Trapped

“Tom, can you help me look?”

Tom shook his head. “He can stay out there. I’m not leaving the fire.”

“Ain’t got no balls, white boy?”

“Why don’t you go then, Meadow?”

“Hells no. At this particular time, Laneesha be holding my balls.”

Laneesha rolled her eyes and stood up. “Y’all are cowards. C’mon, Sara. We’ll go find him.”

Sara blew out the breath she’d been holding, surprised by how grateful she was for the girl’s offer. “There’s a flashlight in one of the packs. I’ll get it.”

She walked over to her tent and ducked inside. It was dim, but the fire provided enough illumination to look around. Sara cast a wistful glance at the double sleeping bag. She tugged her eyes away, then located the backpack. While pawing through the contents she removed a canteen, a first aid kit, some wool socks, a bottle of Goniosol medication, a hunting knife, the papers...

Sara squinted at them, staring at the bottom of the last page. Unsigned. Irritated, she shoved them back in. She eventually dug out the Maglite, pressing the button on the handle. The light came on. It was yellowish and weak—which annoyed Sara even more because she had asked Martin to buy new batteries and he’d promised to take care of it.

But he also promised to love, honor, and protect.

Putting the papers out of her mind for the time being, she left the tent and joined Laneesha, who was staring into the woods where Martin disappeared.

“You takin’ Jack?” Laneesha asked.

Sara looked down. She was so used to wearing the baby sling she sometimes forgot she had it on.

“He goes where I go.”

As a shower gift, Sara and Martin had been given a baby monitor. It was in a closet, unopened. Since giving birth to Jack, Sara hadn’t ever been more than fifteen feet away from him. And though putting Jack in his portable crib and letting Cindy or Tyrone watch him was a possibility, it was a far-fetched one.

“Besides,” Sara said. “If Martin sees I have Jack, maybe he’ll quit screwing around.”

They headed for the trees where Martin disappeared.

“If you run into any cannibals,” Tom said to their backs, “don’t tell them we’re here.”

“That’s weak,” Laneesha said.

Sara eyed the girl, normally cocky and busting with attitude, and saw uncertainty all over her young face.

“The story was fake, Laneesha.”

“That Plincer cat ain’t real?”

“He might be real. The name is familiar. But the way to make campfire stories sound believable is to mix a little truth with the lies.”

“How ‘bout all them cannibal soldiers, eating people?”

“Even if that was true, and it wasn’t, it happened over a hundred and forty years ago. They’d all be long dead.”

“So Martin was just joshin’?”

“He’s probably just waiting to jump out and scare us,” Sara said.

“Probly. That’d suck, but be better than someone grabbing him.”

Sara raised an eyebrow. That possibility was so far out she hadn’t even considered it. “Did you see someone grab him?”

“It was dark, ‘n he was right in front of that bush. Thought maybe I seen somethin’, but probly just my mind playing tricks ‘n shit.”

Now Sara was really reluctant to go into the woods. She knew the Confederate story was BS, but wondered if perhaps someone else was on the island. According to Captain Prendick, no one ever came out this far.

“That’s crazy,” Sara thought. “There’s no one here but us.”

There were over a hundred of these islands on Lake Huron, from the size of a football field up to thousands of acres. This was one of the big ones, a supposed wildlife refuge. But there was no electricity, and it was too far from the mainland for there to be anyone living here.

Other campers?

Sara reminded herself to be rational. Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution was usually the right one. Martin joking around made much more sense than unknown habitants, or coincidental campers, or old Warden Plincer and his ghostly gang of southern maniacs.

Still, they did have that radio the boat captain lent them. Sara wondered if her husband goofing off qualified as an emergency, because she was almost ready to contact Prendick and beg him to return.

“Let’s do this,” Laneesha said.

Sara nodded. Practically hip to hip, the women walked around the bushes and stepped into the thick of the woods.

They were watching. They were watching from behind the trees. Listening to words that made no real sense to them.

They smelled things. The woman smelled like soap. The thin girl smelled like mint gum. The thin boy smelled like sweaty feet. The baby smelled like powder and diapers.

There had been other smells, earlier. Better smells. Hot dogs and mustard. Toasted buns. Potato chips. But that had been earlier, when it was still bright out. So they waited. Stayed hidden. Bided their time.

They were hungry. Very hungry. The hunger consumed their thoughts. It was the only thing they cared about. All they cared about.

They had no affection for one another, no idea of how many of them were there. But they hunted as a pack. Hunted raccoon, and birds, and rabbits, and frogs.

Hunted bigger things, too.

When food was scarce, they turned on their own.

None of them remembered how they got to the island. But they knew the island was a bad place. Dangerous.

But they were dangerous too.

They watched. They waited.

Several of them drooled.

Very soon, they would attack.

Sara drew a breath, gasping at the darkness. When they’d hiked to the clearing earlier that afternoon, the woods had been dark. There were so many trees the canopy blocked out most of the sun. Now, at midnight, it was darker than a grave. The blackness enveloped them, thick as ink, and the fading Maglite barely pierced it more than a few yards.

“Be easy getting lost out here,” Laneesha said.

Sara played the light across the trees, looking for the neon orange ribbon. They’d tied dozens of ribbons around tree trunks, in a line leading from the campsite to the shore, so anyone who got lost could find their way back. But in this total darkness every tree looked the same, and she couldn’t find a single ribbon. Sara had a very real fear that if they traveled too far into the woods, they wouldn’t be able to find their way back to the rest of the group. After only a dozen steps she could no longer see the campfire behind them.

“Cindy, Meadow, can you guys hear me?” she called out.

“We hear you! You find any cannibals yet?”

Neither Sara nor Laneesha shared in the ensuing chuckles. They trekked onward, dead leaves and branches crunching underfoot, an owl hooting somewhere in the distance.

Sara had been ambivalent about camping, having only gone a few times in her life. But now she realized she hated it. Hated camping, hated the woods, and hated the dark.

But she had always hated the dark. And with damn good reason.