I’ve wondered if there are more survivors than there are rescued

I’ve thought about this a lot in the context of Ben. What if there are more people alive in the woods when they are rescued than who comes back?

I could see Ben or others held in captivity or separated from the main rescued group. Shauna and others decide not to tell the rescuers, leaving the others to die in the woods.

It would be the ultimately way to show they were permanently changed by what happened to them. Even if the context of being able to alive behind the cruelty of the woods, they choose to continue the cruelty. It would also explain the fact that they allude to something worse than cannibalism happening in the woods. Cannibalism was out of necessity to stay alive - leaving others to die is an act of murder for the sake of murder.