their conversations like a fine thread.

“We’ll iterate on the vision,” said David, looking down at his notebook. “It’s about being customer-centric, focusing on core values, and thinking holistically.”

“And just make sure the roadmap is scalable,” added Sarah, her eyes darting between the group. “We don’t want to be too prescriptive. There needs to be room to breathe. To adapt. To pivot.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that the first sign of something truly wrong appeared.

---

John had been up at first light. The room’s curtains had done nothing to keep out the golden glow from the rising sun. He had tried to close his eyes. To go back to sleep, but it hadn’t come. For the first hour, he had laid there, singing the first couple of bars, or verse of a song, before replacing it when another entered his mind. He had wanted to get out his whistle, or even better, his guitar, and accompany himself. He decided it would be better to save it for when he had an audience.

As he closed the bedroom door behind him, his Italian slippers whispered softly as he walked along the hallway towards the kitchen. The silence was driving him mad; he hated it. Quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping associates, he whistled an upbeat tune.

The kitchen was empty. He checked his watch and wasn’t surprised. It was only just turning 6am. Walking across to the fridge, he paid no attention to the steaming mug of coffee on the table. Having got an apple, he sat at the table and took a bite. Instinctively, he reached across and picked up the mug. The bitter smell made him feel good. Swirling the mug, he watched the patterns form in the liquid before taking a sip. It wasn’t Costa, but it was better than nothing.

The angry release of breath behind him made him look at the mug. Placing it gently on the table, he turned to look at whatever was standing behind him. A figure stepped towards him, emerging from the shadow of the kitchen. It stood looking at him for a moment before sprinting along the hallway and out of the front door, slamming it closed. John briefly heard metal on metal grating, before silence descended over the cottage.

Overcoming his initial fear, he rushed to the door, stopping at the closed door. Cautiously, he looked outside through the small glass windowpane, but all he saw were trees. Then, from somewhere deep in the woods, came a scream—a sharp, unholy shriek that made his blood run cold. Reaching for the handle, he nervously turned it. It wouldn’t open. The door was locked!

Without thinking, John grabbed his whistle from his dressing gown pocket and raised it to his lips. The sound was a melody of uneasy notes, his fingers pressing the keys in a familiar rhythm, as though the music might drive away whatever terror had invaded their off-site.

But the melody didn’t bring calm. It brought something worse. The moment John played, there was a movement at the treeline. Trees rustled as if something large was moving through them—fast, erratic, unpredictable. The flute’s notes wavered, almost as though the very air around him was thickening.

Out of the woods, a figure ran awkwardly towards him. Arms flailing in the air, as if trying to chase away a swarm of angry bees. As the figure got closer, he heard Dave scream again. The sound raising the hairs on the back of his neck, as the VP of Product blundered towards him, his bare feet slipping in the mud.

David screamed again. His body ran limply, his mouth was open in a twisted grimace. His hands were clenched around the air as if throttling an invisible force, and in the corner of his eyes, the faintest hint of something—something not human.

John froze in place, unable to move, the penny whistle still pressed to his lips.

Through the door, hear could just hear a single sentence, slurred with madness, drifting out of David’s mouth. “Clarify… the requirements…” as he keeled over, landing face down in the mud.

---

John didn’t notice David’s body pitching forward because his eyes were firmly fixed on the figure slowly walking out of the forest. Dress in ripped jeans, and a faded GitHub t-shirt, the figure held a laptop computer at its side. As it approached the cottage, John could see the madness in its eyes. He watched as its lips moved, as the figure mumbled something over and over to itself.

Arriving at David’s body, it reached inside its pocket and pulled out a Sharpie and a block of pink Post-It notes. John watched as it scribbled on a single Post-It before pressing it to the rear of David’s head. The smile that formed on its lips, barely visible through its thick greying beard, made John shiver. After a moment, the figure’s head snapped towards the door, its eyes fixing on Johns in a demonic stare.

“Validation is much more valuable than ideas.”

The figure took a step towards the door, and John ran.

Reaching the first bedroom, he hammered on the door.

“Jennifer”, he shouted, his eyes darting towards the front-door. “Jennifer!”

The small glass window in the front-door shattered, caused him to jump.

“You can’t just start banging on the door. Is that what the customer wants? You need to do a survey first.”

Turning the handle to the bedroom, he flung open the door and took a step inside. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. Jennifer lay on top of the bed, completely covered in Post-It notes of all colours.

Gagging, he staggered back into the hallway.

“We can capture that data later, back at the office. If you could take a picture with your phone, that would be helpful.”

Spinning around to the door behind him, he didn’t bother to knock. Turning the handle, he cautiously opened the door several inches and looked inside. On the floor lay a dismembered body, the parts jumbled into a random order. On a sheet of Magic Whiteboard, precariously hanging from the wardrobe, someone had scrawled the phrase “Product Roadmap,” detailing the order the body should be put back together to meet customer requirements.

A sinking feeling of nausea was developing in his stomach. Who was this person? Why was he doing this?

The sound of a door opening made him jump. Emerging from a room, wrapping his robe around him, Christopher asked if there was any coffee on the go.

“Coffee,” John screamed. “He is killing us!”

Christopher gave him a withering looking, “Don’t be dramatic, I know David is pushing us hard, but we’ll get there.”

Striding to Christoper, John grabbed his robe and shouted at him.

“David’s dead. Jennifer’s dead. Stuart is dead. And for all I know, Alec is dead, too.”

Still gripping Christopher’s robe, he dragged him to the open door, and showed him the parts of the body on the floor.

“Who did this?” Christopher asked, turning his head away, so he didn’t have to look.

John pointed towards the front-door, “Him!”

Both men looked and saw nothing.

“Oh, God, where did he go!”

“Who?” Christoper asked, his mind still reeling from the sight of the mutilated body.

“I don’t know who. He’s dressed like a developer.”

Taking a couple of steps towards the door. John listened for any sound. Christopher moved with him, catching the sight of Jennifer’s body.

“What are going to do?” Christopher asked, the panic clear in his voice.

John slowly walked towards the front-door, checking for any movement though the windows. The morning air gently wafting through the broken window was cold against his face as he checked to see if David’s body was still there.

Behind him, Christopher was pacing nervously. “We need a plan. I’ll get my laptop, and I’ll create a Miro board.”

Still looking out of the window, John shook his head, “We don’t have an internet connection.”

Behind him, he heard the exasperation in Christopher’s voice. “How are we supposed to plan what to do?”

John shook his head. “Excel I guess.”

The hatred was obvious when Christopher blurted out, “but I can’t use colours, and add images easily with Excel.”

Behind him, John heard the slump of a body hitting the floor.

“Hello Raymond. It is Raymond, isn’t it?”

John had heard the rumours. The whispers about the deranged developer who had once worked with them — Raymond, a back-end engineer who had been driven mad by the relentless lack of clarity, the constantly shifting requirements. No one had seen him for months, and now he was here.

“You can’t work in these conditions,” Raymond had once said before his disappearance. “You can’t build anything without clear requirements.”

Turning, John looked towards his killer.

Raymond was holding a weapon. Not a knife. Not a gun. A laptop.

John couldn’t escape the truth: there were no specs. There were no deadlines. There were only words.

“You’re all dead. Dead because you didn’t clarify the requirements.”

John’s eyes went wide with horror as Raymond approached, his hands shaking with the madness of it all.

He watched as Raymond raised the laptop.

And with one swift motion, John’s Jira ticket was moved into ‘Done’.