text: [Themes: modern]
  
  "What do you say, Al?" Gordy says, still between you and your truck. "Do you mind if Charlei and I take the F150 for a test drive?"
  
  You look to Charlei behind you, and then back to Gordy. They are both glaring at you intensely, as if waiting for your slightest move. Neither one appears physically threatening, but you'd rather not be found guilty of underestimating their capabilities. Yes, this is still some kind depraved game, but you suspect the stakes may be a little too high for comfort.
  
  "No— No, I don't mind," you say.
  
  "That's the spirit!" Gordy says. "I wish there were more people in the world like you."
  
  It feels like defeat, like capitulation, but the goal here is to keep in the game long enough to play a second round. Whether that will be tonight, or some other time, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, it requires all of your control not to react when Gordy climbs into the cab of your truck and sits behind the wheel. With the dome light glowing above him, he looks almost like a child out of his league, about to learn he is no match for a V6 engine.
  
  "Gordy, should I go back up to the cabin and get our things?" Charlei asks.
  
  "Is there anything that's really all that important?"
  
  "No, I guess not...."
  
  "Then let's not waste any more time," he says. "The longer we linger here, the more I worry our friend Al here might start getting ideas. And that wouldn't end well for him."
  
  "All right," Charlei responds.
  
  "Before you do, though, can you do me a favor, babe? Turn off that Dodge and take the keys."
  
  Crap. You had been hoping they would overlook that detail. But Charlei dutifully does as asked, and the truck that you had "jumped" goes silent.
  
  "Now, Al, I just want to say that you're an upstanding citizen," Gordy says as his wife climbs up into the passenger seat. He is now sitting in your seat, the window rolled down. "You have no idea how many people would put up a fight to protect what's theirs. That's the problem with this world: too many people focused on material gain. Not you, though. I like that in a man."
  
  Everything about him fills you with rage. Standing in the rain, however, makes you feel ridiculous. He rolls the window up and then gives you a nod before turning his attention to the dashboard in front of him. Charlei points to where the shifter is located, and a moment later the truck lurches backward before coming to an abrupt halt. When next he steers the truck forward, he does so with less power, and a moment later the F150 is driving away without you down the long driveway.
  
  So, there you are, standing in the driving rain. Even your underwear is soaking wet. You feel very shaken by this whole episode, as if it were a near-death experience with a razor-thin margin. The night is dark and nasty, and the nearest phones are many miles away; without your truck, it would probably take at least four hours to hoof it back to Griffin. This means your options are few, and none of them seem especially restorative.
  
  In fact, you can think of only two immediate courses of action: take shelter from the storm here at the Coopers' A-frame and see what else Gordy and Charlei might have done, or walk the half-mile back down the road to the warmth of your own cabin.
  
  > go back.
  If you have to be stranded anywhere out here, you would prefer to be in your own familiar space; your truck may have been stolen from you, but at least you still have the Bear's Den. It's half a mile down the road, so it will be a long walk given the conditions. Your clothes are already soaked straight through, so there is no point in trying to be delicate. There are dry clothes back at camp.
  
  Turning your back on the A-frame, and in no mood right now to see what might be waiting inside, you set off down the driveway. There is no way to keep the rain from being blown into your face, unless you walk with your head turned to the left. This solves one problem, but then you nearly trip over a large branch. An impulse comes over you to kick the thing and scream at it, but that urge would be more satisfying if it were Gordy lying there on the ground.
  
  When you reach the road, the tire tracks left by the F150 are like parallel canals carved into the soupy gravel surface. They tell you that the people who just ran off with your truck made a left turn, in the direction of both the Bear's Den and Griffin. You assume they must be going to the latter place, to town, and getting out of here. Would that you had done the same thing when you had the chance this afternoon!
  
  The insides of your shoes feel like miniature tubs in which your feet are sloshing around. At least now the wind is at your back, but you're sick of this nonsense, sick of the ignominy of being forced to trudge your way back through the storm. The more you ponder the situation, the less you like it — the more you dislike the people who did this to you.
  
  So you begin to jog, to get this over with as soon as possible. But to your dismay, the rhythm of your splashing footsteps brings to mind a certain song:
  
  I'm ahead, I'm a man
  
  I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah!
  
  I'm at peace with my lust
  
  I can kill 'cause in god I trust, yeah!
  
  It's quite possible that the Goodcheer-Fellows have spoiled that song for you.
  
  Minutes later you round the bend in the road and begin the approach your own driveway, the one with the crabgrass over the gravelly soil and the cut-up sections of the dead balsam tree. You can already see the faint glow of the kerosene lantern still burning in the window — the same light that apparently attracted Gordy and Charlei a short time ago, or so they claimed. Now what the hell were they really doing out here? At first you had taken their story at face value and assumed they had been stranded in the rain. Based on what happened at the A-frame, however, the evidence almost suggests they were intentionally seeking you out.
  
  The sight of headlights bouncing through the swaying trees ahead of you brings you to a stop. Another truck is coming up the road. Is it someone from town coming to check on you? Perhaps word of what has happened here has already gotten out?
  
  You begin running again, this time toward the truck, swinging your arms back and forth above you in a flagging motion to catch the attention of the driver. Both you and the truck meet each other just in front of the Bear's Den, but then you recognize your own license plate affixed to the front bumper.
  
  The passenger-side door opens and Charlei jumps to the ground as Gordy revs the engine.
  
  "Al, we need to get out of here!" She seems frantic as she runs to you and grabs your hand. "Gordy's gone insane! I think he means to kill us both!"
  
  Before you know what's going on, Charlei is pulling you into the woods beside the road. Gordy must be watching from the driver's seat, because you can hear him screaming after you. "Charlei, you bitch! I knew I couldn't trust you!"
  
  You yank your hand free. "What the hell is going on?" you yell.
  
  "Al, this is no time!" Charlei implores, her face just a ghostly shadow in the distant periphery of the headlights' glow. "You probably didn't notice, but he's been hiding a gun under his vest all night long. We need to get out of here!"
  
  As if to prove her point, Gordy steps down from the Ford and fires a shot into the trees. As far as you can tell, it comes nowhere near you.
  
  "Charlei, when I get my hands on you! You've betrayed me for the last time!"
  
  He certainly sounds sincere, and indeed when they first appeared in the Bear's Den earlier you sensed some tension between the two. But this display now is off the charts, as if his own wildness has caught up with that of the storm. Did something trigger this rage since you last saw him a few minutes ago in the Coopers' driveway, or is this another one of their acts?
  
  Charlei, for her part, looks shaken. "Al! This is no time to panic on me. I know a place where we can hide!"
  
  She does? How would she know these woods that well, and where could this hideout of hers possibly be?
  
  > confront Gordy and put an end to this game.
  "No!" you shout, hoping that both actors can hear you. "You two twits have been jerking me around all night. We're ending this here!"
  
  You pull away from Charlei and turn towards her husband, who appears as a silhouette in the rain beside the glow of the Ford's lights. As if to confirm the source of the shot you heard a moment ago, he does seem to be pointing a handgun of some kind in your direction — and the sight does give you a moment's pause.
  
  "Al, no, are you insane?" Charlei implores. "He'll kill us both!"
  
  "Why?" you say, looking back towards her. "What have I done to either of you?"
  
  But in truth, it is becoming increasingly difficult to carry on a conversation in these conditions. Not only is the wind itself loud, manifested here in the sound of tree branches clacking against each other and snapping apart, but it seems to be building up strength. It is literally breathtaking, and you assume these "companions" you have accrued tonight must be experiencing the same phenomenon.
  
  Of course, seeing Gordy pointing his gun at you dampens your bravery a bit, even if following his wife deeper into the storm isn't the least bit tempting.
  
  "That's it! Come a little closer!" Gordy is trying to say, but you can tell he is having difficulty maintaining his balance against the wind. His words are garbled by the time they reach your ears; you put them together based on the context of the situation.
  
  And then you get an unexpected boost from Bob himself: a big branch that must have been hanging over the road comes down in the wind, grazing Gordy but apparently knocking the gun out of his hands.
  
  "Shit!" you hear him yell clearly enough. It's your signal to run.
  
  But where?
  
  > Into the dark woods, where these idiots can't find you.
  Not only is the weather wild tonight, but so are the people you are sharing it with. These are people whose motives and methods are beyond your comprehension, but you have figured out enough to know that they are as deadly as they say they are. You have nothing to gain by playing their own games with them, and everything to lose.
  
  And so with that calculation in mind, you choose not to follow or approach either spouse. Instead, you run into the night.
  
  "So much for that clever plan of yours!"
  
  "How was I suppose to know Al is so full of surprises!"
  
  Those are the last words you hear from the Goodcheer-Fellows before the storm (and your own breathing) drown out all other sounds. The headlights of your truck are spraying light up the road, in the direction of the state trailhead, as well as laterally into the woods. It would be smarter to run directly into the darkness, but instead your legs insist on the light. Your shadow stretches before you as you sprint through the wiry branches of the beech trees.
  
  What you need is a place where you can take cover, because once you run out of the reach of the headlights you'll be in almost complete darkness. A big rock or log would do nicely, but of course no such things appear when you most need them.
  
  Then the shadows begin to move. Turning, you see the truck itself is slowly rolling up the road, probably as Gordy and Charlei search for you from inside. You only managed to put a couple hundred feet of separation between you, which they are now about to close in a matter of seconds — making you wish you had run at more of an angle from the road.
  
  Will they be able to see you? Fortunately, you never customized the F150 with floodlights or any such nonsense. The headlights merely point in one direction, straight ahead, and the spillover into the woods where you are is imperfect, shadowy. Perhaps if you stand still, against one of the larger beech trees, you will appear as just another one of those shadows.
  
  But then Gordy points the truck off the road, and by some serendipitous chance the headlights meet you right in the eyes, like a wayward dog homing in on the person who feeds him supper every night. You've been singled out, the lone man running for his life among the trees.
  
  You expect another shot to be fired your way, but Gordy must be guessing there is too much underbrush in the way for a clean shot. Instead, he backs the truck onto the road again and speeds ahead, gunning the V6 so loudly that you can hear it over the storm.
  
  Of course you continue into the woods, groping your way in the sudden darkness. But a moment later you come to a clearing of some sort with water streaming over a gravel surface. It's not a stream, because you would've tripped over the bank and fallen into the water. This is a second road of some kind, smaller and rougher than even the main camp road.
  
  However, it is not a place you have to yourself for very long, for as you try to catch your breath the F150's headlights appear once more, the twin moons punching through the trees like parallel searchlights. When you hear the engine revving, you realize to your dismay that Gordy must have found the start of this road and theorized (correctly) that it leads straight to you.
  
  What on earth can you do now? As the truck nears, you get a better look at the road. It is a simple two-rut track with a ribbon of grass growing down the middle. You recognize this place: it's the driveway to the "party spot," an empty lot where a trailer had once been parked beside the Honnedaga. The land is posted now by someone in Glens Falls, but local kids from Griffin have figured out the place is uninhabited; they've trashed it a few times in recent years, when none of the nearby camp owners have been around.
  
  Now, Gordy is barreling down this little road at you in your own truck. But you can see that he is not going to be able to reach you: a large hemlock tree has fallen across the track, taking with it several smaller trees, and there is no way the truck is going to be able to drive around it.
  
  The party spot is just a short distance behind you, barely visible in the advancing glow of the headlights; the inky black void beyond must be the river, the roar of its swollen flow giving the wind a run for its money.
  
  Since Gordy and Charlei haven't yet discovered the fallen trees, you still have time to seek cover. If the party spot is still in the same condition you remember it being, there will be plenty of cover down there.
  
  > Next page.
  You watch from your position behind a stack of rotting firewood as the truck's headlights reach the top of the hill and them come to a stop at the hemlock tree. Between the river and the wind, there is no way to hear the conversation the Goodcheer-Fellows are having between themselves. But chances are, the discovery of a natural barricade is provoking a discussion up there.
  
  Therefore you watch the hill for the inevitable signs of movement. You have no idea what you've done to deserve this, but nevertheless it's clear that Gordy and Charlei have made you their "project" for the night. None of it makes sense; if what they wanted was your truck, like a couple of backwoods car thieves, then they already had it. And yet they returned, as if it were more important to them to play games with you. Whatever internal logic they are following, it defies your understanding.
  
  On the other hand, a predictable pattern is developing in their behavior, because here they both come down the hill toward the old campsite.
  
  The slope descends maybe a hundred and fifty feet down to the side of the river, with two side-slopes funneling water down the last section of the old driveway. They must have left the truck running up above because the two headlight beams are still illuminating the forest; your two pursuers are mere shadows, carefully descending the washed-out driveway as if worried about slipping into the stream. Perhaps they glimpsed you coming down this way, because they didn't hesitate to follow.
  
  But do they see you now? So far, it doesn't seem that way. The pair is scanning the old campsite, perhaps figuring out that there are any number of places for someone to hide down here: the dilapidated outhouse, an old Studebaker station wagon rusting by itself off in the bushes, the stack of firewood, a pile of wood pallets someone must have been stockpiling for a redneck bonfire. In the midst of all this there used to be a run-down camper that someone parked here on a permanent basis, but that got swept away in a flood about eight years ago. Tonight is not the first night the Honnedaga River has overrun its banks.
  
  If only you could hear what they're saying. For the first time tonight when that would be useful information, nature is drowning them out. The river is particularly loud, as if you were standing next to Niagara Falls; it is raging in the darkness, like a North Woods Kraken turned loose by its boreal god, out-thundering the storm in its ferocity. You can't really see it, though, other than the exploratory fringes of its flood waters, which are already lapping a third of the way through the campsite, maybe six feet higher than their normal springtime high-water mark.
  
  Gordy and Charlei are apparently deciding to split up, and it gives you tremendous satisfaction to see that Gordy is the one moving in your direction. You feel out the split wood in front of you, identifying a round piece of birch that still feels solid and heavy. You'd need two hands to grip it tightly, but you feel up to the challenge. The problem is it's only two feet long, meaning he'd have to come practically within arm's reach before you could do anything to stop him.
  
  That's when you feel the stack of scrap lumber to your right, and in particular the four-foot-long two-by-four that is just begging for you to pick it up. It has the heft of a baseball bat, almost, with the added bonus of some old wood screws protruding out of one end. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire never had it so good.
  
  Gordy is zeroing in on the wood pile, so apparently this is everyone's first choice in obvious hiding spots. You can only assume he still has that handgun of his, so things will work better for you if he never sees you coming. That should be easy to pull off; with the only source of light being the truck parked about a hundred yards away, everything here is either illuminated dimly or obscured by the darkest shadow. Your spot behind the stack of wood is one of the latter.
  
  You watch as he approaches the stack almost with eagerness, as if he knows that you're here. Crouching down all the way into the shadow, you grip the two-by-four, waiting for the right moment to use it. He appears above you, and in fact he is looking right at you. But he let's out a non-audible Hmmph when he sees nothing. Then he turns away, as if giving up on this hiding spot and moving on to the next.
  
  > Next page.
  It's a children's game you are all playing, but with adult toys. Having a good idea what he would do to you if given the chance, you rise from the shadows and come at him from behind. The gun is now plainly visible in his right hand, so that is what you strike.
  
  No one has any problem hearing his scream as he recoils in one direction, his punctured hand held tenderly before him, while the pistol spins off in the other. You see Charlei running toward you out of the corner of your eye, so the first thing you do is locate the gun — it looks like a runty little snub-nose in the dim light — and step on it. With both of the Goodcheer-Fellows watching, you kick the thing into the river.
  
  "You two are insane!" you scream over the roar of the river. You want to go on: There is no need for any of this. What have I ever done to either of you? You had my truck, so why the need to come back and hunt me down like an animal? All of these are pressing questions, but the setting is too loud to be holding a complicated discussion. As they say, actions now speak louder than words.
  
  Charlei has stopped about fifty feet away, as if watching to see what you and her husband are about to do. Gordy has a nasty wound in the back of his hand, the blood streaming down his wrist and under his sleeve in the rain. He mouths something — an F-bomb, you think — reminding you of his grouchy mood when he first appeared; once more, it is as if life has dealt him an adversity for which he isn't prepared. You know better than to underestimate him, though.
  
  He lunges at you, as though prepared to strangle you with his bleeding hand. For someone with such a pathetic physical bearing, he is quick and full of wiry strength. You are on the ground before you can swing the broken piece of lumber one more time, and it is the next object to get tossed aside as the two of you struggle. He has you pinned down good, so the best you can do is roll over onto your side. Gordy rolls with you, and the next thing you know you are both rolling into the Honnedaga River.
  
  It seems like a mild annoyance at first, not a deadly predicament; you were already soaking wet from the storm, so falling up to your waist in the backwaters of the river isn't a major development. But then you both slip over the submerged bank into the deeper water, the bottom now out of reach of your feet. Even if you could stand here it wouldn't matter, as you can feel the current tugging irresistibly at your lower body. You grab the nearest tree, which is itself standing in the flood, and watch as Gordy does the same.
  
  His wife appears at the water's edge, extending out a broken tree branch to him like a lifeline. It's a rescue attempt that might work, if Gordy grabbed hold of the limb like a sensible fellow and she had the strength to pull him against the current. Instead, he regards the branch for a moment as if considering its alternate uses, and then looks up to her. There is a strange moment when they are looking into each other's eyes, she up to her ankles in the water as she tries to reach her husband, he bobbing in it up to his chin. Neither says anything, since it would be difficult to hear the words anyway. But whatever course of action they are contemplating, Charlei nods her assent.
  
  And then the weirdness reaches its climax: Gordy grabs the offered limb, and then gives it a good tug. Charlei tumbles headlong into the Honnedaga River with her husband, and the last you see of them before they are swept off into the inky void are their two heads just above the water, a pair of pale spots in the shadows of the night, holding each other as if in a romantic dance.
  
  An instant later they are gone, as if swept away by the same storm that delivered them to your door an hour or so ago.
  
  This leaves you, alone, clinging to the base of a tree for your own life. Your truck is waiting for you up the hill, and so too is the Bear's Den just over half a mile away. All you have to do is work out a way to haul your carcass back onto solid ground, and it will be like having a free pass to return to your grandfather's seat beside the barrel stove. Like the Goodcheer-Fellows never came, like all of this have been the fevered imaginings of an overactive mind. Like you might wake up any moment now, only to discover you had been passed out in the chair, the fire having gone cold inside the old barrel.
  
  Except that the water is too cold, the current too forceful. You pull your body closer to the tree with the last of your strength, and then kick you legs out of the river. With one final, feeble lunge you lurch back into the old campsite, like a Paleozoic beast learning to walk with its fins for the first time in its life.
  
  You roll onto your back, wishing you could lie here peacefully and take a nap, but the rain pelting your face makes that impossible. What are you doing here, anyway? A moment ago you were fighting for your life, and then improbably your two assailants simply allowed themselves to be carried away by the river. None of it adds up, none of it makes logical sense. People do not behave in that manner! At least, none of the ones you've met previously.
  
  The events of the last hour have all the makings of an hallucinatory dream, something you must have been imagining in a feverish sleep. It can't be alcohol-induced, because all you had to drink were a few beers, nothing nearly that potent.
  
  On the other hand, here you at the "party spot," not passed out on the floor of your cabin. The rain, the mud, the roaring river beside you — these are all physical realities which cannot be denied, even if you would prefer to believe the Goodcheer-Fellows never happened.
  
  You stand yourself up, pausing to let the rain wash off the mud before making the first steps back toward your truck, the Bear's Den, and something vaguely resembling normalcy. And as you do, something cruches beneath your foot. A broken bottle? Stooping down, you do indeed see fractured glass — but not from a bottle.
  
  Picking the object up, it takes you a moment to recognize the mangled remains of Gordy's glasses. You stuff them in your pocket, physical evidence that you have not gone mad.