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“Well, sure it does. But I mean, let’s just wait here. They’ll be gone soon.” She was eating her snack crackers. Bry
“We can’t stop. We have to keep going.”
“Where?”
“North.”
“What does ‘north’ mean? Is there a cabin that way or something, or a phone?”
“We’re getting as far away from them as we can. Into the park.”
Michelle slowed. “Look at this place. It’s all a mess, it’s tangled and…well, a mess. There aren’t any paths. It’s freezing.”
And you in that two-thousand-dollar coat…complaining, Bry
“There’s a ranger station maybe four, five miles from here.”
“Five miles!”
“Shhh.”
“That’s bullshit. We can’t walk five miles through this.”
“You’re in good shape. You run, right?”
“On a treadmill at my health club. Not in places like this. And which way do we go? I’m already lost.”
“I know the general direction.”
“The woods? I can’t!”
“We don’t have any choice.”
“You don’t understand… I’m afraid of snakes.”
“They’re more afraid of you, believe me.”
Michelle displayed the crackers. “This isn’t going to be enough food. Do you know about hypoglycemia? Everyone thinks it’s nothing. But I could faint.”
Bry
“I can’t do it.” The woman reminded Bry
“Michelle,” Bry
“On the paths, the trails.”
“And we’re going to find one.”
“But people get lost. I saw this thing on TV. This couple got lost and they froze to death and the animals ate their bodies.”
“Michelle-”
“No, I don’t want to go! Let’s hide here. We’ll find a place. Please.” She looked as if she was going to cry.
Bry
Michelle looked back, her eyes zipping around in panic, her breath fast.
“Okay?”
Michelle ate another handful of crackers, not offering any to Bry
With one more glance back, the women started their trek, moving as fast as they could, picking their way around the tangles, many of which would be impossible to get through even with machetes. There were plenty of conifer woods, though, and it was possible to find flat routes unobstructed by steel-wool underbrush.
They continued on, away from the houses, Michelle doing a fair job of keeping up the pace despite the limp. Bry
Soon they’d covered another quarter mile, then a half.
Bry
But it was only Michelle, muttering to herself, her face ghostly in the blue moonlight. Bry
They skirted scummy ponds choked with bog bean and cranberry. She was surprised to see a swath of moonlight illuminate a cluster of pitcher plants-a carnivore Bry
Reassuring herself now as much as Michelle, Bry
One of the two search-and-rescues here had actually become a very unpleasant body-recovery operation. But Bry
“I don’t know the place real well but I have a rough idea of the layout. The Joliet Trail’s near here someplace, no more than a mile or two. You know it?”
Michelle shook her head, eyes on the bed of pine needles in front of her feet. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“The trail’ll take us to that ranger station. It’ll be closed now but we could find a phone or a gun there.”
The station was Bry
“Climb the rocks,” Michelle muttered. “I’m afraid of heights.”
So was Bry
To this day Bry
As they moved from the pine into ancient forest-denser and slathered in darkness-Bry
And some routes were so dim they avoided them completely for fear of missing a steep drop-off or deep bog.
And always, reminders that they weren’t really alone. Bats zipped by, owls hooted. Bry
Michelle stared at the skeletal remains, eyes wide, without response.
“Let’s go. It’s just bones.”
They pushed through the tangled wilderness for another hundred yards. Suddenly Michelle stumbled, grabbed a branch to support herself and winced.
“What’s the matter?”