the serial killer

Beneath the wan remnants of a pancake-batter sunset, in a patch of woods behind a little league field in Greece Canal Park, our intrepid heroine pushes her bike along a muddy trail and through a miasma of mosquitoes. She has long since given up the dream of an Instagram campsite; like a lonely barfly at last call, she’ll take what she can get. Is that a reasonably flat spot? Hey there good-lookin’, wanna have a sleepover?

I lean my bike against a tree, do a backbend, and turn off my Strava. Time to kick back and relax. And by that I mean… laboriously construct my shelter for the evening!

After laying the ground cloth, staking the tent, feeding the poles through the guides, strapping on the rainfly, locking up my bike, inflating my sleeping pad, laying out my sleeping bag, brushing my teeth, changing out of my bike shorts, and killing all the mosquitoes[1] that had gotten into my tent, I finally lay down… and there’s a rock digging into my spine.

But it’s dark, and I don’t feel like undoing all my hard work and shifting it two inches to the left only to find a root poking me in the kidney and 20 more mosquitoes in my tent. This, I decide, is an opportunity to practice acceptance[2].

I watch an episode of “Breaking Bad” on my phone — because there’s nothing like watching an hour of gratuitous violence[3], alone and in a strange place at night, to help a gal unwind after a 60-mile bike ride. With visions of drug crimes dancing through my head (and a pointy rock dancing between my thoracic vertebrae) I fall into a restless sleep…

…and wake up at 2 a.m. to the sound of a dentist’s drill outside my tent.

Eyes pop open. Silence. What was that noise? Maybe it was just a— 

Rhnnnnnnnnn! 

Nope, I’m definitely not dreaming, and that was definitely closer than before. I turn on my flashlight, and the serial killer bounds crashingly through the underbrush. 

I lay there, barely breathing, frozen and alert, adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Fiddlehead pipes up: what if there’s someone crazy outside my tent who wants to hurt me?

There isn’t, Maple says firmly. I’m sure it’s just an animal, and I don’t think there are bears around here, so we’re good.

And then a third, unfamiliar voice: If you had let a guy come with you on this trip, he could be handling this right now.

RHNNNNNNNN! 

Ahh fuck.

I get out of my tent, wave my flashlight around, and yell, “I MEAN YOU NO HARM. JUST LET ME SLEEP!' I bend down and grope around until I find a big stick, and then spear it into the muddy ground outside my tent. To use as a weapon, I guess?

RNNNNNNNNN! 

Okay, now this is just getting annoying. “GO AWAY!” I yell, and then under my breath: “God, take a hint!”

Silence. I think we’re okay. I crawl back into my tent, now filled with mosquitoes, and text my dad and a friend. I try to relax, but my brain is caught in a tug-of-war between Sleep and Fear. Every time it looks like Sleep is going to win, Fear jerks the rope, and my eyes pop open.

The next morning, I emerge from my tent smeared with mud, dead mosquitoes, and my own blood, and a text from my dad explaining that, “raccoons make all kinds of noises.”

[1] I normally try not to kill bugs, but these guys had it coming.

[2] In other words, I say “fuck it.”

[3] For those who’ve seen the show, it was “Negro y Azul,” with Danny Trejo and the tortoise.