In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house... Camping in the Jersey Pine Barrens may literally turn out to be a first date from hell for travel writer Tim and the cute cop who persuades him to revisit a past that Tim has done his best to forget.

Two and a half years ago, travel writer Timothy O'Shay let NYPD Detective Luke O'Brien talk him into hiking into the New Jersey Pine Barrens to face down a monster. Now Tim and Luke meet again under very different circumstances. The old attraction is still there—but so are some of Tim's monsters. Is it too late to find their way back to each other?