Exams, ugh. Whoever thought up these diabolical things should face some serious jail time. For real, who needed to know what a diphthong was in real life?

Meri sat back in her chair and squinted at the paper in front of her. Like that would actually help. Her gaze wandered to the window and the beautiful Florida sky. An awesome day to jet-ski or head to the lake and wakeboard. But no. She was stuck here, trying to decide between answer A and answer C. C was always supposed to be the one, right?

Normally not knowing the answer would feel like a major disaster. Right now though, she just wanted to get done. To get out of this building and get some sun. Second year English was kicking her butt, no matter how hard she studied, and she didn’t like it. What did a history major with a minor in photography need it for anyway? She darkened the little circle for answer A. Someday, when she’d made some big discovery that rocked the world, she’d just turn in her research and have someone else write her articles. She was never going to get this stuff straight.

That was the last of the questions she’d left for the end. She pushed away from her table, bolted for the front and dropped her answers on her professor’s desk. He nodded but hardly glanced up from the book he was reading.

She shouldered her bag and gave a little wave to Sandra. Sandra glared and went back to her test. Meri smirked. Her best friend was not going to be happy that Meri had finished first. Especially since Sandra actually was an English major.

Hey, maybe Sandra would be her go-to for publishing, once she started finding things worth publishing about.

A quick stop at her dorm room and she had her books stashed and had grabbed her exploring backpack. She kicked off her flip-flops and put on socks and boots. Today was going to be even better than jet-skiing. The campus was new enough to still be close to the swamp. Today would be the day she found signs of a panther, she could feel it. Something awesome was going to happen.

She passed by the alligator warning signs and jogged to the small canoe shack on the waterfront. It was closed, but the owner left a key for the chain of one of the canoes hidden for her. She fumbled around under the gutter until she found it and ran down to the bank. She unlocked the padlock, took the key back so she wouldn’t lose it again, flipped the canoe over, throwing her backpack in the bottom, and shoved it out into the water. If she hung around too long, Tom would be there to open shop. And she really didn’t want to deal with seeing her ex today.

Another quick flick of the wrist and the paddle was free too. She hopped in and used the paddle to shove off from the shore.

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A few pushes of the paddle through the water and she just let the canoe glide while she grabbed her backpack and pulled out her map of the channels.

The northwest area had been a bust over the last week. Of course she didn’t really expect to see a panther at midday, but she just wanted to find a good looking place to set up a camp to watch at dusk sometime. Her paper on the endangered status of different feline species would pack so much more of a punch if she had a picture to go with it.

It only took about twenty minutes to reach the new area she wanted to search. She drifted by a couple of alligators and stopped to watch them laze along. Grabbing her bag, she started to pull out her camera before deciding not to bother. There had to be two hundred pictures of gators on her SD card right now. She paused at the bank before jumping out of the canoe, just to make sure none of those gator’s friends were sunning on shore.

A couple good tugs and the canoe slid fully onto shore. She took a red scarf out of her bag and tied it to a nearby tree limb, making it easier to find the canoe in case she got back late and the sun had already started to set.

Slowly she went through the cypress trees, pausing once in a while to study anything interesting. A sleepy coon, a few chipmunks, a softshell turtle. Nice to see, but not super exciting. She snapped a couple of pictures of each as they scampered or lumbered by. “Where are you?” she asked the elusive cat. She’d been spending all of her time out here looking, which was why the English class was giving her such a hard time. Wasting all of her study time. None of that mattered if she could just find a trace.

The park rangers in the area had been helpful with ideas, but not too keen on her coming out here by herself. It wasn’t dangerous if a person paid attention, but they didn’t seem to think most 19 year olds would be watching their surroundings.

Time was so fluid out here. And by the time classes were over, she didn’t have much. She hoisted her pack up on her shoulder again and squinted at the sky. Plenty of light still, but that changed fast. It was probably time to head back to the canoe. She retraced her trail, downing some trailmix as she went.

Then there it was. Movement, in a thicker grove of trees. She froze. It was something fairly big. She clamped a hand over her mouth to contain the squeal of excitement and squatted down, checking quickly for snakes even in the middle of a near meltdown. Not in all the time she had spent out here had she ever seen one person. It was possible that whatever it was moving around in there was a deer, but other than that there weren’t any large animals out here. Panthers weren’t out during the day much, but it wasn’t impossible. This could be it.

She focused her camera, using the lens to get a better view. Black. Whatever it was, it was definitely black. And moving in the other direction. Meri scooted around the copse of trees, staying as quiet as she possibly could.

There, it was almost out! But it was… walking. On two legs. She let out a huge sigh of disgust. What was someone else doing this far out? Maybe they were lost.

“Hey, need any help?” Meri called. The figured dropped out of sight. That was weird. A creepy feeling slithered down her back. Hopefully it wasn’t some meth cooker or something. One more try. “You okay?”

No answer. She scooted away. Whatever was going on with this person, something wasn’t right. And out here in the middle of nowhere? That could get dangerous. Fast.

She should bolt. She tightened her grip on her camera, and prepared to run.