r/TheMidnightArchives

I can see it now seeping from your eyes, curling over the edge and sliding down your cheek like a tear, but we both know it's not water you cry but the seep from the injection stabbed into your neck by a syringe full of blue slosh. I see it sliding down your nose, and your other eye is completely shot red as blood vessels break open and pour out from behind the lens. The bubbling blood from your mouth like foam is the most unsettling reaction yet witnessed. You convulse on the floor, your skin melting into goo as it slides down, mixing with the puddle of blood under your body. I then looked at all of you behind the glass, the observers taking notes on touchscreen pads and swiping at numbers. I had no idea what they meant. I wondered if we were the numbers displayed above us, just out of sight. If so, were the numbers dropping faster than we wanted? I looked down at what used to be a human but had morphed into a pond of red and tan swirls, seeping into each other to create a darker shade of red.

Who was next? 

Three men in sterile yellow hazmat suits entered the observatory to collect samples of the goo on the floor, making the effluvium in the room a stench of busted intestines and antiseptic from a hospital before someone else arrived to contain the rest of the slosh for further analysis. I watched what used to be a woman get scooped just like melted ice cream into a large glass container and carried out the door. We all gawked at the scientists with scribbling hands and men in sharp suits who were murmuring to one another, never out of order, walking around talking on phones and typing notes on their computers. We were the subjects, all here voluntarily under false pretenses.

Real starvation makes anyone do the unimaginable so you can get something to eat, and this man wearing his spicy musk cologne, in his sharp suit had a buffet for me, waiting just beyond the horizon. I was introduced to a stern looking woman sitting behind a large white desk which was stationed in the front of  a massive glass building that the man in the suit led me to. We went to the shiny elevators and pushed the down button. A ding came as our cart arrived and we stepped inside the elevator on a velvet carpet freshly cleaned and I watched the man in the suit push the very bottom button of the building. I gulped as my stomach dropped on the way down. We entered a floor I assumed was the only half-legal operations center for the system I was now locked into. We passed through a rambunctious laboratory running around with men in undressed suits sitting behind computer screens typing away like their fingers were on fire and reached another elevator that went deeper than the sub-basement we were in currently, beneath the building’s basement. If a lower sub-basement was our destination, I was about to experience many illicit programs that would mark me to never see the light of day again.

I would not live through this. Understanding the situation but having no solution was an agony threatening to burst me like a balloon. The elevator opened to a common area, a place of gathering and understanding. The room was furnished with chairs and couches and the smell of febreeze was a nice tickle to my nose. In the back of the room, I saw a full liqueur bar with a man in uniform making drinks for everyone.

“Come with me,” the man in the suit was taking me past the other waving volunteers and into an office where I had to sit across from him at a wooden glossed desk. 

There was a lot of paperwork I needed to sign quickly, but the blurred words project, Dr. Neil Price, injections, and results were bolded in my brain. I suddenly felt an impending doom I had never felt before and with that feeling came a copper taste that invaded my mouth like poison. 

“My name is Mr. Joe, and here is where you will be living until the project has concluded. You will be provided with all of your needs, and you will be properly taken care of.” His smile was so charming, and the way his dimples came out made you want to say yes to any offer, but how could I enjoy any of this without questions?   

“I think there is a lot more to be said about that. I wasn't expecting to be an experiment for some company that is obviously doing illegal shit. I want to know what is going on and if I am going to die here.” Coming to terms with my reality was hard to swallow, but one I had to accept if I didn't want to go mad.

“Okay, whatever.” Mr. Joe got nonchalant with me after that little candid outburst he probably wasn't expecting from me, even though everyone else was frantic about the situation once they understood, kind of, what was going on. I just wanted to know how this operation was running and if my death will be helpful or useful at the end of it all. “Our people have found an algae that adapts well to a certain chemical compound made in a lab. We are testing the syrups made by our people with each volunteer that has agreed to be here. Everyone will get an injection everyday until we have the one we are looking for.” Watching Mr. Joe swivel around in his chair made me want to punch him in the face, and I did. He didn't see me coming as my balled-up fist hit the side of his face as hard as I could, and he fell over, sliding out of his seat onto the floor.

“You don't trick people.” It was ludicrous he had to keep this secret to invite volunteers. You can find people desperate enough to do anything for survival. “I would have said yes to anything to get off the streets, but you shouldn't lead people into this experiment blindly. You have gone past caring about human lives, I know this, but I hope you understand when I say you're an asshole.” He got off the floor and straightened up. Being hit by a girl wasn't fun, but not that impactful either.

“Welcome to the project. If you need anything, we are always listening.” Mr. Joe showed me to the door, and without any more answers, I left, having nothing else to do. 

Finding an empty place to sit was easy since there were only six people in the room, not including me. I didn't want to interact; I just wanted to wait until the dinner bell rang and the food came to us, which happened sooner than later. All of the volunteers sat at a long dinner table which featured a full buffet lining down the table runner, brought in by men who looked like servers in their uniform and posture. I was introduced to meals I had only seen in movies, and the drinks that went around the table were the best spirits I had ever tasted as some were as sweet as a nectarine and others were bitter like fire and wood. Everything was perfect, too perfect. Considering we were all going to die because of this, it was the least the man in the suit could do for us. I wondered what he promised the others to get them down in this charade paradise. After dinner, I was shown into the observatory, where the other six followed me into a blank white room with a giant window at least twelve feet from the ground. Through the window I could see men in white lab coats and others in pristine suits that made the wealthiest look poor.

The doors shut behind us once a man in a white hazmat suit followed us inside. I could hear his heavy breathing when he got close to me. He had a cart with seven syringes, each a different color and texture from the others. The needle pierced my neck with a spiked purple liquid that felt like ice hitting my bone when injected through my flesh. The needle went so deep I thought it had gone through my windpipe. The man in the hazmat suit left after all injections were administered, and the seven of us were left standing, looking at one another, waiting for something to happen. Then, a girl my age hit the floor as she began to aggressively convulse and spew red foam from her mouth like a rabid animal. I watched as each humerus unlocked from its position in the shoulder socket and twisted backward, making her skin twirl like a cyclone. Her hands were flat on the ground, sticking inward on crooked elbows. Then you could hear the loud pop of her femurs getting yanked from her hips as they too dislodged from their place and rearranged themselves in distorted ways. Witnessing the bones turn backward, I was shocked at the elasticity of her skin as it rolled with her bones and stayed twirled up like a cone of soft serve.

Her torso was faced up in the air, and her stomach was sunken so far inward that her ribs were sticking out like twigs under her thin protective layer of skin. The woman’s face was not backward like it should have been in her current position, but instead her head was upright, and she was looking at us all through bloodshot eyes, which cried rivers of crimson staining her face. I put my hand over my mouth as I saw the webbed black veins under her paper-thin skin spreading through her head like a virus. The woman suddenly began skittering around the room, running on all four broken, warped limbs, and barking like a dog. I couldn't believe I would see a person’s head imploded like hers did, as her whole head popped like a squished grape, sending brain matter and gushes of blood in every direction just in some random decided moment. Shards of bone flew like glass and pierced through a few people as they held their faces from the injury. No one knew what was going to happen next, and that’s when chaos broke out. 

The ones around me went ballistic as they ran for the doors begging for help, trying to escape this horrible scene that had just unfolded before them. I, however, looked at the headless corpse, and I thought about all the shit I have seen on the streets, and going through this was much better than dying in the cold on a street corner from an overdose on fentanyl or heroin. If I were going to die here, I would be warm and well-fed while also getting the proper health care that I need. Staying here was the best for me, but from the others' reactions, they didn't really know what they were in for. They didn't ask questions about the paradise laid out like a fashion show before them. All of the volunteers were ignorant and hadn't accepted what was coming, accepted what I had already known in my heart to be true, and found some kind of peace in the situation. 

I looked up at the glass, at the ones who were watching us, and I met eyes with one of them in the suits. He had no expression on his flawless face, and there wasn't a speck of indignity located anywhere near his aura. He was a true man of power with a force of reckoning that he was commanding to come down upon us. He was our onslaught, there to watch us all die and then take notes on the process. Who knows what they were looking for or trying to manifest in their labs, but whatever it was must have been some sort of bio weapon if it causes these reactions. 

I snuggled into my padded mattress and wrapped myself around the furry, soft blankets, and I did not fall asleep to thoughts of death or nightmares of torture. I went to bed thinking this was the first time in almost ten years that I felt this warm in bed. The next morning, I was awoken to the sweet fragrance of cinnamon frosting and sizzled cooked bacon, along with the most beautiful aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. I was truly in heaven. I got up and put on the drab grey, basic attire provided by the company. I slid on the cotton t-shirt, covering all the scars I had collected over the years on my torso, and put on the hoodie to cover my track marks on the inside of my elbow and between my fingers. I couldn't believe how soft the sweat pants were when they were put on next, and the fibers that stitched it all together were coarse on the outside but like woolen pelt within. I slipped on a pair of grey slippers before heading out of my sliding open door, which moved automatically open and shut by the determination of how close I was to the entrance. 

I followed the redolence to the dining hall where an entire spread was laid out on the table in a very empty room. No one seemed to have an appetite after going through such a grotesque murder firsthand with no mental preparation. At least my mind was a stone now, made that way by the string of deaths I had followed throughout my life. I was desensitized by bloodshed and murder because that is what I was raised knowing. I didn't know any of these other people, and I sure didn't know what they did or where they were from, but I understood that none of them had experienced death firsthand before, and seeing it presented like that was the most horrific thing they would ever witness. I sat down, glee in my eyes, and enjoyed the bounty before me, eating until my stomach bulged and my body felt warm.

I found the coach and tucked myself between the pillows before finding a sweet sleep that I had never had the chance to fall into willingly in my life. I was awoken to a voice over the intercom telling everyone to gather in the observatory. I let out a huff at the intrusion on such a slumberous nap, but followed my directions and witnessed the others emerge from their rooms for the first time all day. We all stood idle in the room of no color, no emotion, nothing but waiting for death, and we complied to the needle of different colored serums entering our bodies to be tested on our human form. The color I got today was a bubbly yellow, and it felt like a jab into my bone as the needle was inserted into my neck once again. I shivered after being struck and found somewhere in the room to sit, to wait, to see what was going to happen today. 

Almost everyone in the room was crying, but there were a few like me who were just dull with acceptance, and we were waiting for our fate to unravel in whatever way it did. Today, it was another woman who got the infection, and her death was the most painful one of all so far, as I watched her body become more and more bloated with liquid and goo. Her clothes ripped off as she blew up like a wrinkled balloon, and her flesh sagged in curtains which only grew wider and wider. The woman could no longer scream or talk as her throat became so swollen it stretched wide, and the skin was droopy as it sagged further and fell to her chest. Her torso looked like it had a set of utters, and you couldn't distinguish her breasts from the rest of her upper body. She was too heavy to stand as she landed backward on her ass, barely able to sit upright. 

An effluvium of spoiled milk and deep musk escaped the woman’s flabs like vapor, and the fumes swallowed the entire room whole as everyone tried to stay as far away as possible, as she still continued to bloat. The woman couldn't move her thousand-pound body in any kind of way, but she found a way of flailing her chubby, melted arms around. Four men came into the room with a lift, and the driver scooped the woman up and took her out to a place I knew I didn't want to go to. We left the observatory, and it was time to eat, and of course, I ravaged my meal as the others poked and prodded at their meat. I couldn't understand how they could all waste so much food that I could be eating, because I didn't leave leftovers or let my food spoil. I ate everything. 

That night, I slept in a cold sweat as the side effects of the injection began to hit my nervous system. I was locked inside my body, desperately yelling at my limbs to move, and I cried out from cramps in every twisted muscle. It felt like I had been dehydrated for years, and now I was receiving the results. But I was not dehydrated; this was not due to negligence but to the bubbly, yellow liquid swimming freely through my veins. Suddenly, I unlocked, and everything stopped for a moment. Then I ran fast to the metal toilet in my room and spewed out yellow bile like it was exploding from a fire hydrant. After that, I passed out and didn't wake until a voice on the intercom told us to meet in the observatory.

I knew I looked like hell from my night of torture, but everyone else just looked depressed but well rested. I found a corner to sit in away from everyone else and spat out my spit until the taste of vomit was void from my mouth. A man fought the injection this time today and tried to fight the man in the hazmat suit who was struggling to keep his suit from being damaged, and in this attempt of mutiny, security came in and subdued the volunteer long enough to get the injection through his neck, while the company men also had time to leave without any more assaults. The man got up and began screaming vulgar things at the men in the window, and not only did I know he was wasting his breath, but he knew it, too, and decided to continue with the dramatics anyway. 

My injection today was like thick grey sludge, and it was injected into my vein like bloating slime with its sloppy substance and then slowly dissolving as it ran through my bloodstream. It felt just like it acted, like someone was filling my veins up with something gooey, and then the feeling just melted away with my body. I wondered if today was the day I was going to die when a frail man, probably in his sixties, started to blast blood from his mouth as he had no time to heave or breathe, and his back was hunched over as far as it could go. As soon as the old man took a breath, the waterfall of blood came back with a reckoning. This happened until the man fell limp on the floor with blood still trickling from his mouth and collecting with the pond of crimson he left behind. A hazmat team came in and took samples of the body before the others came in to actually dispose of the cadaver. Everyone was weeping, and they were just as desensitized to all this as I was, and that was good for them in this situation, but if they end up living through this hell, they will never see life the same way again. 

That night, I had continuous nightmares that rocked my entity and twisted fantasy into things that were reality. I gasped for breath every time the demons let go of their hold on me, only to fall back into the desperate grasp once more, making it a maddening cycle of torment. It didn't matter how I felt in the morning; I still went to the dining hall and ate breakfast, as the three that were still with me were not eating at all at this point in the project, and I'm sure the company was taking down notes about their melancholy behavior, and of course, the nonexistent mania that has not affected me thus far. So many notes I wanted to read to see how these doctors saw and evaluated us, not as people but as subjects. I could see the glory of not being the subject of this experience, and I wondered what kind of response they really wanted from us. So far, we have witnessed horrifying deaths that seem to happen to one of us at a time. Is it random how we are dying, or is it already planned, and is the reaction what is being evaluated? Which would mean the company is using murder to see the mind’s reaction to the first-hand experience of torture. 

I wondered what else they were looking for as we all went into the observatory, the others walking in like zombies, animated only by pure will. Today, my injection was a metallic liquid that shimmered silver on the way into my vein. Needles were not a big thing for me in any way, considering the addictive abuse I have already put on my body. Maybe that is what makes me different from everyone else: the profound infection I already might have manifested itself differently in my body than in theirs, and to prove this theory, I was the only one who was going to live through this. What I saw took me out of my thoughts and focused me on the man and woman facing each other, their heads as far back as they could go. Their jaws were gaping open as if they were silently screaming the sound that erupted around us, one we couldn't hear, and their eyes rolled back, leaving only thin red and blue vines in a white pool of blindness. 

I watched with only one other healthy person as these two bodies fell back onto the floor with a skull-breaking shatter, and we witnessed their bodies being mummified right in front of our faces. It was like every organ inside their carcass had just disappeared. A group of four in hazmat suits came in to take samples of the deceased before the pallbearers came forth and took away two more lost souls that were destined to die like this, the moment their pens hit the paper. It was all of us who signed up for what was happening. I wondered if I was the only one they told about what was really happening down here. I was prepared for all of this because Mr. Joe filled me in, as the others seemed to be blindsided by a mirage of glamor and riches. 

The only other person left with me stared at me while I ate my dinner with a sense of solace in my heart for still experiencing such a glorious way of living. I was a queen in a palace, and I was given everything I could ever want. Why would I refuse my meal as this man did, and why must he judge me so harshly for knowing the truth that he was only now witnessing? It wasn’t my fault. I demanded answers and the truth before stepping into this bullshit, and apparently, the others were so blinded by the offers and promises that they didn't read the fine print. The man and I stayed in the commons that night, each of us being awake as we knew what was coming as soon as the sun came up. The man stared at me all night until the intercom called for us. 

I wondered how they kept the bloodstains from staining the interior of this room, which was so white. And yet, stepping into this room every day, it was flawless, spotless and smelled sterile and clean. The man and I stood together as we were both injected with our shots, mine being a slimy green and his being a metallic blue. The hazmat team left, and then the two of us waited to see who was going to die next. It was me, and I could feel it in my body as my organs became rearranged, and I started to vomit blood. I wasn't alone; however, the guy next to me was seizing on the ground with his limbs curled in like a dead spider. My mouth was filled with the taste of copper and super glue, and I felt like my throat was getting sewn together from the inside. I felt like I was suffocating, and I wondered if one of us would live or if both of us would die. The reactions are still what they are looking for, and seeing two people fight death at the same time for different reasons was apparently fun to explore. 

Every bone in my body felt like it was shattering into a million shards, and the pressure in my head was becoming more and more dire. I fell back onto the ground. I could feel that, but after the fall, there was nothing. Only darkness. The darkness didn't stay for long, however, and I woke up to see a hazmat team leaning down in front of me. One of the guys was helping me up, and I saw my. Joe standing over me. I was pushed onto my feet, disoriented and in a daze, as I tried to collect my bearings and see the world around me clearly. Then I saw the other volunteer, and his face was so distorted in a way that it looked like he had died from experiencing something so terrifying that it left a mark even in death. 

I was taken to the shower before putting on fresh clothes as a few doctors led me back into mr. Joe’s office. He was sitting at his desk with his two-hundred-dollar loafers resting on his fine maple wood. He did not adjust his position as I entered the room. 

“Come on in and take a seat.” His charismatic smile was back, and those dimples made my heart beat quickly. “What you have done is just finished the project successfully.” He pulled a cigarillo out of his pocket and lit it, making the room smell of spicy tobacco, with a woody sweetness on my tongue. 

“What does that mean?” I wanted to know how far into the experiment I was allowed to fall before they probably were going to kill me for knowing about any of this in the first place, but at least my curiosity would be satisfied. 

“You have two choices now.” The man sat up straight now and let out a puff of smoke before looking me dead in the eye. “You can work for the company, or you can go back to the streets where you were digging for heroin and hoping not to die from an accidental fentanyl overdose.” The guy in the suit laughed like he already knew my answer, and I really considered both options. 

“Tell me what this project was about,” I spoke firmly, wanting to be let in on the light instead of staying in the shadows, staying ignorant of any ongoing experiments. 

“We are testing a weapon of sorts.” He bobbled his head and let out a sigh as he let me in on all the secrets. “Doctors are hired here to make a an injectable drug and this serum will specifically affect the subject in the way that the doctor’s intended it to react.” He cleared his throat and thought hard on something while he smoked for a bit before going on with his explanation. “Imagine the worst thing someone can go through physically, and our doctors and professors we hire make that happen for us.” I watched as he let the ash of his small cigar settle in a glass ashtray that was as clean as this entire office. 

“You want me to work for the company. What does that mean?” I wanted to know what kind of clearance I would receive if I accepted this offer, or if I would continue to be a lab rat in their maze of different venoms. 

“It means you help the doctors come up with specific ideas for a bio weapon, and they make it.” It was that simple; all I had to do was tell someone how I wanted another human being to die, and they were going to make it happen. 

“What do I get out of all this?” Was there payment involved, and was it enough for me to finally survive on? 

“The company will give you a house on the compound, and you will be financially secure for the rest of your life in the company.” He was giving me everything on a silver platter, and my mouth was watering for all of it. 

“Will I ever know what company I will be working for?” I wondered if this company was well known in the underground, surfaced every now and again to grab its victims, and then just disappear. 

“No. You will work with the professors and the doctors.” That was all of an answer he was going to give me, and I really didn't think I needed more of an explanation. 

“What do I have to do to work for the company if I were to agree?” My morality was teetering at this point, and I wanted to see just how much I could get to have that teeter-totter fall in one direction. 

“All you have to do is follow me.” That was it; there was no paperwork or signatures, it was just as simple as walking down the road. 

“Alright. I'll work for the company.” How could I not agree to a life of grandeur? 

“You understand we will be testing your work on other subjects like yourself.” He wanted to make this clear before I made my decision to become a god, an act only a few could handle. 

“I understand.” I was just as stoic as the man in the suit, and the firm break in morality felt like a rubber band snapping my skin. 

I was going to be god in a world that I had control of, and all my desires would bloom into reality, and never again would I feel the cold streets beneath my feet, nor feel the biting wind of winter coming. There wouldn't be newspapers to help me keep my warmth, and there would be no dumpsters outside nice restaurants throwing away scraps that I could have for dinner. None of that. I was done with that. Now I could be someone. Now I could control my own reality and others'. This was it for me; I now worked for the company. 

The trail on the map had a name — Elkhorn Creek Corridor — and the map showed it as a solid line running northeast for about seven miles before it hooked back toward the parking area. By the time we'd been walking for forty minutes the solid line had become a suggestion, and by the time we'd been walking for two hours it had become nothing at all.

I stopped at the base of a small rise and looked at the printout I'd folded into quarters in my hip pocket. The creek was supposed to be a quarter mile to our left. I could hear it — good — but the trail should have been clearer than this. The alder here was dense and close, the ground between the trees soft and uneven, nothing that looked like repeated foot traffic.

"Is this still it?" Caleb asked.

He was a few steps behind me, picking his way around a patch of standing water. Eleven years old and already careful about wet boots.

"Should be," I said.

He looked at the ground ahead. Then at me. He didn't say anything, which was already a version of the conversation we weren't having.

We'd been planning this for three months. My idea. Two nights out, just the two of us, far enough from cell service that the week couldn't reach us. Since the divorce was finalized in February I'd been trying to find the right register for things — when to push, when to give him room, how to make the time we had feel like something rather than an obligation we were both being careful about. We'd done weekends at my apartment. Movies, takeout, video games he pretended to let me win at. It was fine. Fine was the word that sat on top of all of it, like a lid.

I wanted something he'd actually remember. Something that felt like us trying, instead of us managing.

So: interior Alaska, late September. Two nights. A trail that stopped being a trail.

I folded the map and kept walking.

We'd been on the ground maybe twenty minutes when I found the first marker. Orange surveyor's tape, tied around the limb of a black spruce at about eye height. Trail marker, standard. Except the tape was wrong. Vivid orange, still saturated, the kind of color that hasn't had any weather on it. The knot was tight and even in a way that felt recent. I stood there looking at it and then I looked back down the path at the other markers I'd passed — faded, half-unspooled, most of them gone gray-pink, the color drained over a season or two of exposure. This one looked like someone had tied it this week.

I moved on without saying anything.

Caleb was the one who found the footprints. He stopped at a section of soft ground near the creek edge and crouched down, looking at the impressions.

"They go over each other," he said.

I came back and looked. He was right. Boot prints going in both directions, in and out, but the overlap was wrong. The stride length on the return set didn't match the outbound set. Both sets were roughly the same boot size, same basic tread, but the spacing was off by several inches on every step. Like two different people who wore the same shoes.

"Hikers," I said. "Different people, different times."

Caleb looked at the prints for another few seconds and then stood up. He didn't argue. He also didn't drop it — I could tell from the careful blank look he'd developed sometime in the last year, the one he used when he'd decided something wasn't worth explaining.

The soda can was twenty feet further on. Mountain Dew, pressed flat into the duff, partly buried. The label was hardly faded. I picked it up by reflex — packing out other people's trash was something my own father had made habit in me — and turned it over. The bottom was clean. A can that's been out in the woods more than a few months picks up moisture staining, oxidation, debris pressed into the metal. This one had nothing. It had been there a week, maybe less.

I put it in the outer pocket of my pack and kept walking.

We made camp in a flat area above the creek, thirty feet of elevation separating us from the water. Caleb pointed out immediately that it wasn't the river, which I had said we'd camp near.

"The creek feeds into the river," I said. "Practically the same."

"It's not the same."

"For our purposes it is."

He looked at the creek, then at the tent site, then seemed to decide this was a reasonable argument to table. He started gathering flat rocks for a stove pad without being asked. He knew to do things like that. He paid attention.

The Coleman gave me trouble.

I'd tested it in the kitchen two nights before and it had worked fine, but the wind here came in low off the slope and kept killing the flame before the burner caught. Third attempt I cupped my hands around the igniter and blocked the wind with my jacket and held very still until I heard it running steady, then backed away slowly like it might change its mind.

While I finished staking the tent, Caleb organized the food pack. I had to restack the fuel canisters twice because I'd put them in wrong.

I adjusted the rain fly attachment point even though the forecast was clear and the sky had been clear all day. I found myself checking the tent poles for cracks. There weren't any. I checked anyway.

Caleb looked at me once while I was on my third pass around the tent adjusting things that didn't need adjusting. I said I just wanted to make sure everything was squared away before dark. He nodded and didn't push it.

We ate instant noodles and jerky around seven. Caleb sorted the cashews out of the nut mix and left the rest, and I watched him do it without comment. The fire was good — dry wood, steady burn — and the cold was coming in off the ridge in slow, regular drops, maybe a degree every twenty minutes. By eight o'clock I was grateful for my jacket and Caleb had pulled his hood up.

The scream came while he was finishing his food.

Distant, a long way off. High and thin, almost like a recording of something at the far edge of its range. It had a human pitch to it, the upper register of a woman's voice calling out for something, and it stretched and stretched and then just stopped. Four seconds, maybe five.

Caleb went completely still with his fork halfway to his mouth.

"Fox," I said. I said it calmly and quickly, the way you say things when speed is a substitute for certainty.

"That wasn't a fox."

"Red fox sounds almost exactly like that. Distance changes the pitch."

He set his fork down and looked at the tree line to the southeast. He was doing something with the information — filing it, measuring it against something else.

"Why would someone be way out here?" he said.

I looked at him. He wasn't talking about the fox anymore. He'd made the same jump I had and come out at the same uncomfortable place — a person, out here at this hour, in this, making that sound.

I didn't have a good answer. I poked at the fire with a stick and let the silence do whatever it was going to do.

I woke up at two in the morning cold and needing to move. Caleb was asleep beside me, breathing slow and even, his bag pulled all the way up over his face the way he slept when the temperature dropped. I lay there for a minute listening to the creek and then the sound came again.

Inside a hundred yards. Maybe less.

Same pitch, same quality, but not the same distance — I'd heard it at dinner from a quarter mile out at minimum, and this was right there, the other side of the tree line. It went on longer this time, closer to eight or ten seconds, and then it stopped. The way a sound stops when something interrupts its source. Not faded, not trailed off. Just gone.

I sat up in the dark and found the inReach by feel. Good signal — four bars. No alerts, no messages. I pulled up the position screen and it showed us exactly where I expected, right on the creek drainage, two-point-four miles northeast of the trailhead.

I sat there listening. The sound didn't come back. The creek kept going. Wind moved through the spruce to the west and that was all. I lay back down around three and watched the tent ceiling and didn't sleep again until almost five.

Caleb was already outside when I unzipped the tent. Six-fifteen, light barely coming in gray and flat off the eastern ridge. He was sitting on the flat rock he'd used for a chair the night before, boots on, jacket zipped all the way, watching the tree line to the southeast.

"You heard it," I said.

"Right there." He pointed. "Right behind the trees. Really close."

I went and looked. The ground between our camp and the trees was soft enough that I could see my own tracks from the night before, the impressions clear and sharp. At the edge of the tree line, in a section maybe six feet wide, the surface was disturbed. Nothing that read as footprints — more like something had shifted weight across it in a pattern I didn't have a category for. Like movement, but not the kind I could name.

"Moose," I said. "Probably a moose."

Caleb looked at the marks for a moment. Then at me. He had his patient face on, the one that meant he was deciding whether I actually believed what I was saying.

We made coffee and oatmeal and broke camp in forty minutes. I told him the plan was to push northeast toward the ridgeline for the views and then come down the other drainage and make our second camp closer to the trailhead. He asked if that was always the plan. I said more or less. He nodded and picked up his pack.

I kept looking back while we hiked. Checking the tree line we'd left behind, checking the slopes. Caleb noticed. He didn't say anything for the first hour.

We were crossing a wide bench below the ridgeline — open ground, good sight lines, wind in our faces — when the sound came again.

It started far away. The right distance, the right pitch, behind us and to the south, a quarter mile at minimum. I had time to register it and start to turn before it was close. Same note, same pitch, and suddenly no distance at all, the sound right there, somewhere within thirty or forty feet to the east, and no transition between the two states — no build, no fade-in. Far, and then there.

I had my hand on the inReach before I knew I'd moved.

Caleb had stopped walking. He was standing two paces ahead of me, looking east, completely still.

"It's following us," he said.

He wasn't wrong. I'd been trying to build an alternative explanation for the last mile and none of them were holding.

The thing I noticed, standing there on that open bench: Caleb had stopped before the sound got close. While it was still distant, still reading as a quarter mile out. A half second before the volume shifted, before there was any reason to stop. His body had been ahead of the information.

I told myself he'd been watching the tree line and seen something move. I held onto that for the next four hours.

"We should keep moving," I said.

The terrain worsened through the afternoon. The bench gave way to slope — loose rock and thin soil, the kind of ground that costs you three steps for every two you intend. The spruce grew narrower and tighter here, the ground between them broken up with root humps and soft spots that grabbed at your boots. We were off anything resembling a path. I checked the inReach every twenty minutes.

On my third check, standing still on a flat section while Caleb rested his knee, I watched the GPS position indicator drift. We hadn't moved. I'd been standing in the same spot for two minutes. The coordinate display showed us sliding northeast, thirty feet, forty, then holding. I hit reset. It stabilized. A minute and a half later it started moving again — slow, ten feet, fifteen, back toward where it had been before I reset it.

I put it away without saying anything.

The sound came at irregular intervals after that, every thirty or forty minutes, and it was changing. The beginning was right and the ending was right but the middle had started going wrong — not louder or quieter, but structurally off, the pitch wandering through the center of the sound like something that had been listening carefully and had started producing its own version without fully understanding what made the original work.

Caleb was walking close to me. Close enough that I could have reached out and touched his shoulder without fully extending my arm. He'd spent the first day ranging out a bit, stopping to look at things, the natural drift of a kid on a hike who's interested in his surroundings. Now he stayed at arm's reach and didn't stray.

We found a site just before the light died. Flat ground, protected on two sides by a low rock spur, enough deadfall in the perimeter that I could feed a fire without stripping the area bare.

My legs were done and Caleb was favoring his right knee on the downhills. We weren't making the trailhead tomorrow without an early start. I looked at the inReach and thought about sending a non-emergency message and decided I'd assess in the morning.

The fire took and I kept it going.

I had enough wood for a solid, sustainable fire and I built one and then kept adding to it past any reasonable point. Caleb had dragged his sleeping pad out of the tent and was sitting on it with his knees pulled up, four feet from the edge of the firelight. I told him there was a decent piece of deadfall just behind him he could pull in for a seat. He didn't want to go back from the light to get it.

The sticks I was feeding the fire were thin — half an inch in diameter, the kind you use to start a fire, not maintain one. The fire didn't need any of them.

It had a solid base going and was sustaining itself without help, but I kept picking up the thin sticks and laying them on one at a time, watching each one catch and add its small heat to the whole. I don't know how long I'd been doing it before I noticed the pile to my right, maybe forty sticks gone through, maybe more. I stopped when I realized and just held a stick in my hand for a while without putting it down.

The Glock was on my hip. I'd pulled it out of the pack at noon and hadn't put it back. I took it out and checked the chamber. The round was seated right. I'd checked it when I first holstered it and again at four in the afternoon and I knew the round was there. I put it back. About fifteen minutes later, while Caleb was drinking from his water bottle and looking toward the north, I took it out and checked the chamber again. Round there. I reholstered it. I didn't do anything with the knowledge that I'd checked it three times.

Caleb's eyes moved through the tree line in a pattern. Northwest, then northeast, then due east, each spot held for a few seconds before he shifted to the next. It wasn't the way you look into the dark when you're afraid of it — afraid of the dark makes you look away, reflex and recoil, the quick glance toward and the quicker glance back. He was looking toward, holding position, moving methodically. Like he was watching a specific set of locations and waiting for the status at one of them to change.

The fire popped and I laid on another thin stick.

After a while he said, "It sounds like it knows what we're supposed to do when we hear it."

I looked at him. His eyes were on the trees.

"What do you mean."

He turned the water bottle over in his hands, studying the fire. "Like it knows we're going to stop. And face it. And listen." He paused. "So it uses that."

"Uses it for what."

He shrugged once. One shoulder, slow. "I don't know." He looked down at the bottle. "Forget it."

I didn't push it and I didn't forget it. I sat there with the fire between me and the dark and I turned his words over and the place they kept leading me was somewhere I didn't have a name for yet, so I picked up another stick and laid it on the coals and watched it catch.

The sound came once more around ten. The wrong version — right edges, wandering center. Maybe two hundred feet to the west. Caleb heard it and he turned toward it, but he turned a full beat after I did. Not the reflex slowness of someone startled. One clear beat behind.

On the bench he'd been ahead of it. Now he was behind.

I kept the fire up until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Caleb's idea to get the wood.

The fire had dropped and the temperature was in the low twenties and he said there was a decent pile of deadfall about twenty-five feet back from where I'd been pulling from earlier. He was right — I'd seen it when I set up. He said we should go get some. I said we'd go together.

I handed him the flashlight and kept the gun. We went out maybe twenty feet from the fire's edge and started pulling pieces. I was watching the perimeter and trying not to be obvious about it, probably failing. Caleb was working a piece of birch loose from under some other material. I had two pieces under my arm.

The scream hit and I couldn't locate it. I turned in a slow circle, trying to find a source, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once, or from no direction I could fix on, just present in the air around us without a point of origin. I turned toward where it seemed strongest, to the northeast, which put the fire behind me and Caleb behind me.

I heard the branches. Movement to my left, high up, too large for the wind, swinging wrong, and then something tall in the dark between the trees, the shape of it there and wrong before I could do anything with the information.

Caleb made a sound. Short. Gone.

I turned back. The space where he'd been was empty. Branches moving hard to the southeast — fast, directional, into the trees. I fired twice into the dark toward the movement. The reports came back off the ridge and then the echo faded and there was nothing. No branches. No sound. The fire behind me and a circle of dark in every other direction.

The silence lasted longer than it should have.

I searched for an hour.

The disturbed ground went about fifteen feet before the trail ended on harder soil. One of his gloves — the left one — on the ground twelve feet into the trees. No blood. The Merrell tread in the soft duff beside it. Drag marks that went another eight feet and stopped on a section of exposed rock where nothing left a mark.

I called his name. The first few calls came out controlled, the voice you use when you're telling yourself this is still a problem with a solution. Then that stopped working and I got louder, and then louder than that, and at some point I was just making sound because standing in those trees with the flashlight and the dark was not something I could be still inside of.

Twenty minutes into it, the voice came back.

Caleb's voice. His actual pitch, his actual cadence, the specific way he pronounced his vowels. Coming from the northwest, maybe a hundred and fifty feet out.

Dad. Dad, I can't find the —

The sentence dropped wrong at the end. A word missing, or the wrong word landing in the wrong position — I couldn't fix exactly what was off. But the voice was right. The way he said Dad was right, with that particular small fall at the end of the word that meant he needed something from me.

I grabbed the gun and the flashlight. I left everything else — the pack, the inReach, the extra rounds, the food, all of it. I went.

I moved through the trees following the voice and it came every few minutes, pulling me northeast. Sometimes it was closer and sometimes further and then closer again without the geography between those positions making sense. I called back between its calls. It answered. The answers were almost right.

I passed a branch broken at chest height, the pale wood fresh at the break. Kept moving. Maybe ten minutes later the branch was there again. Same angle, same pale wood facing me, same break. I stopped and looked at it.

Told myself there were a hundred broken branches out here.

Kept going.

The rock with the lichen. A boulder about waist high, a strip of pale growth running diagonal across the south face. I'd noticed it when I set up camp and thought it looked like a water stain. I moved past it going northeast.

Fifteen minutes later the rock was there again. Same strip, same diagonal, same height.

I stood with the flashlight pointed at the ground and tried to think.

The voice came from my left. I dropped the flashlight. I'm near the — by the big rock, I think there's —

The sentence didn't finish right. The word choices sat slightly outside how Caleb talked, like someone who had been listening carefully to the words but hadn't fully absorbed their weight. Repeating something in a language still being learned.

I went toward it anyway. I don't know what else I would have done.

The footprints came to me while I was walking.

The overlapping prints at the creek, the ones Caleb had spotted on the way in. The stride lengths that didn't match. Both sets the same size, same approximate tread, but the spacing off by several inches every step. And the bench — the sound going close and Caleb already stopped, his body ahead of the information by half a second.

I found soft ground in a clearing between some alder and swept the flashlight across it. Two sets of small boot prints, side by side, roughly parallel, headed northwest. The left set matched Caleb's Merrell trail runner tread — I knew it well enough, I'd stood in the store while he walked up and down the aisle deciding between two pairs. The right set was close. Same approximate size, similar tread pattern, but the stride was off. Several inches longer on every step.

I crouched over them with the dying flashlight and stayed there longer than I should have.

The voice came from ahead. From the direction the prints were headed. Something specific — that morning, me at the stove making oatmeal, Caleb asking whether we'd do this again next year, me saying I hoped so, him saying okay in that particular way he had. Not dismissive, not flat. The word sitting down quietly after it, the way he said things when he was putting them somewhere he intended to keep.

The voice got the okay exactly right. The small pause before it. The quality of the word after.

I stood up and walked toward it.

The clearing opened past a stand of spruce, open ground and low brush, moonlight and the last of my flashlight battery giving enough visibility to make out shapes clearly.

He was at the far edge of the clearing, forty feet out, standing still and watching me.

I said his name.

His shoulders were dropped too far, arms hanging loose at his sides in a way that had no deliberateness in it — the way a body stands when something has stopped accounting for what it's doing. His jacket was right. His boots were right. His hair was visible past the edge of his hood.

I could not see his breath in the cold air.

I stood there and watched for it and there was nothing, no small cloud, no movement at the mouth, and the temperature was in the low twenties and had been all night.

The scream came from behind me.

The original. The right one — high, thin, full duration, four or five seconds and clean all the way through. Not the version with the wandering center. The first version, the one from dinner on the first night. Coming from back in the trees, from the direction I'd come from.

I turned.

There was a shape in the trees behind me. The flashlight was nearly gone, throwing yellow instead of white, and the distance was wrong for what I was looking at, but the shape was there. Smaller than what I'd seen moving in the branches at the attack. More the right size.

I turned back to the clearing.

Both of them in my sight at once. The gun already in my hand.

I stood there and I thought about the stride lengths in the soft ground. I thought about the questions the past day and a half that had landed slightly sideways, the ones I'd read as him being careful with his words since the divorce, being precise because precision felt safer. I thought about him not turning when the scream hit close at the woodpile. I thought about the glove sitting clean on the ground twelve feet into the trees with no struggle around it, about the drag marks stopping too soon on the rock.

The thing in the clearing said my name. David. The way Caleb said it — he was the only person in my life who said it quite that way, a particular small fall at the end of the second syllable, learned from a lifetime of hearing it said that way by me.

From behind me, from the trees, the shape repeated something back. It's not the same. Practically speaking, it's not the same. The pause in the wrong place. Practically carrying slightly too much weight, like a word learned by sound rather than by meaning, reproduced without understanding where it was supposed to land.

I raised the gun.

I stood between the two of them and looked from one to the other and I could not hold all of it at once. The thing in the clearing had said my name right and its arms were wrong and its breath was absent. The thing in the trees had gotten the phrase wrong and I couldn't see it and the scream had been right, the original, the one that existed before any of this.

Both of those things couldn't be true the same way.

I'd left the inReach at camp. I didn't know how far I'd walked or how many times I'd circled. The flashlight was nearly dead. The temperature was still dropping. My son had been gone for hours and I was standing in an open field and I had to choose.

I fired.

They found me at 0800, about a mile from the trailhead.

Two of them — a state trooper and a park ranger, hiking in from the vehicles. I was on the ground with my back against a spruce, the gun in my lap, the flashlight dead beside me. Malnourished. Hypothermic enough that I wasn't tracking well. They got heat on me and water into me and sat me up.

The ranger asked where my son was.

I told him northeast. Back up the drainage, back up the slope. I pointed into the trees beyond where they'd come from.

The trooper wrote it down and got on the radio and I watched his face while he relayed it and his face was careful and still and gave me nothing.

They asked me to describe the route I'd taken and I described what I could remember. At some point while I was talking I heard them discuss the search grid — northeast, up the drainage. Into the area I was pointing toward.

I had twelve shots missing from the magazine when they found me. Two from the attack at the woodpile. One from the clearing. I don't know what happened to the other nine — where I fired them or what I was aiming at or whether I was moving toward something or away from it or whether I was already circling the lichen rock again by then and just didn't know it.

I've gone back over everything I can recover, looking for the moment.

Midday, on the bench. That's where I keep landing. The sound going close and Caleb already stopped, already there ahead of it by half a second. Maybe that's where it happened. Maybe it was earlier — the overlapping prints at the creek had two different stride lengths, which means two kids, which means I may have only thought I had one child with me from the trailhead on.

I don't know.

The questions he asked that first day and a half. Almost right. In the right register, the right vocabulary, but landing slightly outside where Caleb's questions usually landed. I'd told myself it was the divorce, that he'd learned to be careful with his words because precision felt safer. I'd told myself it was something I'd done to him.

I told myself a lot of things in those two days.

My name in the clearing — I've played it back in every configuration I have access to. Both of them had the inflection right, or close enough that I couldn't separate them in the moment. The one in the clearing had it exactly right and was wrong in every physical way I could see. The one in the trees had gotten the quoted line wrong and I couldn't see it clearly and the scream before it had been the right version.

Both of those things couldn't be true the same way, and I was standing in a field at midnight and I fired.

The search grid ran northeast. Into the area I pointed them toward.

I came from the north.

I've thought about why I said northeast and I don't have an answer that settles. Maybe I was disoriented from the circling. Maybe the clearing was northeast and that's where my hand went without thinking. Maybe after hours in those trees I was still following the voice even after everything, and the voice had been pulling me northeast, and that's where my arm pointed when they asked.

That last one is the one I come back to.

There were two of them in that clearing. One said my name right and had no breath in twenty-degree air. One quoted something wrong and I couldn't see it.

I raised the gun and I fired and I don't know which direction I was facing when I did, and I don't know which one I hit, and I don't know which one walked out of those trees the next morning while the search team went the other way.

I don't know which one they're still looking for.

My relationship was done, and I needed it to be done. I got my ticket and got on the train as fast as I could. I found my seat on the bench as soon as my foot hit the floor. The place closest to the door where I can get off and breathe something more than stale air at each stop. There was a lovely couple that sat across from me, and their elbows were entwined up on the surface of the bench top, and their fingers were locked together. I wanted to gag. I was getting out of a very abusive relationship, however, so my opinion doesn't really matter. I sat as close to the window as I could and left the blinds up on my side so I could watch as night fell and my past would just flicker away like sand stuck to my body. I was going home for the first time in twenty years with nowhere else to go. I hammered the thoughts that this time it was going to be better being around all of them, and I tried to swallow the manhole full of anxiety that was never-ending inside of me. As my body falls in, so does my mind, and I just prayed I wouldn't have a full mental attack in front of them. Mental breakdown. Gosh, I never imagined that I would ever go back home, and here I was running to a family that had abandoned me. 

I was starving and curious about when meals would start being handed out. It was around lunchtime, and I couldn't have been the only one hoping for food. I slipped out of my bench as the love birds started to shove their tongues down each other's throats. Gross. I made my way to the employee's cart and found a woman in an attendee uniform, who smiled at me through a face caked in makeup. 

“When will lunch be served?” I asked, just poking my head inside, so I wouldn't seem that much more intrusive. 

“Very soon. We will be enjoying roasted chicken thighs and mashed potatoes with a side of macaroni and cheese.” She was so cheerful when she spoke, but there were some underlying issues that she hid behind her big doe eyes. 

“Awesome. Sounds great. Thanks.” I turned away from the attendee and started to make my way back to my seat when another thought hit me. 

How long until we reach our first stop? There was a smoking cart aboard the train, but I was not about to suffocate myself in an effluence of smoky breath and toxic standing fumes. Not to mention the perfume and cologne that hung heavily over everything, entwining to form large grey clouds that floated up to the ceiling and tried to go through a vent all at once. No thanks, I would take my chances in the cold and freeze my tits off before getting caught in that death trap. I went back to ask the attendee another question before I got to my seat, but when I returned to the employee cart, she wasn't there; in her place was just a big boop of chocolate ice cream. On top of it were two cherries looking like eyes gazing back at me. Another attendee walked in and stepped through the mess like it wasn't even there. 

“Are you having a good ride? Is there something I can help you with?” She was kind and chipper, just like the other woman that I had just spoken to seconds ago. 

Maybe I was tired. “No ma'am, thank you.” I made it back to my seat, where Mr. Lovey dovey was gone, and Mrs. Lovey dovey was still there swiping through her phone. 

I sat in my bench alone and put my feet down under the table for the first time this entire ride, and the first thing I touched was something slimy. I pulled my foot up and looked under the table to see another mound of melting vanilla ice cream sitting where the man had just been, and his girl didn't even seem to notice. The thing that freaked me out the most was the two cherries that sat on top, melted into the front beside one another, slowly making their way down to the floor, where I watched them get even closer together. It was odd that the butt of the cherries sat towards me, so the circle in the middle of the fruit was looking at me. I shivered and looked up at the woman, perplexed. 

“Where is your husband?” I smiled at the woman, curious to see what she might say. 

“Oh, he went to the bathroom.” She waved her hand nonchalantly while sitting on a puddle where the man she loved used to sit. He was leaking from the seat, whipped cream mixing with the sludge, making it look like one big, massive pile of shit. The cherry eyes, though, stayed together, and they stared at me. The cream went over one of the cherries, making it look like it almost blinked. I laughed to myself and wondered if this was a dream or one big sick joke. Was I even on a train, or had that bastard already killed me? I ignored it. It was whatever and not my problem. I ended up with my feet on the seat, my ankles stacked, and my head planted against the cold glass of the window. The slick surface was hard but comforting as the chill made it even more real that my past was truly behind me and I was moving forward for the first time in my life. I got up from my nap, having to use the restroom, and I left the woman who sat across from me swiping on her phone and ignoring the still-present ice cream that was oozing next to her. 

On my way to the bathroom, I glanced into other carts holding different passengers and saw that some of the booths were covered in melting cream, while the ones next to it were oblivious to its existence. I stepped over a couple of ice cream piles before reaching the restroom and locking myself inside. When I turned around to lift the toilet seat up, however, there was a pile of dripping strawberries with two cherries looking at me with eyes. In the midst of its face, it even looked like it had a wicked smile. I didn't have to use the restroom anymore, so I decided to just go back to my seat and wait for the first stop. As I made it back to my own cart, I noticed that there were fewer people around me, and there was more ice cream melting around in mounds with two cherry eyes all directed at me. I shivered and quickened my pace only to find that the vanilla sludge had interwined with the pistachio cream right next to it. Both cherries were close to each other but far enough apart to distinguish the pairs. The stems were up and facing away from each other, with a slight curve, making the thick tops droop a bit, and the butt of the cherry, with its singular eyes, sat and stared at me. I was almost unresponsive at this point, and perplexity had been replaced with pure curiosity. 

I got my shit together and found an open cart with no mess and no people. I sat down, propped my feet up on the bench, and rested the back of my head against the cold window, which offered a view of a great white blizzard full of nothing but flashing static. It was unnerving to not be able to see past the snow to something strong and tangible. Maybe a forest or the next damn town, which we still haven’t arrived at. I really had to go to the bathroom, and I knew there had to be at least one restroom on the train that didn't have staring, melting ice cream on the lid of it. I didn't feel comfortable touching any of it. I got out of my cart and went on the search, which proved unfruitful as every little cubicle was filled with melting cream and watching cherries. I had no choice; I had to touch it to raise the lid. I used my foot while my arms arched the doorway, and I touched the tip of the lid before pulling it up and slamming it backward, sending the ice cream flying in all directions. At least it wasn't on the toilet. I hovered over the seat and tried to pee with a sludge of ice cream in front of me, just gazing away. 

I got myself together and noticed that the cart I was in was empty. It wasn't filled with the laughing chatter of women meeting each other and drinking wine, as their significant others sat in their seats and waited for them to get back. It was silent. As I passed each cart again and again, there were only mounds of thick gunk oozing over each other, and each one just gawking at me. I got to the next cart, which was filled with small conversations and alcoholic beverages being handed out to almost everyone on board. I slipped past the people while also trying to avoid the invisible ice cream. People looked at me like I was the weird one while they were literally stepping in flavored flesh. I needed to get off this train; I needed a town full of normality. I sat down in my seat, and I sat upright before an attendant made it to my open cart. 

“Would you like a drink?” The offer had an immediate response. 

I took the glass of wine, thankful for the reprieve from madness, and sipped it while watching the human woman walk away in her full form. I set the glass down just as she turned away, and my eyes followed her down to the other open carts. She stayed in a solid form, and I wondered if this disease was only affecting certain people. What made some special and susceptible to the airborne disease, I was assuming. It was odd, though. I never saw anyone melt. I always turned my back before the ice cream appeared. I stopped the attendee as she walked back past my open doors with her cart full of different wines. 

“When is the next stop?” I caught her right before she rolled past me, paying me no attention. 

“Oh, it's soon. We should be there any minute now.” Her smile was plastic, and her skin was too shiny to be natural. 

I nervously laughed and turned away from her, wondering if it was a process for people to turn into ice cream, and I haven’t been noticing it by avoiding it at all costs. Maybe I needed to study it. I drank the rest of my wine and found a cart with someone inside it. I asked to take a seat, and the old man was happy to oblige. I sat down, and I stared at him, wondering if his face was already melting or if those were just really saggy wrinkles. I could have picked someone younger, but he was the first person I saw that wasn't already ice cream. I listened to the man talk about the war and how proud he was of his son, who followed him into the military. I watched him very closely as he remained solid. Nothing had happened after an hour, and then he decided to get up and use the restroom. I happily allowed him to leave first before stalking him down the aisle, dodging piles to my left and right. None of them favored the little cherry eyes watching me with my every move. It was unsettling to say the least. I couldn't watch the old man actually go to the bathroom, but I allowed him in and then waited, first person in line, to use the bathroom. 

People began to murmur and wait behind me as the old man took a long time. I finally knocked and waited for an answer. There was none. I knocked again and waited, but there was no reply. I finally jimmyed the door open and looked inside. There was nothing in there but melting ice cream looking at me with the same wrinkled expression as the old man. I held the door open before hearing someone yell at me for waiting for an empty stall. I got out of line and went back to my bench more baffled than ever before. Why couldn't I watch the process happen? Why can't I see them melt? I was frustrated, so I moved to another seat with a happy little family inside. The mother, father, and baby were on one side of the table, while I stayed on the other. I watched them like a weirdo, and they sensed my awkward vibes, so I closed my eyes and just listened to the words and their laughter. I opened my eyes periodically if I heard a second of silence and watched as the family remained the same. 

Then, for the first time, I finally got to see it happen, and it happened to the whole family at once. First, it started with droopy faces, with their eyes sinking to their cheeks and their chins falling to their sternums. I watched as twisted flesh bulged out beneath the tattered skin, then watched that strip down to reveal different flavors. The family gushed down the seat in a twirl of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. I let out a deep gust of air from my nose before getting out of the cart so the family wouldn't sludge on my shoes. I looked down at the twirlly cream and noticed that all of them had whipped cream hair with their cherry eyes, and I swear to god i saw the cherries move to look at me more directly. As I walked down the aisle, I watched as more and more people became gunky slop, and I was now running through the seeping stickiness coming out of each doorway, open or closed. Where was I going to go? To the person who was driving the train. He was real, and he would know what to do. 

I sprinted as fast as I could without slipping and falling down to the captain of the ship. As I got closer and closer to the front, I noticed fewer people sitting around and more ice cream falling into puddles around me. I couldn't breathe as I reached the first cart and began banging on the door. My calls went unanswered, so I pushed the door open to demand answers from the train conductor. But the only thing I found in that room was a pile of ice cream, a gyrate of rocky road and mint chocolate chip. No one was driving this train, but I saw a town coming up through the blizzard, and surely the train would stop for the approaching pedestrian traffic. I ran back to my cart, grabbed all of my stuff, and waited by the doors in a big puddle of thick mess. The train slowed, and my heart raced. As soon as the doors opened, I pushed through the oncoming crowds and made my way onto the platform. I didn't care where I was; I just needed to get off the train. I turned around just in time to watch that train leave with carts full of people. Not one of them complained or noticed the ice cream all over the surfaces. 

I got on my phone and finally got a signal to call someone to pick me up. I was a town over from my dedication, and I just needed an Uber to get me there. I would pay extra for the long drive. I found someone willing to take me and got comfortable in their very clean back seat. I told him where I wanted to go, and he put the address in his GPS. As we drove, the driver turned down the music at a red light and looked back at me. 

“There is a creamery at the next turn with the best ice cream in the state. Do you wanna stop for someone before we go on this road trip?” My eyes went wide with panic before I snapped at him. 

“No,” I hollered, making him jump. “I'm sorry. No, thank you. I'm fine.” I calmed down and put my head against the cold glass of the window. 

I took deep breaths through my closed eyes as my body felt as if I were back on the train with the steady speed and naked glass. I opened my eyes every now and again as I drifted to sleep, but I was too worried my driver was going to turn into ice cream, so I kept an eye out. When I finally got back to my childhood home, I tipped the guy extra before he left. I wouldn't tell anyone about the train for fear of a mental ward or psychiatric evaluation. So I shivered off all the thoughts and made my way to the front door. I will just never eat ice cream again, and I should be fine. I knocked on the door, pushing away all my nightmareous thoughts as my mom answered the door with a sundae in her hands. I just about lost it when I saw the ice cream fist and then looked at my very aged mother. She dropped her bowl, and I got startled, and I watched the ice cream fall next to my foot and begin making a small river. I stepped away from the ice cream and its staring cherry eyes, and I hugged my mother. She was actually happy to see me home. I was invited in with warmth, and I left that creamy dessert behind, determined never to be near it again. 

I've been with the same volunteer search-and-rescue team in northern Montana for eleven years, long enough that I've stopped being surprised by most of what the wilderness sends back to us.

Before this I did two seasons with the county fire department and a stint doing trail maintenance for the park service, which is how I learned this stretch of terrain well enough to be useful in the dark. The work is physical and mostly predictable. Dehydration, exposure, sprained ankles, the occasional broken leg from someone who misjudged a slope and committed to the mistake before they could take it back.

Hunters who wander past their marked zone and lose the light and end up cold and embarrassed. We find them and bring them out. That's the job ninety percent of the time.

The other ten percent is the reason I'm writing this down.

Three Sundays ago, we got a call from a trail runner who'd spotted a man on the Corey Creek access path. That trail hasn't been in official use for close to fifteen years — a bridge washed out in 2010 and the funding to replace it never materialized, so the trailhead marker went dark and it dropped off the park service maps. People who know this area know it's still walkable if you're careful about where the ground gets soft near the creek. People who don't know this area have no business being on it, and if they are, it's usually because something went wrong somewhere else first.

The runner said the man was barefoot. Moving slow, head down, dressed for hunting in temperatures that had dropped a long way since morning. She called out to him twice and he hadn't looked up.

My partner Denise and I took the Corey Creek approach on foot because the growth had reclaimed enough of the trail that the ATV wasn't a practical option. It's a long mile from the trailhead to where we found him, mostly uphill, and the overgrowth meant we had to watch our footing and the path at the same time. We heard him before we saw him — the snow in that area is deep enough that footsteps carry, and we heard his shuffle-and-catch gait about sixty yards before we came around a bend and had eyes on him.

He was moving in the wrong direction. Deeper into the wilderness, away from the trailhead, away from anything. His hunting jacket had been opened along the back in vertical strips — I say opened because shredded implies speed and randomness, and whatever had happened to that jacket looked deliberate, like something had needed access to the seam and dealt with the material accordingly. His feet were bare in about eight inches of packed snow and the frostbite on them was visible from a distance. There was blood on his forearms and on the front of his jacket and none of it appeared to be coming from any wound I could locate on him from where I stood.

I noticed that and did not mention it to Denise. When I looked over at her, I could see from her face that she'd already registered it.

We got him turned around without resistance. He didn't fight us and he didn't respond to us in any normal sense — he wasn't tracking our questions or reacting to our presence specifically, just accepting the gentle physical pressure of being redirected, the way a very tired person will accept being guided to a chair. He muttered something under his breath the entire walk back. Low and rhythmic, running under the sound of the wind and the creak of the snow under our boots. It took me most of that mile and a quarter to parse it out clearly.

It let me go. It let me go. It let me go.

Steady as breathing, the whole way out.

We got him into the med tent at base camp around two in the afternoon. Denise started working on the frostbite while I tried to get basic information — name, point of origin, how long he'd been out, who else was with him. He wouldn't answer any of it. He sat on the cot and looked at the canvas wall with the focused attention of someone reading text that was only visible to him, and his mouth had stopped moving, and the muttering had stopped, and something about that silence felt more unsettling than the muttering had.

His feet were bad. Denise had concerns about tissue damage on two of the toes on his left foot and she radioed the county coordinator for a medical consult while she got him into dry socks and a thermal layer. He complied with all of it without speaking — lifted his feet when directed, held his arms out, followed basic physical instructions — but he was somewhere else while he did it. Whatever was running his body through those motions wasn't fully present in the tent with us.

Around four in the afternoon, one of the other volunteers, a woman named Karen who's been doing this for six years, brought over a protein bar and a cup of broth she'd gotten off the camp stove. He looked at the food and turned his face away, his lips pressed together. Karen slid the broth closer, doing the patient insistence you learn to do with people in shock, and he grabbed the edge of the folding table with both hands and screamed. A single sustained note, loud enough that I heard someone outside the tent go quiet.

Then, very quietly and without looking at any of us, he said: "It will know."

We removed the food and did not offer it again.

At seven o'clock, Denise and five members of the team went north to respond to a snowmobile incident — two people stranded, one possible fracture, six miles out. That left me and the man and a single camp lantern and the sound of the wind working at the canvas seams, which is a sound you stop noticing after a while unless something makes you notice it again.

I sat in the folding chair across from his cot. He was sitting up straight, hands folded in his lap, his spine carrying a posture that was incongruous with the condition of the rest of him. I didn't speak. Eleven years of this work teaches you that silence is sometimes the only tool with any traction.

After maybe twenty minutes, maybe a little longer — I had stopped checking my watch — he said: "You want to know what happened."

I said yes.

He looked at me for the first time. His eyes had the desiccated quality that comes from not blinking enough over a long period of time, the specific dryness that sits at the uncomfortable edge of what a face can look like and still function. His focus was present, pointed, but aimed at something behind the plane of my face rather than at me.

He told me his name was Derek. Said it once and didn't use it again during the whole conversation. He'd come up with two other men he'd hunted with for years — Tom Garrish, who he'd known for close to a decade, and a man named Caleb, whose last name he either didn't offer or didn't know, I genuinely couldn't tell which. Three men, two weeks, a camp set up northeast of any marked trail in legal hunting ground, properly permitted. He'd made this trip, or a version of it, four times in the past decade without incident.

The first four days were fine, he said. Good weather. Good shooting. Unremarkable.

On the fifth night, Tom woke them up.

Tom had been lying awake for over an hour before he said anything. He'd heard something at the edge of camp — a steady circular movement around the perimeter, deliberate, an orbit that held its radius with a consistency that hunger doesn't produce in animals and that wind doesn't produce in undergrowth. Tom told them afterward that while he was lying there listening, some part of him had understood that he shouldn't break the silence. He hadn't been able to say why. He'd laid in his bag listening for a long time before he finally reached over and woke Caleb, because the decision not to wake them had stopped feeling like restraint and had started feeling like something else, like he was participating in something by staying quiet.

The three of them had looked toward the tree line.

Derek didn't describe what they saw. He went still for a moment and then said, very flatly, that they had looked, and then they had built the fire up higher, and they hadn't spoken again until morning. In the daylight, with cold air coming in under the tent flap and the birds going in the canopy, they'd managed to discuss it at a distance — hypotheticals, explanations, the various large animals native to that part of Montana. The conversation people have when the alternative is saying clearly what they're actually thinking.

Tom didn't wake up the next morning.

His sleeping bag was still zipped. The tent mesh on his side was latched from inside, the fabric on all sides unbroken. Tom was simply gone from inside a closed space, and the only thing that remained was his tongue. Removed cleanly and placed flat on top of his sleeping bag, swollen with cold, laid there with a deliberateness that left no room for any other interpretation.

Derek said they tried to leave that morning. Caleb went for the GPS unit and found it disassembled — the components separated and organized, the batteries removed and arranged in a line next to the shell. He said this bothered him more than the tongue, and he said it in a way that suggested he'd thought about the ordering of those reactions and understood something about himself from it. The tongue was terrible. The batteries in a line implied that whatever had arranged them had time, and interest, and a preference for order.

Caleb's rifle had been bent. Derek used that exact word, bent, more than once. Left outside the tent overnight and found in the morning in a configuration that a rifle frame doesn't achieve through any natural process. He said bent the way someone says a word they've been working with for a while, wearing it down, trying to get it to mean what happened.

They walked south by compass for six hours and came back to the camp. He said this without elaboration, and I didn't ask for any.

He said he knew, by that point, that they wouldn't be leaving on their own timeline. He didn't explain how he'd arrived at this. He just said he knew and moved forward in the account, and the way he said it made asking feel beside the point.

The second night without Tom, something came and sat at the edge of the firelight.

He described it in the same flat, careful voice he'd been using throughout the conversation. Something tall, he said, and then paused for long enough that I thought he might not continue. Very thin. The proportions were wrong in a way that he could see but struggled to assign specific language to — limbs that suggested a joint structure that his visual vocabulary didn't have a category for, an arrangement of the body's architecture that implied a skeleton with different priorities than the ones he was used to looking at. A face with the right features in approximately the right positions, but the distances between them were off in a way that his eyes kept trying to correct and couldn't. He said the teeth were visible from across the fire without the thing doing anything to make them visible, and then he stopped, like he'd gotten to the edge of what description was capable of doing.

It sat there for close to two hours. He and Caleb kept the fire high and held still and the thing across the fire held still too, and at some point around three in the morning Derek blinked and when he opened his eyes the space across the fire was empty. He described this as a frame cut from a film reel — the space where something had been, without any interval of departure between its presence and its absence.

Caleb was gone by the next morning.

He heard him go. The tent zipper, the footsteps in the snow moving away from camp. And then, somewhere out past the tree line in the dark, he heard Caleb's voice. Laughing. He said it was Caleb's laugh in the technical sense — the pitch and the rhythm were right, the frequency was correct — but something had been evacuated from it. The way a voice recording is the same voice, but the air pressure behind it is missing. He said the silence the laugh left behind in the tent felt different afterward, like it had a texture the air hadn't had before. He offered this detail and then went quiet and looked at his hands.

After Caleb, he ran.

He moved for what he estimated was three days without stopping to sleep, though he said after a while this estimate started losing meaning. He ate nothing. He drank snow when he could get it. He walked with the rifle across his shoulders because it was useless as a rifle and he needed something familiar to hold with both hands. There was something that reached him as he walked — he was specific that this was the shape directed meaning makes in the air, pressure without content, something communicating toward him without using language to do it.

And images came to him unbidden and complete: his house, his daughter's face, the specific way she hummed while she was reading. A room he didn't recognize, dark and warm, where the floor gave slightly underfoot in a way that felt like standing on something that was also standing on you.

He woke up one morning on the ground with no memory of lying down. When he opened his eyes the thing was at the tree line watching him from about forty or fifty feet away. Between them, in the snow, in a line, were pieces of Tom and Caleb arranged from nearest to farthest. He looked at the ground between himself and the thing and he did not look at the pieces carefully. He said this matter-of-factly and moved on.

The thing stepped toward him and stood over him and he couldn't move, and it did something that was not speech. He said it was like the way he imagined a radio frequency might feel if you could feel frequencies rather than just receive them — something pressing against the inside of his skull that shaped itself into language the way heat shapes itself into light. Simple and complete and present in the bones before the mind caught up to it.

You're already mine.

Then it stepped aside. He stood up and walked south and he kept walking until we found him.

The lantern had burned low while he talked. I hadn't thought to check the fuel and the light had gone orange and uneven, throwing shadows across the canvas with more movement than the flame should have been able to generate. I sat across from him in the bad light and I didn't say anything for a moment.

He said: "You think I'm describing an animal."

I told him I didn't know what I was thinking yet, which was true.

He pressed two fingers against the center of his sternum, gently, the way you'd show someone where a bruise was. He looked at his own chest while he said it: "It followed me back. It's in here now."

I went to sleep that night in my own tent and stared at the roof for a long time with my hands at my sides and my eyes open.

He was gone in the morning.

The med tent was sealed from the interior — the zipper latched, the closure pulled tight from inside in a way that takes two hands and deliberate effort. The mesh window on the side panel was intact and latched. I spent twenty minutes examining the structure from outside and then from inside and I could not find a mechanism by which a person had left it. The canvas was uncut. The stakes were still set. There was no physical account I could work out by looking at what was in front of me.

The cot was wet. The sleeping bag and the surface of the cot beneath it were cold and damp in a way I could not attribute to condensation or sweat or any reasonable environmental cause — the overnight temperature had been well below freezing, the sky had been clear, and the dampness had a quality to it that I kept returning to as I stood there looking at it. Cold past the ambient temperature of the tent. Wet without an originating source. Like the space had been occupied by something that left a residue of itself when it vacated.

I wrote the full incident report that afternoon and filed it with the county coordinator. Flagged the unusual elements. The county said they'd follow up on the missing persons angle and asked me to preserve the physical evidence in the med tent, which I did.

We set three motion cameras on the south and east perimeters and doubled the watch rotations. I told the team we were operating on the assumption the man might return and that if anyone saw him they should radio immediately and hold position.

A trail of boot prints in the snow ran from the back side of the med tent toward the south tree line. Bare feet, the same absent tread pattern as when we'd found him. The stride length was wrong — too long for walking, the spacing between prints suggesting a pace that didn't correspond to any normal gait I could identify. We followed them about eighty yards before the tree cover thickened and the snow thinned under the canopy, and then there was nothing more to follow.

The days between that morning and what happened to Paul had a particular quality to them. The camp ran its functions — call responses, equipment checks, shift rotations — and the team was professional and kept working, but there was a change in how people moved around the south and east sides of the perimeter. Smaller groups. Faster transitions between structures. Nobody said anything about it directly.

I noticed that the tree line looked different to me at night. The same tree line I'd been looking at for years, the same silhouette of spruce and pine against whatever the sky was doing — but my eyes processed it differently after Derek, looking for interruptions in the vertical pattern, for something tall among the tall things that was holding still in a way that the trees weren't.

Four nights after the empty cot, Paul Enberg went missing.

Paul was twenty-six. Two seasons with us, drove three hours each rotation and never complained about the shifts nobody else wanted. He was on east perimeter watch, midnight to three, and at 2:50 his radio went quiet. When the next shift came out to relieve him at three, the east perimeter was empty.

We found him in the tree line at first light.

I'm going to leave the details out of this account. There's a complete incident report filed with the county and the relevant authorities have what they need. What I'll say is this: it looked like the same logic that had placed Tom's tongue on his sleeping bag, applied with more time and more intention. Something that was attempting a kind of communication through arrangement, and that was getting better at it.

We pulled the camera footage that morning.

The east perimeter camera showed a clean recording until 1:13 AM, when the footage became static. The file itself was intact — the timestamp continued, the recording didn't corrupt or terminate, the camera was functional throughout. What it captured for eight minutes was simply noise. In the last clean frame before the static began, the tree line at the edge of the infrared range was empty. In the first clean frame after the static resolved, there were two figures.

The larger one was at the back, in the trees. Wrong proportions. The way Derek had described it, which was also the way I'd been looking at the tree line at night, resolved into something I could now put an image to.

The smaller figure was closer to the camera. Derek, in the same shredded jacket. His head tilted back and his mouth open and his shoulders raised and angled in a way that didn't fit the mechanics of shoulders without something else involved, something pressing outward from inside the jacket that hadn't been there before.

We broke down camp the next morning. Everyone knew it was the right call. The team lead, Davis, coordinated the vehicles and most of the equipment was packed and out by early afternoon. Davis took the last load with his truck around two o'clock. What remained was maybe an hour of work — the last of the fixed rigging, some cabling, the meat locker.

I was the last one there.

The late afternoon light in northern Montana at that time of year has a particular quality — low-angle, slightly amber, making distances look shorter than they are and outlines look more solid. The camp in various stages of being disassembled looked like something abandoned rather than something being systematically removed. The outline of where tents had been pressed into the snow. The poles still standing without their canvas. The flattened areas where equipment had sat.

I went through the last of the rigging and broke it down and logged it against the manifest. Walked the perimeter once to make sure nothing had been left behind. Came back to the meat locker to log the remaining inventory before loading it.

I don't have a clean explanation for why I pulled the latch before I'd finished the inventory count. The contents were already logged, there was no operational reason to open it, and I had maybe forty minutes of daylight left that I didn't want to burn standing in front of an open freezer. I stood in front of the latch and I pulled it anyway. I've thought about this since and I have stopped trying to find an explanation that satisfies me.

He was in the far corner, crouched down, his back against the metal wall. His jacket was gone. His feet were bare. He was in a commercial freezer in sub-zero temperatures with nothing on him and his skin looked less damaged by the cold than it should have, which took me a moment to register and then a moment more to set aside.

His hands were pressed flat against the floor and his fingertips were stripped raw, the skin peeled back from the tips in long strips that ran up toward the first knuckle. The damage looked like it had originated from inside — something pressing outward through the skin rather than anything abrading it from outside. His mouth was moving, his jaw working in a slow, rhythmic way around something that wasn't there.

I stood in the open doorway with my hand still on the latch. The cold came off the interior of the locker and off him and hit my face and I did not move. The ambient temperature outside was already below freezing and the cold coming off him was distinctly colder than the air around me, which is not how ambient cold works, and I registered this and held the latch and did not move.

He raised his eyes to me. That same quality — dry, fixed, the focus directed past my face at something positioned behind me. He looked at me for just a second and his jaw stopped moving. His expression was the expression of someone who has seen something coming for a long time and is now watching it arrive.

Then the message came through.

I've tried to find a better word than message — impression, sensation, transmission — and message is still the most accurate because it had the directed intentionality of something sent from somewhere toward somewhere. It moved through my chest first, up through my sternum and into the back of my throat, and it arrived as language before I'd consciously processed it as sound, present in the bones before the mind caught up. Clear and simple and complete.

You don't have to run anymore.

By the time I exhaled, the corner was empty. The locker was empty. I was standing with my hand on the latch looking at a space where something had been.

I locked it. I loaded my vehicle. I drove home in the remainder of the afternoon light with both hands on the wheel, and somewhere between the forest road and the county highway I realized I'd been gripping hard enough that both hands ached when I finally consciously loosened them.

That was nine days ago.

I've been sleeping on the couch. The bedroom window faces north and I've found that I prefer not to face it when I'm trying to sleep, and I've stopped interrogating that preference. The couch faces a wall and that feels like enough of a distinction to matter, though I'm aware it shouldn't.

Something comes to the north window sometime between midnight and two. I've marked it on five of the nine nights since I've been home, which may mean I missed it on the other four or may mean it wasn't there. It doesn't try the glass or the latch. It positions itself outside and breathes — slow, deep, steady — and the sound of it comes through the window clearly enough to hear from another room in a quiet house.

Three nights ago I realized my own breathing had synced with it at some point during the night. I don't know when it started. I noticed it mid-exhale, lying there in the dark, and recognized the rhythm and then lay still for a while trying to work backward to when my chest had stopped setting its own pace. It hadn't been a decision. It was something I'd drifted into without marking the drift, the way you drift into sleep and can't identify the moment of crossing over.

I moved to the couch that night, which put two walls between me and the north window.

It didn't help.

I can still hear it from here. Patient, slow, right on the other side of the glass.

And my chest still moves with it when I stop paying attention.

​

Directors Log / Derrick Wolfe

I’ve spent a lot of time hopping from place to place. After a while, all the cities started to feel the same. This last one was no different. It was just another night on the job, until we found something I still can't explain.

Early morning felt darker than midnight. Neon signs and building lights painted the asphalt in their colors. Small groups of people drifted along the sidewalks. Eyes down on their phones or fixed straight ahead. Unaware.

Unaware of the shadows and what might be lurking just out of sight, waiting to lash out in fear or hunger. That’s why we were here.

I watched the light reflect off the windows as we rolled by, my eyes catching the occasional passerby as our SUV rolled along the city streets. There was less life as we got closer to our destination. Somewhere on the East side near the river, a problem was waiting for us to solve. One of our patrols called it in.

We rose onto the overpass heading toward the bridge where the river sparkled with moonlight. On one side of us the city rose up in tall mirrored buildings. On the other side across the river sat part of the older downtown district with lower brick and concrete buildings. It was isolated by the branching river, turning it into a narrow peninsula. 

I sat in the back seat on the passenger side, the window cracked just enough to let in the humid night air mixed with the brackish water smell that never quite leaves cities near waterways. I glanced out the window over the river where the moonlight rippled on the surface. My hat sat low. Coat collar up.

Up front, Nick drove—steady hands, jaw tight. He’s young, too young for the bags under his eyes, but he carries himself well in the team’s lead position. He had the radio tuned to some news station, low enough that it’s background noise. Beside him, Lin—our tech—scrolled through tablet feeds with blue light flickering across her glasses. She didn’t look up. She never did until she had to.

In the back next to me, Jason sat sprawled out across his half of the seat and the middle as if he was trying to claim the space. Ex-military, loud laugh, and louder opinions. He chewed gum like it owed him money.

“So, are we gonna pass this one off as another animal attack?” Jason asked, not really asking. “Because they are getting messier every time, and I don’t think people are buying it anymore.”

In the old days, things would evaporate. Wouldn’t stray far from the openings. Now they lingered, roaming free or hiding in the dark. When they came out, they left too much behind.

“The covers work,” Nick said. “But, it is getting harder to sweep under. Any more that we don’t get to first and officials might start looking for patterns.”

“I thought we were the officials.” 

Lin snorted. “If we were, then we wouldn’t need a consultant.”

I felt Jason’s eyes on the side of my head. “Yeah. Consultant.”

I didn’t turn.

He could gripe all he wanted, but I expected it. 

My role as Investigations Director sends me to check in on the Line Divisions. That’s why I was there.

Command sending in a “consultant” gives me authority without everyone tip-toeing. It keeps the Line honest, and keeps me where I’m useful. On the edge, where the answers are, instead of stuck behind a desk calling in orders over a headset.

We made it to the other side now, pulling away from the bridge. 

Lin finally spoke after a message slid onto her tablet. “A-team has the perimeter secure. The scene is fresher than expected. The Captain says it might be the Echo that’s been eluding us. No signs of it yet. They’re holding until we arrive.”

Nick nodded. “Good, we caught the scene first. We might have a chance to get it tonight.”

Jason leaned forward. “Yeah, we’ve only been circling it for weeks now.”

I looked over at him. “Or it’s been waiting for us.”

He met my eyes without blinking. “You sound like you’ve seen this before.”

“I have.”

I let my attention drift back to the window. “Not every Echo behaves like you expect.”

He didn’t respond. Just kept smacking away at his gum.

Echoes. That’s what we’d been calling them.

Anchor has been scrambling for months to locate, capture and classify everything that got loose in that final wave before the Veil went quiet. That forced new protocols, adjustments to the Line Division teams, and now we had twice the cleanup and paperwork.

The SUV turned down a side street. A sign that read Utility Work Ahead sat like a warning flag. A man in a yellow hard hat and high-vis jacket stood next to a stop sign stuck into an orange cone. As we approached, he turned the sign around from STOP to SLOW, nodding to us and speaking into his radio as we passed. 

As we rolled down the narrow street more people in safety gear appeared along the walls and around the entrance to a parking garage. They looked like city workers pretending to be busy.

One of them waved us in. 

We turned and eased our way down onto the bottom level of the garage. Nick found a spot a short walk from the scene and killed the engine. 

Yellow tape stretched across the room between the concrete pillars. The words CRIME SCENE written across it, like anyone down here needed a reminder.

Doors opened. I stepped out first. Our boots echoed against the pavement.

I fixed the ballistic vest under my coat, checking my pockets and belt to confirm all my effects were in place.

Lin slung a small backpack over her shoulder and tablet under her arm. 

Jason grabbed his gear and a rifle from the back of the SUV, loading magazines of both tranq and live ammo. Just in case.

Nick fell in beside me. 

“You alright?” I asked him.

“I’m good. You?”

I adjusted my hat, settling the last of my armor in place. “Good enough.”

Parking garages always smell the same. Oil. Damp concrete. Old rain that seeped through the cracks. The lights overhead buzzed like they were tired.

I walked slow, boots tapping against the concrete. My hat sat low, brim cutting the glare just enough. Old habits. 

Nick kept in step beside me. He was dressed like he had a uniform—boots, cargo pants, fitted shirt with shoulder pockets, matching color scheme. A tactical vest over everything. Body cam mounted dead center like an unblinking eye. He looked like a cop. Moved like one too.

I used to have a badge myself. Then I lost my partner. My career. And eventually, my home town. 

Anchor picked me up, gave me a new badge and a new job. And to think I nearly walked away from all of it.

But I couldn’t. We couldn’t, Gabriella and I. There were too many unanswered questions and too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.

We ducked underneath the yellow tape and, just like that, I was back in the game.

I checked the switch on my own body cam then tapped the mic in my ear.

“Gabs. You got me?”

A half-second of silence. Then her voice, clean and calm.

“Loud and clear, Derrick. Feeds are coming through. I see everything.”

“Good.” 

“I’m patching into everyone’s comms now. Sat feed is live. Good hunting.”

“Thanks. Hopefully we aren’t too far behind.”

Anchor troops guarded the perimeter, dressed like SWAT. Black armor. Helmets. Rifles low but ready. They acknowledged us as we approached, one nodding to me. 

They didn’t look nervous.

That shouldn’t have bothered me. Nervous says it’s serious. Calm says they’ve seen this too many times. We’ve all done this too often. But that's the job.

The scene itself was… messy.

Too much blood. Not sprayed—scattered. Flung across the concrete in long arcs and smeared like something dragged through it. 

What was left of the victims was placed wrong—angles and distances that didn’t match human strength. One’s torso wedged halfway into a car doorframe, metal crumpled inward like tinfoil. Another body pressed flat against a pillar, limbs splayed at impossible angles like a rag doll. Both with deep cuts across their bodies.

Jason let out a low whistle when he saw the bodies.

Lin hid most of her face behind the tablet, glasses peeking above the edge.

Nick exhaled slowly. “Jesus.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That tracks.”

One of the SWAT guys stepped over, the Captain. His goggles were clear enough for me to catch his eyes—steady, but tired.

“The area is secure. The whole block is ours,” he said. “We’ve got containment on stand-by for your signal.”

“Go ahead and get top-side with them, we’ll handle this down here.”

I glanced back at the scene.

“I remember when there used to be nothing left behind,” I said quietly. “Now there’s just too much.”

He didn’t argue.

Lin walked the perimeter and scanned around with her tools. 

I crouched by the nearest smear. The concrete was gouged beneath it—not broken. Deep grooves cut into the floor. But the blood was still wet and tacky.  

“Not normal claw marks,” I said under my breath. “Deep cuts. Parallel scoring.”

Nick kneeled beside me. “Claws?”

“Yeah,” I said, stretching my hand out over the grooves. “Four parallel marks. Strong enough to damage the concrete.”

I looked over to him. “Whatever did this hit hard and fast. Didn’t care what was in its way.”

I stood and followed the trail with my eyes. Scuffs in the blood. Like something heavy shifted direction mid-stride.

“See that?” I pointed. “Footfall spacing’s off. Too wide. Erratic.”

“Some kind of predator?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I replied. “One that panicked.”

“Prey usually panic.”

I huffed. “Yeah, but they don’t usually punch people across the room.”

We moved deeper into the garage, past parked cars dusted with concrete grit and fine red mist. One sedan’s door was caved in like it took a hit from a truck. 

At the far end, the wall was gone.

A rough-edged hole opened wide, rebar bent outward like broken ribs. The smears and drops of blood led up to the opening. Beyond it, darkness sloped down, carrying the sound of dripping water and old air. Sewers. Service tunnels. Something forgotten by the city.

Nick stared into it. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

I sighed and adjusted my hat. “Every time.”

I looked back across the blood smeared scene. “It entered from this direction, but the smears show it came back through. The trail is fresh, but growing colder by the minute. We need to get down there.”

I reached inside my coat and drew my revolver, checking the weight and spinning the cylinder out of habit. The body cam clicked softly as it adjusted.

“Gabs,” I said, tapping my mic. “We’ve got a breach leading underground. I need a schematic, if possible.”

“I see it. Already working,” she replied instantly. 

Lin and Jason finally caught up to us. 

“That’s a big hole,” Jason said through his gum smacking.

“Alright,” I began, “Lin, Jason, get topside with the containment team. Have them prepped and ready for full capture. We’re looking at a possible Class-3. We’ll neutralize it, if it becomes necessary.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” he said, mildly sarcastic. But, they listened and headed back for the SUV.

I turned to Nick. “We’re going to follow the trail and flush it up to the surface. Once it’s in the open, we can tackle it from there.”

Our phones chimed. I pulled out mine and unfolded the wide screen to see a layout of the old service tunnels and sewers from Gabs. I cracked a grin. She’s always on top of things.

“I have the map overlayed with location tracking,” she said in my earpiece, “Alpha team has linked up with containment and standing by.” 

“Good work. Jason and Lin are on their way up. Tell the teams to hold until my signal.”

I looked into the dark, listening to the quiet.

I turned back to Nick. “You coming?”

“Right behind you.”

He didn’t hesitate. His jaw was still tight. Eyes steady. Kid’s got steel. 

I climbed down into the hole, boots crunching over broken concrete. Nick fell in behind me, weapon and flashlight up. Nick tried a lever on the wall but none of the wall lights came on. Typical.

The air shifted as we descended—colder, heavier. Moisture streaked the walls in dark vertical lines. The overhead pipes sweated from condensation. Our flashlights cut narrow paths ahead, catching faint reflections off wet metal and the occasional faded warning sticker half-peeled from the surface.

Footsteps echoed dully, giving the long tunnel shape. Somewhere up ahead, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm—tap… tap… tap—that settled into the back of my mind.

Nick stayed tight on my left, pistol ready, his beam sweeping the left wall while mine took the right. We passed a few open tunnel intersections. Heavy steel doors lined the hall at irregular intervals, most of them closed and unmarked. We passed one that had taken a serious hit—the door itself bent inward with a deep dent across it. 

The dripping kept its rhythm. Too even. Too familiar. My mind started locking onto it without permission, each drop landing like a countdown I couldn’t silence.

We moved deeper. The tunnel curved slightly, the air growing thicker with that brackish underground smell. Another door came into view ahead, this one unmarked and slightly ajar. My beam swept past it and caught on a dark smear along the floor a few yards further on.

I stopped cold.

For a split second, my mind was somewhere else. Another Tunnel. 

My old partner Paul’s voice rang in my ear: “If you stay, we both die.”

The drip sounded louder in my head. Wrong. Like a tapping drum.

After a second, Nick’s voice came through low and even. “You alright?”

I blinked, pulled in a slow breath, and lowered the beam. The tunnel snapped back into focus—moisture-streaked concrete, pipes overhead, that persistent drip in the distance.

This wasn’t that place. 

“Yeah,” I said, voice steady. “I’m good.”

I started forward again. Nick fell in without another word, pistol up. The kid had good instincts—he knew when to stay quiet and when to check in.

The smear confirmed it: we were on the right path. Whatever this Echo was, it had come this way—panicked, powerful, and leaving damage in its wake. 

The rhythmic dripping continued behind us, but I pushed it down and kept my focus on the dark stretching ahead.

Gabs’ voice crackled softly in my ear with another map ping. “Still tracking you. There’s a junction coming up in about fifty yards. River access.”

We pressed on, beams cutting the gloom, the weight of the city pressing down from above. As we followed the trail, concrete transitioned into mortar covered brick that was flaking away with age.

An opening came into view where a door should have been. Instead it sat dented on the floor beyond, frame broken out of the brick and mortar that once held it. 

We stepped through cautiously, sweeping our lights around. This junction was a small boat launch built under the infrastructure for river access, old and forgotten. The dark water rippled faintly with splashes and drips echoing through the chamber. 

Nick took a few steps across to the guard rail and swept his light across the water like a lighthouse. The beam barely pierced the surface.

“Think it went in?”

I looked below the rail, then swept my light around the room. Further down, there was another hole broken through the wall.

“Looks like it circled back around.”

We pressed on. Before we entered the new opening, our comms crackled again.

“Jason to the wolf. Containment unit is prepped. Tranqs, traps, and ordinance are all hot. Over.”

“Copy. Be ready to move on my signal. Contact is close, over.”

We heard scraping sounds as we advanced down the new tunnel. The sound of something shuffling in the dark along with a crunching noise. I signaled for Nick to slow down with me. 

I dropped my voice to a whisper. “We’ll only have a brief window before things start moving fast. Take note of any features or traits once we get visual.” 

I looked him in the eyes. “You with me?”

He nodded. “Ready.”

I brought my light back up under my pistol and we advanced, slow and steady.

As we approached the turn, the sounds grew louder. We rounded the corner slowly, flashlights finally illuminating our suspect. 

The creature was hunched low in the tunnel ahead, massive back rising and falling as its long snout gnawed on something I didn’t bother identifying. Its thick hide reflected the light in dull, even patches—like its fur wasn’t made of hair, but something harder. It sat with its long bushy tail curled behind it. The end of the tail having thicker, sharper fur made it resemble a spiked mace.

Nick inhaled sharply, his body tense as he studied it. 

My mind was already picking up the clues. Two powerful arms with massive claws. Armored skin. Wide ears that twitched and moved. Whiskers around the face. No eyes where there should be. It was blind. 

That must be a key to its navigation, and a possible weakness.

I motioned to Nick, gesturing to communicate what I was seeing. He looked between me and the Echo as I went down the list. I pointed to my ears, then shook the barrel of my pistol. He nodded, understanding my intent.

If it’s sensitive to sound and vibration, then we needed to give it a push.

The clicking of the hammer on my revolver echoed loudly in the hallway as I thumbed it back. 

The creature’s ears flicked around towards me, then it turned its head to face us, whiskers twitching. 

I fired a round at the floor. The shot smashed into the concrete and rang loud—deafening in the confined space. 

The thing recoiled in shock, then it let out an angry shrill cry in our direction and bolted down the corridor. It slammed down the passage with terrifying speed, scraping along the walls and around the corner.

“Contact. We’re Moving!” I yelled into the mic.

We chased after it.

We were sprayed overhead from broken water lines, flashlights bouncing wildly as we chased it through the maze. The thing smashed through barriers like cardboard, disappearing around corners just long enough to make us work for it.

I tapped my mic as I sprinted.

“Echo is moving North through the tunnel—heading for the surface. Have containment move in to the North block.”

“Copy,” Lin replied instantly. “Containment is inbound.”

“Target is affected by sound. Brute force and razor claws. Be ready.”

We chased it through several turns, but Nick kept up right behind me. 

Gabs’ voice came through in my ear. “There’s an exit just ahead. Leads back up.” 

We heard it cry out again ahead of us followed by a thundering sound of brick and mortar being torn apart. The vibration rolled through the walls.

“What was that?” Nick asked, shining his light around the next corner.

Dust shook loose from the ceiling. A crack split along the wall ahead like lightning through stone. An electrical panel hung off of the wall sparking.

The corridor was obscured by a haze, just clear enough for the damage to be visible—a jagged hole torn through the wall leading upward. Brick, concrete and earth scattered across the floor.

The creature had made its own exit.

Our flashlights cut through the dust and darkness in the hole, shining on a broken water line leaking down from above.

I tapped my mic. “Contact burrowing its way topside, look out for a surface breach.”

Nick held up his map and pointed down the hall. “The door is only a few yards away.”

We didn’t waste time and headed for the exit. A few flights of stairs and we were back at street level.

The door opened onto a narrow back alley, boxed in by old brick buildings and a fire escape. Steam hissed from a vent somewhere nearby, curling through the air in ghostly plumes.

We came out onto the street facing the river. Then further down at the next alley we saw and felt movement. Vibration rolled underfoot as it breached the surface.

The Echo burst from between the buildings. Its footsteps rattled the asphalt and slammed into a dumpster hard enough to send it skidding sideways into the street. 

“Contact at East side, heading North.” I barked into comms.

The sound of engines and squealing tires came around the corner behind us as two of our trucks fell into pursuit.

The creature didn’t slow.

It twisted mid-stride, head snapping side to side, ears flicking—listening.

Then it veered toward a side gap between the buildings.

 “It’s evading,” Nick said.

I tapped my comms. “Team, come up the West side,” I ordered into the mic. “Cut it off before it hits open street.”

There was a half-second pause.

Then Lin: “Copy—intercepting now.”

Good.

They listened fast.

We sprinted after it down the alley as our vehicles flanked the side streets.

The alley tightened, forcing us single file.  Our Echo barreled ahead, smashing through a chain-link fence like it wasn’t there and anything else in its path.

We followed in its wake, jumping over flattened trash cans and scattered boxes. It went through a few more alleyways until we reached the northernmost point.

We spilled out from between the buildings onto an empty lot illuminated by a lonely street light. The creature had stopped at the edge of the pavement near the river’s edge. We approached halfway across the lot at the edge of the light and stopped as our trucks, SUV and the containment rig all screeched to a stop on both sides. 

It flicked its ears and head left then right, breathing heavy, but there was nowhere left to go.

Vehicle headlights cut harsh beams through the darkness as the team moved in from both sides. Black-armored silhouettes fanned out alongside them, rifles raised. Shields up. Net launchers ready.

“Hold positions!” I shouted.

I held up a hand as they fell in line. 

The creature stood up on its back legs, balancing with its tail, spreading its arms out wide to reveal its claws. It growled low. If it had eyes it would be glaring at us.

The men next to us steadied their gear.

I gestured pointedly toward it. “Take it.”

They advanced past me, slowly closing the distance step by step into the glow of the streetlight.

The creature shrieked—high, sharp, disorienting—and charged straight at the line.

“Brace!” Jason yelled.

He fired first. The tranq round hissed out with a sharp thunk, lodging into the Echo’s shoulder.

No effect.

Second, third. It kept coming.

The Echo spun, whipping its spiked tail into a ballistic shield, sending the operator skidding backward across the pavement. Its claws carved the asphalt where another trooper had stood a second earlier.

Too close. Too messy.

I stepped in.

“Sound it!” I shouted.

Nick didn’t hesitate. He fired a round into the metal light pole beside the creature.

Clang.

The Echo recoiled instantly, head snapping toward the noise, whiskers flaring.

There it is.

I pivoted and fired low—another shot into the steel pole.

Clang.

It turned towards it—distracted, reactive. It swiped its massive claw and sheared the pole in half. 

“Now!” I barked.

Containment moved.

Weighted nets deployed snapping tight around its limbs as multiple lines pulled in opposite directions.

The Echo thrashed violently, dragging two operators off their feet.

A long tongue lashed out like a whip and snatched a tranq rifle from one man’s hands, pulling it in and biting the weapon in half with a metallic crunch. 

The shriek that followed rattled the air as it reared up.

Jason sprinted in low, firing several tranqs into its exposed side, then ducked back out fast.

The creature swayed around lazily. The nets pulled tighter. Then… It dropped hard onto the pavement with a heavy thud.

The lot went still except for the straining nets and everyone’s heavy breathing.

I kept my pistol raised. “Hold it. Give it a second.”

No one moved.

After a long moment, the creature twitched once… then went slack.

Lin’s voice came through calm and steady. “Vitals dropping—sedation’s taking effect.”

I exhaled and holstered my pistol. “Good work,” 

The containment truck backed into the lot, heavy tires crunching over broken asphalt. A large reinforced container sat mounted on it—thick steel, matte black, lined with anchor points and locking clamps along the outer edges. The kind of box designed for things that don’t belong in this world. The hydraulic platform lowered the container with a slow mechanical whine.

“Bring it in,” one of the operators called. 

The team moved with more care now.

No rush.

No noise they didn’t need.

They kept tension on the net as they carefully moved the creature into the unit. It twitched once as they shifted it, but the sedatives held.

Up close, under the vehicle lights, the thing looked different. Less like a monster and more like something that had been forced into the wrong world.

Its sides rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. The thick hide was scarred in places—old wounds between the thick bristles. Its claws, the same ones that tore through concrete and bone, now twitched weakly against the pavement.

It didn’t look angry anymore.

Just… exhausted.

Lost.

I watched  with my hands in my coat pockets as the team strapped it in.

“Easy… easy…” someone muttered as they secured the last restraint.

The heavy door shut and the locks engaged with a hiss. The platform lifted.

Hydraulics groaned as the container rose, the team stepping back as it locked into place with a heavy, final clunk.

The sound echoed across the lot like a period at the end of a sentence.

Another Echo contained.

For now.

Jason appeared beside me, his thumbs hooked onto the sides of his vest and smacking his gum again.

“Another monster down for the count.”

He turned toward me. “Think they send them off to a zoo or something?” 

I shook my head. “Containment site first. Then relocation, so I’m told.”

He huffed through his chewing.

“They’re not all monsters.” I said, looking back to the containment unit. “This one has just been lost in the dark for too long.”

I adjusted my hat and turned away as the lot settled with the low murmur of professionals gathering their gear and resetting the world back to normal.

But normal’s getting harder to recognize.

The cleanup crew arrived—black vans, hazmat suits, quiet efficiency. They bagged what’s left of the victims, scraped residue from the concrete, photographed every groove and smear. I watched from the edge, arms folded.

It wasn’t long before the garage looked like we were never there, except for the smashed vehicles and the hole in the wall. Those would be trickier to deal with. Some concrete block, mortar, and a stack of paperwork then we might have a clean cover-up. This time.

The cleaners began to disperse, slipping back into the shadows like this was just another job punched on a long list.

I turned to head back toward the SUV when—

“Mr. Wolfe?”

Lin.

“Yeah?”

She stepped toward me, tablet in hand, her eyes up from the screen for once.

“I picked up something before the chase,” she said. “I wasn’t sure then if I should call it out.”

That got my attention.

“What kind of something?”

She handed me the tablet, bringing up a faint waveform—barely there.

“Residual signature,” she said. “A Veil signature.”

My brow furrowed. 

“I know,” she replied. “I double-checked. Then checked again.”

I studied the reading. It was weak. Fragmented. But it was there.

“Where?” I asked.

“Other side of the district. I caught it briefly when we came over the bridge.”

I looked at the choppy signal reading for a moment longer, then handed the tablet back.

“Show me.”

We climbed back in the SUV and headed south to the opposite end of the district. 

Lin sat forward slightly, tablet angled in her hands, tracking the signal.

“It’s faint,” she said. “But it’s there.”

Jason leaned back in his seat. “Better not be another one.”

I watched the road ahead as we drew closer. It was only minutes away.

Nick slowed the vehicle as Lin guided him.

“There,” she said. “That one.”

An old warehouse sat tucked between two abandoned structures, its exterior worn down by time and neglect. Windows dark. Doors closed. Nothing about it stood out. Which usually meant something did.

We stepped out.

The air felt still here. Quiet. Like the city was holding its breath.

Lin slowed as we stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Signal’s coming from in there,” she said quietly.

We picked the lock. The rusty wheels on the door squeaked, echoing throughout the building as we pushed it open.

Inside, it was mostly empty—wide open floor, scattered debris, old shelving units stripped down to rusted frames. The air smelled stale, untouched.

Our footsteps tapped softly against the smooth concrete floor.

We fanned out left and right. I went up the middle. 

Our flashlights cut through the darkness, beams sweeping across an open, mostly empty space. There was a layer of dust across everything. 

Jason found the power switch and threw the lever. The electricity crackled and hummed as the overhead fluorescent lights flickered to life. One popped and went out at the back of the space.

“There, that’s better,” he said. 

I looked around, eyes scanning for anything.

Just empty space and dust drifting in the air. But somehow the room felt…wrong. Like we were being watched.

Lin took a few steps forward, eyes focused on her tablet again. “It’s here, somewhere.”

I crouched down and examined the floor. The space appeared to be undisturbed… almost. There were the faintest impressions in the dust. 

Boot prints. 

I stood and stepped lightly, slowly, following the trail.

The prints stopped about ten yards in and vanished. 

I looked around. At first, there was nothing. Then, I saw it. Right in the middle of the room.

A distortion. 

Subtle. Barely there.

Like looking through a shard of clear glass suspended mid-air. The light bent just slightly through it, warping the edges of whatever sat behind.

I stepped closer.

The hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

“Signal strength?” I asked.

“Almost nothing,” Lin said, glancing at her tablet. “It’s not active. Just… residual.”

Jason crossed his arms. “Residual from what?”

I didn’t answer.

This wasn’t new.

That was the problem.

I’d seen it before.

Different cities. Different jobs.

Same signature.

Same fractured scar.

This one made three. And still no explanation.

“Log it,” I said. “Flag it for monitoring. Any change—any spike—you report it immediately.”

Lin nodded, already tagging the data.

I kept my eyes on the distortion for another moment, peering into it like it might blink.

Then I stepped back and turned away.

“Let’s move.”

—

Back on the other side of the river, the building Division 4 used didn’t look like much from the street.

Just another forgettable shipping business behind a chain link fence with semi trucks and trailers across the lot. The whole place tucked away on an old commercial road.

Normal. That was the point.

Nick pulled around the back and the bay door rolled open before we even stopped, swallowing us into the building.

The real business.

An Anchor stronghold in disguise. 

In here, it was all concrete and steel. Racks of gear lined the walls—cases, weapons, containment kits, things labeled in codes instead of names. A small lab was set up in the back. Against the far wall sat our stabilizer units lined up in a row, collecting dust. 

Teams moved through the space with purpose, some unloading equipment, others logging reports or checking over damaged rigs.

The hum of generators and quiet conversation filled the air.

Routines, procedures and people settling in. 

We stepped out.

Jason peeled off toward the equipment racks. Lin was already halfway to a workstation, her tablet lighting up as she started processing data. Nick followed her.

I spotted the Division Director near the center of the floor, speaking with another one of the team leads. He turned as we approached.

“Mr. Wolfe,” he said, straightening slightly.

I gave a small nod. “Director Lee. How’d it go with the others?”

“Containment held. Minimal collateral. A few bruises, nothing serious. Our Echo is in transit now.”

“Ours too.”

I glanced past him, watching the other crew work.

“They’re solid,” I said. “But they’re relying too much on force during first contact. That thing broke your line faster than it should have.”

He nodded, turning toward Lin and the guys, now settled in on a sofa in the corner. I followed his eyes to them. 

“Overall,” I said, “you’ve got good people here. Tighten the coordination, and you’ll be ahead of most divisions.”

“That’s good to hear,” Lee replied. 

“It’s honest,” I said.

That mattered more.

My phone buzzed.

I stepped off to the side, pulling it from my coat pocket.

“Hello.”

Gabriella’s voice came through.

“Hey. Just got word, command wants us back at the Harbor.”

Of course they did.

I glanced once more across the floor at the team, relaxed and a bit more cheerful now despite the night we had.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

There was a brief pause on the line. “I’ll have the jet ready. See you soon,” she added.

I allowed the faintest smile. “See you soon.”

The line clicked off.

Nick noticed me and started moving toward the SUV.

“Need a ride?” he said.

I didn’t argue.

The drive to the airfield was quiet. It was still dark out. Traffic was light this time of morning. Just the low hum of the engine and the occasional flicker of passing headlights.

Neither of us said anything.

Nick kept his eyes on the road.

The airfield came into view ahead—low lights, open tarmac, the distant whine of turbines idling.

Nick pulled up alongside a small jet with its rear ramp lowered.

I stepped out, the cool night air cutting through the last of the city heat.

Nick came around the front of the SUV.

For a second, we just stood there. Then I offered my hand.

He took it.

“You did well tonight,” I said. “You kept your head when it mattered.”

He gave a small nod. “Appreciate that.”

“Keep working with your team,” I added. “Use what they’re good at. You don’t carry it alone out there.”

“I know.”

“Make sure they know it too.”

I released his hand. Then, after a second, took a few steps toward my plane.

“You’re not just a consultant, are you?”

I smiled, and turned back to meet his gaze.

“No,” I said. “Officially… Director.”

He nodded once, like that confirmed something he’d already suspected.

“But, I still prefer Detective,” I added, tugging the brim of my hat lower.

That got a smirk out of him.

“Thought so.”

“Keep holding the line,” I said.

I headed for the jet.

The hum of the engines wrapped around me as I stepped up into the cabin and the ramp closed.

The jet was small but comfortable—cream upholstery, wide reclining seats, soft cabin lighting that made the whole space feel removed from the outside world. A built-in wide screen monitor ran along the front bulkhead, still glowing with satellite feeds and signal maps. The kind of setup that said this wasn’t just transportation.

Gabriella was settled into one of the seats near the screen, legs crossed, a mug between her hands. She looked up when I stepped through the door.

“There you are,” she said.

I smirked. “Did I keep you waiting?”

She stood, setting her mug down, and reached up to take my coat from my shoulders without being asked.

“Always,” she said.

She folded it over the seat across from hers, then turned and pressed a kiss to my cheek before handing me a warm mug. I wrapped both hands around it.

I never used to drink tea. But I always did when she made it.

I settled into the seat beside her. She tucked one leg beneath her and leaned back, studying my face the way she always did after a long night. Like she was taking inventory.

“How bad was it?”

“Not too messy,” I said. “But we got it contained.”

She nodded, eyes drifting briefly to the workstation screen before coming back to me. “I saw. Nick held up well.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He did. Good instincts on him.”

I took a sip of the warm amber liquid. “Lee’s division is in good shape here.”

She smiled at that—small and quiet. No matter how long the night had been, seeing her smile again always warmed me more than the tea.

The pilot’s voice came through the overhead speaker, brief and professional. “We’re clear for departure. Wheels up in two minutes.”

The cabin hummed as the engines climbed in pitch.

Gabriella reached over without looking and set her hand on top of mine. I turned my palm up and held it.

“You found something else tonight,” she said. It wasn't a question.

“Another scar,” I said. “Third one.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Same signature?”

“Same everything.”

I set my mug down in a cup holder. “Another pin added to the board, and no clear connections.”

The city lights fell away beneath us as the jet lifted, banking gently toward the eastern coastline. Through the oval window the river caught the first pale suggestion of dawn along the edges of the skyline.

Gabriella’s thumb moved slowly across the back of my hand.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said.

I exhaled slowly, settling into my seat, and resting my hat in my lap.

“I know,” I said, giving her a smile. “We always do.”

For the first time all night, I let myself unwind.

There would be plenty of time to sort out all of the unknowns. But for now…

The Harbor was waiting.