Heather Thomas

One good thing had come out of this little meeting.

At least we could follow the stream downhill, which would hopefully get us to some kind of familiar territory.

Maybe because my mom had been rattled by the encounter, or maybe it was the sound of the rushing stream, but she finished drinking all her water within the hour.

Of course, she could have used her personal water filter to purify water from the stream, but the thought of getting anywhere near the water that those diseased, disintegrating feet had been in made me want to puke.

Unfortunately, given our late start to the day and our confused wanderings around the mountainside, it became clear we were not going to make it out of the woods before nightfall.

The good thing about getting lost while backpacking is, you have the supplies you need for a reasonably comfortable night's sleep.

Before it got too dark, we found a sandy hollow under some tree roots, a spot that wasn't visible from the stream.

Instead of our bright blue high-roofed tent, we tacked up a couple of brown tarps and a ground cover beneath us.

I thought we would be reasonably well hidden if the sick man came back our way.

My mom broke out containers of self-heating noodles.

Normally, I might have bitched about the amount of microplastics and dodgy chemicals we were consuming, but I didn't say a word as we gobbled down the spicy, salty, piping hot noodles.

After dinner was done, we sort of stared at each other for a minute before I finally spoke.

Hey, we don't have to talk about what happened, I said.

Maybe not ever, but definitely not right now.

I fell asleep fast, even though we'd agreed to keep our hiking boots on overnight, just in case.

It was not much of a surprise when I found myself dreaming about the deranged man.

He was sitting on the edge of a cliff, legs dangling.

I walked over to him, and there was the burnt wreckage of the glass mountain wilderness spread out below us.

He stood and stepped off the edge, but instead of falling, he glided downward, swooping like a flying squirrel.

I remembered what he'd said.