Page 2 of Delicious

“Add in that you won’t get eaten,” the man says, after a moment of examining my exaggerated pose. “And I’ll go.”

“I won’t get eaten,” I vow to him soberly. “I might just get run into again when he comes back this way.”

But the man shakes his head at that, his relaxed posture rolling into something more graceful as he shifts his weight and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Nah, we’re not coming back this way. Have a good night, and please don’t get eaten.” His lips twitch, then lift in a delicate smile that fits his face well, and I dip my head in a nod, hands falling to my sides.

“I need, like, three more shots,” I assure him, even as he’s walking past on the trail that will take him in the same direction as the man who’d run into me. The one he’d promised wasn’t his friend, but that he can’t stop looking for in the trees. “I’ll be out of here within the hour.”

My words pull his attention, and the blueness of his eyes could make me drown. “Good,” he tells me. “Things get weird around here after dark.” I want to ask what he means, or if he’s fucking with me, but his strides lengthen and he’s out of earshot before I can do more than open my mouth or figure out what to say.

Chapter

Two

The next time I look up, it’s because my light has disappeared. With surprise, I squint through the trees, having not realized that the sun started to set in earnest some time ago.

“But it hasn’t been that long,” I mutter, dropping my camera so it can hang from the large, sturdy strap around my neck. “It’s only been…” I glance at my phone, wince, and look away.

Okay, it’s been a little longer than an hour. So maybe I’d lied to the guy who’d told me things get weird here after dark. No big deal. I’ll never see him again, and it’s not like the swamp preserve is inherently dangerous as long as I don’t walk off the path into the quicksand.

But I really hadn’t expected to be here this long. I glance from one side of me to the other, measuring the path on both sides as I scan my brain to remember how in the world I got all the way out here. To this spot where the only sound is the rustle of the breeze through the curtain-like trees that bend over the swampy, brackish water.

I’m sure I know the way to get back. And even if I go the wrong way, from the maps I’ve seen, this place is a big loop. Onedirection is just going to take me longer to get back from than the other. But even if I pick the wrong one, the only thing it means is a bit of extra walking.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway. I say it over and over again in my head until it sounds believable and true.

My steps are quick along the path, and the wind shoving into me feels like it’s trying to hurry me along. Ireallyhadn’t meant to stay this long. Even though I know doing so has gotten me some pretty great pictures. Photos that I hope will impress the preserve and make them hire me again, or at least mention me to whoever else the board members know so I can get more work like this.

It would be such a welcome change from weddings and headshots. Hell, if I could stay away from those for the rest of my life, it would be the greatest miracle I’ve ever?—

A largeplop, then a sound like a croak, catches my attention and I whirl to my right, one hand going to my camera on instinct. My heart leaps for only a second, just long enough for my eyes to lock on the two frogs sitting near the edge of a dock, and a rabbit on the ground near them with its nose twitching.

“It’s already dark anyway,” I remind myself, chewing on my lower lip. Hadn’t Ijusttold myself it was time to go? “But it isn’t like a few more pictures are going to make this any worse.” My voice is a whisper as I edge off the path, crouching with my camera raised. The moon’s reflection and last rays of the sun give me the light I need for the pictures, and I lose myself in it.

When the rabbit moves, languidly exploring the side of the dock before heading for a grassier area, I don’t stop to think. I follow it, shuffling along with my camera to try to find any cute or unique pose from the creature in front of me. Surely, if anyone would appreciate some night photography, it would be the Morgan Swamp Preserve. That thought cements my actions and I drown myself in my work once more, following the rabbitas far as it’ll go, even though it takes me deeper into the swamp and, ultimately, off the path itself.

It isn’t until my foot hits a patch of mud and I nearly fall on my ass that I come to my senses again.This is kind of stupid, I tell myself, coming close to flicking myself in the forehead for what I’m doing. I often get carried away with my work, sure… but is heading intoa swampin the dark really the best thing I’ve ever come up with?

No. No, it’s really not.

“I need a better—” A long, loud sound cuts me off, and my hands fumble at my waist, until I have my cell phone in my hands and the light is on to provide me with some reprieve from the darkness. The sound comes again. More inhuman than human, and I blink around in the light from my phone and the darkness of the swamp.

Shit.My hand tightens on my phone, and every shadow seems to crawl toward me with a snake-like presence. “There’s nothing out here except you and the animals. And the swamp. And the alligators,” I mutter, and cram my eyes shut. I definitely don’t need to be thinking about things that’ll eat me right now.

God, hadn’t I just promised some handsome stranger I wouldn’t get eaten in the damn swamp? Hadn’t I also told him I’d be gone before night fell?

“Don’t be a liar twice over,” I sigh to myself, looking at the edge of the water for the alligator I’m sure has materialized there out of nothingness.

But, luckily for me, there’s nothing except the frogs and distant ripples that I’m stubbornly going to attribute to fish or some other small, harmless, animal that lacks the teeth it would need to eat me. Or the jaw size.

Another long, loud wail meets my ears and I freeze where I stand, my grip so tight on my phone that the light on the ground trembles over the sparse stalks and stems of the weeds beneathme. It has to be a deer. An elk. Amoose, even though I’m pretty sure the only local moose in the area belong to the Cincinnati Zoo. But I’ve heard the call of a deer before, and I remember it freaked me out the first time, just like this.

They have absolutely no right to sound so much like humans, but this isn’t the first time they’ve reminded me of someone dying in the wilderness with a knife to the gut. When it comes one more time and then sharply cuts off, I suck in a breath and force my muscles to unclench. I can’t stand here for the rest of the night until my phone battery runs all the way down while praying someone comes to save me.

The image of the blond man from earlier, with his sweet smile and sharp cheekbones, swims through my head and I sigh. Yeah, like he’s going to just appear in khaki shorts with a torch and machete, then lead me out of the swamp like Indiana Jones.

Be realistic, Saylor,I admonish myself with a quick shake of my head. The only person who’s going to get me out of the swamp is me. And I need to do it while I still have a light.

I raise the light in question over my head, and I peer down one path before squinting down the other. In terms of confusion and strangeness, they look identical. I don’t recognize the landmarks on either side, but as I’d told myself already tonight, the path is a giant circle.

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