“Do you think they sell, like, extra-large-rhino strength?” I ask. We look at each other and laugh, and click, I fit a little more, in this night with these people, with Bree, whose humor is a little off, a little black like mine.

This was a real trail system once. The phone flashlight catches an occasional stripe of blaze orange on a tree trunk, left by some Ranger Rick for wholesome hiker types, and there are offshoots everywhere, footpaths through the undergrowth beaten down by use. But there are bags of trash here and there, too, ditched by people who didn’t want to pay for a dump sticker. Bedsprings, wadded paper towels, beer cans scattered through the brush. Sage’s laughter carries back to us, and somebody’s singing, or calling out a rhyme.

The stink is the first sign that we’ve arrived: a dark, sulfurous blossom that brings our hands to our noses. The trees have thinned out, and I catch glimpses of open area, dusky sky. This must be the marsh.

It’s tidal, this place, the water at low ebb, baring acres of muddy flats fringed by more pitch pines and mountain holly, wooded hills in silhouette against the sky. Footpaths wind down the weedy, crumbling embankment all the way to the flats, though I can’t imagine walking down there or why anyone would want to try.

Bree says, “That’s one of the better ones,” pointing up.

Above us, the ledge has turned to granite. A broad slab to our left is marked with hot-pink paint, old, faded by the elements. A three-foot-high anatomical picture of a heart, done with a brush, ventricles spurting fat drops of pink blood. The words beside it read Bury my heart at Mumbler’s marsh.

Bree trains her phone on the embankment as we follow the sloping grade; the light catches more graffiti crisscrossing the rocks, more paintings, a few so good they must be by the same artist who drew the heart. An interpretation of The Scream with green pot leaves where the figure’s eyes should be; a jack-o’-lantern with a mouthful of vicious teeth and a rat lifting the lid by the stem, revealing a glimpse of a human brain inside. I want a closer look—but not badly enough to fall behind.

Everyone’s gathered up ahead, multiple phones glowing in a vigil.

Kincaid leans against the rock. He doesn’t hold a phone, so his face is lost, only a glimpse of his hair and the sinew of his neck visible as he inclines his head. “Here.”

Everyone trains their phone on the rock face. What at first looked like a broad, shadowed crevice flattens, revealing a mural taller than any of us, maybe twelve feet high, black paint spread into a hulking silhouette.