Chapter 12 - The Man of Wind and Moss

In the morning, surprising no one, Doll and Pansy were simpatico again. Doll maneuvered the several burners in the kitchen, and the pair made eggs and pancakes. When Marco came down, Keith was already pouring vodka into some orange juice and Dean was brewing a pot of coffee. Monchito’s recipe flashed again in his head. Coffee would never just be coffee anymore. Off-base, hermano, off-base. Marco waved it away.

“Finally joining us?” Doll asked.

“Yeah, up late?” Keith asked, bouncing his eyebrows.

“The bed is just too nice,” Marco said, paying Keith no mind, even granting Dean a casual smile as though to say the impromptu gun range was long behind them, say he still remembered their discussion prior to that. Marco looked at the breakfast being laid out. “Where did all of this come from?”

“Your old lady friend left the place pretty stocked up,” Keith said.

“She’s, like, trying to give you the best vacation ever,” Doll chimed. “Did you save her life or something?”

Marco laughed at the remark. It was peculiar how much Paula was giving. She was drowning him in generosity. Maybe she was buttering him up so she could hear all the lurid details once he returned. She’d freak once she heard about Sasha in the steam room. He skirted the truth, but the answer was close enough. “I think she’s living vicariously,” Marco said good-naturedly. “She’s gonna pump me for details once I’m back.”

“I hope you’ll have something juicy to tell her,” Keith said, sipping his screwdriver.

“I think we should get back to the car and get the rest of our shit,” Dean said. In his hand was the map Marco had been using on the hike in. He already had his boots on, and he sat on the couch and put his big feet on the coffee table.

“If our stuff is still there,” Doll added.

“It’s fine, it’ll be there,” Marco said. “I wanted to take a trail this morning to a swimming hole not far up. Rope swing, running water, all that good stuff. It’s not that far.”

“Oh yes,” Pansy said, “I want that. Besides, if we go get our stuff now, we might be too tired for the fun part.”

“I’m never too tired for the fun part, baby,” Dean said. Everyone groaned, and Keith threw a piece of bacon at him.

“I’ll go with you when we come back,” Doll said. “Keith, you come too. Then Marco and the girls can make dinner for us.”

“Sounds good to me,” Marco said. The plan was coming together. With Dean gone, Sasha would likely make herself scarce, and then Marco could have Pansy alone. This might just happen. He could really pull it off.

“Then it’s decided,” Pansy smiled. “Water hole first.”

“Marco, can you get Sasha out of bed?” Doll asked. She was setting the sixth plate.

Outside of Sasha’s room, the energy did a 180. The planning, the smiles, and the good-mornings downstairs had given way to something cold and fragile. He slowed down when he heard talking on the other side. It sounded like Sasha was muttering to herself. He knocked quietly.

“What’s up?” Sasha said. She sounded stressed. Marco opened the door and saw her sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I dunno, I just had a crazy nightmare I guess.” She grabbed her blanket and wiped her eyes. Her room was functionally the same as Marco’s but somehow felt sparse and barren. Drafty even. On her nightstand was a familiar book. The one from college that wasn’t old enough. The one with the poem. Zaäper.

“Is that I what I think . . . ?”

She blushed. “I told you I was getting back into it.”

“That’s the book you got from the show? Dude, you almost got hate-crimed. For that?”

“This is real-deal stuff. Okay? I’m into it. And I’m an adult, so whatever.”

“And you read that all night and gave yourself nightmares.”

“Well, I didn’t read it all night,” she said rolling her eyes.

Now Marco blushed.

“Relax,” she said. “I’m not going to blow up your spot. I kinda want to see you crash and burn anyway.”

“Amazing.”

Marco looked at the book again. He felt scared with it so close. He couldn’t explain it, but he wanted to pull Sasha away, like it was about to explode. Then she grinned.

“Almost Got Hate-Crimed, that could be a good title.”

“Just get dressed.”

* * *

They hit the trail with high energy. Doll and Pansy took the lead. Dean brought up the rear, following Sasha, and Keith and Marco stayed in the middle. Every now and then Keith slapped Marco on the shoulder in silent jest. Eventually, when Dean and Sasha fell far enough behind, Keith broached the topic.

“Alright, what the fuck happened? Or rather, I know what happened, but how?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, man, it still feels weird,” Marco said.

“Weird like bad?”

“Weird like I don’t know. She likes me and I can’t tell if I took advantage of her or she took advantage of me, but we both did it and didn’t stop doing it so that’s the kind of weird I mean.”

“Was it good?”

“Come on, man, she’s right back there.”

“Hey, look at this,” Keith said, bringing his backpack around his chest. They had unloaded most of their hiking bags in the cabin so now Keith’s—mostly filled with liquor bottles and granola bars—was lighter and flatter on his back. He dug in and pulled out a baggie. “Surprise.”

He was holding a bag of shrooms—dehydrated things that looked like skinny witch fingers.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Marco said. He had done shrooms once in college. The trip wasn’t very remarkable. The diarrhea, though, was a different story.

“Okay, so you shit yourself one time in college,” Keith went on. “Everyone shits themselves in college.”

“Yeah, but this is a learn-from-your-mistakes situation,” Marco said. “I’ll never forgive myself if I do it again and it happens again. It’s humiliating. Wait, when did you shit yourself?”

“Super Asian Buffet,” Keith said. “Winter freshman year, and again junior year.”

“Excuse me!” Dean piped up. “I spy with my whispering eye!”

Dean and Sasha caught up. Pansy slowed down. Doll kept the lead, hitting her hand on turquoise blazes as she passed them, eyeing the map. Her brown ponytail bobbed along. The sun was high, and they had about an hour until noon. Light dappled through the branches. Now, in sunlight, Marco could make out some of the vegetation he had read up on. Young maples with their light gray coats. Haircap moss reaching for the sky, never to get there. Thick roots reaching over one another and diving beneath the trail. On their right, the ground sloped up. Not incredibly steep, but high enough and crowded enough to look imposing. On their left, the ground sloped down.

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” Keith started, walking and talking, “I have brought the party. I was going to bust it out last night, but Rambo started shooting things and I felt like that wasn’t an ideal mix.”

“Oh my god,” Pansy said gleefully, “I can’t wait to see Marco trip again.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Marco argued.

“I wanna see the boys trip together,” Sasha said. “Guys Dance Two.”

“Guys Dance Two!” Pansy laughed. “Guys Dance Two! Guys Dance Two!”

Dean, Keith, Sasha, and Pansy all started chanting it. Marco couldn’t help but smile and he joined in. They had started laughing when they heard a scream again.

Only this time it was very close. And they knew exactly whose it was.

It was Doll.

And she was screaming in pain.

Pansy was the first to catch up. Dean bolted ahead, nearly toppling Marco over, and then went Keith and then Sasha after him. When Marco finally caught up, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Not right away.

Doll supported herself on a paper birch. I know that tree, Marco thought. His brain refused to look at Doll in her entirety. I know the paper birch.

“Holy fuck, holy fuck,” Pansy said, which made Marco finally take it all in. Doll was pale and sweatier than the others, her forehead wet with fear and agony instead of simple exertion. It was the way she was leaning which seemed odd. It was like she had three legs. But she didn’t. Out of her right knee was a 32ʺ carbon arrow. The back of it wobbled in the air, the helix fletching like a blue celebration.

“What the fuck, what happened?” Dean asked. Everyone was pouring out similar questions, none of which were being processed by Doll. Blood was coming down her denim leg. She tried to turn, and Sasha gasped at the reveal. Out the back of her knee, a broad head stuck out, just barely, its two serrated edges greeting the day, pink and white with meat and cartilage.

“Doll, don’t move, don’t move,” Pansy said, holding her sister’s shoulder.

“I’m not fucking moving,” Doll stammered. “Just fucking help me.”

FIP!

Another arrow came from the trees and it hit the paper birch behind Doll’s head. Chips of bark scattered at the impact, powdering the grass below. The sucker went deep. Paper birch, Marco thought again, paper birch.

“What the fuck!” Doll screamed, falling to her side.

“Motherfucker is shooting at us!” Dean said. His rage yanked Marco back to reality. Dean dropped to his knees and started digging into his bag for the black revolver. Marco’s stomach sank. He was a sitting duck. In a moment, another arrow broke from the treeline. And in the moment after that, surprising himself, Marco was diving forward, pushing Dean out of the way. The two hit the ground, the gun spun out and fell down the slope off the trail, and Dean thanked Marco with only his eyes, wide with fear, panic, and relief.

Sasha was done, quiet, horrified. It was fight or flight and she chose the latter, climbing up the slope into the trees. It was Keith who grabbed her, thinking fast. He pulled her down. “Not that way!”

“Then what?” Sasha screamed.

“This way!” Dean shouted. He grabbed Pansy’s hand who, in turn, grabbed Doll’s, and he tugged the two girls towards the downward slope. Doll let out a shriek when her knee pitched forward. The arrow didn’t let her bend her knee, she couldn’t get it straight, and Marco thought he heard the clicking of her joints against the carbon, but then she stumbled forward and the 32ʺ went deeper, the broadhead fully entering the sunlight now, coated in pink meat and blue denim. She yelled in pain. Dean stooped low and grabbed the revolver from the patch of mossy stones where it had landed. Keith grabbed Sasha’s hand and followed their lead. Marco did too.

Running downhill isn’t easy. Sprinting downhill in a full-blown panic is considerably worse. Within seconds their careful footing went out the window. Keith was the first to go, his momentum taking him down fast. His arms went out in windmills, and he fell to the side, tumbling down, head over feet, shoulder over limb, the glass bottles in his bag shattering. Branches cracked, leaves were thrown up, dirt and mud splattered to the side. There was a loud cracking sound when his elbow found a flat stone and still, he kept rolling.

Marco was soon after. He was too busy keeping his eyes on the horizon, scanning the space between trees, wondering if he’d have the reflexes to dodge an arrow or save someone again should it come to that. He knew, deep down, that it didn’t work like this, but something told him he’d wasted his one Save a Life on Dean. He wasn’t getting that one back. What a waste. Cue tripping over a branch.

He didn’t see exactly how the others went down, but when he lost his footing, he pitched forward headfirst and shoulders out. Shoulders so out that they nailed Doll in the back which sent her reeling into Sasha. When Doll fell down, she must’ve tightened her grip on Pansy who had her shoulder yanked back and then Dean followed the rest.

Spinning, vertigo, inertia, a body in motion stays in motion, a body tumbling sidelong down a hill will keep doing so until the flattened clearing slows him down and he places his teeth on a rock.

Images of shattering porcelain. He’s a child again, standing in his bright Tampa kitchen, and his mother is hovering over him, flicking his loose tooth back and forth until it comes out just like that, her smile one of accomplishment as metallic blood fills his mouth. They’re broken. That was the thought. It was a certainty, but it was one he had to accept, process, and put away in a matter of seconds because the other thoughts right behind it were arrows, Doll, blood, hunters, danger, death, all bumping into each other like a train stopped short.

He opened his eyes and pulled back fast like if he could do it quickly enough, he could keep his teeth in his mouth. But nah. He had lost three teeth in total. Not so bad considering. His central and lateral incisors were obliterated along the rock, coated in blood and smashed so finely they could’ve left splinters. The third, his bottom cuspid, was halfway through his lip. He moved his tongue over the wound and winced and recoiled and tears came to his eyes because his nose was fucked up too. He tried to breathe through it, and he heard a whistling, dragging sound. His face was pulverized.

“Marco!” It was a stage whisper. A hiss. He turned and looked. Pansy was waving at him to come over to where she was near some bushes and a particularly wide-trunked tree. He looked around and realized they were all hiding. They must’ve got a bead on the guy and knew where he was coming from, and thus, knew what to put between them. “Come on!” she hissed again.

Marco crawled fast on his hands and knees and let himself fall at her feet. A bit away, but hidden, Doll was on her back, her head cradled between Sasha’s knees, while Sasha kept a hand on her mouth shushing her and calming her down. Marco scanned Doll and saw the arrow was even deeper. The length of it must’ve gotten caught in the fall. It seemed to mangle her knee, widening the wound left and right. Her joint sagged at an angle.

Everyone went quiet. Marco put his hand to his own mouth to stifle his heavy breathing and right under his eyes he saw his palm redden. He was bleeding out of his mouth a hell of a lot more than he realized. He looked down. His shirt was covered in it. A dark river from his chin to his collar to right under his chest. He gasped. “Shhhhh,” went Pansy. He looked off, and across the way, past a little clearing, were Dean and Keith. Keith clutched his elbow. His forearm was bent further back than it should’ve been. Dean clutched the revolver.

Dean was making eyes for everyone to shut the fuck up and stay low. Everyone listened closely. There was no wind. No birds. But something was moving down the hill towards them. It sounded cautious, like it was trying to not lose its footing. It also sounded like a man and like he was saying something.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, I know where I’m going, I’m getting out of here.” He was a grown man, and his voice was cracking. It sounded like he had been crying or was currently doing so. Marco peered through a small opening in the bushes. He could only see a partial image. The man was in hunting orange, and he held his bow and his quiver on his waist. He was a bit heavy and had an awkward step as he shuffled down the slope.

He was coming in close, and Dean was gonna have the jump on him. “I think he’s scared,” Marco whispered.

“Shhh!” Pansy said back. She looked over at Dean who had the gun ready.

“I know where I’m going, I’m not lost, I’m definitely not lost,” the hunter repeated. He had gained the clearing and was hustling towards them, his eyes darting all over. “I’m definitely not lost.”

Dean came out and swung wide with the gun in his right hand. The impact of the metal barrel against the hunter’s forehead made Marco wince. The hunter fell on his butt and Dean kicked away his bow. “Someone grab that!” Dean yelled and Pansy was out, scrambling to her feet, lunging for it. It was a compound bow. Stuff Marco had seen in movies, a large tangle of bow strings and cams. Pansy grabbed it and held it awkwardly to her chest, playing keep away.

On his back, after some blinking, the hunter’s eyes grew large at the sight of Dean and the gun pointed at him. “What the fuck are you doing?” Dean said. He was back to being cool on the surface. With his other hand he wiped the sweat dripping into his eyes. He let out some deep breaths to lower his heart rate. Marco crawled out of hiding, and Keith met him a few paces behind Dean. Still in hiding, Sasha tended to Doll.

The pieces came together slowly and then all at once. This was the other hunter. The companion of the guy who cut his own throat in the parking lot. Didn’t the lot attendant say he’d be out here?

“You shot my fucking friend,” Dean said. The gun was unmoving in his hand.

The hunter put his hands up in surrender. He was too afraid to look at Dean directly. “Are you really here?” he asked. Then he started crying. His head was big and round, and he had blonde hair on his pudgy face. His cheeks grew red as he bellowed. His teeth were brown. He took in big, gulping breaths.

“What does he mean by that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get a grip, man,” Keith said. “You’re not allowed to be a fucking crybaby right now. Christ! My fucking arm!” Keith revealed his elbow to Marco. The whole thing was swollen and crooked, broken in a way where it was set back, a notch behind itself. “It’s fucking broken, isn’t it? Tell me, man, it is, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Marco said. “Yeah.”

“Guys, it’s pretty bad over here!” Sasha called out. Marco and Keith looked over. If Keith’s elbow made Marco’s mouth seem fine, then Doll’s leg made them both look like scratches. The way the arrow wobbled in Doll’s knee made him sick. The blood pooling from the wound had made mud.

“I’ve been out here for days, I just want to get out,” the hunter said. Snot ran down from his nose, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, smearing it into his beard.

“You came at us on a trail!” Pansy yelled. “We were on a trail!”

The hunter’s eyebrows bunched in confusion. “No, you weren’t.”

“What?”

“He’s not making any sense. He’s a lunatic.”

“Just kill me or let me go,” the hunter pleaded.

Marco looked at Dean, ready for anything.

“I’m not gonna kill you,” Dean said. “We’re gonna march back up this hill and we’re calling the cops and I’m sending you to fucking jail.”

The hunter nodded. His face took on a more concentrated look like he was studying them. Now that he knew Dean wasn’t going to shoot him, he was able to get a sense of the group. Get a sense of his next move. Marco saw his gears turning and thought he was fit to answer more specific questions.

“The screaming,” Marco started. “The screaming we heard last night, was that you?”

“There’s been screaming every night, but it hasn’t been me.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Dean, shoot this freak,” Keith said.

“Relax,” Dean commanded.

“Look at him—he’s a maniac. He’s sizing us up right now!”

“I said relax!”

“I don’t feel safe,” Pansy said.

“’Course you don’t,” the hunter chimed in. “Why the hell would you?”

“You shut up. You don’t talk to her.”

“You know there’s nothing up that hill, right?”

“What does that mean?”

“I said shut up!”

“Yes, sir,” the hunter said.

“Your friend is dead,” Marco said. No. Wait. Your friend ith dead. He had a lisp now. He hadn’t heard it earlier but when he spoke, his tongue bumped into everything displaced. Reflexively, he touched the cuspid that was dug into his lip. He fingered it back and forth, gripped it real tight, twisted it out and: “Fuck me.” He spat the blood onto the ground. Now his lip was free, but it was bleeding more, the cut having widened. He examined the tooth in the sunlight. It was shockingly white next to the red on his fingers. He tossed it on the ground. His mother’s voice was in his head. Bien, mijo, quick and over. She was tucking his first baby tooth back into his open palm. He looked up, and Pansy was watching him with concern. He put his eyes back on the hunter. “Your friend is dead,” he continued. “We found him in the lot with his throat cut open. He did it himthelf.”

Keith’s eyes opened wide like he just put two and two together. The hunter was about to crack again. The information about his friend seemed to strike a nerve. He took a large breath and wiped at his eyes. “You dumb son of a bitch.” It wasn’t to Marco or any of them though. It was to his buddy.

“Why did he do that? He was in his car,” Marco replied.

“Probably didn’t even know it,” the hunter said. “He came down from the trees and fucked with us.”

“Who is he?” Pansy asked. “Who is fucking with you?”

“The little dirt man,” the hunter said. He eyed everyone slowly, like he was looking for seams in skin or zippers on backs. “He came out so giddy. He’s one of you, isn’t it? One of you brought him here, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Stop indulging him,” Dean said. “He’s a crazy person. Let’s just get out of here.”

“I’m not walking up that hill,” said Doll. Her voice came as a surprise. It was frail and shaky but still landed with the matter-of-fact assertiveness that she was known for. Marco was almost impressed. “I’ll pass out, and you’ll be dragging me up.”

Dean looked at everyone in turn. He figured his options. “Does anybody have any reception?”

“I left my phone in the cabin,” said Keith. Someone scoffed their disappointment. “You all bust my balls about bonding, so I was trying to bond with my friends, fucking sue me.”

“I got nothing,” Pansy said, holding her phone up to the sky.

“Ah, shit,” Sasha said, showing her screen smashed to bits. “I must’ve rolled on it. This is so fucked.”

Marco looked at his phone. No reception. And the battery was already at 5 percent. Did he forget to charge it last night? Sasha dug into Doll’s bag and pulled out her phone as well. She looked at Marco and shook her head and that was that.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Me and Keith are going to take him up the hill back to the cabin and try to contact the cops. You guys stay here with Doll and try to get that arrow out of her. If she can walk—”

“I can hear you, you know, I’m not deaf.”

Dean exhaled. “Okay, Doll, if you can walk, then the rest of you should come up. Otherwise, don’t fucking leave this spot. Okay?”

Everyone looked at each other. Everyone nodded.

“You. Get up.”

The hunter did so. Slowly. His eyes had gone feverish. They were bouncing all over, feeling things out, planning quickly. Marco could’ve sworn he saw him mouthing words.

“Marco,” Dean said, “gimme the keys.”

“It’s you, isn’t it?” the hunter asked. He was talking to Keith.

“What?”

“With your messed-up arm. You’re him in disguise. You’re all probably him.”

“Dog, you’re a fucking wacko. Don’t talk to me.”

“Marco. Keys. Now.”

He meant the cabin keys. Of course. Marco took a knee and swung his bag over his shoulder. He dug into the front pocket, feeling for Paula’s babushka. He almost didn’t see it happen. He wished that he missed it entirely. But when he was digging, he looked up. Dean had taken his eyes off the hunter. “I got you,” the hunter said. And in a quick unsheathing, he pulled an arrow from the quiver at his waist and, like a fencer, plugged it into Keith’s neck.

Pansy yelped and covered her mouth. Dean turned around. The hunter pulled the broadhead out of Keith’s neck and it opened the wound wider, releasing a deluge of bright blood. It poured out over Keith’s shirt, and he tried to hold it back with his fat hands. He gagged and choked at a quick stutter. Then the hunter swung the arrow at Dean, who simply stepped back and raised the handgun and fired it point-blank.

The sound felt muted. So much adrenaline. So much pain and chaos in the last five minutes that the gunshot was a minor addition. Some sound effect you snuck in for world-building. But the bullet hit the hunter square in the face, and the back of his head blew out like champagne. His orange cap spiraled to the ground and the man collapsed. Brain particles dashed across the hill’s incline and when the man sank to the ground, a fine mist, red and pink with all of his memories, floated in the air like a dance ribbon.

Pansy screamed. Sasha too. And then eyes turned back to Keith who stood there, shifting his weight foot to foot, touching at his throat, which kept pushing out blood in mean arcs.

“Hey, Keith. Hey. Keith.” It was Marco talking. It was all he could say. “Hey, Keith?” Then Keith opened his mouth and maybe tried to make a joke, but blood came out over his teeth, and he wheezed in through the hole in his neck. Blood filled his lungs, and then he fell over.

* * *

There was a lot of crying and yelling before the group accepted what happened. Pansy was on her knees first, trying to wake Keith up, hitting his cheek and shaking him. Dean had to pull her back by the shoulder. Their friend’s body had gone pale rather quickly. Surprisingly so, actually. It slowly slid down the incline until it looked like he was sitting up in a pushed-back recliner. His eyes weren’t closed and when sun and shadow passed over them, it looked like he was still alive. Still alive, but dizzy and confused. The drunkest they’d ever seen him.

Doll’s eyes were closed when it happened, but when the yelp and gunshot went off, she asked what was going on. When Sasha started crying and saying, “No, no, no, no,” Doll forced herself to sit up and stretch her neck to see. “What happened to Keith?” she asked again. “Keith, what’s wrong?” When it dawned on her that he was dead, she didn’t say anything. She just turned back into Sasha’s lap and silently muttered to herself.

The following movements happened pretty perfunctorily. It was something so out of place, so out of this world, they had no choice but to handle it flippantly. Because if they focused on it, if they put all the pieces together, they’d crumble. Sink to their knees and scream. A deranged hunter came from the woods exclaiming someone got him lost. Then he killed your friend, and your other friend shot him in the head. What else could you do other than grab his ankles, drag him close, and go through his things?

The hunter’s bag was more of a fanny pack. Inside were wrappers for candy bars, gum, and that’s it. His pockets held dirt and pine needles. Dean directed Pansy to unclip the quiver and take it along with the bow. When Pansy asked why, Dean just glowered at her.

“I don’t know how to use this thing,” she said.

“It’s not about knowing how to use it, it’s about keeping it from someone that does.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Do you really want to take any more chances?”

“Okay. Don’t yell at me.”

Everyone looked at Keith next, but nobody felt right going through his bag or patting down his pockets. It was Doll that wanted to push forward.

“What are we waiting for? We need to get help. We need to move,” she said.

“I think the plan is the same,” Marco said, nodding his head towards Dean. “We go back up the hill, get back on the trail to the cabin, and call from there.” Every time he spoke, he tongued the gap in his teeth. He could almost extend it to about an inch. He stopped when Dean looked away in disgust.

“And what about this?” Sasha asked, pointing to Doll’s knee.

“I guess we decide that right now,” Marco said. He looked at Doll. She was hanging on. Not exactly getting her strength back, but the blood had stopped, and she wasn’t shivering anymore. “Do you want to try and take that out?”

“What, are we gonna perform surgery on her?” Dean asked.

Pansy moved to her sister and held her hand. “What do you wanna do? We’ll do whatever you want right now. You’re my number one priority.”

“We’re not gonna do surgery right here,” Dean said.

“I’m doing whatever she wants!” Pansy shot back.

Doll looked around and probably imagined the hack job that’d follow if she consented. “I don’t really wanna lose my leg here in the woods, to be honest. You guys go, and me and Sasha will stay put.”

“I’m going to stay with you,” Pansy said, but Doll shook her head. She pulled her sister in close and whispered something, and Pansy tried to refuse but Doll whispered it again. Finally, Pansy relented. She stood up and joined the boys by the incline.

“Okay then,” Marco said. “If we move now, we can get to the cabin before dark.”

“Then let’s go,” Dean said. He came over and handed the black revolver to Sasha. “Just in case.”

“You’re joking right?” Sasha said.

“I’m really not,” Dean said.

Sasha examined the gun in her hand, and Marco could tell she was surprised by the weight. He hadn’t held it, yet, and wasn’t planning on it, but that it had come into play so quickly made his skin crawl.

Climbing up the slope, he kept glancing back. Doll was now propped up against the base of a tall tree whose branches tangled with the one next to it, and Sasha stood and paced around and met eyes with Marco. She kept the gun pointed at the ground. Was it not twelve hours ago when they had each other in the steam room? Was he obligated to stay down and be with her? Protect her? Or was everything out the window now?

Dean held the bow and attached the quiver to his waistband. Marco wasn’t convinced any of them knew how to use it beyond some forgotten summer-camp practice. Still though, a weapon was a weapon. And Pansy marched ahead in silence.

Marco had the map in his hand and had unwittingly smeared blood along the edges. He tried to study it as they climbed, but the burn in his thighs and the pain in his mouth kept his vision from focusing longer than a second or two. They had gone on for a while before anybody spoke up.

“How far did we fall?” Pansy asked.

“I don’t know,” Marco said. “Not that far probably.”

“I feel like we’ve been climbing forever.”

Marco turned the map around. Then back around. Nothing made sense. Zigzags and lines and formations seemed to blur and move and shimmer like the back of an insect.

“What does your compass say?”

Marco exhaled and fished the compass from his pocket. The thing was smashed. He shook it and pieces of glass fell out, the small arrow along with them. Again, he thought of the man from Black Arms. And why did Sasha get that book from there? And why did she bring up that poem again? And why did he suddenly wanna pull his hair out? And why, and why, and—“It’s broken,” he said. “What about yours?”

Dean kept moving and without looking back he pulled out his own compass. He took one look at it and—“Cock sucking faggot motherfucker!”—beamed it into the trees.

“So, we don’t have a compass?” Pansy asked. Fear had crept back into her voice.

“No, we don’t have any fucking compass. They’re busted!”

“You need to stop yelling at me, I swear to God.”

Dean stepped to her quickly and grabbed her wrist. Marco’s heart dropped to his stomach. Nobody moved. Marco wondered what would happen if things escalated. People went crazy in the woods, right? When pushed to survive? Why Keith? Marco thought. Why not Dean instead?

“You’re hurting me,” Pansy said and yanked her hand back.

“We have to be close,” Marco said. He wanted to bring the attention onto himself, but he wasn’t sure if what he said was true. He had no idea really, but they had been climbing the incline for a while now. Maybe twenty, thirty minutes?

“None of this looks familiar,” Dean said first.

“We were literally tumbling over our own heads; how could you know?” Pansy asked.

“I’d know. I just would. Nothing looks the same and the incline is about to level out. I don’t see a trail or blazes or anything. Gimme that.”

Dean stepped down to Marco and snatched the bloody map from his hands. He stepped a few paces away and studied it. Turned it around. Then back again. Just like Marco had been doing. Dean situated the legend. He looked at the sun and then back down the hill. He was stalling. He had no idea what he was doing, and Pansy and Marco exchanged looks that said as much. They were lost. They weren’t going to find that trail. They were positively fucked. The most that they could surmise was that they were—