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Martin to sign the divorce papers. But he hadn’t yet. They arrived yesterday, but instead of getting it over with he chose instead to ignore them, and her.
    Sara knew their marriage was over. Once communication failed, so did intimacy. But she still entertained the fantasy of miraculously patching things up over campfire stories and sleeping bag snuggling.
    That fantasy faded when Martin pulled this stunt and disappeared into the woods. This trip could have been their chance to really connect, to talk it out, to mend. Instead, she was crawling around on all fours, sorry she ever met the guy.
    Scratch that. She could never think that way about Martin. They might not be able to live together any more, but the love was still there. Sara knew the love would always be there.
    But right now, she wanted to stab the jerk in the eye. Figuratively, of course.
    “ Sara? Where you at?”
    “ I’m here.”
    “ You sound far.”
    “ I’m only a few yards away, Laneesha. The flashlight has to be close. Shit!”
    “ What? Sara, you okay? Sara!”
    “ I caught a nail on something. Damn, I think I broke it off.”
    The pain surged, sharp and hot. Sara parted her lips reflexively, ready to suck her injury. She stopped before her hand reached her mouth, a horrible stench wafting up from the ground. It blanketed her tongue and invaded her nostrils, rank and vile and forcing her to gag.
    The unmistakable smell of rot.
    “ Sara? You okay?”
    “ I’m fine.” Sara coughed, spat. The odor brought back memories of her college years, coming back to her dorm after Christmas break to find her goldfish belly-up in the aquarium. When she lifted up the tank cover, the smell of decay was so bad she gagged and spit up.
    That was just from a tiny little fish. This stench was coming from something much bigger.
    Sara backed away, and her other hand locked onto a large branch. She gripped it, instinct telling her a weapon would be good. She yanked, but it was wedged in the dirt.
    The smell got worse, so bad it was like being immersed in spoiled milk. Sara could feel it in her eyes, her hair, all over her skin and on her clothes.
    Another tug and the branch broke free from the ground, her fingers clenching it tight.
    And then the same instinct that made her grab it told her to throw it away. But Sara was too frightened to open her hand.
    The smell was coming from the branch. Because it wasn’t a branch at all.
    It was a bone.
     
    They waited. They watched. They had the man, but they didn’t kill him. Not yet. First they needed to know if the group had weapons. They were many, but they knew that many were no match for guns.
    The man moaned. It made their stomachs rumble.
    Still they waited.
    Not far away, they heard sounds. The woman and the girl, talking to each other. They sounded frightened.
    They would be even more frightened, very soon.
    They poked the man, made him moan even loader.
    He was the bait. He would bring the woman and the girl closer.
    And then they would attack.
    And then they would eat.
     
    When Tyrone was a little boy, he wanted to be a cop. But not a cop like the cops in his neighborhood. Everyone hated those cops. They hassled kids, and never came fast enough when they were needed, and everyone called them pigs and 5-0 and they got no respect at all.
    Tyrone wanted to be a cop like the cops on TV. He watched a lot of TV, on account he stayed in a lot. The neighborhood where he grew up had a bad element , his moms always said.
    “ Being poor don’t make people bad,” she would tell him. “But it makes some people desperate.”
    He didn’t get to play outside very much, because desperate people might try to hurt him, so TV became his best playmate. His favorites were the cop shows. The cops on those shows, they got respect. They actually helped people, and people liked them, and no one on TV had to live in a house with bars on the windows like Tyrone did so the bad element couldn’t break in and steal his stuff.
    When he