Mason
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
There was something there, a stick, maybe two feet long, planted upright in the mud.
At the top of the stick was a small bundle wrapped in wet cloth."
Mason leaned down carefully and used the tip of his trekking pole to nudge it.
The cloth fell open.
Inside was a piece of jerky.
Not ours.
Not in our packaging.
Just a strip of meat, wet from rain, placed there like an offering or a joke.
Mason's face was tight.
"'He's right here,' he said.
I looked around, trying to see movement in the darkness beyond our little ring of head-lampless shapes."
The trees were black columns.
The rain hissed.
I couldn't see anyone.
But I felt, with sick certainty, that we were not alone.
We packed in the dark.
We left the jerky where it was.
We started walking again before dawn, stumbling over roots, desperate to reach any place that felt less controlled.
By the third day of this, we weren't hiking anymore.
We were fleeing.