What happened at Pine Ridge State Campground?

What happened on Friday the 13th?

Let me start with the easy part.

The part that still made sense.

Meg and I had been planning the trip for weeks.

Nothing extravagant, just two nights in the mountains, a cooler full of cheap beer, a tent we'd bought on sale and only set up once in the living room.

We'd been arguing a lot that month, the way couples do when the world gets small.

Stupid things.

Dishes in the sink.

Who forgot to pay the electric bill? The camping

trip was supposed to be a reset button. Fresh air, no Wi-Fi, that whole cliche.

We joked about it. Disconnect to reconnect. Meg made a face every time I said it, but she smiled

too, and that was enough. We left the city around noon

on a Thursday. The drive was four hours through the kind of countryside that makes you forget

you have a phone, rolling hills, cows standing in fields like props, the occasional barn sagging

under its own history. Meg had her bare feet on the dashboard and was reading

trail descriptions from the park website. Ooh, there's a waterfall, two miles in. She held up her

phone. Looks gorgeous. Perfect, I said. We'll do it Saturday morning. Friday the 13th tomorrow,

she added scrolling. Spooky. Very spooky. I'll protect you

from all the ghosts and axe murderers. She snorted, my hero. I loved her like that. Easy,

unguarded. Her hair in a messy bun, sunburn already starting on her left arm from the open window.

I remember that detail because later, when everything turned wrong, I kept coming back to it.

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