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SIX

RYDER

As it turns out, ready as she’ll ever be isn’t nearly ready enough. Because Emily may be smart and beautiful and probably reads more books in a year than I do in a decade, but she is not a strong hiker. This becomes very obvious when, not even ten minutes after we leave the Windigo Visitor Center with our permits, she stops, rests her hands on her knees, and lets out a miserable groan.

“Just so you know,” she says, gasping for air, “I am not a strong hiker.”

“You don’t say,” I reply, trying to make her laugh, but she only grunts in response.

I remember a passage I read in one of Caleb’s camping books, one that talked about the best way to arrange items in your backpack to make it feel lighter.

“Here,” I tell her, eager to help. “Give me your pack.”

She shimmies her backpack off with a pained expression and whimpers as she hands it to me.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter when her pack nearly takes my arm off. “Nobody would be a strong hiker carrying this thing! How much stuff did you bring?” Her pack feels bulky even to me, and I’ve probably got a good four inches and sixty pounds on her, minimum.

She bristles. “A lot. I didn’t want to be underprepared.”

“I don’t think there’s any risk of that. Do you mind if I reorganize your gear? It might make things easier to carry.”

Emily shrugs, and so I open her pack and begin to remove the contents of what I can only assume is an entire Super Target. She’s brought all the standard camping equipment—tent, sleeping pad, headlamp—along with a bunch of stuff she wouldn’t need on a spa vacation, much less a trek through the wilderness.

“Jesus, it’s like a clown car of personal items,” I say as I remove two books, a handheld fan, a clear toiletry bag with enough hair conditioner to last a decade, and a box of mini Jenga blocks.

“I have curly hair,” she says defensively. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of product it requires.”

“But you won’t be able to wash your hair,” I point out. “There’s no running water.”

“I know,” she says, pointing at one of the items left in her pack. “Which is why I packed the solar-heated shower.” Her gaze flits toward a fuzzy blanket and a box of Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies. “I’m very attached to my creature comforts.”

“Okay. But do you really need…” I pull out another item. “Glow-in-the-dark toilet paper?”

She nods. “The guy at the camping store said it’s essential for nighttime bathroom excursions.”

“The guy at the camping store was working on commission. And is this bear spray?” I ask, gripping a cylinder the length of a fire extinguisher. “There are no bears on Isle Royale.”

She snatches it out of my hand. “No bears that we know of . Besides, we’ll be glad we have it if we run into the Ripper of the Rockies.”

I stare at her. “The who of the what?”

“He was a serial killer who lurked along desolate trails in Wyoming, waiting for the chance to nab innocent hikers and slice their throats,” she says calmly, as if she’s reading a grocery list and not recounting a horrific tale of murder. “He—or she, I guess, but let’s be real, he’s definitely a he—has never been caught, but he’s believed to be responsible for the disappearance of more than a dozen hikers, including the 2010 disappearance of the entire McAdams family.”

“All of the McAdamses?” I ask, my stomach twisting.

“Yep. Even the family dog, Skippy.”

“Jesus,” I say, running a hand through my hair. I tried to prepare myself for starting campfires and setting up tents, not fighting off deranged killers. “That’s dark as hell.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why I brought the bear spray.” Emily shrugs. “Skippy made it out alive, if it makes you feel any better. He turned up near a ranger station a week later.”

“How would that make me feel better? Skippy lost his whole family!”

“It’s super tragic,” Emily admits.

Trying my best not to think of the horrors poor Skippy witnessed, I busy myself pulling a camp chair, a French press, and a package of dryer sheets out of Emily’s pack.

“Edwards,” I say, adding a water filter to the pile. “I have so many questions .”

“What? You’re telling me I’m supposed to spend six days in nature without a solar-heated shower or a portable coffee maker?”

My jaw drops. “Yes.”

Emily clutches a package of freeze-dried ice-cream sandwiches to her chest like she thinks I might rip them away. “I think not.”

“Well,” I say, holding up the purple life vest she wore on the ferry, “Terrence isn’t gonna be happy when he realizes you didn’t turn in your personal flotation device. And that’s probably an even worse offense than violating Safety Code 36e.”

“28.5a,” Emily grumbles. “And that life jacket is mine. I brought it from home.”

“Seriously?” I ask, puzzled. “Why? I’m sure the ferry has some on hand for emergencies.”

She looks at me like I’m insane. “Right, and the passengers aboard Titanic were sure it had enough lifeboats.”

“Stark example, but okay.”

“Listen, a life vest is a must-have,” she says, grabbing it out of my hands. “I mean, did you know that almost a thousand people die every year from ferry-related causes?”

I’m learning a lot of super un-fun facts that I wish I could delete from my brain forever, and I shake my head. “No, I did not.”

“Well, now you do.” She shakes her head, folding the life vest into a small square. “You might think I’m paranoid, but working in the ER has taught me to be ready for anything. Hence the bear spray and the life jacket.”

“And the tiny Jenga blocks, of course.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, I have a morbid story for everything. It’s like a sick party trick.”

“You can’t possibly have a morbid story for everything ,” I counter.

Emily folds her arms over her chest. “Try me.”

“Challenge accepted.” I ball up a pair of thick woolen socks, remembering the pathetic dinner I microwaved at the motel last night. “Ramen noodles. I bet you don’t have a morbid story about those.”

“ Ramen noodles? ” she repeats, her eyes so wide you’d think I said Roman candles . “Those are a leading cause of burns in children! They’re as dangerous as dull knives or backyard trampolines!”

“What’s wrong with backyard trampolines?” I ask, and the look she gives me tells me that I’m three seconds away from sending her into convulsions. “Never mind. Look, I get why you brought one life jacket, but a backup, too?” I hold up a second deflated life vest, this one the color of an unripe banana. “Seems just a little bit excessive.”

Emily shakes her head. “That’s not a backup. I brought that one for you.”

“Oh. Wow,” I say, caught off guard. “Thanks, Edwards.”

It’s been such a long time since someone’s gone out of their way to look out for me that the simple act of her saying, Hey, how about you don’t die in a ferry boat crash? unearths something vulnerable and tender inside me, and I can’t help but stare at the hideous yellow material like it’s real gold. Not wanting to let the unwelcome rush of emotion get the best of me, I drop the life vest onto the growing pile of junk and clear my throat.

“That was, uh, really thoughtful of you.”

She shrugs. “Sure. I mean, despite our rocky start, we’re a team now, which means my crippling paranoia is your crippling paranoia.” She raises an eyebrow. “As long as you don’t make me get rid of my glow-in-the-dark toilet paper.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I rest my hands on my knees to survey the pile, then reach inside her pack to make sure I removed everything. My fingers meet something long-ish and round, but before I can retrieve the object from her backpack, Emily grabs my forearm to stop me.

“Don’t!” she says suddenly, her eyes wide.

“Oh, um, sorry,” I tell her, wondering what the hell is going on. “I was just making sure I got everything out, and—”

“Leave it, please,” she says in a clipped tone, a warm flush creeping over her cheeks. “It’s private.”

She’s reacting the same way I did when my mom almost stumbled upon the hidden copies of Playboy in my room, and I release my grasp on the object. “No problem at all. I’ll just—”

“It’s a vibrator,” she adds quickly. “In case you were wondering. Just a standard, ordinary vibrator.”

Jesus.

“Oh,” I say, trying to keep my tone neutral. “Right. Good idea. You never know when you’ll need a…anyway,” I say, sweat pouring down the back of my neck, “you weren’t lying. You really are prepared for everything.”

That just makes her blush more brightly, and between her flushed skin and the bomb she just dropped, I have no fucking clue how I’m supposed to sleep at night in a tent just feet from hers and not imagine her tugging down her underwear, reaching down with her vibrator to—

“So,” I say with a cough, refusing to let my mind go anywhere so unprofessional, “now that we have everything out, let’s rearrange it.”

I return some of her gear to her pack, explaining how to position the heaviest stuff toward the center and the lightest farthest from her body. It’s better, but still ridiculously heavy, and so I bite the bullet and transfer some of her weightier stuff to my backpack. After the reckless behavior I demonstrated on the ferry, the least I can do is help carry some of her load. Besides, it might help me feel less guilty about the fact that she thinks I’m much more qualified than I am.

“Better?” I ask when Emily slips her pack back on.

She rolls her shoulders back and nods. “Much.”

“Good. Now we just need to get you fitted in right. Stand still, okay?”

She nods and drops her hands to her sides as I reach forward to tighten her hip belt. I whistle as I adjust her shoulder straps and load lifters, trying not to think about the fact that beneath the overpowering scent of what I can only assume is SPF 6000, she smells faintly of lavender shampoo. It’s been months since I’ve been close enough to a woman to notice her scent—the cloud of Bengay constantly wafting off my neighbor Lulu doesn’t count—and I’m so overwhelmed by the sensation that my fingers miss the sternum strap buckle and graze Em’s right breast instead.

She startles, letting out a surprised eek , and I drop my hands immediately.

“Jesus, I’m sorry. I did not mean to touch your boob.” Wait, is boob too unprofessional? I realize I haven’t exactly treated her to a five-star tour guide experience so far, but I really am trying my best to do this right.

“Your breast,” I correct myself, but somehow that sounds worse. “Er, I mean, your chest. Your, um, chesticle region.”

Chesticle region? What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Your breast,” I correct myself again, settling on the anatomical term. “I did not mean to touch your breast.”

My words are the conversational equivalent of the ferry sinking to the very bottom of Lake Superior and exploding into smithereens, and I would very much like for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

“I’m also sorry for saying ‘breast’ so many times,” I add quietly. “And for saying it again just now.”

Emily stares at me, blinking like someone who just walked out of a movie theater into blinding sunshine. And considering she just walked out of what I can only assume is a neat, organized life and into my tornado of chaos, I don’t blame her one bit.

“It’s okay,” she says finally. “Just please, for the love of God, do not call them funbags.”

“Edwards, I promise you, I would throw myself off a cliff before I refer to your breasts as funbags.” I pause to tighten my own sternum strap. “I also promise to stop talking about your breasts.”

“Excellent,” she says, striding down the trail at a much faster pace than she was before we stopped. “Now let’s get moving.”

—

Emily seems like the last person on earth who would want to encounter a gigantic wild animal in person, but the first item on her Isle Royale itinerary—a six-page, color-coded document that has an actual header and footer—is see a moose at washington creek . Of course, this item is followed by a dozen bullet points describing the route to the creek, the appropriate time intervals to stop and apply more sunscreen, and whether or not we’ll take a bathroom break on our way there. (Spoiler alert: we won’t. Bathroom breaks are listed in dark purple, and we won’t have one for another two hours.)

“So,” I say, the trail narrowing as we approach a sprawling creek surrounded by high grasses and a sloping, rocky bank. “What’s up with wanting to see a moose?”

“What do you mean, what’s up with it?” Emily asks, her face glistening with sweat.

I glance sideways at her. “I mean, you have a personal vendetta against instant soup. Encountering a wild animal that’s roughly the size of a car doesn’t seem like something you’d be thrilled about. I’m just curious, is all.”

“Well, you’d be wrong,” she says, stumbling over a tree root. “I’ll be very thrilled to see a moose. And I do not have a personal vendetta against instant soup. I have a professional one.”

We stop to rest when we reach the creek, sitting down on a fallen log littered with mushrooms sprouting from its cracks. Emily pulls out a canteen of water and a sandwich wrapped in brown paper, and I close my eyes and tilt my face toward the sun, letting its rays warm my skin. Farther down the creek, the rocky bank slopes off, forming a small waterfall, and I take a deep breath and let the sound of the rushing water relax me. I might be the adult equivalent of a little kid playing cowboy, since I have no clue what the hell I’m doing out here, but I forgot how much I enjoy being outside.

“I don’t understand how you do this for a living,” Emily says after a minute, twisting her canteen open.

My heart skips a beat, and I open my eyes quickly. Is my incompetence really that obvious? I know I screwed up on the ferry, but I feel like I’ve been doing a decent acting job since then. At one point, I even licked my finger, held it in the air, and said, Ahh, a nice northeasternly breeze , which seems like something a real ambassador of adventure would say.

“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep my tone neutral.

She sips her water. “I mean, I don’t know how you spend your life carrying fifty pounds of camping gear on your back and sleeping outside like an animal. Not to mention traipsing around in the middle of nowhere. I mean, don’t you get tired? Don’t you get cold? Don’t you wish you were home in your own bed, with access to Netflix and running water?”

“No, I don’t.” It’s the answer a real tour guide would give, but it takes me a second to realize that I actually mean it. Home these days means the dingy apartment where I drink too much and sleep too little, where the shower only gets lukewarm and the laugh track from Lulu’s nightly Everybody Loves Raymond marathon blasts through thin walls covered in yellowed, peeling wallpaper. Being outside in the crisp September air, where I’m surrounded by white spruce and paper birch trees instead of oil-stained pizza boxes and piles of dirty laundry, is a welcome change of pace. Sure, my groin aches from where I strained a muscle jumping onto the boat, and I might have lost the ability to father children, but I feel better here than I have in a long time.

“Well, we’re a different breed, you and me,” Emily says. “All I want right now is to be home in my own bed, with a pie baking in the oven and a cool breeze coming in through the window.” She stares out at the creek, where we see plenty of turtles and dragonflies but not a single moose. “I miss DoorDash and running water. I miss Starbucks. And I really miss my cooling eucalyptus bed sheets.”

She speaks with the forlorn tone of a grizzled veteran describing life before the big war, and I don’t have the heart to remind her that we’ve only been in the wilderness for a few hours.

“If it makes you feel better,” I tell her, “I miss Starbucks, too. I’m in a real Folgers Classic Roast phase of life.”

Never mind that it’s because I’m broke, not because the nearest gourmet coffee shop is on the other side of Lake Superior.

“Can I ask you something?” I say, watching a hawk circle the creek in search of its dinner. “Why are you here?”

She brushes a stray crumb off her bottom lip with her tongue. “What do you mean?”

I shrug. “I don’t get why you came to Isle Royale. I know we just met, and people have layers or whatever, but this doesn’t exactly seem like your cup of tea. Not that it’s any of my business.”

As if to prove my point, she lets out a screech and swats frantically at something on her leg.

“I think it was just a mosquito,” I reassure her, but she shudders anyway.

“Saying a bug is just a mosquito is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer was just a man.”

I stare at her. “Uh, okay. Anyway, I guess what I’m asking is, is this trip kind of a Live, Laugh, Love thing for you?”

“A what?” she asks, wrinkling her nose in confusion.

“You know,” I say, “ Live, Laugh, Love . That movie where Julia Roberts dumps her husband and travels the world to find herself, or whatever.”

Understanding flickers across her features. “Ohhh. You mean Eat, Pray, Love , the memoir written by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read that one.”

The only memoir I’ve read in the last decade was written by a dude who starred on Jackass , and it was literally titled A Hard Kick in the Nuts . I do not mention this to Emily.

“No,” she says, shaking her head as she tears off a piece of her peanut butter sandwich. “This is not me living out my Eat, Pray, Love fantasy. I mean, I did just go through a breakup, but I was the dumpee, not the dumper. And Isle Royale is pretty, but it is not Italy, India, or Bali.”

It takes my brain a second to process the fact that somebody dumped Emily. Sure, she’s the walking definition of a type A personality and could probably find a way to make tissue paper seem dangerous, but she’s also thoughtful enough to pack a life jacket for a total stranger and so nice to look at that it almost hurts to sit this close to her. If I’d met her in my old life, the one I lived before I got the four a.m. call telling me that Caleb was gone, I might have stood a chance of getting her number. Not just because I had a healthy bank account and an expensive haircut and a social life that involved more than sitting on my elderly neighbor’s floral-printed couch while we drink Fresca and she fills me in on the latest bridge club hookup scandals. But because I was a whole person back then, the kind of person people liked. The kind who cared about things and didn’t cry at The Sandlot and would never in a million billion years refer to a woman’s breast as a chesticle.

But that seems like ages ago, because grief years, like dog years, play funny tricks with time.

“Well, I don’t know the circumstances, but I’m sure your ex is an idiot,” I say, meaning it. And I should know, because I’m kind of an idiot myself.

“Thanks,” she says. “He was an anesthesiologist, so he wasn’t an idiot, but he was kind of emotionally detached. It wasn’t the worst breakup I’ve ever had, but it was rough. He broke up with me for a professional dog walker who goes to Burning Man and has a pixie cut.” Her mouth twists like she swallowed a lemon. “I could never do that.”

“What? Anyone can go to Burning Man.”

She looks at me. “I haven’t left the house without an umbrella since third grade. I don’t think I’d thrive at a desert festival where everyone does ketamine and hangs out in an orgy dome.”

“Sorry, did you say ‘orgy dome’?” I ask, my brain zeroing in on that little detail, but my question goes unanswered. Because Emily stiffens suddenly, her whole body going rigid like a dog that spotted a squirrel.

“Hey, did you hear that?” she whispers, her head swiveling from left to right.

I heard nothing after orgy dome , but I don’t tell Emily that. “Hear what?” I ask.

She presses a finger to her lips. “Footsteps, I think. Close behind us.”

I listen for a moment, but all I hear is the buzz of a dragonfly circling nearby.

“It was probably just a bird,” I tell her.

Emily side-eyes me. “Since when do birds have heavy footsteps?”

“Well,” I say, “it could have been a large bird. Like a crane, you know. Or an ostrich.”

Her eyes widen. “Do you hear yourself? There are no ostriches in—”

She freezes, because the sound repeats, and this time, I hear it, too. But it’s not footsteps so much as two thuds followed by the sound of something being dragged across pebbled dirt, and we both spin to glance behind us.

“See?” she whispers, elbowing me. “Footsteps!”

The sound echoes through the towering balsam fir trees that surround us, and I strain to listen.

“It’s not footsteps,” I whisper. “It’s more like a thump, thump, drag. ”

“What the fuck?” she asks, glancing at me fearfully. “A bird doesn’t make a thump, thump, drag sound, Ryder!”

“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t. Actually, it kind of reminds me of this scary story I heard at Boy Scouts when I was a kid. See, there’s this murderer who escapes from an insane asylum, and he breaks into a random house where there’s a babysitter watching some children. And he cuts off the babysitter’s arms and legs, and then she has to sort of thump, thump, draaag herself up the stairs to warn the children—”

Emily looks at me with eyes wide as saucers, and I shut the hell up.

“And then everyone turns out perfectly fine,” I lie, changing the story quickly. “The babysitter gets her limbs successfully reattached at the hospital, and—”

“Ryder,” Emily says, “please stop talking.”

“Right,” I say quickly. “Sorry. But I’m sure whatever’s making that sound is perfectly harmless. Like, a deer or a fox or a wolf dragging its prey.”

“A wolf ?” she repeats in disbelief. “Hell no. We need the bear spray.”

But before she can reach inside her pack to retrieve it, another thump, thump, drag sounds from the other side of the small hill bordering the creek, and we turn in unison as a figure emerges at the top of the hill. It’s not a wolf or a bird, but a man—a man with long gangly limbs, gray disheveled hair, and a scowl that would look right at home on a wanted poster.

“Um, Emily,” I ask, gulping, “are there any insane asylums around here?”

She shushes me, and I watch, startled, as the man moves toward us, dragging some kind of tarp behind him.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “He looks like Scary Gandalf.”

“No, it’s Killface,” Emily whispers, grabbing my hand and curling her fingers around mine.

“I’m sorry, did you just say Killface ?” I whisper back. “You know someone named Killface?!”

She shakes her head. “Yes. No. I mean, that’s not his real name. That’s just what I started calling him in my head when I saw him in the ferry cabin. He was staring at me right before Killian showed up.”

My gut twists at the mention of the snobby archaeologist, but I have a more pressing issue on my hands. Namely, the scowling man in front of us who looks like he’d enjoy nothing more than slicing the arms off a babysitter.

Or two incompetent hikers.

“Let’s get out of here before he sees us,” I whisper, but it’s too late.

The sound of my voice carries in the wind, and the disheveled-looking man glances up suddenly, his beady eyes meeting mine.

“What are you kids doing out here?” he asks, his tone practically a growl.

I stare at him, trying not to imagine exactly what kind of instrument he uses to chop up bodies, until Emily nudges me in the ribs.

“Oh, um, hello, Mr.Killface, sir!” I say, lifting a hand in greeting. When Emily uses her elbow to jab me in the ribs again, I grimace. “I mean, um, hello there, sir. We’re just, uh, out here enjoying all the natural beauty that America’s national parks have to offer. Thanks, Teddy Roosevelt!”

I beam at him, but he continues to scowl at me like his face is stuck that way.

“So, yeah,” I continue, nodding way too many times. “Just, uh, enjoying the great outdoors, you know. How about you? Enjoying a little fresh air?” I crane my neck to peer at the tarp he drags behind him. “What do you have in that, uh, scary-looking tarp there? Camping supplies? Firewood?”

“A mutilated body?” Emily whispers, her hand gripping mine so tightly I can barely feel my fingers.

Killface narrows his eyes at me. “What’s in my tarp is none of your damn business.”

“Oh,” I say, my tone still overly peppy. “Well. Okay, then. Happy trails, sir!”

His scowl deepens. “There’s nothing happy about this trail. You kids shouldn’t be out here.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” I ask, wincing as Emily practically crushes my pointer finger.

He sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose. “There’s a storm brewing. A bad one. I can smell it. You should find shelter now, if you know what’s good for you.”

I have no clue what’s good for me—the fact that I’m on this trip, not to mention my pitiful credit score, proves that—but I sniff the air just in case. All I smell, though, is fresh mud from the creek and a slightly stale odor that may or may not be coming from the decaying body hidden in his tarp. I glance up at the sky, which is the kind of bright, perfect blue you dream about all winter. There’s not a single storm cloud in sight, and as if to prove how crazy Killface is, a robin flits from branch to branch on a nearby birch tree, trilling happily.

“Thanks for the heads-up!” I tell Killface, giving him the same glassy look I give my great-uncle Randy whenever he starts ranting about the deep state in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. “I think we’re good, though.”

“Suit yourselves,” he grumbles, shaking his head like we’re a real pair of idiots. Then he ambles down the hill and past the trail, his tarp making a high-pitched scraping sound as he drags it along behind him.

“Well, that was terrifying,” Emily says, watching until he disappears into the woods.

“Nah, don’t worry about him,” I say, ignoring the shiver that runs down my spine. “He seems harmless enough.”

He actually seems like the kind of person who would kidnap an entire family of hikers, including their droopy-eared dog, but I keep that thought to myself. I can’t afford to let Emily get so rattled that she decides to cut her trip short. I need every dollar I’ll earn from this gig if I want to pay for Caleb’s boat. Besides, I meant what I told her earlier: I don’t wish I were at home, at least not in the sense of what home is now. My true home was my old life, the one with Caleb in it. The lonely studio apartment where I spend my nights drinking alone now, hoping that one more sip will numb the pain, well, that isn’t home. And I’m sure as hell not ready to go back there yet.

“If you say so,” Emily says uneasily, tearing her gaze away from the woods to look at me. Her gray eyes are wide, uncertain, with tiny flecks of white forming a ring around her pupil. “Do you think he’s right about the storm?”

I glance up at the postcard-pretty sky again.

“No,” I say, shaking my head and returning to my spot on the log. “I think he’s full of shit. Because what we’ve got here is a perfect Isle Royale day.”

“Fine.” Emily sighs and sits down beside me, but she’s clearly still shaken, because she sits so close to me that her knee brushes mine. “I hope we see a freaking moose soon.”

I watch as she pulls a bottle of sunscreen out of her bag and begins applying it vigorously, careful not to miss a single inch of exposed skin. She whips out bug spray next, spraying enough of it onto her skin to repel every insect within a three-mile radius. I can’t help but wonder why someone so obviously uncomfortable in nature has decided to spend an entire week in it, and I realize that both questions I asked her earlier— What’s up with wanting to see a moose? and Why are you here? —have gone largely unanswered.

But before I can bring them up again, the single cloud above us darkens suddenly, swelling from a fluffy bundle of white to a menacing gray shadow faster than I can snap my fingers.

“Hey, Ryder,” Emily says, looking toward the sky uncertainly, “are you sure it’s not going to storm?”

I don’t answer her, and she couldn’t hear me if I did. Because with no warning other than the foreboding words of an old man much less idiotic than me, the skies open, unleashing a sudden torrential downpour that soaks my clothes—and hopes—in seconds.

Well, shit.