Sanders’ grimace twisted into a half scream and then back to a grimace. “Ah, I see what you did there. Trying to push ol’ Sanders’ buttons, eh?”

Ron chuckled.

“Well here’s something you don’t know,” Sanders said. “My father knew Angie’s father. They fought in WWII together. They knew these woods as good as anyone, even as good as me.”

John didn’t doubt that for a second. Sanders spent an inordinate amount of time tooling around Upper Julip and the Hurons.

Angie set a pair of glasses upside down on a rack, leaned down to Ron, and whispered in his ear. Ron’s eyes widened.

“You mind if you take my truck back to the shack?” he asked John.

John looked at his friend twice, then opened his palm for the keys.

Angie gave a quick reverse hug to Ron and went back to the dishes. Then she dimmed the lights over the center bar.

“See you guys soon,” she said. “And Bob, you’re sleeping in your truck.” She held up his keys and jingled them.

Sanders narrowed his eyes. “How in the he-all you get my keys, eh? I told you fellows she was a damn woods nymph! Trickster! Trying to get me to stay here ‘cause she wants me to put a log in the fire.”

Angie flashed a smile, her figure ghostlike in the darkened bar. John stood and helped Sanders through the door and into his massive truck.

“I’ll see you in another life, eh?” Sanders said from behind the driver’s-side window. “God bless the Northwoods.”

John didn’t practice religion, but Sanders’ words, drunken or not, couldn’t have rung more true. He glanced around at his surroundings, at the moon-frosted trees and rippling water. God bless the Northwoods indeed.

Day 2

DAY 2

Matt woke, his eyelids fluttering, matching the pounding of his heart. His stomach churned when the exposed-bone reality of the previous day flashed in his mind. Back in Normal Land, it was the nightmare you woke from, setting it aside like a dirty dish as you rose from bed.

Upon seeing the barricaded eastern window, he was overcome by an immediate urge to run.

Instead he trudged to the southern window, knife in hand. The dead oak seemed to mock him from the edge of the bowl, the sky gray behind it. His truck was as it was before—flipped over and useless. He reached for the door handle, took a deep breath, and unhinged the bolt.

Nothing came to get him.

No noises, no crushing or needle sensations. Just the cold, fresh air and an urgent need to piss. This time though, he didn’t bother to check where he was pissing.

The urine was dark.