There was a fire. Gwendolyn had built a stone ring, then laid dry wood and kindling in it, demonstrating an understanding of woodsmanship that would have put a troop of Boy Scouts to shame, although she used the lighter from her pack instead of rubbing sticks together to produce the first flame.
The fire was meant to provide comfort, as well as to allow them to heat water to rehydrate their dinners. And its warmth was certainly welcome. Although the day had been uncomfortably hot, once the sun went down the temperature started to plummet, and now it felt like it was close to freezing.
But comfort was the last thing the fire was bringing Gus. Its jumping, flickering light gave their campsite the look of the main set in a slasher movie, and it turned the people sitting around it into malevolent specters. Even Shawn, who sat directly across the campfire from Gus, looked like an evil troll. Savage and Balowsky were on Gus’ left side and Gwendolyn on his right; apparently neither of the other lawyers felt comfortable being too close to her.
They had been sitting like this for what felt like hours, sitting and staring at one another. Waiting for someone else to make a move. To reveal himself as a threat.
Because there was no doubt now that they were all on the killer’s hit list. Balowsky had tried to convince the others-or maybe himself-that Jade’s fatal plunge could have been an accident. After all, he’d pointed out, the trail jagged away from the cliff’s edge at the last possible moment. If Jade had been too tired to pay attention to where she was walking, if she’d even been hiking with her eyes half closed, as he’d found himself doing, she could have marched right off the mountain.
Gus had thought it would have been nice to be able to believe that. But when Shawn looked around the place Jade had fallen, he noticed a small smear of blood on a nearby tree. She’d been hurt before she went over the cliff, and if she had been sleep-hiking, the pain would have woken her up. And there was no way she could have stumbled from the bloodied tree and off the trail.
Shawn didn’t communicate his findings by pointing out the blood. Instead he received a telepathic communication from Jade that came in the form of verse one from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song “Green Heaven.” But none of the other lawyers felt like arguing the point. Two of them accepted that their colleague had been murdered, and the third knew from firsthand experience.
They had spent the rest of the day hiking together in silence. At least they were in silence once Savage had run out of ways to say, “Why didn’t I stay with her? Why did I let her go off on her own?” and Gwendolyn had run out of ways to tell him to shut up.
By the time the sun was disappearing behind the mountain, they’d reached a small meadow split by the river. It had enough flat ground to lay out their sleeping bags, and they could refill their water bottles in the morning. Gwendolyn and Balowsky set out to gather firewood, while Shawn, Gus, and Savage set up the camp and collected the stones for the fire ring.
That was the new rule: No one was allowed to wander off alone. The killer would not be allowed the chance to strike again.
They’d been sitting in front of the fire for what seemed like hours when Gwendolyn started to fidget. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them and crossed them again. Finally she got up and started to move outside the ring of firelight.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Balowsky said.
“Where do you think?” she snapped.
“For all I know you’re going to step behind a tree, whittle sticks into spears, and start picking us off one by one,” Savage said.
“You’ve got the first part right,” Gwendolyn said. “I am going to step behind a tree. But what I do after that is a lot more urgent and a lot more useful than killing any number of you.”
She started towards the forest again. Until a rock thumped into the ground at her feet.
“The next one doesn’t miss,” Savage said. “Do not take another step.”
“Do you want me to pull down my pants right here?” she said. “Because I can’t guarantee my stream isn’t going to run right into the sleeping bags.”
“You can go,” Shawn said. “Just take someone with you.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gwendolyn said with mock brightness. “We gals like to go to the bathroom together, anyway. I’ll just take one of the other girls with me. Which one should I take?”
Savage stared sadly into the fire, either thinking fond thoughts of the girlfriend to whom he never got to say good-bye or wishing he’d murdered the other female lawyer first. After a moment, Balowsky got to his feet. “I’ll go,” he said.
“Like hell you will,” Gwendolyn said.
“He promises not to peek,” Shawn said.
“You’ve got that right,” Balowsky said.
“I’d find that easier to believe if I didn’t have to wash off the slime tracks from his eyeballs every time I wore a low-cut blouse to the office,” Gwendolyn said.
Shawn took a burning stick from the fire and handed it to Balowsky to use as a torch. “It’s this easy,” he said. “Either you take Reggie with you, or you sit there and pee in your pants. I know which I prefer, but we’ll leave the decision up to you.”
She glared at them all, then turned back to the woods. “Come on, then,” she said to Balowsky as she disappeared into the darkness.
Gwendolyn and Balowsky were gone for hours. Or maybe it was seconds. In the darkness Gus couldn’t keep track of time. He was about to propose that the rest of them go out and search for the missing lawyers when the nearest trees were lit by the orange glow from a torch.
Gwendolyn tossed the flaming brand into the fire.
“Where’s Reggie?” Shawn said. His hands closed around a rock as he waited for the answer.
“Maybe he tried to kill me and I had to knock him out in self-defense,” Gwendolyn said. “Or maybe I made him turn his head and then slit his throat with a sharpened twig.”
Around the campfire, everyone stared at her, waiting. Until they heard the sound of legs crashing through underbrush and Balowsky stumbled out of the woods behind her.
“Or maybe his legs are even slower than his mind,” Gwendolyn said, and took her place by the fire.
“I figured as long as I was out there I might as well take care of my own business,” Balowsky said. “So I turned my back on her for one second. And when I turned back, I saw the torch disappearing into the woods.”
“Your prostate problems are your own,” Gwendolyn said. “I was cold.”
“Enough!” Gus shouted.
They all turned to look at him. Shawn looked particularly concerned.
“We can’t keep bickering like this,” Gus said. “We’re just using up all our energy in meaningless backbiting. Meanwhile the killer is plotting how to take us out.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Shawn said. “I mean, unless you or I turn out to be behind it all, then the real killer is using up his energy in meaningless backbiting, too. So it’s not all bad.”
“It’s bad enough,” Gus said.
“It could be worse,” Shawn said.
Now the lawyers all turned to stare at him.
“How?” Gwendolyn asked in a tone that was less a question and more a dagger aimed directly at him.
“We’re all sitting around this fire not knowing which one among us is the person who has been systematically picking us off,” Shawn said. “Now imagine that while we’re sitting here, Reggie’s head falls off his body, grows spider legs, and runs away into the darkness.”
The silence following Shawn’s remark was the quietest Gus had ever heard. Even the fire stopped popping and sparking for a moment.
“Well,” Shawn said cheerily as he stood and stretched, “this is fun, but I’m going to bed. Who wants first watch?”
“I’ll take it,” Gus said. He didn’t think he was going to sleep anyway, not with the image of the monster from The Thing in his mind. And if he did manage to doze off, there was a bigger threat. The dream.
“I’ll stay up, too,” Savage said. “Two people on watch at all times, right?”
“Right,” Shawn said. “You and Gus go first; then in six hours wake Reggie and Gwendolyn.”
“What about you?” Balowsky demanded.
“Can I help it if we have an odd number of potential victims here?” Shawn said. “If the one of you who is trying to kill us had done a better job today, we could divvy up the watches a little more fairly.”
Shawn took the two steps from his seat to his sleeping bag, lay down, and started snoring within seconds. Savage and Gwendolyn followed him to their own beds.
The next few hours passed surprisingly quickly for Gus. If Savage was the killer, he was doing an excellent job of pretending to be terrified. And while Gus envied Shawn just a little bit for his ability to sleep so easily, he was also happy that he hadn’t felt tired since they discovered what had happened to Jade. He knew that the next day’s march was going to be long and hard, and much more so if he didn’t get any sleep tonight. But he liked being awake. He liked being able to see what was going on around the fire-or what wasn’t going on.
When Balowsky’s watch alarm went off and he woke up Gwendolyn and Savage so they could take their turn, Gus relinquished his job without much enthusiasm. He felt so much safer here by the fire. But he went to his sleeping bag and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the sun was breaking over the mountains.
Except as the sun rose, it didn’t seem to give off any light. It shone hot and yellow in the sky, but the campsite stayed dark. Gus sat up in his sleeping bag to ask the others if they saw what he was seeing.
The others were gone.