“Oh, thank Jesus,” Pam says, her voice hitching like she’s on the verge of tears. “We heard you screaming.Wewere scared. We thought … we were afraid …” She lets out a sound that might be a bubble of laughter or a suppressed sob. “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
“Why the hell were you screaming?” Deborah asks.
Just then, a tall figure dashes across the sand from the direction of the guides’ tents. “What’s going on over here?” Josh asks, breathless. “Is everyone okay?”
“I’m fine,” Allie says, sounding embarrassed. “Sometimes I … well, sometimes I have night terrors. I should’ve said something, but they don’t happen very often. Guess I really shouldn’t have brought up Kellen Stroop right before bed …” She trails off sheepishly.
Her words hang in the silence, and I suspect that everyone is thinking what I am: We arenotletting her hijack any more campfire conversations. No more talk of knife attacks and headless bodies in the river.
As irritated as I am, though, my shoulders relax and my heart rate begins to slow.
“Dammit, Allie,” Josh mutters, raking his hands through his beard. He lets out a loud sigh. “It’s okay. I’m just glad everybody’s okay,” he adds in a softer tone, sounding genuinely shaken. “It’s three a.m., so let’s try to get a little more shut-eye, yeah?”
There’s an awkward silence, then murmurs and shuffling as the small crowd disperses back to their respective tents. I start to walk away but hesitate when I see that Allie’s shadow is still cast against her tent wall, her silhouette outlined by the glow of a phone screen or flashlight.
“Hey,” I whisper after a moment. “You going to be okay in there?”
A long pause. Then a soft, “I guess so. I’m so embarrassed.”
I crouch near the now-closed entry flap. “Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s mad,” I add unconvincingly.
“My night terrors aren’t actually about true crime,” she finally replies through the wall. “They started when my second round of in-vitro failed last year.” She trails off.
My throat tightens. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, I’m good,” she says a little too brightly, but I can hear tightness in her throat. “I’m gonna go to sleep now though, okay? Night.”
“Night,” I answer, slowly turning away.
I remind myself to breathe. I remind myself there is no attack, no emergency. Just someone’s personal trauma rearing its head, the way it always does. It was only a baddream. In the morning, we’ll wash it down with some coffee and move on.
But when I return to my sleeping bag, I’m not the least bit tired. Adrenaline still races through my veins, and my legs itch to move. The sleeping pad has deflated a little, leaving me sleeping mostly on the uneven ground, but the idea of trying to inflate it in the dark keeps me where I am. I close my eyes and try to think about anything other than Parker or Kellen Stroop or the pebbles digging into my back, but my brain is fixated on the vivid dream I was having before Allie’s screams woke me. It felt so real—although now that I’m awake, it doesn’t seem realistic at all.
Just neurons firing,the cynical part of my brain—the strongest part—tells me.Just a dream.
“Shut up for once,” I whisper to that cynical voice, rolling onto my side.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut for what feels like forever, until my body lets go and sleep finally starts to pull me under.
I’ve barely dipped under the surface of another dream when I find myself jolting awake, disoriented for a second time.
It isn’t morning yet. The tent and the sky above are as dark as ever. And at first, I can’t figure out what’s disturbed my sleep. There are no screams.
Then I hear it. Careful footfalls creeping past my tent.
With the droning rush of the Devil’s Stairs, I can’thearthe footfalls as much as I can feel the faint vibrations through the sand beneath my deflated mat. Which means they are very, very close.
My whole body tenses as I blink, trying to see beyond the semi-transparent nylon of my shelter. There is only blackness. Who’s still out there, moving around?
After a few more seconds, I can no longer feel the footfalls in the sand, and all other sound is swallowed by theriver. I take a steadying breath, determined to get some rest before morning.
But then, just barely louder than the rolling of the river, comes a new sound.
It’s difficult to tell, but I’m almost certain the noise isn’t coming from the line of tents, but rather the shoreline. There’s the faint squeak of rubber, a soft click, then a muted thud. Is that a branch bumping against one of the rafts?
No, I decide. The sound is too methodical.
I hold my breath to listen.
