"Seems to be a common trait in the folks he likes to grind down." Dan smiles, thinking that that category includes Miguel. He sees quite a few virtues in Miguel, all stubborn and resilient in the face of this grindingly depressing town, like weeds breaking through concrete. There was a while where Dan was worried he'd gotten stranded in a bit of an ethical wasteland. Not anymore.

But they have other matters to consider.

"No es un chiste." Dan drums his fingertips across his lower lip. Good, Miguel's a little incredulous but not rejecting the concept entirely. "We tried to go back during the day and didn't find nothing, but the geography didn't make no sense. We'd walk five miles down a creek and end up right back where we started. Even if we don't run into whatever them things were, there's probably information to be gleaned from just mapping the woods a little."

Dan has a paper map, which he pulls out. He's annotated it with little symbols, rivers, mountains, sketches of certain shapes of trees and rocks, but Dan's notes don't make much sense either - several of Dan's drawings of creeks go in circles or run uphill.

"I counted seven of them things in the woods, and we first encountered them near to here," he says, tapping a space on the map between a creek and the road. "I ended up shooting one in the chest and it only slowed her down."