Choosing the tree with the first ribbon tied to it, I dug a shallow hole beneath and placed my keys into it, covering it with a small rock that I scratched with my penknife for visibility.
I didn’t like climbing with my keys. Taking them with me might mean I lost them. Leaving them at the base of a climb might mean they’d get stolen. This way, I knew where they were. Safe and waiting for my return.
There.
Is that everything?
My receptionless phone was in one legging pocket. My PLB—personal locator beacon—was in another. The cumbersome size stretched my Lycra, but it’d been grilled into me to always, always have the PLB on your person and not in your backpack. You never knew when you might need it or what sort of injury could occur.
Tapping the bottom of my backpack, where my recording devices were packed and protected by clothing, I took a deep breath. I would carry substantial weight on my adventure, but at least I would be prepared.
I’m ready.
Running over my mental checklist again, I buckled the backpack around my waist and strode happily into the thicket.
* * * * *
You have to admit defeat. For tonight at least.
I sighed as I unbuckled my backpack and allowed it to slip from my aching shoulders. It crashed against the earth, sounding almost disappointed in me.
How did this happen?
I’d followed the ribbon. I’d kept going until all scraps of faded yellow were gone, pushing onward in the hopes of finding the path again. I’d doubled back. I’d stopped and looked at my compass. I’d swept the landscape for any sign of a valley holding a boulder that some stranger had posted in an anonymous forum.
I’d taken their word. I’d gone on a wild goose chase that ended with me alone, in the middle of nowhere, utterly vulnerable to anyone who thought they’d have a joke.
Perhaps they were laughing at me in the bushes, rolling their eyes at my gullibility to have followed a ribboned trail into an uninhabited national park.
You really aren’t very smart, Gem.
I huffed, running grubby hands over my face and wiping away the sweat from my seven-hour hike. Scanning the darkening trees, I hoped whoever’d posted about the boulder hadn’t planned to ambush whoever was stupid enough to fall for it.
Am I safe?
I’d gone so far off the trail, I’d put a few miles between me and the last ribbon, but still. Anything was possible in such a wild place.
Unfortunately—and I never admitted this lightly—I was lost.
I’d been lost before on other expeditions, but this time? I had no sense of direction on how to get back. I’d been so stupidly focused on those damn ribbons, allowing them to tug me forward and not paying much attention to my surroundings, that I’d gotten turned around, confused, and now had the enjoyable task of admitting to myself that tonight, I wouldn’t be climbing a virgin rock, but setting up a lonely camp for one and hoping my brain rebooted so I could figure out how to get back to my Jeep in the morning.
Hopefully, you’re alive in the morning.
Shut it.
I rolled my eyes, angry with myself. Frustrated at my predicament and short-tempered because I was tired. So, so tired.
Exhaustion buckled my legs, and I plummeted to the ground. My toes hurt from my hiking boots. I was thirsty, hungry, and my eyes stung from being awake for over twenty-four hours.
That’s probably why you’re lost, you know.
I shouldn’t have set out on a fool’s quest without a nap first. I should’ve taken my time. It wasn’t like I had deadlines or pressure from someone to post videos at certain times.
All of this was my fault, and I had no one else to blame.
So, you better stop feeling sorry for yourself and get organized before it’s blacker than death out here.
I half-heartedly tried to summon energy into my feeble body, willing my legs to stand and my arms to unpack my tent. However...just ten minutes.
A ten-minute rest, and then I’ll set up camp.
Checking there were no branches or predators behind me, I flopped onto my back and groaned in relief.
Good God, that feels amazing.
The sensation of going from vertical with a heavy weight pulling on my shoulders to blessedly free and horizontal was almost enough for me not to care about setting up my tent at all.
Ten minutes only and then you’re being smart.
I groaned again, arguing with common sense.
The earth had never felt so comfortable. The air cooled the heat from my exertion. My muscles relaxed until I was a puddle of hiking boots and dirty leggings.
After ten minutes passed—to be honest, it could have been seconds with how quickly it came and went—I did the responsible thing and sat up.
I couldn’t stop the heavy groan or the stiffness as I clambered to my feet and stretched out the worst of my tied-up and overworked muscles. My body existed in an annoying realm of what my fellow climbers called “climbing fit.” To usual humans who didn’t put their lives on the line by ascending vast piles of rock, I had more tone and strength than any gym bunny was allowed. But to other climbers? The YouTube idols and the free climbing gods, I was a couch potato who ate far too much caramel fudge.
Right now, I felt exactly like an unfit pudding and stumbled about very inelegantly as I shook out my tent, secured the poles, tightened the guy ropes, shoved my sleeping bag into the one-person orange and teal sleeping pod, and kicked off my hiking boots before crawling inside.
Darkness fell in a heavy cloak of nothingness, almost as if it had been waiting for me to have a roof before clicking out the lights. No stars tonight. No moon. Just me and my solar torch, which turned into a lantern by untwisting the middle and hanging it from the hook I’d sewn into the ceiling.
I didn’t bother changing.
I didn’t bother setting up other creature comforts such as chargers, water bottles, or a tripod for my video diary.
I was spent.
I used what little energy I had left to eat two granola bars, clean my teeth, then burrowed into my sleeping bag and crashed.
* * * * *
I woke panting.
I jack-knifed up.
I hit my head on my lantern swinging from the tent’s ceiling.
I froze and clamped both hands over my mouth to stop my heavy breathing.
What the hell was that?
I blinked.
Something...something dangerous.
My ears twitched for the bloodcurdling howl that’d woken me.
It’d reached into my dreams and yanked me out with bloody claws.
A bear?
A bobcat?
Coyote?
Slowly, I dropped my hands from my mouth and clenched my sleeping bag. Instinct made me reach for my windbreaker that I’d tossed in the corner, grabbing the knife that’d helped me more than once. A simple switchblade with a mother-of-pearl handle, it’d cut away vines that I’d stumbled into, carved firewood, and skinned fish for dinner.
It was as familiar in my fingers as stone was, but I’d never used it in self-defense. I’d taken a quick course when I’d started off-roading into deeper, more desolate places, but I’d never left myself so open to violence before.
Shit.
The noise came again.
I ducked involuntarily as if the howl could reach through the material of my tent and pluck me from my sleeping bag. It echoed in the ravine I’d camped above, ripped up the hillsides, banged morbid drums on the rock faces, and tangled with the trees that both absorbed the snarl and amplified it.