2 Terrifying Encounters With the Wrong People in the Woods

Before we get into tonight's stories, you can now join just creepy memberships. For just $5 a month, you'll get early access to new episodes and exclusive bonus stories, all while directly supporting the show. Click the link in the description to join, and thank you for helping me keep the stories coming. Now, let's begin. My stepmom used to check the backseat of every car she got into, including her own, including when it had been sitting in our locked garage. I thought it was one of those things adults did because they'd seen something on the news. When her best friend came over for dinner one night, and I watched her do exactly the same thing before she let my dad drive her home. That's when I started believing the story they'd told us. I'm changing their names. My stepmom will be Bev, and her friend will be Hunter. Some of this came from Bev when my sister and I were growing up. The rest came from Hunter much later, after I was old enough to ask questions without Bev cutting me off, and saying the point was that I should listen to my parents. There were parts of that Sunday she didn't put in the version she told us as kids. I understand why now. I have a few experiences of my own that I've thought about writing down, but I haven't quite managed it. This one feels easier because I wasn't there. Although, having sat with both of them while they talked about it, I'm not sure easier is the right word. It's just a story I can tell without having to explain why I did something I still can't understand. Bev and I weren't particularly close when I was young. She married my dad when she was still getting used to the idea of being around children, and I don't think either of us made it easy. She could be impatient and fussy and very concerned about what other people thought. If you spilled something in a restaurant, her first reaction was to look around and see who'd noticed. I'm mentioning that because the way she behaved at the beginning of this story won't make much sense unless you know what she was like. Her mother brought the family over from England when Bev was nine. They settled in a comfortable town in California where Bev developed an accent that changed depending on who she was speaking to. By high school she had expensive clothes, a busy social life, and almost no experience of being somewhere she couldn't ask an adult to sort things out. Bev kept her lived a few streets away and had been in her class. Her dad repaired boats and she spent most weekends helping him or doing something outside. She could change a tire. Bev couldn't have told you where the spare was. They became friends because a teacher put them together on a project, and then, for reasons neither of them ever explained very well, they kept spending time together. Hunter made Bev try fishing. Bev made Hunter buy a dress that didn't look according to Bev as though someone had handed it down through several generations. Neither conversion lasted. But Hunter did get her interested in short hikes, mostly by promising lunch afterward. This happened in the late 70s, in September. Bev was 18 and Hunter had recently turned 19. They'd finished school and were still living at home. Hunter had an old four-door sedan her father had helped her buy. It was pale green, with a bench seat in front, and one of those door locks you pulled up with your fingers. The rear passenger door didn't latch, unless you gave it a proper push. That was the sort of car it was. They'd planned to go somewhere familiar that Sunday, but Hunter changed her mind after someone at work recommended a walk in the hills about an hour away. It wasn't a national park, or an organized recreation area. A landowner allowed people to use a trail across part of his property. There was a wooden sign beside the road, a gravel clearing for cars, and not much else. Hunter drew directions on the back of an envelope, and packed sandwiches and water in a small canvas bag. Bev followed their progress on a road map during the drive. She brought a light jacket she wouldn't end up needing, and shoes she'd bought specifically for hiking. Apparently, they cost more than Hunter had spent replacing two tires the week before. Bev insisted they were comfortable when she tried them on. Hunter pointed out, years later, that the shop probably hadn't contained a hill. They arrived a little after ten. The parking area was empty. There were short timbers laid across the gravel to mark the spaces, and a low fence around most of the clearing. The entrance was narrow enough that Hunter slowed almost to a stop to turn in. Beyond it, the access lane bent around a bank of dirt before meeting the road they'd driven up. From the parking area, you couldn't see that junction. Hunter parked with the front of the car toward the fence. Bev opened the rear passenger door to put her jacket on the seat, rested one hand on the roof, and shut the door with the other. She didn't catch, so she gave it a second push. Hunter left a road map spread across the front bench, and tucked the car key into the zipped pocket of her shorts. They didn't lock the doors. Hunter said later that she hardly ever locked it when she went hiking. Usually, there was nothing inside worth taking. Near the entrance, one section of the fence lay flat in the weeds. Hunter noticed it because she'd nearly driven into the soft ground beside it while turning. There were old tire marks through the gap. Beyond it, a short strip of rutted ground rejoined the access lane outside the regular entrance. It looked like an old way in that people had stopped using. Hunter kept to the gravel. They checked the wooden sign. It gave the name of the trail and asked visitors to close the livestock gate behind them. There wasn't a map, a telephone, or a building. Hunter thought the lack of other cars was a good thing. They'd have the hill to themselves. Bev would always interrupt at that part when Hunter was telling it. She'd say she had thought it was strange right away. Hunter would look at her until she admitted she hadn't said so at the time. For the first hour, it was the sort of outing they usually had. Hunter walked ahead. Bev complained about the incline, then stopped complaining whenever Hunter asked if she wanted to turn back. The ground was dry, but there were trees in the lower folds of the hills and insects collected wherever the air stopped moving. Bev had dressed for a cool morning. By 11, she was carrying her outer shirt and trying to keep her socks from sliding into her shoes. Beside the first steep climb, they passed a wire fence with one metal post bent almost flat. Bev stopped there to adjust her socks while Hunter waited. The trail split beneath a wide oak. Hunter chose the narrower branch because she thought it would bring them to the ridge faster. That part wasn't on the direction she'd copied down. They lost the marked trail for a while, crossed a patch of loose stone, and had to backtrack when the brush got too thick. It was past noon by the time they reached a bear rise, where they could see farms in the distance. They ate their sandwiches there. Bev took off one shoe and found that the back of her heel had rubbed raw. Hunter offered to go down the way they'd come. Bev looked at the steep patch they'd climbed and said she wasn't doing that again. There was a dirt road on the far side of the ridge. They'd seen it through the trees as they came up. Hunter assumed it was the continuation of the road near the parking area. If they followed it downhill, she thought it would eventually bring them back to the car. This is where people usually started telling them what they should have done. They knew. By the time I heard this story, they'd had decades to think about the marked trail, the unlocked car, and the fact that neither of them had told anyone exactly where they were going. Hunter's mother knew they were hiking. Bev's mother thought they were spending the day together. Nobody would have started worrying until they missed dinner. They walked down to the dirt road and turned left because it sloped that way. It was easier under foot, and for a few minutes Bev was in a better mood. She was talking about where they could eat on the way home when a red pickup came around a bend behind them. Hunter pulled her toward the edge. There wasn't much shoulder, just a shallow ditch and brush growing against a wire fence. The truck slowed before it reached them. Bev remembered being grateful that the driver wasn't going to cover them in dust. It was an old work truck with four doors and a long bed. There were faded white patches on the front doors, where some kind of company name had been painted over. One of the rear wheels had a different hubcap. Hunter noticed that because her father was forever pointing out things wrong with vehicles, she didn't think she was memorizing it. She just looked. The driver leaned across the front bench and lowered the passenger window. He had a thick brown beard, a cap, and hair long enough to cover the collar of his shirt. He looked younger when he smiled. Bev guessed he was in his late twenties. Hunter thought he was older, but neither of them was very good at estimating men's ages then. He asked whether they'd had enough walking. Bev laughed and said she'd had enough about an hour earlier. There was nothing especially strange about the first conversation. He asked where they'd parked. Hunter said the clearing with the wooden fence. He nodded before she'd finished describing it, and said he was going that way. Bev asked how long it would take, and he said just a few minutes. Hunter was uncomfortable. She was careful when she told me, not to turn that into some claim that she'd known he was dangerous. She hadn't. She didn't like being offered a ride by a stranger on an empty road. But she also didn't want to spend the afternoon managing Bev's sore feet. Bev was already thanking him. There were tools and an oil-stained coat on the passenger side of the front bench. He indicated the rear seat instead. Hunter opened the back door on their side. Bev got in first and slid across behind the driver. Hunter sat behind the front passenger seat next to the door. It was warm inside and smelled of old cigarettes, and something used for cleaning. The back bench was surprisingly clear. Bev said that reassured her. All the mess was in front, so she assumed he'd carried people recently. Hunter looked down while arranging her feet. There was a coil of pale rope pushed under the driver's seat. Under the other side were several boxes of kitchen-rapping film. Someone had come open, and the serrated cardboard edge was bent outward. She noticed them, then felt foolish for noticing them. There were plenty of reasons a person might have rope in a work truck. She couldn't immediately think of a reason for that much food wrap, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. The man waited until Hunter had shut the door. He looked into the mirror, smiled at Bev, and started downhill. For a little while, Bev did most of the talking. She explained that her shoes were new, and that Hunter had promised an easy walk. The driver said he'd seen people come down that road in much worse shape. He asked whether they went hiking there often. Bev said it was their first time. He asked if their families were waiting at the bottom. Bev said no, they'd come on their own. Then he asked which car was theirs. Hunter answered before Bev could say anything else. The green one, she said. It was the only car there. The man nodded again. Years later, Hunter told me that was the question she kept returning to. He'd said he knew the clearing. He'd said he was going there. At the time, identifying their car felt helpful. Only afterward did she think about the fact that he'd now established there was nobody waiting with it. The road continued downhill for a few bends, and then flattened. They passed a metal gate standing open against a post. A little farther on, they took a turn that climbed again. Hunter looked out of the rear window. The road they'd left was wider and had deeper tire marks. She asked whether that was the way back to the parking area. The driver said there were a couple of ways down. He didn't sound annoyed. That made it harder for her to ask again. Bev had stopped talking. She was rubbing the back of her heel through her sock. Hunter touched her arm and pointed toward the window, trying to communicate something without doing it in front of him. Bev misunderstood and leaned over to look at the view. They passed another turn. The man stayed on the narrower road. Hunter checked her watch. They'd been in the truck for a little more than ten minutes. She hadn't seen another vehicle or a building. Trees were growing closer to the road, and on the right the ground dropped steeply enough that she could see the tops of branches below them. She asked how much farther it was. He said he needed to stop and pick something up first. That was the first time he mentioned a stop. Bev said they didn't want to take him out of his way. She meant it politely. Hunter could tell because she used the slightly different voice she used with shop assistants and her mother's friends. He said it wouldn't take long. Hunter asked him to let them out at the next junction. He could walk from there. He kept his eyes on the road and said they'd only get themselves lost. He said it gently enough that Bev gave a small, embarrassed laugh. Hunter didn't. She had her hand resting against the door handle now, and she was looking for somewhere wide enough that he might have to slow down. The truck turned between two rough posts, climbed a short bank, and entered a clearing. There was a small wooden cabin at the far end, with a covered porch, and a single square window beside the door. A chopping block stood near a pile of split wood, and Axe was stuck in the top of it. Nothing about the place suggested anyone was visiting. There was no second car, no washing on a line, no dog, just the cabin, the wood pile, and a length of hose curled beneath an outside tap. He parked well short of the porch, facing the cabin. He took the keys out, opened his door, and told them to stay in the truck. Then he added, "Keep the door shut, I'll be right back." Hunter watched him cross the clearing. Before he went inside, he looked over his shoulder to make sure they were still sitting there. As soon as the cabin door shut, Hunter told Bev they needed to leave. Bev looked surprised. She agreed it was strange that he'd brought them there, but she thought they were already committed. They didn't know where they were. He did. If they upset him, they might lose the only ride they were going to get. Hunter tried to explain that upsetting him was very low on her list of concerns. She showed Bev the rope in the boxes under the seat. Bev said he might be doing repairs. Hunter pointed out that he'd refused to stop when she'd asked. Bev said he hadn't refused. He'd said they would get lost. That was how she explained things then. If someone gave a reason for doing something, she tended to accept the reason before considering the thing itself. Hunter had already reached the point where it didn't matter whether the man could explain it. She wanted to be out of his truck. She opened her door. Bev caught her wrist and said they couldn't just disappear. He was helping them. Hunter pulled her hand free and got out. She had her small canvas bag with her, and she kept it on her shoulder. Bev sat there for another few seconds, then followed her through the same door, complaining that they were going to look ridiculous when he came back. They stood beside the truck. The engine clicked as it cooled. Up close, Hunter could see that the white patches on the front doors had been brushed on over lettering. There was part of a dark blue curve showing through one of them, but not enough to read. The cabin was about 30 yards away. Something was moving inside it. They could hear objects being dragged across the floor, followed by the sound of a heavy item being set down. Bev called toward the porch that they decided to walk after all. Hunter hadn't wanted to announce it. She was already looking toward the trees behind the truck, trying to work out where the road bent below the clearing. But once Bev had said it, they both stood there waiting for a response. The man appeared in the doorway. He wasn't wearing his cap now. His hair was stuck to the sides of his head, and there was a damp line around the neck of his shirt. He said the road they'd come up was private. They weren't allowed to walk on it. Hunter said they would go back to the junction and find another way. He stayed in the doorway, one hand resting on the frame. Then he said they should come up and get a drink before they went anywhere. Bev almost agreed. Hunter felt her shift beside her, and knew she was about to start being agreeable again. He said they had water. There was a pause. The man's expression didn't change much, but he stopped looking at both of them. He was looking only at Hunter. Then he said, "Stay there then." He went back inside. Bev turned to Hunter and said he sounded offended. I asked Hunter once why she didn't simply grab Bev and run at that point. She said it was because she still didn't know whether she was afraid of a dangerous person, or behaving badly toward an ordinary one. That uncertainty didn't disappear all at once. It took a series of things, and every time something happened, Bev supplied a possible explanation before Hunter could decide what to do. While they were talking, Bev moved around the front of the truck to look back down the entrance road. She wanted to see whether walking out was as difficult as the man had made it sound. His door stood several inches open. He glanced through the gap as she passed, noticed something on the floor, and stopped. Then she pulled the door wider. That was when she saw the hatchet. It was lying in the driver's footwell. Its handle pushed back under the bench. The handle was dark from use. There was a dried brown coating across one side of the metal head, and a few thick spots on the rubber floor mat. Something pale had stuck near the joint between the handle and the head. Hunter came around after Bev stopped speaking. Both of them looked at it. Nobody screamed. Bev was always indignant when people assumed she had. She said she made a small noise, but mostly what happened was that her mouth became so dry. She couldn't get a sentence out. Hunter remembered her reaching toward the door, missing the edge of it once, and then getting hold of it with both hands. They couldn't prove what was on the hatchet. They didn't stay long enough to try. There was already an axe. outside beside the wood pile, this smaller tool had been kept down where the driver could reach it, with stained rope hanging over the seat rail beside it. Bev let go of the door without closing it. For the first time since they'd gotten into the truck, she asked Hunter what they should do. Hunter pointed toward the trees behind the passenger side. They could get out of sight there without crossing in front of the cabin. The entrance road was open and exposed, and the man could drive after them if they took it. They went around the back of the truck. Bev kept turning her head toward the cabin. Hunter took her wrist. The same way Bev had taken hers inside the truck, and this time neither of them argued. They reached the first trees at a fast walk. Then Bev heard the cabin door opening and started running. The ground dropped more sharply than it had looked from the clearing. Hunter went down sideways with one hand against a tree. Bev tried to follow, lost her balance, and slid several feet through dry leaves. Her outer shirt caught on a branch. She pulled until one of the sleeves tore free, and they kept going. Behind them, the man called for them to stop. He didn't ask what was wrong, he didn't sound confused. He called again, much louder, and said they were going the wrong way. Hunter didn't know whether that was true. She knew the parking area had been below the ridge, and that the truck had climbed before reaching the cabin. Downhill was the only useful direction she had. She held Bev's hand where she could, and let go where the trees forced them apart. After a minute or two, they came to a fallen tree and crouched behind it. Hunter wanted to listen. Bev was breathing so hard she could barely do it through her nose, and she had one hand depressed over her mouth because she'd started crying. They heard the truck start. Bev tried to get up. Hunter pulled her back down. The engine was still close, above them, and for a moment she thought he might be trying to drive into the woods. Then it grew louder, shifted direction, and moved away along the road. That gave Bev hope. She thought he was leaving. Hunter could see enough of the hillside through the trees to understand something she hadn't understood from inside the truck. The road curved around the slope. If it came back below them, he could get ahead of them without needing to leave it. She told Bev to stop moving whenever they could hear the engine clearly. They worked down to a shallow dry creek bed. There was no water in it, just exposed roots and stones that shifted under their shoes. It was easier than pushing through the brush, but after following it for a short distance, Hunter realized the banks were getting higher. If they kept going, they might reach a place they couldn't climb out of. They left it on the lower side. Bev needed help getting up the bank. By then she wasn't protesting the dirt or the damage to her clothes. She was asking Hunter whether the man could see them. Hunter kept telling her no. She didn't know that. She said it because Bev would stand up to look whenever she couldn't get an answer, and Hunter needed her to stay low. They reached a strip of open ground where the trees had been cleared beneath old utility wires. Across the narrow strip, the woods continued down the slope. A vehicle track ran along the hillside beneath the wires, just two parallel ruts in the dirt. Hunter stopped before they stepped out. Less than a minute later, the truck appeared around a bend to their right. It came down the track slowly, moving from their right toward their left. Hunter could see the red door through a gap in the branches. One window was open. The man was leaning forward over the wheel, looking into the trees on the downhill side. Both women lowered themselves flat. Bev had one knee on a stone. Hunter could see her trying to move it, and put a hand on her calf to keep her still. The truck stopped almost level with them. It idled there long enough for the exhaust smell to reach the bushes. The man called that they'd left something in his truck. Bev looked at Hunter. Hunter tightened her hand around the strap of her canvas bag. Bev had brought nothing except the shirt she still held, and a few things in her pockets. Her jacket was in their own car. There was nothing important to go back for. He called again. He said he wasn't going to spend his entire afternoon looking for them. That was the part Hunter found hardest to describe afterward. He sounded annoyed in the ordinary way. Someone might sound annoyed if you'd made them late. If a third person had been standing there, hearing only him, they might have thought the women were causing the problem. The driver's door opened. Hunter couldn't see his face now. She could see the lower part of his jeans and his boots beneath the truck. He stood with the door between himself and the woods, and then bent down as though checking under the seat. When he moved clear of the door, she saw that he'd put on the stained coat from the front bench. One hand was inside it. Bev pressed her face into the shirt she was carrying. He came around the front of the truck and looked down the slope. The two women were on the upper side of the track, perhaps 20 feet behind him. That was the only reason Hunter could watch him without having to look toward his face. He spent several minutes examining the bushes on the opposite side. At one point he crouched and reached into a patch of grass, then stood again. Hunter never knew what he'd seen there. She was certain he'd turn around eventually. Instead, he went back to the truck. He stood at the open door for another moment and called. I know which car is yours. Then he got in and drove downhill. Neither of them moved for a long time. When Bev finally lifted her head, there was dirt stuck to the wet skin around her mouth. She asked Hunter whether they should go in the other direction. Hunter thought about it. Going back uphill meant moving toward the cabin. Going sideways meant committing themselves to country they didn't know. They didn't have enough water to wander until morning. There might be farms over the next ridge, or there might be several more ridges before they reached anyone. She'd seen houses from the top, but they were miles away, and she couldn't remember exactly where. The car was the only thing she knew was there. She said they would go toward it without using the road. Once they could see the parking area, they would decide what to do next. They waited until the engine had been gone for several minutes, then crossed the cleared strip. Bev went first. Hunter watched the bend the truck had come around and followed once Bev had reached cover. They stayed below the utility wires for a while, moving roughly parallel to them, until the slope began to look familiar. It took far longer than it should have. They kept stopping, sometimes because they heard a vehicle in the distance and sometimes because one of them thought she had. Bev's shoes were making her limp, and Hunter was worried that if she let her sit down for too long, she wouldn't get back up. They drank what was left in Hunter's bottle. Bev tried to apologize. Hunter told her to save her breath, then immediately regretted the way it sounded. She said later that she wasn't being brave. She was angry, frightened, and concentrating on small things, because she couldn't manage the whole situation at once. Get to that tree. Cross that bear patch. Make sure Bev was still behind her. That was about as much as she could think through. At some point they found an old length of wire fence. Hunter followed it until she recognized the flattened metal post where Bev had stopped to fix her socks that morning. The lower part of the trail was just beyond it. Bev started crying again when Hunter told her where they were. They followed the fence through a stand of trees until Hunter caught sight of pale gravel below them. She crouched and moved closer. The parking area was there, beyond the last line of brush. Their green sedan was exactly where they'd left it, facing the low wooden fence beyond the timber marking its space. The red pickup was on the opposite side of the clearing. It had been backed into a space near the entrance. Its nose pointed toward the access lane. There was no one visible behind the wheel. Bev had already started moving when Hunter caught the waistband of her shorts and pulled her down. Their car was less than a minute away. After everything they'd just done, Bev couldn't accept that they weren't going to walk straight to it. She started pulling at Hunter's hand, saying that they had the key and that the man was probably still in the woods. Hunter pointed at the truck. They hadn't heard its engine for quite some time. Neither of them knew how long it had been parked there. And from where they were crouching, they couldn't see the ground on the far side of their own car. Hunter made Bev move back from the edge. They settled behind a thick tree a little farther up the slope, where a patch of scrub broke up the view from below. If they leaned to the right, they could see most of the clearing. If they stayed close to the trunk, someone in the parking area would have had to know where to look. The walk from their hiding place to the car wasn't long. That was what made waiting so difficult. There were only a few yards of trees, the low fence, and then a stretch of gravel. Hunter could picture herself covering it in seconds. She could also picture getting halfway there and seeing someone stand up beside the driver's door. They watched the pickup first. The windshield reflected the bright ground in front of it. From above, they could see part of the front bench through the passenger window. It looked empty. Hunter shifted until her knees hurt, trying to see whether someone could be sitting low behind the wheel. She couldn't get a clear enough angle. Bev suggested throwing a stone at it. Hunter looked at her. Bev said she meant from somewhere else. Go farther along the trees, throw something, and see whether he came out. It wasn't a ridiculous idea, and Hunter admitted that, but it meant one of them would have to leave cover, and get close enough to throw accurately. If the man was already outside the truck, they might be moving toward him. If he was inside it, they'd be telling him exactly where to start looking. They stayed where they were. After a while, Bev asked whether they could reach the public road through the trees. The access lane ran away from them on the other side of the clearing. To follow it, they'd have to circle behind the pickup or go out across open pasture. They could try climbing back up the hill and making a much wider loop. But Hunter didn't know what lay on that side. Bev could barely put her full weight on one heel anymore. Hunter wasn't confident they could manage another long detour, and still get out before dark. She said they should wait for another car. Nobody came. That was what Bev remembered most clearly about that part. On the drive-up, they'd passed farms and mailboxes and people doing ordinary Sunday things. The whole place had seemed occupied. Now they could hear an occasional engine far away, but nothing turned into the access lane. The little wooden sign had brought them there, and apparently it hadn't brought anyone else. It was a little after four. Between the detours and the long stops to listen, they'd spent most of the afternoon getting down the hill. The man had been able to cover the same ground by road in minutes. Bev thought about her mother setting out dinner. She told me that was when she started feeling properly ill. Until then, she'd been imagining getting away from the man. Now she pictured someone trying to reconstruct their day, and being unable to get past the fact that they'd left in Hunter's car that morning. She had told her mother they might go to the shops afterward. Her mother might start calling friends in town, before it even occurred to her to look in the hills. Hunter moved the key from her zipped pocket into her hand. She threaded the small metal ring over a finger so she wouldn't drop it if they had to run. Bev watched her do it and stopped asking to go straight to the car. They sat with their backs against the tree, knees drawn up, taking turns looking around the trunk. Bev's breathing had finally settled. Once it did, she began noticing things she hadn't been able to think about while they were moving. The grid inside her socks, the sticky feeling of tears drying on her neck. Hunter holding her mouth slightly open because she'd bitten the inside of her cheek, and it hurt to press her lips together. At some point, Bev took the torn shirt and folded it under Hunter's knee. She didn't say anything. Hunter didn't either. When Hunter told me about that, Bev was in the kitchen and couldn't hear her. It was one of the few details Hunter added that made my stepmom sound better than she made herself sound. The pickup remained still. Once, Bev thought she saw movement behind the rear window. Hunter looked until her eyes watered and couldn't decide whether there was anything there. A fly kept landing on the back of Bev's hand. She brushed it away with one finger because she didn't want to make a larger movement. After perhaps an hour, they heard an engine approaching. Both women straightened before they could stop themselves. A vehicle changed gears somewhere beyond the access lane. It sounded close enough that Hunter put one hand against the trunk, ready to stand if it entered the clearing. The sound continued along the public road and faded. Bev bent forward and put her forehead on her knees. They were beginning to face another decision. The hillside was getting cooler. There was still sunlight on the far fence, but the trees around them were dimmer and their cars windows had become difficult to see through. Waiting until full dark might hide their approach. It would also mean they couldn't see anyone waiting beside the car or between them in it. They waited another half hour. By then, they'd been above the parking area for close to two hours and still no one had come. Hunter thought they should move around the slope to get a view of the driver's side. If that side was clear, they could come down behind the fence near the front bumper. They would stay together. They'd left the doors unlocked so they should be able to get straight in. Hunter would get behind the wheel. Bev would get in beside her. They would shut the doors, start the engine, and reverse as quickly as the gravel allowed. They went over it quietly, leaving almost nothing to decide once they moved. Then Bev asked whether Hunter was sure the doors were still unlocked. Hunter started to answer. They heard a dull clunk below them, followed by the creek of a door opening. Hunter leaned around the tree. The pickup looked exactly as it had before. Then she saw a man's hand resting on the roof of the green sedan. It was above the open rear passenger door. One boot appeared beneath it. Then the man bent forward through the doorway and pulled himself out, using his hand on the roof to straighten up. They watched him stand beside the car, adjust his coat and push the door shut. It hadn't latched fully. He pushed it a second time just as Bev had that morning. He had been inside their car. That was the part Bev couldn't get through when she first tried telling us the full version. She could describe the truck, the hatchet, and running through the trees. When she reached that door, she always stopped to swallow. Their car had looked safe for the entire time they'd been watching it. It was familiar. They knew Hunter's map was on the front seat, and Bev's jacket was in the back. But from their angle, they couldn't see into the rear foot well. They'd been concentrating on the red pickup. Neither of them had seen him approach the sedan. As far as they could tell, he'd been inside it since before they reached their hiding place, keeping below the windows while they watched the wrong vehicle. If Bev had run to it when they'd first reached the clearing, Hunter would have followed her. They knew that without needing to discuss it. The man stood beside the sedan and looked toward the trail entrance. Then he looked along the fence on their side of the parking area. Hunter eased back behind the trunk. Bev had gone so still that Hunter put a hand against her arm to make sure she understood what was happening. He walked around the rear of the car. Through the bushes, they could see him pause at the open patch beside the fence. He stared into the trees for several seconds. He was close enough that Bev recognized the uneven edge of his beard. Neither woman could see whether he was holding anything. Hunter didn't want to move enough to find out. There was no useful escape from their position if he came straight up the slope. They would have to run uphill, and Bev had already used up most of what her legs could do. He turned away. For a moment, he rested his hand on the sedan's trunk, looking back toward the trail again. Then he crossed the clearing to the pickup. He opened the driver's door and sat down. The engine took two attempts to start. When it caught, he stayed parked with his elbow resting in the open window. Bev squeezed Hunter's wrist. Hunter understood what she wanted to ask and shook her head. They would not move while he could still see the clearing. Eventually, the pickup rolled forward out of its space near the entrance and turned into the access lane. The red tailgate disappeared beyond the bank. They listened until the engine faded. Hunter checked her watch and made them wait five more minutes. That weight was worse than the one before it. They knew he wasn't beside the car anymore. They could almost feel the door handles in their hands. Every second they remained under the tree seemed to give him another chance to change his mind. Hunter also knew he might have stopped just beyond the bend. She made herself listen for the engine, for a door opening, for anything that would tell her he was still there. The trees in the bank blocked too much. Silence didn't prove he'd gone. When the five minutes were up, she said they were going anyway. They couldn't sit there all night. Bev unfolded herself slowly. Her knees had stiffened. Hunter waited until she could stand properly, then pointed toward the fence. They walked the first few yards because running through the brush would make too much noise. Once they reached the last tree, Hunter put the key between her fingers and nodded. They ran. Bev had to use both hands to get over the fence. Hunter waited on the other side, turning between her and the access lane. Then they crossed the gravel, separated at the front bumper and reached their doors almost together. Hunter pulled the driver's door open and checked the rear bench and the floor below it before she sat down. No one was there. Bev was doing the same thing from the passenger side. Her jacket had been moved onto the floor. On the upholstery where it had been, there was a dirty print from the edge of a boot. A short piece of pale rope lay against the rear seat cushion, half pushed into the gap. Neither of them touched it. They got in and shut the doors. Hunter reached behind her to press down the rear leg. lock on her side, then locked her own door. Bev did the same on the passenger side. Her hand was shaking so badly she missed the rear lock twice. The engine started immediately. Hunter backed straight out of the space, away from the timber in front of the car, then began turning toward the exit. Bev was twisted around, watching the access lane through the rear window. The pickup came back around the bank. For a second, Bev couldn't say anything. It was moving slowly, the driver's window still open. Then the man saw their sedan moving, and the front of his truck dipped as he braked. Bev said, "He's back." Hunter looked over her shoulder. The pickup accelerated into the entrance and turned across it. There wasn't room to get past on either side. The man stopped with his front wheel almost against the wooden post, blocking the only proper lane out. Hunter kept reversing until their rear tires reached the open middle of the clearing. She stopped there, still in reverse, with her foot hard on the brake. The man got out. He left his door hanging open and came toward them at a quick walk. He was speaking, but with their windows up and their engine running, they couldn't make out all of it. Bev heard him say that they'd made him come back. Hunter kept looking from him to the truck. There was no gap. The fence beside it was upright, and beyond the fence was a deep ditch. Then Bev remembered the fallen section near the other side of the entrance. She pointed across Hunter toward the weeds. Hunter said the ground was too soft. Bev told her to try. The man reached the driver's door while Hunter was shifting into forward gear. He pulled the handle. The lock held. His expression changed when it didn't open, and he struck the glass with the flat of his hand. Hunter stared at him. For that one second, she couldn't make herself move. Bev reached across the bench, took hold of the steering wheel, and turned it toward the gap. Hunter pressed the accelerator. The car moved so suddenly that the man lost his hold on the door handle. He stepped backward and caught the mirror with his free hand. Its mounting tour partly loose, scraping the door as the car pulled away. She had both hands on the wheel now. Bev let go and braced herself against the dashboard. The sedan hit the first rut hard enough to throw them forward. Hunter kept her foot down. The front tires crossed the fallen fence, and a length of wood scraped beneath the floor. For a moment, the car slowed so much Bev thought they were stuck. Then the rear wheels climbed out of the gravel depression, and caught the firmer ground beyond it. They lurched through the weeds and followed the old ruts onto the access lane beyond the truck. Hunter didn't look back until they'd rounded the bank. Bev had been the one studying the map on the drive up. Hunter asked which way to turn at the road, and Bev said right. She said it immediately, without checking with Hunter or trying to explain. There was a cluster of buildings a few miles back. She remembered a shop because she'd wanted to stop there for something cold to drink. They reached the junction and turned right. Hunter wanted to drive as fast as the car would go. Bev kept telling her when a bend was coming. She had one hand on the dashboard, and the other twisted in the fabric of the front seat. The road was narrow, with no painted center line in places. If they went off it, there wouldn't be time to get out and hide. The pickup appeared behind them before they'd gone a mile. After saw it in the mirror, Bev saw Hunter look and turned around. He wasn't close enough to touch them, but he was gaining on the straight sections. Hunter's car rattled badly after the fence, and something underneath it was making a scraping noise whenever they hit a dip. She didn't know whether it was about to stop running. They passed a driveway with a chain across it. Then, another, that led into trees. She told Hunter to keep going. She didn't want to gamble on a house that might be empty, or a gate they couldn't open before the man caught up. The truck sounded it's horn. Neither woman looked back that time. They came around a long bend, and Bev saw the building she'd remembered. There was a small shop with fuel pumps out front, and an open workshop beside it. Two men were standing near a car with its hood raised. An older woman was carrying a box through the shop doorway. Bev told Hunter to pull in beside them. Hunter crossed the forecourt without slowing enough, and stopped so close to the open workshop that one of the men jumped back. She was still trying to get the car into park when Bev unlocked her door and shouted for them to call the police. The pickup entered behind them. For years, Bev worried that she'd frighten the men at the shop so badly that they only believed her out of sympathy. Hunter always reminded her that they had seen the truck themselves. The driver pulled in fast, stopped near the pumps, and watched as one of the men came over to the sedan. Bev pointed at him. The man from the workshop turned to look. He was holding a long wrench. He hadn't picked it up because of the truck. He'd already had it in his hand. Bev remembered being more relieved by that ordinary tool than by anything anyone said to her. The pickup reversed into the road. A car coming from the other direction had to break to avoid it. Then he drove away. One of the men wrote down the number from his rear plate on a piece of cardboard. The other helped Hunter get out. Her hands were stuck around the steering wheel. She had to open each one separately before she could move. The woman from the shop brought them inside, locked the front door, and used the telephone behind the counter. She didn't ask whether they were certain. She didn't tell them to calm down before she'd call. She rang the sheriff's office while Bev was still trying to explain the first part. That was the first point at which Hunter believed they were going to get home. A deputy reached the shop while the woman behind the counter was calling their families. By the time their parents arrived, it was fully dark. I wish I could say everything after that was simple. It wasn't. Bev's mother arrived furious before she arrived frightened, if that makes sense. She'd spent the drive imagining all the things Bev had done wrong. Then she saw her sitting beside Hunter, unable to hold a paper cup without spilling it, and forgot whatever speech she'd been preparing. Hunter's father walked around the green sedan with a deputy. The driver's mirror hung crooked from its damaged mounting, with fresh scrapes in the paint beneath it. The deputy found a small folding knife on the rear floor, beneath the edge of Bev's jacket. Hunter told him it wasn't hers. Neither woman had brought a knife that day. They photographed the knife and the piece of rope before taking either of them out. Hunter's father looked into the backseat once, then went inside and sat with his daughter. Hunter told me that was what finally made her cry. He was the person she expected to know what to do, and he had come in looking frightened. The truck wasn't difficult to identify with a plate number and two witnesses who'd watched it follow them onto the forecourt. The man had been using the cabin while doing occasional work for the property owner. He hadn't owned the land. The owner confirmed that walkers were allowed to use the access road. Deputies arrested him at the cabin that night. I know people will want more about what they found there. There are details I never got, and some I don't think Bev was ever told. I'm not going to fill in a room full of terrible things because it makes the story sound worse. They recovered the hatchet from his truck, and more lengths of rope from the cabin. He identified the knife left in the car as his, claiming he must have dropped it while checking whether the women had returned. There was enough evidence to keep this from becoming a matter of two frightened women against a man who claimed he'd only been helpful. He did claim that, by the way. He said they'd misunderstood him. He said he'd gone to their car because he was concerned about them. He had explanations for driving after them, blocking the entrance, and trying to open Hunter's door. I don't know how he explained getting out of the back of their car when neither woman had seen him cross the clearing to get into it. Bev said she couldn't listen when that part came up. Hunter did, but when I asked her about it, she said the explanation wasn't worth repeating. The case went to trial the following year. Both women testified. The men from the shop testified about the pickup following them and leaving when Bev pointed the driver out. Hunter had to describe the cabin and the route several times, and Bev had to admit, in front of strangers, that she'd persuaded her friend to get into the truck. He was convicted and sent to prison. After the court proceedings ended, neither of them ever had contact with him again. Whatever he'd planned for that afternoon, they got away before he could finish it. Hunter kept the sedan for another year. Her father replaced the damaged mirror and repaired the underside where it had caught the broken fence. Bev paid him back a little at a time out of her wages. She also bought Hunter a new jacket, although Hunter hadn't lost one. Bev said she knew that. She just wanted to buy her something. She didn't go hiking together for a long time. When they eventually did, Bev chose the route, wrote it down for her mother, and accepted first suggestion to turn back. Hunter said she complained the entire way anyway, which was how she knew her friend was starting to feel like herself. I didn't know all of that when I was growing up. I knew the shortened version, the one Bev used when my sister or I accepted a ride without telling anyone. It annoyed me. I thought she'd found one frightening thing that had happened to her, and decided it gave her permission to worry about everything we did. Later, after Hunter filled in the missing parts, I asked Bev why she'd never told us about the man coming back while they were trying to leave. She said that when we were small, she wanted us to remember not to get into the first vehicle. She didn't want us lying awake trying to imagine getting out of the second one. I also asked Hunter whether she'd ever blamed her. She said she had, for a while. She'd been angry about the ride and angry that Bev had kept trying to make the man seem reasonable. But when she'd frozen with him pulling on her door, Bev had been the one who remembered the gap in the fence. Bev had turned the wheel. Hunter said you couldn't tell that day's story honestly, and leave either part out. They're still friends. They disagree about plenty of things, including details of that hike. Bev thinks Hunter underestimated the distance from the beginning. Hunter says Bev would have been uncomfortable walking to the end of her own street in those shoes. Neither of them is particularly gracious about the other's version. They agree about the rear door. They agree that it took two pushes to close and that they watched him give it the second one. That's what I think about when I check the backseat of my own car, not the cabin or the things on the floor of his truck. I think about Bev standing in that empty parking area that morning, putting away her jacket with a whole ordinary Sunday still ahead of her. She shut the door twice, put her hand on the roof, and walked away without locking it. A few hours later, she watched a stranger make those same movements from the other side of the fence. They'd both done something that got them home. But every time Bev told us the story, she came back to the moment when she'd wanted to run straight to that car and Hunter had made her wait. I've been listening to the stories people send in for a while, and I finally asked my brother if he'd mind me telling this one. He said I could, but he wanted to read it first. When he sent it back, he'd corrected a couple of distances and the order in which things happened. He'd also added something about that night that I hadn't known for six years. Apparently, when I thought we were sitting around waiting for some hunters to leave, he'd already decided we probably weren't going to make it out on our own. I'll call my brother Matt, I'm Mason. Those aren't our real names, and I've changed the names of the other people involved too. I was 18 when this happened, and Matt was 32. I know 18 is old enough to be responsible for yourself, but if you've got a much older brother you grew up looking up to. You probably understand why I still let him make most of the decisions. On this particular trip, that turned out to be a very good thing. Matt was in the army. He'd been in for years, and had recently become a special forces engineer sergeant. He'd already been overseas with his previous unit, and he was getting ready to leave again for about nine months. I mentioned his job because it explained some of the equipment he had, and why I trusted him so completely. It doesn't mean he knew everything, or that he spent his time at home looking for people to fight. Most of my memories of him from that visit involve him trying to fix our parents' porch, and complaining that dad kept buying the wrong screws. He had about a week with us before he had to go back. I was working mornings at a tire shop and saving for community college, so I took a few days off. We'd always liked hiking, and he suggested doing three nights in the Sipsi wilderness in Northern Alabama. We'd go in on a weekday, avoid the busier spots, and be back with enough time for a family dinner before he left. Our parents knew the general plan. Matt left a marked paper map with our mother, and told her when to expect us. He carried another copy with our route on it. He also brought a rented satellite phone. I'd made fun of him for it when we were packing because it looked expensive and unnecessary for a place where people went hiking every weekend. He said he wanted to be reachable before his deployment, and neither of our cell phones could be counted on down in the hollows. He'd tested the rental before we left and saved the local dispatch number in it. I remember saying that mom would probably call to ask whether we'd remembered sunscreen. He told me she could ask as often as she wanted if she was the person waiting at home. The first two days were good. That's something I don't want to lose in telling this. We weren't walking through some obviously threatening place and ignoring warning after warning. We saw other hikers. We cooled our feet in the creek. I ate too much of the food I'd brought because I didn't want to carry it. Matt found out and made me take part of the shared gear the next morning. Most of the time, we talked about ordinary stuff. He wanted to know if I actually liked working on cars, or if I was only doing it because the shop had hired me. I wanted to know if he thought I should enlist. He wouldn't give me the answer I wanted. He told me to find something I wanted to do, besides prove I could do what he'd done. By the third afternoon, I was tired in a way I hadn't expected. My shoulders hurt, and one of my heels had developed a blister. It wasn't serious, but it made every uphill stretch annoying. Matt noticed me walking differently and stopped to deal with it. I got irritated because I thought he was treating me like I was younger than I was. He handed me the tape and let me do it myself. We made camp earlier than we'd planned. We were working our way back toward the access we'd used, with roughly a mile and a half left for the next morning. We hadn't stopped because we were lost, or because something was wrong. We just found a flat place near water and decided we'd done enough walking. I need to explain the layout a little because the way I used to tell this made it sound like a truck drove straight up to our tent in the middle of the wilderness. That didn't happen. The nearest place a vehicle could reach was out by the road. The route between there and our camp was a walking trail, and the people who eventually came to help us had to cover that part on foot. The tent was on a flat shelf above a creek, with enough distance from the bank that we weren't sleeping right beside the water. Behind us, the ground rose to the main trail. If you came down from that trail, you could see the little clearing before you got to it. Farther along in the direction we'd be leaving, the trail curved around a short rocky rise and went down to a shallow crossing. Past the crossing, it climbed toward the road. Between our camp and that crossing was the rocky rise I mentioned. It wasn't a big ridge. It was just a lump of higher ground with exposed sandstone, thick brush, and a narrow hollow on the other side. Matt and I went around it while we were looking for a place to fill our water bottles. From one side, you could look down through the brush and see pieces of the clearing. From the other, you couldn't see our tent at all. None of that seemed especially important at the time. I remember more clearly that I dropped a bottle cap in the creek and had to go after it while Matt laughed at me. We put up our tent, filtered water, and ate. We had a small fire in an existing ring. It was summer, so there was still some light when we finished dinner, although it was getting hard to see under the thicker trees. I had my shoes off to let my socks dry. Matt was sitting on a flat rock with his knees drawn up, telling me about a guy he worked with who'd managed to lock his keys inside a running truck twice in one week. That's when the two men came down from the trail. They were probably somewhere in their thirties. One had a faded red cap and a dark beard that was shorter along his jaw. The other wore a gray sleeveless shirt and had a pale strip on his wrist where he usually wore a watch. I remember that because he kept rubbing it while he talked. They were dirty, but so were we. Their clothes weren't what bothered me. It was how quickly they spread apart when they entered the clearing. The one in the red cap stopped near the fire. The other went a little farther and stood beside the tree where we'd hung our damp shirts. That put him closer to the tent than either of us was. Red cap asked if we'd seen any hogs. We had earlier that day, although they'd been a good distance from us and had moved off before we got close. Matt told him the general area. The man asked which direction they'd gone, then whether we'd seen anyone running dogs. We said no. He was friendly enough. He called us fellas, asked if we'd had any luck fishing and complained about the heat. I started relaxing. Then the other man bent down and picked up one of my shoes. He didn't ask first. He just turned it over to look at the bottom and said it didn't seem like much of a boot for that country. I told him it was a trail shoe. He said he knew what it was. There was a short pause where I couldn't figure out whether he was joking. Matt put his cup down. The man set my shoe back where he'd found it, but he kept looking at the tent. The door was open because we were trying to let some air through. Both packs were inside, [BLANK_AUDIO] my wallet was tucked into a pocket of mine. I could see the bright orange rain cover folded under the top flap. Redcap asked how many of us were out there. Matt said it was the two of us. He asked where we'd parked. Matt gave him the name of the access area without describing the truck. The other man asked whether somebody was picking us up in the morning. It was a perfectly ordinary question on its own. After the others, it didn't feel ordinary. Matt said people expected us home the next day. He didn't mention his job and he didn't ask the men to leave. He just stopped offering extra information. When they asked what we did, he said he worked out of state and I was getting ready for school. I noticed he was watching the man by the tent every time Redcap spoke. The visit probably lasted 10 minutes. It felt longer. Before they left, the man in the gray shirt asked if we'd be sleeping with the rain cover off the tent. He said it would be miserable in there otherwise. I said we hadn't decided. Then Redcap told us we might hear dogs later and not to worry about them. They walked uphill to the trail. Neither man had a dog with him. Neither was carrying a visible gun. I watched until they disappeared and then I put my shoes back on even though my socks were still damp. I asked Matt if he'd thought they were strange. He said he hadn't liked the one touching my things. That was all he offered at first. I wanted him to say they were harmless locals who didn't understand personal space. When he didn't, I asked if we should move. He looked toward the trail and thought about it. I could tell he was actually considering the question, which made me more nervous than an immediate yes would have. By then, there wasn't enough light left for us to pack and walk out comfortably. We could have done it with our headlamps but the route would take us in the same direction the men had gone. We also didn't know that they'd done anything worse than make us uncomfortable. Matt said we'd stay for the moment, keep our things together and get going early. He didn't make it sound like a big decision. After that, the camp felt different. I kept looking up at the trail when Matt talked. Every time something moved in the brush, I expected the gray shirt to appear again. Eventually I got annoyed with myself. We talked to two men for a few minutes and I was acting like they'd threatened us. Matt walked down to the creek to rinse our cooking pot, then went a little farther toward the crossing. When he returned, he moved his boots beside the tent door and put his small daybag inside, within reach of where he'd be sleeping. He'd brought it for short walks away from camp. It held the satellite phone, first aid supplies, a water bottle and some other small things. I asked him what he'd been looking at. He said he wanted to be sure he remembered where the trail met the crossing. I didn't press him. A few minutes later, he asked me to put my headlamp in my pocket instead of leaving it in my pack. We put the fire out before we got into the tent. He stirred the wet ashes until he was satisfied, then poured the last of the water over them. With the fire gone, I could see a faint light moving on the hillside across the creek. It passed between two trees and disappeared. I asked if he'd seen it. He said yes. There was no reason a person couldn't be walking out there with a light. That's what I kept telling myself. I left my shoes beside the door, lay down on top of my sleeping bag, and listened to the insects. Matt was on the side nearest the door. We had the outer flap rolled up for air with the mesh zipped shut. Before I fell asleep, I heard him unzip the mesh and step outside. I assumed he was going to the bathroom. When he came back, he moved something out of his main pack into the smaller bag. I was too tired to ask what it was. The dogs woke me sometime after eleven. At first, there was just one barking a long way off. Then others joined it. I lay there trying to work out what direction they were in. Down by the water, with trees and uneven ground all around us, I couldn't tell very well. I only knew that one sounded much neerer than the others. Matt was awake. I could see the pale shape of his forearm where it rested across his chest. I asked if those were the dogs the men had mentioned. He said probably. Then he told me to keep my voice down. That did more to scare me than the barking. I asked why, and he said he wanted to listen. We heard a man call out, followed by another farther away. I couldn't understand either of them. For several minutes, the dogs got louder. Then they seemed to move off again. Matt said they could be chasing hogs. He'd seen people hunt with dogs before, and he explained it in a couple of sentences. I asked if they'd bring them through our camp. He said they shouldn't. There was a difference between shouldn't and wouldn't that I didn't like. One dog came close enough that I could hear the metal on its collar. Something moved past the outside of the tent, and a wet nose pushed against the mesh near my feet. I jerked my legs back. Matt caught my ankle and held it until I stopped moving. The dog sniffed around the tent and went over to the cold fire ring. I could see its back through the mesh. It was a lean, long-legged animal, with a pale patch on its side. It wasn't growling, or trying to get in. It seemed interested in where we'd eaten. A man came down the slope after it. He stopped before he reached the clearing. His light moved over the tree where our shirts had been, then the place where we'd sat. He held it on the tent for several seconds. Matt didn't call out. I waited for the man to apologize or say he was getting his dog. Instead, he switched the light off. I could still hear him moving around above us. Then he called the dog, very quietly, and it went back up the slope. We stayed still until we couldn't hear either of them. My jaw hurt from holding it tight. I asked Matt if we should leave now. He said, "I'm checking something first. Get your shoes on." I sat up and fumbled with the laces. There was no room to do it comfortably, and I kept knocking my knee into his pack. He didn't hurry me. He got out of the tent and stayed beside it for a while. Listening. Then he went a few yards uphill, far enough that I couldn't see him clearly through the mesh. I remember being angry at him for going out of sight. It only lasted a minute or two, but I was sitting there picturing the two men grabbing him and coming down to the tent. When he came back, I started asking what he'd seen. He held one finger up and I stopped. Somebody was talking on the trail. One voice was low enough that I couldn't make out the words. The other was red cap. I recognized the slightly stuffed up way he sounded. He said, "They're still in there." That was the first thing I heard that I couldn't turn into an innocent misunderstanding. Matt leaned close and told me we were going to leave the tent. I reached for my pack. He stopped me and pointed at the small bag on his own shoulder. He said we'd come back for the rest with somebody else. I didn't understand that part yet. I thought he meant we'd walk to the road and ask another group of campers to come with us in the morning. I put my cell phone in my pocket, checked for my headlamp, and reached for my wallet. Matt shook his head. He wasn't willing to let me dig around anymore. We heard the men move away along the trail toward the crossing. Matt waited until their voices faded. Then he opened the mesh just enough for us to get out. The first thing I did was catch my heel on the edge of the tent. One of the poles shook. I froze with a hand on the fabric, waiting for somebody to shout. Matt touched my elbow and kept me moving. We went toward the creek instead of climbing to the trail. I wanted to ask why, but I was afraid of making more noise. He led me behind a cluster of trees, then stopped where we could look upstream toward the crossing. A light moved through the brush over there. It was followed by a second light. They were at the place we would have had to pass to get out. I could hear at least two men, and one was complaining about a dog winding its lead around his legs. Matt pulled me back behind the trees. He brought the satellite phone out of the bag, and worked at it under his shirt to keep the screen covered. Then he crouched near a gap in the overhead branches, where he'd have a better chance of getting a connection. It took longer than I wanted. Everything took longer than I wanted. I could hear the men near the crossing, and I kept thinking even Matt's low voice would carry right to them once the call connected. When the call connected, Matt spoke so quietly that I could only catch parts of it. He gave his name, the area we were in, and our location from the map he'd marked earlier. He said two men had approached our camp, returned with other people, and were watching us. Then he said something that made me look at him. At least one long gun, possibly two. He hadn't told me he'd seen a gun. I watched his face while he listened to the person on the phone. He had his free hand around my wrist, and every time I shifted, his grip tightened a little. He gave our clothing descriptions and said there were only two of us. He said he'd stay available, but might not be able to answer immediately. The call lasted a few minutes. When he put the phone away, I asked when somebody would get there. He said sending people. I asked how long. He didn't pretend to know. I wanted to keep walking. It didn't matter where, as long as we got farther away from the tent." Matt said the crossing was the route he could confidently get us out on in the dark. Getting back onto the trail in the other direction meant climbing toward the spot where he'd just seen a man with a gun. Downstream, the bank got steeper, and we hadn't walked that stretch. Going blindly along the creek could leave us below a ledge or force us back toward camp. He wasn't going to take us through the men at the crossing unless he had to. There was also the fact that we'd just told somebody where to look for us. If we kept moving without knowing where we'd end up, we'd make it harder for them to find us. He pointed toward the rocky rise between camp and the crossing. We could get around its lower end from where we were. It would put something solid between us and the trail, and we'd still be near the location he'd given dispatch. He didn't say we'd be safe there. He said it was the best place he could see. We worked our way over slowly. There were roots and loose pieces of stone under the leaves, and I couldn't look at the ground without losing sight of him. Twice I grabbed the back of his shirt to keep from slipping. We weren't doing anything graceful or impressive. We were two people trying very hard not to fall down in the dark. On the far side of the rise, the land dipped into the narrow hollow we'd pass that afternoon. Matt got me down behind the exposed rock and took the bag off. From where we first crouched, I couldn't see camp. He went a little higher, looked through the brush, and came back for me. There was a place where we could lie low and look down toward the tent without putting our whole bodies above the rise. The clearing was only partly visible. Through separate gaps, I could make out the tent entrance, the fire ring, and a strip of ground leading up to the main trail. Once the men brought their lights down, I could see whatever they lit up, but brush still blocked parts of the clearing. I couldn't see the creek or the crossing. I keep emphasizing that because, for a long time afterward, people would ask why we hadn't watched all five men continuously. There wasn't any way to do that. Matt opened the small bag and took out a pistol. I'd known he owned one. I'd gone shooting with him. I hadn't known he'd brought it on the trip until that moment. He checked it, kept it low, and told me not to reach for him suddenly. Hearing him say that made the situation feel much worse. Up until then, some part of me still believed he was being overly careful. I asked if the people on the phone knew he had it. He nodded. Then he said, "When they get here, I put it away. You keep your hands empty." He wasn't talking about the men on the trail. He meant the officers. I nodded even though my attention kept going back to the gun. For what Matt later estimated was nearly 20 minutes, nothing happened. The dogs were farther away again. Water moved over the shallow rocks below us. A mosquito kept landing along my eyebrow, and I was afraid to slap it. I pinched it between my fingers instead. I could feel sweat running down the middle of my back. My shirt was already damp from hiking. Now it was getting cold against my skin, even though the air was still warm. Matt checked his watch. It was almost half past midnight. I'd been awake for about an hour, but I felt as if we'd been lying there all night. I leaned toward him to ask whether the men might just leave. Before I could, a light came down the slope toward our tent. Redcap entered the clearing with a shotgun in one hand. The man in gray followed him. Then three more men came down, one carrying another long gun. I never got a good enough look at that one to tell you exactly what it was. The other two had lights and dogs on leads. I counted three dogs, although with them moving in and out of the brush, I wasn't certain until later. The dogs weren't all barking now. One pulled toward the cold fire ring. Another kept trying to circle the tent. The men were talking in normal voices. They weren't calling to see whether anybody needed help or warning us that they'd lost an animal. They expected us to be asleep. Gray shirt went straight to the entrance. He bent down, worked at the zipper, and stood back up. I heard him say something to Redcap, who came over and held his light against the fabric. For a few seconds, all five men were looking at the tent. I remember being unable to make myself blink. I'd seen people open tents a thousand times. There was nothing complicated about what they were doing, but those were our beds they were about to look into. A short time earlier, that was where our heads had been. Gray shirt pulled the mesh open and crouched inside. His back filled the doorway. He came out with my pack by its top handle and dropped it beside the fire ring. One of the others laughed. The sound was brief and ordinary, and it made me feel sick. Redcap went around to the back of the tent. He pushed at the fabric with the end of his gun, hard enough to tip one of the poles. Then he looked around the clearing. The man with the second long gun took a few steps uphill and shown his light into the trees. They'd realized we were gone. I felt a few seconds of relief. They'd search the tent, take whatever they wanted, and leave. We'd be able to sit there until somebody found us. I didn't care about the pack. I didn't care about the truck. I'd have handed them the keys if it meant going home. Gray shirt opened my pack and started pulling things out. He tossed my spare socks toward one of the dogs. A bag of food landed near the fire ring and the dog lunged for it. Its handler hauled it back and told him to stop throwing things around. They argued briefly. I couldn't hear all of it. Redcap kept looking toward the trail, then down toward the creek. He seemed less amused than the others. My wallet was in the small front pocket. I watched Gray shirt find it. He took a card from the wallet and held it under his flashlight. Then he turned slowly, holding the light out in front of him. Mason. I hadn't told either man my name. It sounds obvious now. He'd found my license. I couldn't read the card from up there, but once he said my name, I knew which one he was holding. But hearing my name spoken from down there made me flinch so hard that Matt put his hand on my shoulder. Gray shirt called again. He said they knew we were close and we might as well come out. He sounded mildly annoyed the way someone sounds when you won't stop playing a joke on them. Redcap told him to be quiet. The dog nearest our side of the clearing pulled up hill. Its handler let out some of the lead and followed. I couldn't tell whether it had found our scent or smelled something else. It went to the tree where we dried our shirts and pressed its nose into the leaves. I was watching the dog so hard that I almost missed what happened at the tent. The man with the other gun went inside and dragged Matt's main pack out. He dumped it beside mine. Then he came back with Matt's sleeping bag and shook it out over the ground. They weren't taking their time to choose valuable equipment. They were checking the places where we might have left something important. One turned a jacket inside out. Another felt along the pack straps. I didn't understand what they wanted until Redcap asked who had the keys. Matt moved a hand to the front of his pants, checking his pocket. One of the men said we had to come back for our things. Redcap answered that we could get out another way. That was the first time he sounded worried. The man with the dog moved farther uphill. He was coming toward the side of the rise we'd climbed. Matt pressed my shoulder down until my chin was nearly in the dirt. We couldn't see the man anymore. We could hear the dog breathing. I had one elbow on a root and the pressure was making my fingers go numb. I wanted to move it. I couldn't make myself. A light passed through the brush above us and stopped on the rock beside Matt's head. The dog pulled again. Its nails scraped against stone. The man told it to settle down. He wasn't searching carefully. I could hear him dragging the lead free of branches, more irritated with the dog than interested in where it was going. Then somebody in the clearing called him back. For a moment he didn't move. I could see the bottom of his trouser leg through a gap in the leaves. His light caught a tear above the cuff when he lowered it toward the dog. He was so close that I could smell cigarette smoke on his clothes. Matt didn't look at me. His face was turned toward the little gap and his mouth was slightly open. I could see him breathing through it. The man called the dog by a name I can't remember. It resisted him for a second, then went. The lights swung away and they worked back down toward camp. I waited until I couldn't hear the collar anymore before I let myself move my elbow. My whole arm tingled. I wanted to cry from relief, but Matt was already pointing behind us toward the lower part of the hollow. We weren't staying where the dog had almost found us. We slid back below the rock and moved farther into the hollow. I couldn't see the clearing anymore. That made me more frightened at first. When I could watch the men, I at least knew what they were doing. Now I had to judge everything from sounds I couldn't please. reliably. The ground was damp under my hands. My blister had opened and I could feel the inside of my shoe rubbing it. I'd stopped caring about either of those things. What bothered me was that my legs were shaking so badly I couldn't trust them to hold me up if we had to run. Matt sat me down with my back against the low rock wall. He crouched beside me and asked if I was hurt. I shook my head. He gave me his water bottle and made me take a small drink. I asked whether the dog could find us again. He said yes. He didn't follow it with a speech about how everything would be fine. He watched my face for a moment, then said the man hadn't seen us. We'd moved. Help was coming. Those were the things we knew and those were the things we needed to work with. I tried to concentrate on them. I could still hear the dog in my head, breathing a few feet above us. For the next half hour or so the men moved around the clearing in the trail, calling into the trees every few minutes. First they used my name. Then they said we'd left our belongings and they were only trying to return them. One told us we'd get ourselves hurt stumbling around in the dark. He almost sounded concerned. If somebody had come along at that moment without seeing what we'd seen, they might have believed him. Matt checked the satellite phone. The screen lit his fingers before he covered it. He couldn't get a connection from where we were tucked against the rock. He put it away and looked toward the more open ground at the lower end of the hollow. I grabbed his arm before he could move. I didn't want him to go anywhere without me. He shook his head and stayed. That small gesture is one of the things I think about most now. He had a reason to get a little farther out where the phone might work. He could also see that I was getting close to panicking. For the moment he decided keeping me still and with him was more important than another call. Somebody kicked our pot. I knew the sound because I'd knocked it off a rock earlier that evening. It rolled across the clearing and a man laughed again. Then a dog yelped. Not in pain I don't think. More in surprise. The men talked over one another and one of them shouted for the others to shut up. For a while they did. The silence was worse than the talking. I could no longer tell whether they were in camp or spreading out around us. I kept staring at the top of the hollow, expecting to see a face looking down. Matt had his head turned toward the clearing. He moved one hand away from the gun and rested it on the back of my neck. I thought he was trying to calm me down. Then the first shot went off. It was much louder than I expected. I'd been around guns at a range with ear protection and daylight and people telling me when to stand back. This was a sudden crack from somewhere just beyond the rock and I flinch so hard my teeth hit together. Matt pulled me down before I had time to lift my head. My cheek hit the dirt. He pressed my shoulders flat and put himself beside and partly over me. Another shot came almost immediately. I heard something strike the trees above us. Then there were several more with enough space between them that I kept thinking each one was the last. I couldn't tell who was firing or what they were aiming at. I won't pretend I could. We were behind the thicker part of the rock and I couldn't see the men. I could hear them shouting for us to come out. One yelled my name again, stretching it out like he was calling somebody across a parking lot. I put my hands over my ears. Matt pulled one away so he could speak right beside it. Stay down. That was all. There wasn't time for anything else. A piece of loose grit hit the back of my hand. I don't know whether it was knocked from a tree or the rock or whether Matt had moved something getting us down. At the time, I was sure it meant I'd been shot. I kept rubbing the spot with my thumb, waiting to feel blood. The firing stopped. My ears were ringing and I could barely hear the creek. I felt Matt lift his head slightly. I grabbed his shirt and tried to pull him back down. He touched my hand until I let go. I expected him to shoot back. That's embarrassing to admit, but I did. Some stupid part of me had decided that once they fired, he'd get up and handle it. I'd spent years hearing about his training without ever understanding what it meant to be one person with a pistol while five men searched for you in the dark. He stayed down. He didn't have a clear view of anybody. He wasn't going to fire into the trees and tell them exactly where we were. Years later, when I asked him if he could have stopped them, he said he could have tried. He didn't say it in a modest way. He meant that trying was all he'd have been able to promise. We waited until the men were talking again. Their voices were farther away, up hill from the clearing. A couple of lights moved through the brush on the trail, where we could see them above the edge of the hollow. For a minute, I thought they'd left. Then somebody came down toward the creek. We could hear him complaining that we hadn't had enough time to get far. Another man answered from somewhere near the crossing. That meant they were still on both sides of the route Matt wanted to use. The man near the creek called out that one of their friends had been hurt. He said we needed to come help. I raised my head without thinking. Matt tightened his grip on my shirt. The man tried again. He said somebody was bleeding. Then he waited. We waited too. After a while, he laughed and told us we were making it harder on ourselves. I think that's when I finally accepted that nothing we said was going to fix this. Until then, I'd kept imagining a moment when Matt could stand up and explain who he was, or when I could offer them money, and they'd realize we weren't worth the trouble. They already knew we were scared. They were enjoying it. Matt checked his watch again. It was around 130 by then. He looked toward the open end of the hollow, then back at me. This time, he motioned for me to follow. We moved together, staying below the top of the rise until the rock thinned out. There were fewer branches overhead there. He tried the phone, and after a wait that made me want to grab it and shake it, the call connected. He gave his name and said shots had been fired. He updated the count to five men, described the two long guns we'd seen, and told dispatch about the dogs. He said we were out of the tent, on the creek side of the rocky rise near camp. He repeated that we hadn't fired any shots. I remember that part clearly because he said it twice. Then he listened for a long time. I could hear a faint voice from the earpiece, but I couldn't make out the words. Matt looked at the watch on his wrist while the person talked. When he answered, he sounded almost normal. We can do that. He ended the call and told me officers were coming in from the road. They were already on foot. The people handling the response knew where our camp was, and they knew we'd take in cover nearby. The men didn't know we'd called anyone. I asked if we should try to meet them. Matt said no. In the dark, running toward armed strangers while carrying a gun, was a very good way to make a bad situation worse. We were supposed to stay where we'd said we were unless the men forced us to move. If that happened, he'd try to update dispatch again. He put the phone in the front pocket of the bag, where he could reach it quickly. Then he made me repeat where the officers were coming from. I think he needed to know I was still listening. Before we moved back, he pressed his small flashlight into my hand. It had a dim red setting. He told me to keep it off unless I needed it, and not to mistake the red light for something nobody else could see. He said, "If we got separated, I needed to keep the phone bag with me if I could, find cover and call." He didn't tell me to sprint off into the woods on my own. He knew I was scared, and we both knew I was less familiar with the ground than he was. I told him I wasn't leaving him. He said very quietly. Then listen to me. We went back behind the rock together. Knowing people were coming, helped for about 30 seconds. Then I started thinking about everything between them and us. They had to find the trail, cross the creek, and come through the same trees where those men were walking around. I didn't know how many officers there were. I pictured one person with a flashlight getting ambushed, because we'd asked for help. I asked Matt whether they'd been told about all five men. He said yes. I asked if they'd been told about the dogs. Yes. Then I asked whether they knew which side of the creek we were on. He looked straight at me and said yes again. He wasn't irritated. He understood what I was doing. We sat with our shoulders almost touching. I kept the little flashlight enclosed in my fist. My headlamp was still in my pocket. Having both of them seemed stupid now, when turning on either one might be the thing that got us found. I could hear a dog drinking below us. Its handler led it stay there for a while. Then he called it away. A few minutes later, a light moved along the slope on the far side of the hollow. The man holding it was gray shirt. He wasn't calling my name anymore. he was looking at the ground, moving the beam slowly between the rocks, and the flattened leaves. We must have disturbed some of them when we came through. I couldn't see exactly what he was following, but he was coming toward the lower end of the hollow we'd just used for the call. There wasn't a dog with him. Matt saw him at the same time I did. He moved in front of me and pushed the small bag back against my leg. I put my hand on it because I remembered what he'd said about the phone. My mouth was so dry I couldn't swallow. Gray shirt stopped near the open patch. He swept the light up hill, then brought it back down. For a second, it lit the rock on the far side of us so brightly that I could see the little cracks in it. He called for one of the others. Nobody answered immediately. He turned toward camp and called again, louder this time. When he looked back, he held his light low and started toward us. I could hear Matt breathing. It wasn't especially quiet anymore. He'd been calm for so long that hearing the effort it was taking frightened me almost as much as the man did. Gray shirt reached the first bend in the hollow. The rock still hit us, but he was close enough that he could have found us just by walking around it. He stopped and I heard him spit. Then he said he could hear us. I don't know if he really could. He might have been trying to make us move. Either way, my body reacted before I could think. I pressed my face against Matt's shoulder and tried to stop breathing altogether. The man took another step. Somebody shouted from the direction of the crossing. It was a different voice. Loud, clear, angry. It told someone to put the gun down. Gray shirt stopped moving. His light swung away from us so fast that I could see it jump across the brush at the end of the hollow. The command came again. Another voice joined it. Then red cap started shouting over them, saying they hadn't done anything. For one awful second, I thought the men were fighting with another group of hunters. I couldn't let myself believe anybody had actually arrived. Gray shirt turned and ran. I tried to get up. Matt grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me down hard enough to hurt. He shook his head once. We stayed where we were while lights moved along the trail and people shouted commands I couldn't sort out. Somebody came crashing through the brush above us. A dog barked almost directly overhead. I heard a man yell that he was putting something down. Then, for a while, the only voices I could understand were telling people to stay still and show their hands. Matt put the pistol away. He did it before he tried to attract anybody's attention. He closed the bag around it, pushed the bag away from both of us, and held his hands where I could see them. I set the flashlight beside the bag and raised my empty hands, although nobody was looking at us yet. We waited longer than I thought we should have. Later, I understood that the officers were dealing with armed people scattered along a dark trail. Finding us was only one part of what they had to do. At the time, every extra minute felt like they'd forgotten we existed. Finally, someone called Matt by his full name. It came from near the clearing. The man identified himself as a deputy and said dispatch had told him we were near the rocks. He called my name next. I looked at Matt. He waited until the deputy called again before he answered. He said there were two of us that we were down in the hollow and that his firearm was inside the bag on the ground. The deputy told us to stay there. A few moments later, a light came around the lower end of the rock. I saw a uniform, then another person behind him. Matt kept his hands up. The deputy told us exactly where to put them and checked us before he let us stand. The second officer took charge of Matt's bag in the flashlight we'd set beside it. I didn't mind. He could have made me lie in the dirt for another hour if it meant those men couldn't reach us. The deputy I'll call Johnson was older than Matt, with sweat running down both sides of his face. His uniform shirt was caught on a thorn near the sleeve. He asked whether either of us had been hit. I said I didn't think so. He asked again more slowly and I realized I needed to actually check. I looked at my hands and my legs. My knee was scraped and there was blood on one knuckle. None of it was from a bullet. Matt had a cut along his forearm from getting through the brush, but he said he was alright. Johnson told us the men near camp were being detained and other officers were checking the way out. We needed to stay with him. We weren't going back for our equipment yet. I hadn't been planning to ask. When we came around the rise, I could see our clearing again. Our tent had collapsed on one side. Both packs were open on the ground. A man I didn't recognize was sitting with his hands secured behind him near the cold fire ring. Gray shirt was farther up the slope, face down with an officer beside him. He turned his head when we passed. Even then, with somebody holding him on the ground, I expected him to say my name. He didn't. Johnson stepped between him and us and kept us moving. The walkout took a long time. Matt stayed beside me, but I could tell he was watching the people around us instead of the ground. Every time we stopped, he asked whether everybody was accounted for. Johnson told him what he could without making promises. We crossed the creek and followed the trail uphill. I kept looking behind us until Matt took my elbow and told me to watch where I was putting my feet. I tripped anyway. Johnson caught my arm, and I apologized to him for some reason. He said I didn't need to be sorry. I didn't see emergency lights until we were near the road. There were several vehicles parked there, and another officer was standing beside an older pickup with a dog box in the bed. Red cap was sitting in the back of a patrol vehicle. He'd lost his hat. That should have felt satisfying. Mostly I felt exhausted. Without the gun in his hands, he looked like someone you'd stand behind at a gas station and never think about again. They sat us in a vehicle with the air running and gave us water. Somebody looked at our scrapes. Matt had to answer questions about the pistol, the calls, and where we'd been when the shooting started. He answered all of them, then asked to sit with me. The first time he tried to open his water bottle, his hand slipped. He looked at it, tried again, and still couldn't get the cap loose. His fingers were shaking. I took the bottle from him and opened it. He thanked me without looking up. Until that moment, I hadn't understood that he'd been just as frightened as I was. All five men were caught that night. Three were detained along the trail near our camp. The other two made it farther toward the road and ran into the officers waiting there. Nobody was shot during the arrests. The dogs were secured and taken out too. I asked about them later because I couldn't stop thinking about the one that had come up to the tent. It hadn't understood any of what was happening. We didn't pack up and go home immediately. There were statements to give and our campsite was evidence. Matt called our parents once we were somewhere we could talk. I told him I didn't want to scare mom. He said finding out later would scare her more. He was right. She cried anyway. Dad drove up to get us because neither of us was in much condition to make the trip home. Matt's truck was still where we'd left it, undamaged. He and dad went back for it the following afternoon. Investigators recovered my wallet from gray shirt. A few things were missing from the packs, but they found most of them among the men in their belongings. We eventually got our equipment back. I kept using the pack after I cleaned it. Neither of us wanted the tent. One of the men eventually admitted that the first two had come back to their group talking about us. They described two campers with good equipment, a vehicle at the trailhead and nobody else around. The plan, according to his statement, was to frighten us badly enough that we'd hand over our cash and keys. He blamed the shooting on the others. They blamed things on him. I never tried to sort out which excuses they actually believed. What could be established was enough. They'd taken our property, searched our camp, threatened us, and fired guns while trying to make us come out. Investigators found damage in the trees and in one side of the tent. We'd been right to get behind the rock. That wasn't Matt being dramatic. The case took longer than I wanted. Matt was already overseas by the time some of the interviews were finished. He made himself available when he could, and I gave my own account instead of having him speak for me. The men ultimately entered guilty, please. Investigators had established that both armed men had fired, and those two received prison sentences. The others were convicted for their parts in it, too. We got notice when the last case was resolved. None of them contacted us afterward. I still don't know how far they'd have gone if we'd stayed in the tent. I used to ask Matt what he thought, and he'd say he didn't know either. After the last case was closed, I stopped asking. We'd given our statements. They'd admitted what could be proved, and none of them had managed to talk their way out of it. Matt came home from that deployment. We had a long dinner at our parent's house, his first weekend back. He complained about Dad's porch screws again. I hadn't realized how badly I needed to hear him complain about something ordinary. For a while, I didn't go camping. I could handle walking in the woods during the day, but I couldn't picture lying inside a tent without staring at the door. Matt didn't push me. When I finally suggested an overnight trip, we went to a regular campground where we could see other people eating dinner. I stayed awake for most of that first night. The next trip was easier. The thing he added when he read this draft was about the first call. The dispatcher had asked whether we could safely make our way out. Matt had said he didn't think we could. He hadn't told me how firmly he'd meant that. He'd seen a gun when he checked the trail, and the men near the crossing had cut off the route he knew. By the time we were hiding, he was trying to keep us alive until help reached us. He wasn't waiting for a chance to take all five men on. I asked him why he'd let me believe he'd had everything under control. He said he'd never told me that. I had to think about it, but he was right again. He'd told me what he knew and asked me to stay with him. I'd supplied the rest because he was my brother. We still hiked together when we can. I've got my own emergency communicator now, and I helped plan the trips. On the last one, I handled the route and sent our check-in while he got dinner ready. He ate, stretched out, and fell asleep before I did. I sat there for a while listening to him breathe. For years, I'd remembered him lying awake beside me, trying to work out how to get us home. It felt good to be able to let him sleep. [Music]