Now there was this terrible scream that made her chest tighten, heart pushed all the way up into her throat.

And Nate was sleeping through it. Typical.

She gave him a hard shove.

“Nate!” she whisper-yelled, trying to control her breathing, to not sound totally panic-stricken. “Nate, did you hear that?”

She sat up, bumping her head on the ridiculous shelf on the wall above the bed in the tiny bedroom of the trailer. The bedroom was wide enough only for a double bed. No closet, so there were shelves everywhere. Making the bed was a nearly impossible feat involving acts of contortion Helen hadn’t imagined herself capable of.

“Hear what?” Nate asked, rolling from his side to his back.

“It was a scream. An awful scream.”

He sat up, bumped his own head on the shelf, mumbled, “Shit!”

They were going to have to do something about the shelves before one of them concussed themselves or split open their head and needed stitches. The nearest hospital was forty-five minutes away. She tried not to think too hard about that when imagining all the work they were about to do: how easy it would be to slip with a saw blade, to topple off the top of a ladder set up on unlevel ground.

Nate reached up now, fumbled around on the shelf until he found the lamp, and turned it on. The little room came to life in a lightning-like explosion of brightness. Helen blinked, turned away.

“Turn it off!” Helen ordered.

“What? Why?”

“Because,” she said in her best are you an idiot or what? tone, “whatever’s out there will know we’re in here.”

She realized how foolish she sounded. Her fear was getting the better of her.

He gave her a really, Helen? look and left the light on, reached for his glasses. During the day, he wore contacts, but they were now soaking in their little plastic holder by the tiny bathroom sink.

“Helen, what you heard, it was only an animal,” he said in his most soothing voice.

“An animal screaming? It sounded like someone being fucking gutted, Nate.” If he’d heard the noise, there was no way he’d be this calm.

He put a comforting hand on her arm. “Probably a fox. A fisher, maybe. They make horrible screaming sounds.”

“That’s not what this was.”

“I’ll find an audio file online and play it for you in the morning,” Nate said. “You’ll see.”

Off in the distance, an owl called, seemed to say Who cooks for you? over and over.

“That’s a barred owl,” Nate said, excited. “Is that what you heard?”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “No, Mr. Science. That’s an owl. I know what a damn owl sounds like! What I heard was something or someone being tortured.”

“I bet it was a fisher. I’ve never heard one, but from what I understand, it’s a terrifying cry.”