Dead Reckoning

Frank snaps the compass shut and tucks it into his jacket. The GPS hangs dead from his pack. Useless these days. He steps gingerly into the brush. As an archaeologist, effectively an explorer, he’d long since resolved that any step into the unknown could be trouble. 
 
He couldn’t see where his feet landed. They might step on a copperhead, anthill, or worse. Or a deadfall might get him. Last week, a brown bear had lunged out of a bush. Yesterday, he scrambled down an embankment upon some basking gators. This morning he stepped on a nesting turkey. 
 
That one wasn’t so bad. 
 
If he thought about these things he’d get nowhere. He trusts his shovel and screen as sword and shield. But as the scuffling sound approaches, he drops them and goes to the Marshalltown in his back pocket. He jabs blindly as the corpse shuffles out of the muscadine.