There was the sound of the wind in the trees; that was part of it. And there was the crackling of the logs as they smoldered under flame, sending up plumes of thick grey smoke that disappeared into the sky. That was part of it too, part of the reason why I kept looking over my shoulder or glancing at shadows which hid behind my peripheral vision. Secretly, I would have loved to be in my bed right now, under warm safe covers. But camping was camping—it was cooking beans in a pot and wearing thermals to bed. I had said I’d go camping, and here I was.

“You know what this place reminds me of? One of those backwoods places of America where weirdos live. Those people who hate anyone who isn’t kin, who live all together their whole life and never engage with the rest of the world. Some Texas Chainsaw Massacre shit.

“Chris, don’t you fucking start,” I said. But he already had, I could tell. The wind picked up and moaned through hollow tree branches. He poked a long stick into the fire and smirked.

“I stayed with a family like that, once when I was hitchhiking to Mexico. A true story, I swear to God. Some family from the sticks,Tennessee or Alabama or something. The father picked me up off the road in his truck, offered me dinner and a place to stay for the night. Shit, I was hungry. Of course I went. Though even then I could tell there was something funny in his eyes, something not right. My stomach got the better of me, though. I watched the trees close in on us as the road we drove down got rougher and rougher, till we were just drivin’ over dirt and rocks.

“So we get to this guy’s house, and it’s actually looking pretty hospitable. We go inside and the man’s little daughter runs up and gives her daddy a hug. Everything seemed so picturesque. So then they head to the kitchen and start warming something up for me, and although the odor coming from the other room was foreign, I was too hungry to start thinking up all the gruesome things they could be cooking. So I put my bag down and got comfortable in the living room. Sitting in a nice chair, I start looking around the room and notice the absurd amount of baby powder lying around. The dad yells in from the kitchen,

“‘Hey, Marissa and I are gonna play our favorite game, you wanna join?’

“I told him that depends on the game.

“‘Oh, don’t, everybody likes this game…so long as you have courage and appreciate the human body.’

“Alright, so now I’m thinking, father, daughter, where the hell could this be going? But the inquisitive side of me decided to press on. I said that I was in.”

“You’re so joshing me,” I said, giving him an exasperated look. Chris tends to make up silly anecdotes, and I wasn’t buying this one.

“No no no, trust me, you gotta listen for the nuance. This gets good, I promise,” he said.

“Two hours later, after three bottles of baby powder, the living room was covered in a white film, which was good, because if not, the blood that splashed on the carpet would not have looked so poetic…and this isn’t even taking into account the wonderful sight of the father naked with his daughter.”

I couldn’t believe he expected me to fall for this! “Alright, now you’re just getting ridiculous,” I said.

“Haha. Okay, okay, but listen—by the end of this story you’ll know why the smell of baby powder freaks me out to this day.

“So, for real, the dad wants to know if we’re hungry, or if we want to rest or play a game for some entertainment. I was hungry enough to kill and skin a dog by then, so I told him, very politely, eating sounds great right now.

“He said something back that sounded like, ‘Al getchoo summin ta munchon, boy.’ I just smiled and nodded. He did have this daughter though, Marissa was her name—she was the kind of girl you hear stories about, cowboy hat and daiseydukes, blond pigtails, the works. While her dad was shuffling around in the kitchen, she kept me company and never took her eyes off me.

“It was getting kinda awkward, so I got up, stretched my legs out, started making some casual conversation. Like, ‘So… what’s your name?’ Nothing too sleazy, the girl only looked about 15 if that. Thing was, she didn’t respond—she kept that same look on her face, and blinked a lot like she had a tick. Pretty cute girl, but that tick. Christ.

“Anyway I pretended like she was slow, turned around and started looking at the house, walking through rooms. On the wall they had pictures of their ancestors, I guess, real stiff old people, and I swear to God you could see slaves in the background. This was like, backwoods, the real deal. And the walls were caked in something that wasn’t dust, everything was kinda moldy and forgotten. The wallpaper was bending in at the corners, the rugs were probably never washed, and the dumb girl just sat there, eyeing me, nothing to say.

“After a few minutes the dad comes out of the kitchen and he looks really confused, like he just woke up from some confusing dream and couldn’t figure out that he was entering reality. And on his hands he’s got this white, filmy substance, and it smells a little funky. That’s when I realize, shit, this man has literally bathed himself in baby powder. Only that’s not it, he’s holding a huge tray, stacked with typical southern comfort food: collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and some fried chicken. The smell was amazing. I had just hiked a couple miles up and down some mountains before this man had picked me up, and my mouth was watering like crazy. But the powder was starting to seep into the food, little dusty particles lazily making their way over it. And when he set the tray down on the living room table, sweat was starting to trickle down from his hands. It blended with the powder and formed this thick paste that covered every bit of the food while I sat there, watching this disgusting display of food and inedible powder mixing together.

“Now Marissa is just sitting there, completely mesmerized by this show, I mean, her freaking eyes just stare at me staring at the food and she looks…excited. I mean this was weird shit, and she’s acting like it’s turning her on.

“‘Well boy, ain’tchoo gowna eat this here food?’

“I looked at the plate and took a huge breath. So I gripped that damned fork like it was my fuckin’ lifeline, closed my eyes and took a small bite, trying to keep the food from hitting my tongue, trying to swallow it whole without tasting it.

“I’m eating this nasty concoction and the man is tearing that shit up like it is the greatest food in the world, and I have no idea how I’m gonna keep it down. Then I notice that Marissa isn’t eating anything, she’s just staring at the old man, waiting for him to finish, and he’s glancing around furtively, almost scared. What he had to fear I had no idea, but this girl was staring at his neck, at the vein there, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing as his jaw worked on the chicken and grease from his food mixed with the powder on his hands.

“‘Isn’t she going to eat?’ I asked, but I was scared of the answer.

“‘Nah, she don’t eat this shit, the likes uh her got better food tuh eet.’ And as he says this I notice some dark brown stains on her clothes, tiny ones, but rusty colored specks. And she’s staring at the old man and the grease and powder are mixing and I decide I can’t take it anymore.

“I make blundering excuses for needing some fresh air and I stumble out the door. So there I was, ya know, just hangin out on the porch, trying to settle my queasy stomach. The air was moist, and the moon was rising, a pale dead-looking thing. It had a halo around, distorting the moon into some amorphous blob. The woods, and let me tell you these were real woods, were thick and dark with age, trees growing all gnarled and such. Well, these woods had fog that night. You know, the kind that just sits wet and slimy on your skin, seeming to grab hold of everything with its greedy fingers. You could see it, and that’s what made it so damn creepy, due to the light leaking from the windows.

“‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

“I damn near leapt out of my skin. It was that damn girl. She just appeared out of nowhere. She wasn’t even looking at me, just staring out into those damn woods.

“‘Daddy says the game is ready.’

“I paused, confused for the moment. Then it hit me.

“Oh yeah, I mumbled. That was when I noticed she had this white powder all over her shoes and legs. Without looking at me she turned and went inside, and I couldn’t help but follow. Weird, but I was curious.

“What I didn’t expect was to find the dad stark naked in a transformed room. I mean, baby powder everywhere, looking like it had just snowed in the place. I turned and looked at Marissa, just to find her stripping down, too.

“They both looked at me with these crazy expressions, like this was a game often dug up for company picnics or shit like that. I stood there petrified. Marissa started to giggle uncontrollably. She stood there patting baby powder onto her body everywhere she could reach.

“‘Whoops! I almost forgot,’ Daddy exclaims and runs back into the kitchen. At this point I started to turn towards the door when suddenly this girl THROWS herself at me and starts trying to pull my clothes off!

“‘You’re not ready! Don’t you want to play?’ she said, so giddy. I heard loud mechanical noises in the kitchen and the lights in the house began to flicker a bit. I started freaking out. I tried harder and harder to get to the door with this fucking naked girl all over me and these crazy noises all over the place. Still, she was giggling and squealing and louder, gruff laughter joined her from the kitchen.

“I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her off of me and she fell to the ground with a shriek. Whatever was going on in the kitchen stopped, and the lights in the rest of the house seemed to return to normal. Out Daddy comes to see what’s happening. What’d he see? This ruffled, half-baby powdered stranger standing over his naked whimpering daughter on the floor.

“And what’d I see? Daddy sweaty, smattered with blood and what smelled like battery fluid. He stood in some crazy shit fighter stance with a mean face and a hard cock. I was so fucked.

“‘That ain’t how we play the game,’ he said, right before he gave me a mean right hook to the side of my face. Of course, I fell right on top of Daddy’s little girl. I immediately tried to get off of her, but she wrapped her legs around my waist like a vice and let out a girlish squeal. Full of adrenaline, I pushed myself off of the floor and stood up, the blonde girl still clinging to my waist. As I’m trying to pry her off of me, her father comes up behind me. I think, ‘That’s it, I’m dead, her crazy redneck father is going to kill me for seducing this hillbilly girl that I don’t want, I’m totally going to be in the stew next.’ I felt him grab me firmly from behind, but instead of making preparations for redneck pie, he started to pour more baby powder on me!

“Panic mode really set in at that point, and I’m flailing and spinning around, trying to get this crazy bitch off of me so I can get the hell out of there. Then, during the panic, I feel this bad pain on my neck. I look down, and she’s fucking BITING my baby powder-covered neck! And I don’t mean like a love bite, I mean HARD. I tried pulling her hair to get her jaws off my neck, but that only seemed to encourage her to bite harder. The pain set me off balance and I smashed my head on the floor when I fell on my back.

“I saw spots for a while, and felt her legs unwrap themselves from me. The pressure from my neck went away, but a sort of wet heat remained. I looked up in confusion, and there she was, lazily chewing with her mouth open on a wad of something.

“‘How’s it taste, baby?’ Daddy stared at us as he masturbated on the couch. When she tried to answer him, the wad fell out of her mouth. It was this messy, fleshy clump on the floor, like the fatty bit from a slice of beef jerky, and while I was too shocked to react, I knew in the back of my mind that it was a piece of my neck. She picked it up off the floor, stuck it back in her mouth, and swallowed it. This set me off, and I tried to get off the ground only to have her Daddy stick his foot on my chest to keep me down on the ground, still masturbating while he did it.

“And it’s all a blur from there,” Chris continued, staring at the fire while I looked at him with bated breath. “I know she went for my fingers and a bit of my thigh, but everything afterward is hard to remember,” he said, showing me the three nubs on his right hand and the two on his right that I always thought came from a car accident when he was younger. I didn’t want to believe him, it all seemed absurd, but the setting we were in just made it seem all the more real.

Even with that in the back of my mind, I still told him cynically, “You are SO full of shit, you know that?” and grabbed another marshmallow. I don’t want him to think that I actually believed his story, so I did’t ask him how he got out of the house, or how he got a ride back into town. We just talked about other stuff with until it got late and I curled up in my sleeping bag, trying to ignore the phantom smell of baby powder that hit my nose.

The Literary staff is comprised of editor Marina Blitshteyn, assistant editor Mary Sarsfield, Isaac Johnson, Frank Etzler, Ann Marie Awad, Maggie Anderson, and Marina Wright.