Chapter 2
Stevie
When I barge through the diner doors fifteen minutes later, I’m already shouting. “What have I been saying for years?” I hold up my phone, with the evidence on the screen at full brightness. “It’s out there, and this time I have proof.” My triumphant cackle fills the nearly empty diner.
Oh. My friends aren’t even here. Dang. And I planned that little speech and everything.
Lola grins from behind the counter, where she’s rolling silverware into napkins. Her nineties perm is extra poofy tonight. She must’ve had a hectic day. “They went to find you.”
“What? Why?”
“Marlow was worried about you.” She tosses a bundle of silverware onto her pile. “They left only a few minutes ago.”
“Where did they go?”
“They said something about the preserve.” She shrugs. “Isn’t that where you usually go?”
I tip my face to the ceiling with a groan. “Yes, dang it.” I’m already pushing back through the glass doors. “Thanks, Lo.”
She smiles. “You bet.”
This is fine. It gives me more time to fine-tune my victory speech.
Fifteen minutes later I pull into the same parking spot near the woods, only now it’s fully dark. Diana’s car is here, so my friends are around somewhere. They can’t have gone too far. Luckily, I’m still wearing my boots and a layer of bug repellent.
I’m guessing they took the main trail—that’s the one everyone uses, so they likely assumed I did, too. I move that direction through the thick trees. I could use the flashlight on my phone, but instead I let my eyes adjust to the moonlight. I’ll see better that way.
“Marlow?” I whisper-shout. “Di?”
I’ve walked this trail at night many times, but I’m having a hard time picturing my friends wandering through the forest in the dark.
It’s spooky if you’re not used to it. And I just saw .
. . something in here. I don’t want to startle him.
Or her. I guess it could be female. Either way, my personal belief is that if they exist, they obviously want to be left alone.
And they’re probably like any other primate—dangerously strong and unpredictable if they’re caught off guard. I don’t want to do that.
I still can’t believe I saw one. I’m giddy to tell my friends about this sighting and show them the evidence.
They’ve teased me for years about my firm belief that something lives in these trees.
But my brothers and I spent every summer growing up combing the ground for tracks and listening for knocks, our pockets full of apples to share.
They’re the reason that even as an adult I keep an eye out—a nostalgic habit that ended up paying off.
My brothers are going to straight up die when they see these pictures.
I need to send them to the family group chat.
“Ike!” I hiss. “August! Are you guys out here?”
Something rustles in the shrubs to my left, but that’s it. No sign of my friends. I swipe open my phone as I walk, dialing Marlow. I tried calling her on the way here, but it went straight to voicemail. This time it only rings once before she picks up.
“Stevie!” She says my name like a gasp. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
I step over the same tree root that I crossed earlier when we were on the phone. “I’m more than okay,” I murmur, keeping my voice low. “I saw one.”
“One what?” She doesn’t wait for my answer. “It’s her. She’s okay,” she says away from the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the preserve. I saw Diana’s car.” I step around another tree. “Where are you guys?”
A looming figure steps out of the trees onto the path barely three feet in front of me.
With a short, piercing scream—muffled quickly by the thick woods—I hurl my phone at the tall shape.
The figure holds its hand over its face, moaning and muttering, but his fingers smother the words.
Oh, phew. It’s just a man. I suck in a relieved breath, pressing my hand to my chest.
Oh, no. It’s a man. My heart thumps.
He’s a stranger in the woods at night. What business does this random man have in the forest at night?
It can’t be wholesome. And he’s almost a foot taller than me, we’re alone, and he has my phone.
It's by his feet, anyway. I step backward, but something catches my heel. Then something snags my other heel, and I’m falling.
I grapple for something to steady myself, but my hands only meet air, and I land on my backside.
My head snaps back, hitting the ground hard. Then the world goes black.
“Carrot Cake.” A man’s voice finds me in the darkness, then there’s a hand on my arm. “Carrot Cake,” he says again, his voice urgent. “Wake up.”
I can’t seem to open my eyes. Why is this random person calling me Carrot Cake? My name is Stevie, and my head hurts. I just want to sleep.
“What are you doing out here at night?” the voice mutters, jostling my arm. He has a deep voice. It’s rough and raw, like it’s hardly been used. “Come on, wake up.” He’s panicky now. “Wake up, Carrot Cake.”
No, thanks. I need a nap. I let myself sink back into sleep.
The next time my mind stirs close to consciousness, I’m drifting in the air.
I’m floating, but nestled against something hard.
My ear is pressed against warm skin. It has a hammering pulse.
I’m being carried, I realize, by a naked man.
The man from the woods is taking me back to his kidnapper van with blacked-out windows, and he has no clothes on.
I scream.
The man startles. “Gah!” he bellows, losing his grip on my legs.
Flopping like a fish out of water, I throw my elbows in as many directions as I can. Being raised with a feral pack of Irish brothers has its benefits. I know how to hold my own against a big man: throw elbows, fight dirty, and get loud.
“Put me down!” I screech.
My elbow connects with his face, and I’m on the ground again. Scrambling to my feet, I don’t think. I kick. My hiking boot connects just below his midsection, and he crumples with a loud groan. I dart into the darkness, hopefully toward the small parking lot.
“Stevie!” August calls.
Oh, hallelujah. My friends are close. But his voice came from behind me, in the direction of the naked kidnapper. Oh, no. August.
“Here!” I yell, breathless. “I’m here. And there’s a man back there!
A naked man!” I can barely get the words out.
“He tried to kidnap me,” I shout as I scramble away.
Pain vaguely registers in my head, and I can’t seem to walk in a straight line.
“You guys have to get out of here. Follow my voice.”
“Stevie, stop!” August calls. “Come back,” he wheezes, his voice full of laughter.
Marlow’s soft giggling echoes from the same direction.
“Sorry, man,” August says, quieter this time. “You okay? She got you good.”
Ike’s chuckling finds me next.
What are they laughing about? I was being abducted by a naked pervert, and my friends find that funny? I spin on my hiking boot, ready to spit fire at them.
They aren’t far behind me on the trail. All four of my friends have caught up—August, Marlow, Diana, and Ike are all here. But there’s a fifth person. The naked kidnapper. Except he’s not a kidnapper, and he’s only naked from the waist up.
Wait. I know this guy.
“Shirtless Adam?” I accuse, my voice full of horror.
He coughs, clutching his bare abdomen like he’s still recovering from my hiking boot. “Just Adam,” he says quietly with a small wave.
Oh, man. I kicked a unicorn. Shirtless Adam is practically mythical in Cape Georgeana.
The guy moved to town a few years ago—no one knows for sure when, only that he started showing up on the side of the road in the trees with his bare, rigid torso on display.
The women of Cape Georgeana were enamored.
Stories spread, and he earned his nickname quickly.
But just like a unicorn, Shirtless Adam sightings are few and far between.
We hear occasional reports of sightings of his white truck with the thick black bars covering the grill.
I’ve been told he picks up groceries at the market in town, but I’ve never seen him there.
And now I have the ultimate Shirtless Adam story.
I kicked him. I punted Shirtless Adam right in the—oh, no.
“I’m so sorry.” I really am. I hope I haven’t ruined his chances at having little Shirtless Babies. It would be tragic not to pass on those genes.
Marlow snickers.
Adam shakes his head. “It’s okay.”
My friends and Adam have caught up to me now, their faces full of concern in the moonlight.
“Adam says you hit your head on a boulder.” August steps closer. “You blacked out. You need to let me check you out.”
Of course, now that he says the words, and the adrenaline is wearing off, my skull feels like it’s being split open like a clam. I’m woozy.
“Sure.” I nod, but that hurts, too.
“Can you walk to the car?” August asks, ever the caring doctor.
“Of course I can.”
How soft does he think I am? I take a few steps toward the parking area, but my feet carry me in a diagonal line toward the trees instead.
Then the world tips sideways, and the ground rushes toward me.
Before I land on another rock, someone catches me.
Strong arms wrap around me, softening my landing and lowering me to the ground.
The world is still spinning, but I’m fully conscious.
I’m getting the full Shirtless Adam experience this time around.
I take mental notes: he smells like cedarwood, he’s warm like a heated blanket, he’s unusually tall, and he’s still not wearing a shirt.
I blink up at him in the moonlight. Has he always had those huge dark eyes?
I also don’t remember the short-cropped beard, and his hair got long.
His dark hair rests in perfect waves over his forehead and past his ears.
It suits him and his whole mysterious-woodsman vibe; I just don’t recall seeing it like this before.
Of course, it’s hard to see anything beyond the general lack of shirt.
But now that I’m noticing the short beard and the luxuriously thick hair, I fully approve.
I can’t wait to tell everyone I know about this legendary night and both of my mythical creature sightings: Sasquatch and Shirtless Adam. I should start a podcast.
Someone clears their throat. That sounded like Diana.
“Could you help her to the car please, Adam?” she asks, sounding way too innocent with her perfect manners. We all know what Diana is doing. “We don’t want Stevie to fall again.”
He clears his throat. “Stevie?” he asks softly, just for me.
I nod just for him.
He frowns in the moonlight, clearing his throat again and taking my hand to pull me to my feet. “Yes. Of course.”