And... the end of hunting we will go...

I couldn’t contain the screams and hysteria any longer.  I started to run around in circles and sob uncontrollably.  “Do you remember Douglas Legg?” I shouted at his dad.  “He went for a walk in these very same woods a few years ago and they still haven’t found his body.”  I continued to scream and shout.  Who needed a rifle to help Mark locate us, I was yelling loud enough for the entire forest to hear me.  I was sure that Mark broke his leg and was stuck, stranded in a ditch somewhere and we weren’t ever going to find him.  Then my mind and commentary wandered to other things, like animals that attacked him and being so disoriented that he couldn’t find his way out.  Mark’s dad tried to reassure me that Mark was a wonderful camper and he would be fine.  I stopped sobbing for a minute and nodded my head in agreement.  I said “well, at least he has his compass so he will find his way out eventually.”  At that point, Mark’s father reached into the pocket of his coveralls and brought forth a chain with a compass on the end of it.  He forlornly announced that he asked Mark for the compass earlier and Mark gave it to him.  Well, ok, now, I needed to be committed to one of those places for people who are deranged.  I was so hysterical that Homer actually yelled at me.  LOUD!  He shouted and said “go back down the path and head back to the cabin!  Right NOW!”  I thought, “are you crazy?  I’m not going back down that pathway toward the cabin by myself!!!  I’m dyslexic and directionally challenged.  I can’t even tell my right hand from my left hand and you want me to be following a path back to the camp?  No way Jose!  It was getting dark.  At this point, Mark had been gone for over 4 hours.  I suggested we go back to the cabin and drive to the police station and get a helicopter.  Over and over I chanted the words, “we need a helicopter.”  Mark’s father was obviously losing his patience with me.  He put one hand on each shoulder and shook me.  He said “STOP IT RIGHT NOW. You aren’t solving anything by acting like this.”  So I stopped, mostly because I was afraid his dad would leave me there and I would be eaten alive by bugs and bears and lions and leeches or something.  The sun had almost set completely.  In the middle of the forest without streetlights, it gets very, very dark.  Of course, Homer didn’t have a flashlight with him because we were only going to hunt for a few hours during the day.  So he suggested we walk back to the camp and hopefully Mark would show up.  “SHOW UP??”  “HOPEFULLY SHOW UP?”   We started walking back down the pathway.  I cannot describe how scared I was.  We went about a half-mile and all of a sudden through the brush and the trees was the glimmer of headlights.  It was surreal for a minute because a car shouldn’t be driving in the woods.  But there it was, our tiny little red Chevy Chevette plowing through the underbrush and swerving in and out of trees.  It stopped and out jumped Mark.  He was laughing!!!!  YES!!! He was LAUGHING!!!  I was not!  He asked if we needed a lift anywhere.  Isn’t he just the funniest guy ever!  He said he went too far over the ridge and ended up in a different part of the woods that he was unfamiliar with.  With the sun at his back, he kept going in the same direction until he reached a road.  He realized he was over 5 miles from camp at that time and just walked back.  That’s it.  He explained it like it was a fun little jaunt for an afternoon.  Can I just mention that it was the last time I EVER went hunting with Mark again!