Ew. Worms.

Bella scrunched her nose up as she bent over to look at them slithering through the soil. What kind of store sells worms? A redneck store, that’s what kind. And that’s exactly where she was. In the deep backwoods of Dark Creek Swamp. It was as appealing as it sounded.

This was the last stop to get supplies before she went on her two-week long excursion into the forest. It was a little mom and pop general store, although there didn’t seem to be a mom in sight. Only perverted old men who kept checking out her ass.

“Going fishing?” the old man behind the counter asked, eying her funny.

Bella didn’t take it personally. She did look totally out of place with her brand new two hundred dollar hiking boots and sparkling clean Wilderness Face jacket. These guys weren’t used to seeing girls like her all the way out here.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. She wouldn’t be caught dead fishing. She laughed, picturing herself sitting there feeling bad for the poor fish who got the sharp hooks caught in their lips and worse for the worms who got speared, drowned and then eaten alive.

She was here for school. Four weeks of living in the wilderness to study the endangered sleepy owl. It was for her dissertation paper and she had been excited about it for months.

“Just doing some camping,” she said, looking at the dusty boxes of crackers with the faded labels on the shelves. She picked one up and looked at the expiration date. August 2004. At least it had the price to match at only thirty-nine cents.

“Do you have anything organic?” she asked.

The old man lifted his frayed trucker hat and scratched his thin hair as he scrunched his face up. “We don’t sell drugs. Is that what you kids are smoking these days?”

“Huh?” Bella said, looking around. The two older men behind her were still staring at her ass. They didn’t even try to pretend like they weren’t looking. They just blatantly gawked.

Bella just rolled her eyes and turned away, shaking her head. She’d always had a really curvy behind that looked odd with her slim body so she was used to it. It never stopped being really annoying, but she was used to it nonetheless.

“Anything gluten free?” she asked.

The man lifted up his pipe and lit it as he stared at her with a furrowed brow.

She waved the smoke out of her face and huffed out a breath. “Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“Are you going to buy the worms or not?” he asked impatiently.

“I’m looking for food,” she said, sliding the old box of crackers back on the shelf. “I was told by a local that you would have some.”

The old man pointed to the aquarium full of worms. “You buy worms, you catch food. If you don’t, you eat the worms. What is the problem?”

“Fine,” Bella said, grabbing a bunch of boxes of cookies. They still looked old but they didn’t look too bad. She had a few cases of beans and soup in the trunk, so hopefully that would be enough.

“Be careful of them woods at night,” one of the men behind her said. She turned and frowned at him. He was wearing a tight Spice Girls t-shirt with a Coors Light trucker hat with his ugly mullet hanging out the back.

“Thanks,” she said with a roll of her eyes. He was just some redneck trying to scare her. Bella had never been camping before but she had read all about it online. Her food was going to be hung from a tree several feet from her tent and she even washed all of her clothes and blankets with an aromatic fabric softener. She had read that the fabric softeners act as animal repellent and were great for keeping animals away from campsites.

She was definitely prepared and she didn’t need any advice from these creepers.

“Don’t go down too far south,” the other man said. She exhaled hard as she turned to him with a blank look on her face. He was rubbing the gray stubble on his saggy jaw as he stared at her. He had clearly left his dentures at home. “There’s a monster living down in the woods down there.”

“A monster?” she said with a chuckle. “Really? Does he eat little city girls?”

“Probably,” the man answered, his face serious. “Legend has it that he can turn into a bear.”

That was rich. Bella threw her head back and laughed. “Like a bear shifter?”

“No,” he said, as all three of the men shook their heads. “Shifters can blend in with people. This guy can’t. The beast has taken over.”

“Okay,” she said, walking over to the cash. “Thanks for the tip guys. How much do I owe you?”

The man smoking the pipe just glanced over the items in her hand without looking at the individual prices. “Four dollars,” he said.

“But this one alone is four fifty,” Bella said, holding up a deluxe box of Oreos.

“Okay,” the owner said. “Five fifty.”

Bella dug out a ten-dollar bill and shook her head as she tossed it on the counter. “Keep the change,” she said as she walked towards the door.

“Wait,” he said as she opened the door and hurried out. “You forgot your worms!”

* * *

“This is far enough,” Bella said as she dropped her heavy bag on the ground.

She had been hiking into the forest for two hours and was already missing the comforts of home. It was hot, she was sweaty, and the goddamn bugs were relentless. She slapped a mosquito off of her arm as she sat down on a large rock.

“Alright,” she said, pulling out her binoculars. “Where are you owls?”

Probably sleeping. Only you would do a dissertation on a species who sleeps all day and flies all night. How am I supposed to observe them in the dark? Bella was embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t even thought of that until she stepped foot into the forest. Some researcher you’ll be.

She shoved the binoculars back into her bag and opened up the box of Oreos. “Oh great,” she said, tossing the box onto the ground. “Mold. I should have taken the worms.”

What was she doing out here?

She belonged in the city going out to indie rock concerts or meeting her friends at O’Connor’s Pub. She was a student, not an adventurer. Why was she out here acting like an unpaid Bear Grylls?

Everybody said that she couldn’t do it. Her teacher, her friends, her ex, and even her parents. But she was young and stubborn and stupid and wanted to prove them all wrong.

“Ah!” she screamed, leaping up off the rock when a grasshopper jumped on her knee. “Maybe I should have listened to everybody.”

She was having serious second thoughts and as it got darker and darker she started having triple and quadruple thoughts as well. I want to go home. I want my bed. I want Netflix.

“No,” she said, catching herself. “It’s only a month. Your ancestors lived in the forest, you can do a month.” But her ancestors didn’t know the comforts of a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle, they never got addicted to their iPhone, which had no reception up here and was on the last bar of power, and they never knew how delicious a Big Mac with french fries tasted when you were starving.

Bella did know all of those things and she was quickly learning that living without them sucked balls.

She opened a can of beans for dinner and cursed when she couldn’t start a fire. She had never been camping or made a fire but she did study by watching videos on YouTube. The guy had crumpled up paper, placed little sticks on it, then placed some bigger sticks over that and arranged it like a little wooden teepee.

Bella did exactly the same but when she tried to light it, it just fizzled out like her motivation to be out in the woods. “Damn it!” she cursed kicking the little tee-pee over. I wish I had a computer so I could give that guy’s video a thumbs down.

After trying again and failing again, Bella sat down with a huff and ate the disgusting beans straight out of the can. They were even worse than they looked. Two cold bites and she shook her head, her not-so-stubborn mind made up. “Fuck this shit! I’m going home!”

She tossed the can of beans into a nearby bush, grinning evilly at the fact that she wasn’t recycling it. She was such an environmentalist, sharing every Save the Earth post that came on her Facebook feed, and always lecturing people on the importance of limiting their carbon footprint. But after a few hours out here, she was ready to burn the place down just to watch it die.

She stood up and grabbed her backpack, taking a deep breath as she looked around. “Fuck you tree. Fuck you rock. Fuck you bush. I’m out!”

Quitting never felt so good.

She grinned as she walked back the way she came, coming up with the lies that she would write in her school dissertation paper about the beautiful snowy owls, which she definitely did observe.

Bella already knew how she was going to finish the paper: “The sleepy owl is a magnificent creature and observing the majestic species over my four weeks of living in the wilderness taught me so much about life, love, myself, our roots and of course, about mother nature and all of her wonderful creatures.”

She could already see the impressed professor scratching an A+ onto the top corner of her paper. It was going to be great.

“Now where is that fucking tree?” She scratched her head as she looked around. Bella was careful to remember visible markings on her way in to ensure that she could get back out. The tree that she was looking for had two branches sticking out like a Y. Or was it three?

She swallowed hard as she walked a little further and looked around. Why is there a river here? There wasn’t a river on the way in.

“Crap,” she muttered, her shoulders dropping under the weight of her heavy backpack and even heavier worries.

She was lost.