I walk on around a pine tree, wet lower branches soaking my face, the needles dragging across my cheek like hundreds of microscopic fingers. I find myself in a small clearing. A fire smokes and spits at its centre. Six men sit at a picnic table, three on each side. Four hunt dogs underneath it, gnawing on bloodied bones.

‘Well, look who showed up,’ says a deep voice I recognise.

I step over to them, relieved they’re still here but I’m on my guard. Six men and me. Four dogs and me. Six rifles against my stungun. Six proven killers and one dumb-ass reporter.

‘Hej,’ I say.

All six men just look at me and chew.

The fire crackles and flares. There’s a big cow elk strung up behind them, its bloodstained legs tied with blue rope, the rope looped over a branch, the bulk of it heaved up. When the wind catches the carcass, the branch squeaks with the strain.

They continue staring at me. Swallowing. One man drinks from his beer can.

The elk’s guts lie on the ground along with its fur and its head and its hooves. The guts are pale blue and they look like sacks of fluid and strings of pale sausages. They are steaming.

‘Liver,’ says a man with a full, red beard. ‘Warm moose liver. You want some, girl?’

The other five grin at that.

I stand up straighter. ‘Got any bear meat, old man?’

One guy whistles and the rest just laugh and pat the red-beard dude on the back like she got you, she got you real good.

Sven Edlund walks over to me.

‘Why are you out here? This is private. We’re eating.’

‘I heard multiple elk skulls have gone missing.’

He shakes his head.

‘Probably just wild game. They take the heads sometimes, drag them away into the deep brush.’

But he doesn’t look convinced by his own words.

I address the other five.

‘You know who or what would take elk skulls from the forest? Skulls with no antlers?’

‘Could be Little Bo Peep,’ says one man.

‘Could be Little Red Riding Hood,’ says another, biting into a shiny slice of fresh liver.

‘Go back to the big city,’ says the red-beard guy. ‘These woods ain’t for your type.’

The biggest guy on the table throws a stringy piece of liver down by his boots and his dog swallows it whole. The dog has some kind of GPS tracker device tethered to its collar.

Another guy says something but he’s got an overgrown handlebar moustache and he’s eating so I can’t make out the words.

‘I’m deaf,’ I say. ‘What did you say?’

The man takes off his orange hunt cap and he’s bald underneath. He says, ‘I…I didn’t know you was deaf. Don’t think none of us did. I’ll pray for you.’

Where the fuck do I begin.