r/BloodcurdlingTales

Link to Part One: Part One
Link to Part Three: part three

After careful consideration and a desire for more food, I slowly paddled back to the house, where the old man waited patiently. I swallowed hard, feeling the dryness of my tongue and the craving for water. Maybe he had some to spare…

I wasn’t sure if he knew that I was slowly starving to death or if he’d just given me food out of the kindness of his heart. Regardless, I was grateful. Food was food, and I didn’t have any. I was to the point where I’d considered eating wood and sticks.

He opened the skylight. “Want more?”

I nodded, still too nervous to speak. Honestly, I didn’t really know if I could speak anymore. The last words I uttered were quiet mutterings, mumbles that one says when thinking. I doubt it even counted as speech.

He smiled and opened the skylight wider. “Why don’t you go hide your kayak on the other side of the roof? The branches of the big tree back there are thick and tall. No one will see it if you want to come inside.”

I shook my head. It didn’t matter what he said to me. I wasn’t leaving my damn kayak.

“Well, can I sit on the roof with you?” he asked, slowly climbing out.

He moved shakily over the roof, carefully placing his feet so he didn’t fall. His age was showing: arthritic knees and swollen joints. His fingers were crooked. I’d never noticed before. He moved slowly and gently to the edge of the roof where I floated in my kayak.

“I’d forgotten what it was like to have company. You don’t have to talk. My name is Lionel,” he said, extending a hand out to me.

My body lurched back instinctively, and my jaw tightened. It didn’t matter that we were both human. I’d seen our own kind rip people apart like monsters, and it was far scarier than seeing one of the beasts in the water do it. The creatures in the water only killed us to eat, but watching people do it for sport was much different.

I’d run into a tough group a few weeks back. They’d stumbled upon me as I slept in a tree, and I bolted into the water, kayak dragging behind me. They taunted and teased, but I saw their eyes. They all had the same empty and emotionless eyes. Whatever they’d experienced was something I’d never understand or want to. One of them was missing a hand. It was raggedly healed, a flap of flesh torn from the socket. Some of them were covered in burn scars, and others had scabby spots all over them. Some kind of fungus or disease, spreading between them like wildfire.

Lionel’s face softened at my reaction. It was the same sad expression that one would give an abused dog, a mixture of pity and compassion. He reached into the pocket of his flannel jacket and produced another can. He shakily placed it on the edge of the roof, and he sat down near me. He was close, but not close enough to grab me and drag me into his home to be butchered. I think he could sense my hesitance and fear. I’m sure it radiated off me, filling the air like smoke.

I swallowed again, and my teeth chattered. Anxiety boiled inside of me, writhing like worms in the sun. The burn to eat something… to chew something… was primal, leaking up from my throat without mercy.

He pulled a rusted can opener out of his jacket pocket. His misshapen knuckles looked painful, but still, he began to crank the can open. The withered paper on the can was yellow and green. The picture of a plump orange peach sat prominently on the front, ripe and bursting.

The can popped open, and my eyes widened at the colorful orange fruit floating within. The smell was intoxicating, filling my mind. Smell has memory. It holds something I can’t quite describe in the same way that I feel it. And you don’t realize how much you’d miss something so stupid. I never even liked peaches. My mom loved them, and she always made peach cobbler and ice cream in the summer. In fact, I can remember turning my nose up to it, but now, I’d rather die than not get a single taste of those sweet little morsels.

Enthralled by the can of peaches, I don’t remember if the old man spoke to me while he opened the can. My eyes were so fixated on the fruit that I barely remembered to breathe.

He slid the can to the edge of the roof, and I snatched it up. I dug my hand into the sticky sweetness. Tears dripped down my cheeks as I stuffed peach wedge after peach wedge into my mouth. They were so unbelievably good. It felt sinful to eat them.

I devoured them, tearing into the soft flesh with fervor. I didn’t bother chewing. Some of the slick wedges I swallowed whole, and some I stored in my cheeks, wanting to at least savor the sugar.

My mouth was full of them by the time the can was empty. I had eaten them so fast because I was scared that the old man would rip the can away, tear my fleeting second of joy from me as fast as I’d gotten it.

I chewed quickly as the salt from my tears dripped into my mouth and down my nose.

The old man began to cry as well. “I’m the last of my folks too.”

In annoyance, he shook his head ruefully, refusing to let the tears fall. “I’m glad I can share some of my food with you. I’d begun to lose a bit of myself in the silence.”

I swallowed a hunk of peaches and looked down at my fingers. I had forgotten how sticky fruit juice was, or the way that sugar left a thin residue on skin. The delicious, sticky sweetness made small gossamer fibers stretch between my fingertips as I pressed them together.

My heart shattered, remembering summer popsicles with my little brother, baseball practice with red energy drinks, and slushees from the gas station.

Memories swelled back into my body. I could see my mother’s eyes. She was smiling at me, hugging me after I’d failed my first test in trigonometry. She’d made sticky toffee brownies that clung to the roof of my mouth, telling me that I’d do better next time.

My stomach lurched, and I gagged, but I held the food down. I needed it and wanted it, but the taste of the peaches brought sadness.  

Lionel’s voice echoed back into my mind, ripping away the precious memories that ached through me. He pointed to the house closest to us. “Daughter lived there. She died two months back, I think. Not like I can give you a good answer. No calendar. Nothing to keep up with it.”

I looked up at him, wiping my cheeks and licking my fingers.

“West Nile Virus… I’m sure of it. Her house was full of mosquitoes. It was a terrible way to die. Found a mosquito net in the old neighbor’s attic. It felt evil to see it after losing my daughter to a mosquito-borne virus.”

“I’m sorry to ramble.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It’s just been me and that damn mermaid for the last few weeks.”

I shook my head and raised my eyebrow at his mention of mermaids.

His eyebrows knit together. “If you don’t think they are mermaids, what do you think they are?” he asked with a smirk, wrinkles pulling his cheeks and crinkling his eyes.

He was daring me to answer, prying through my mind for a way to make me speak. Instead, I shrugged. I had my own theories, but they certainly weren’t the beautiful creatures from fairy tales. I didn’t know whether to call them mermaids or even sirens. I was beginning to think that they were something else. Something older… something that had been hiding from us for a long time.

My biology professor was a strange man. He was skinny and gaunt-looking. His rounded eyes and thin cheeks made him appear nearly skeletal. If the wind blew him, he might fly away with it. But his lust for knowledge and adventure was admirable. With wiry hands, he’d show us the wonders of the world, grinning as he explained the mysterious nature of the ocean. He never talked about mermaids or sirens, but something told me that he believed in them. After seeing my first creature when the floods started, I often thought about him.

Lionel talked to me for several hours as the sun began to set. He told me about his life, his children, his wife, and his pets. He was a janitor at the local college before he retired. His dog passed before the flood, and he keeps her dog tag in a cookie tin with his old driver’s license. And his wife had been a baker at a grocery store.

“That’s how we have all the canned stuff,” Lionel said, watching as night fell before us. “When the floods started, my sweet Marlene bought up everything she could at the grocery store. She kept telling me that she wanted me to be safe when it happened. Bless her heart, she died before everything got really terrible.”

And as the moon kissed the night sky, I felt a little more comfortable with him. His words weren’t made of malice or fear. They were kind, echoing a life that I’d never live as he had. Strangely, I was envious. I’d never have a wife or kids, and I’d probably never grow old enough to develop gray hair. I figured that eventually I’d die out here, have a stroke or a heart attack at thirty from rowing my kayak to death.

Lionel gazed up at the stars and slowly stood. “Are you sure you don’t want to come inside? The mosquitoes are terrible here. They’ll cart your ass all the way to Florida. You won’t have to worry about the mermaids.”

I chuckled to myself, and the old man smiled.

“I’m glad to know that you can still laugh.”

He shakily tried to get up, and his knees popped. “You’d think I was made of wood with all of these creaky bones.” He slapped his thighs as he pushed his body upward to stand. “Last offer. You are welcome to come inside.”

I glanced at the flooded backyard behind his house, and there was the tree. It was pressed against the house, clinging to the brick and wood. He was right; it would be a good place to hide my kayak.

I took a deep breath, and I slid the rope off of my ankle. Lionel saw the bruise where the rope continually tugged, and his face creased with worry. My kayak was my shackle, my prison, and my life source. Without it, I had nothing.

I cautiously paddled to the tree, nestling the kayak inside the branches before pulling myself out and shuffling to the roof. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and looked up at Lionel. He seemed glad that I’d chosen to stay.

I slipped on the slick roofing, and he grabbed my arm to steady me. Our eyes met, and I nervously accepted his help. And before I knew it, Lionel was leaning on me. He didn’t have much left in him. He was probably just as bony as me. Maybe more.

I pulled open the skylight, and Lionel went in first after I helped him down. He moved calmly, trying to be sure of his footing. He found what he was looking for in the dark, and he flicked on a lantern. Then, he gestured for me to come on.

I descended the small ladder he’d propped up against the skylight, and I peered inside his small little home. It was warm inside. He’d saved two old chairs from his living room, a mattress to sleep on, and a large stack of books. A few crochet blankets were folded in the corner, and a small stack of candles lay near the books. Pink cotton-candy insulation lay uncovered and floating in the water around us, molded and green.

“Well, this is it. It ain’t much, but it’s better than most.”

His attic was up high enough that the wood floor wasn’t submerged yet. It would take a few more inches before he’d get trouble.

“Take a seat,” he said, closing the skylight. “I’ve got some books and a puzzle that I’ve done so many times that I’ve memorized the pieces.”

Before he sat down, he walked to a plastic tote. “And here… take as much as you want.”

I hesitated to move.

He scoffed in amusement. “You’re already inside. If you were worried, you’re in far too deep now.”

I took a deep breath, and I walked toward him. Inside the tote lay can after can of food. Meat. Vegetables. Fruit. Soup. Water. It was anything and everything I could have thought of.

“Take some,” he said, patting my back.

My eyes were wider than beach balls as I gazed upon the vast assortment of food. I looked back at him in disbelief. “Thank you,” I whispered.

He didn’t acknowledge my first words. He didn’t make a big deal about it. Instead, he simply replied, “You’re welcome.”

He helped me pack some food into my bag, and he offered me his mattress. I shook my head.

“Suit yourself,” he replied, slowly hobbling toward it.

I picked a dry spot on his floor and pulled a crochet blanket over myself.

As I lay on my back, I listened to the soft trickle and slap of the water beneath us. I spoke softly to Lionel, “My name is Isaac.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew that he was smiling. “Nice to meet you, Isaac.”

I slept soundly that night until I heard a vicious noise coming from outside. It was a grinding noise, and immediately my eyes shot open. It was the sound of a plastic boat being dragged onto shingles.

“They’re here…” Lionel bolted up and shook me. “Get in the water!” he hissed.

I looked at the dark water and back at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“You listen to me, Isaac! I’m old. If I die, that’s fine. I’ve lived. You deserve a little more time.”

“No,” I said, grabbing my backpack. “Let me stay with you! I want to help… please.”

He shoved me before I could protest, and I splashed into the water. I bobbed to the surface, floating in the darkness. I wanted to yell, but my anger diminished as the skylight was torn open. I sank beneath the water, swimming underneath the attic floor to avoid being seen. I gently rose to the surface to breathe and looked between the cracks in the floorboards, seeing a group of men enter. I covered my mouth, stifling my horrified breaths.

My stomach fell out of my ass. It was the group of men that tried to kill me in the tree. I saw their wounds and burn scars. It was them. My heart hammered into my throat. I didn’t know that they were tailing me.

“You seen anyone come through here, old man!” one of the guys yelled, shoving Lionel to the ground.

He flopped onto the floor above me, spotting me through the cracks. Blood dripped from his eyebrow, seeping onto the wood above me. “I’ve seen no one…” Lionel growled, rolling over to look at them. “It’s just me.”

The men exchanged glances, knowing that he was lying.

“That’s a shame,” the leader of the group grumbled. “He got away from us a few weeks back. He’s got something we want… a nice little kayak. We know that he must’ve come through here… This neighborhood is one of the only places to sleep, and he only stops to sleep. You wouldn’t lie to us, would you?”

Lionel spat at them, gritting his bloodied teeth.

The men chuckled and grabbed him. Horrible punches filled the attic, and a sickening crunch followed. Lionel groaned in agony, but still, he wouldn’t back down. He continued to get up.

The leader of the group shook his head in annoyance, and the men swarmed onto Lionel together. They forced him to his knees, snapping one leg and bludgeoning the other with a bat.

The leader grabbed his neck, sliding his hands over his head. “Where is the boy?” he hissed, pulling Lionel’s head back by his hair.

Lionel simply laughed, choking on his blood. “You’ll never… find him.”

The leader snapped his neck in one swift movement, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Useless…” he mumbled.

Lionel’s crumpled body lay above me. His neck was twisted at an inhuman angle, eyes gazing through the cracks at me. We were nearly nose to nose, and I felt the last puff of breath leave him.

My stomach twisted into knots as I covered my mouth and nose. My fingernails dug into my cheeks, and tears of fire and rage burned down my face.

“Come on… Take what we need. We’ll find that fucking kid… I want that kayak.”

With whoops and hollers, they pillaged the room, throwing Lionel’s personal items into the water and laughing hysterically as they tore apart the last pieces of his home. I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch. Their loud echoes of laughter sounded more and more like hyenas, eating through Lionel’s little life. They opened his cookie tin, chuckling to themselves as they found pictures of his family.

They took all of the food and left. Their plastic canoes scraped across the roof as they departed, leaving me in silence with Lionel’s body.

My heart stopped, and a quiet sob escaped me. I shoved my hand over my mouth to force myself to stop crying. I needed to get out of the water. I’d luckily not been noticed by something in the murky depths.

Unsuccessfully, I tried desperately to climb back onto the dry wood with Lionel’s body, but it was too far up. I didn’t have enough strength to pull up my water-logged clothes and backpack.

I looked around the attic, spotting a half-submerged window on the other side. I took a deep breath, realizing I needed to cross the darkness of the submerged attic. From where I was, it seemed like a much larger space to cross. The water was dark, nearly black. I knew that something was in there, but I had to take the gamble to get out. I’d have to risk meeting the rogue creature and just make it to the tree in one piece.

Slowly, I swam. Splashing attracted more than just the creatures in the water. It also attracted alligators, and I really didn’t want to meet one of those either.

When I reached the window, I jammed my elbow into it. The glass cracked, and I slammed my elbow into it again. The crack expanded, and I kicked it. It finally broke, and I slid through.

I was greeted by the soft light of the moon. Her heavenly face and soft glow looked farther away than it had ever been, but she was the only constant in my life. Maybe we knew each other in a past life. Maybe her craters were freckles, sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. But even she had turned her back on humanity, leaving us to our mundane existence and fading lives.

I spotted the tree, and I began to swim, moving steadily and without panic. I had to be calm. An alligator was pressed against the house, but it didn’t bother to attack. I wasn’t enticing enough.  

Then, I saw her glowing eyes. The creature in the water had spotted me. Only then did I begin to swim much faster. As it turns out, I didn’t want to die as much as I thought I did.

She darted toward me, ripping through the water at an incomprehensible speed. I grabbed my kayak right as I was yanked under by the creature. There was no time to scream, no time for a breath. I was simply snatched beneath the surface.

Her grip was like iron, pressed around my ankle and digging into my flesh. She flung me below her, and I gazed up at her as I floated. Her magnificent, green eyes were completely round. The long fin that propelled her through the water was longer than I had imagined. Her mouth was abnormally wide, concealing her daggered teeth within. She gnashed her teeth at me, and I flinched away, still unable to close my eyes. I wanted to see what creature was eating my world. I wanted to know what had come from the eighty percent unexplored ocean. I WANTED TO KNOW.

Her nose was pressed to her face and smushed. Fins sat on the side of her head, and gills traced down her neck. Her hair was long and braided with shells and moss tucked within.

Angrily, she opened her mouth to bite me, but she stopped.

Even though my lungs screamed for breath, I didn’t move. I was willing to accept death as Lionel had. However, the creature did not hurt me. She studied me before swimming away.

Fearfully, I swam for my life back to the surface, and I climbed into the limbs of the tree. Dripping and cold, I looked below me to see her patrolling. She was guarding me… or watching me. I wasn’t sure which.

Maybe… Maybe I wasn’t what she wanted at all.

It started with rain... lots and lots of rain.

Then the floods came. The sky wept viciously, and it poured for months. The waters killed the crops, drowned entire towns and cities. So many people died, and that was just the beginning.

Some said it was an act of God, punishment for the sins we wrought upon his most beloved creation. Others said that it was the Earth’s vengeance, rage from our pillaging, poisoning, and pollution. I didn’t think it was either. I think it’s just the end of man, and the beginning for something else.

No one knew what they were. Beautiful, slender creatures with eyes like emeralds, glowing beneath the murky water. We never saw their full form, and they never came close enough to breach the surface. Moving quickly, agile, and inhuman, we never even saw them until it was too late. They didn’t speak or interact with us, but I was smart enough to know they weren’t our friends.

People rallied to their aid, begging them to help humanity and praying to them. Some believed that they were gods from the olden age, returning to claim the land that was once their home. Yet, wants and wishes can often be blurred when fear and terror clutch tightly to our throats. And the world was desperate. Our homes were sinking beneath the water, brick and cement fading beneath the waves. Our lives were gobbled up.

The creatures watched us, learning how we reacted to the catastrophic events around us. They watched us attack each other for food and clean water. They watched us burn… and grow violent.

Even still, they were right about us from the beginning. Man has always destroyed itself. Cain killed Abel with a rock. The first blood of man poured into the ground, soaking the soil with pain and his brother’s rageful pride. The creatures only provided a small push toward the edge.

My name is Isaac, and I’m one of the last humans left.

My day begins quietly. I’m usually awoken by the soft sound of dripping or the groan of the building that I’ve been hiding in. I move every day, seeking shelter anywhere I can. I’ve slept in trees, buildings nearly submerged, and on rooftops. I’ll sleep anywhere that isn’t completely underwater.

Once I wake up, I start moving again.

Rogue groups of the last humans aren’t friendly, and some have grown cannibalistic. They fight over resources, dry land if they find it, and anything that can be traded. I’ve managed to stay alive this long by the skin of my teeth. There are two rules in this world now. Never go into the water and never stop moving.

Before the rain, the floods, and the creatures, I was a sophomore in college. I lived at home with my mom, dad, and little brother. My life was good. I liked to read, treasuring the written word. I might’ve been a writer in another life, a journalist, or an English teacher. I was a hiker in my free time. I loved nature. I loved her wild tendrils of leaves and vines, her certainty and iron fist. I don’t know if I love her anymore. She took a lot from me.

I’m the last one in my family, and I can’t remember what they look like anymore. Terror and survival ripped them from me, leaving a hollow shell where a soul once resided.

Sometimes, I think a part of me went with them. The good part of me. The part of me that loved to read. The rest remains, barely clinging to life anymore.

Hunger sometimes wakes me up. The bitter ache of a shrinking stomach is indescribable. You consider eating dirt, believing it’ll taste like crushed cookies. The mind can inflict terrible atrocities when starvation clings to your bones, withering the muscle and organs within.

I forced my body up, knowing that if I didn’t move, someone would find me. The incessant dripping around me had begun to sound like a clock ticking as I rolled onto my side. The damp wood where I slept in a stranger’s attic was nearly decayed. I wouldn’t be able to come back here. This would be the last time I could rest here for the night.

Empty spiderwebs stretched above me. A few boxes of Christmas decorations and clothes sat forlorn, abandoned, and forgotten. It was the last remnant of the family that once resided here, and slowly, it too would be consumed by the water. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

I stretched, reaching above my head and kicking out my legs. The rope attached to my kayak jerked my leg back into place, and I winced.

I had tied my kayak to my leg like my father taught me before he died. In his opinion, it was better to be dragged into the water with your kayak than lose it. This polished piece of wood was my only mode of transportation; I was keenly aware that it helped me escape detection and increased my chances of survival.

I needed it, or I’d die.

My father made my kayak, carefully carved with speed and sturdiness in mind. He and I had planned to use it at the local river. It was his passion project, building kayaks as his father had taught him. I would’ve learned how to do it too. He would’ve taught my brother as well.

I walked to the untouched boxes and began to rummage through them. I found some wire, batteries, decorative rope for a Christmas tree, which I could use for anything, and, sitting at the bottom in pristine condition, a flashlight. I jerked the flashlight out and flicked it on. I nearly cried upon seeing the beam of light. I quickly turned it off, not wanting to waste the light.

I shoved my goodies into my backpack and pulled the kayak closer to me. I got inside, tucking my backpack between my legs and setting off through the small space I’d squeezed my kayak into last night.

It was early morning, misty and faceless. I hadn’t seen the sun in months, and I doubt it wanted to see what had become of its precious planet. It would’ve been so disappointed.

I could hardly see in the foggy morning. I vaguely made out the tops of the trees. They appeared as bushes atop the water, barely growing. Some were dormant, patiently waiting for the sun’s return as if winter had befallen them, and others were dead. Logs floated aimlessly, and occasionally, a crate or a box would drift by. A few alligators patrolled the still water, reflective eyes hoping I’d fall in. It was all their land now. I was the stranger passing through, but part of me knew that the Earth always belonged to its creatures. Humans weren’t necessarily the owners of anything. We were borrowers, taking what we could to build what we needed.

Now… We can’t even borrow.

My wooden paddle cut through the still water, sending concentric rings in all directions. I disturbed the peace, silence, and solemn slumber of the water. I could only pray that it would allow me passage through its insidious and drenched realm.

I paddled quietly, moving without thinking.

A body floated beside me, face down. I slowed my pace to look at it. The lump of rot and maggots was caught in the branches of a tree. The skin was shredded, purple-tinged and gray. A putrid mix of decay and sulfur lingered in the air around it.

I thought maybe it was a victim of the flood, but then it bobbed to the side as the ripple of my kayak moved it. Bite marks ripped through the muscles and tendons. The jagged holes where flesh should be were akin to the bites of a shark, but I knew what monstrosity had made them. It was the same creature that would tear me to bits if I so much as placed a toe into the water.

I scrunched my nose and headed onward. I paddled each day until sunset. I never stopped. I never took a break. I knew that I had to keep moving; I knew that I had to keep going.

A loud whomp broke my mechanical movement, snapping me back into reality. I looked over the side of my kayak, seeing a cement sign beneath me where the entrance to a neighborhood once greeted its occupants.

I sighed, steadily moving my torso in an attempt to get myself unstuck without harming my kayak. After a few more unsuccessful movements, I sat back in anguish and annoyance.

I looked back at the place I had come from, seeing the rooftops now. The neighborhood that was once teeming with families and laughter was gone. Now only empty shells and attics remain, and soon, those too will be gone. The water was quickly swallowing the last remainder of humanity, consuming the slowest, oldest, and sick first.

The sight of the flooded neighborhood should have frightened me or made me nervous, but it did nothing. I had grown calloused and numb, broken by the terrors of this new world.

I tried one last time to free myself, and my kayak finally slipped off the cement. I shrugged, placing my paddle back into the water; however, I froze as I saw a pair of glowing green eyes beneath me.

Now, the creatures moving below me did frighten me. I knew what they were capable of.

The creature stared at me as I slid my paddle out of the water. The breath caught in my throat, and my heart hammered into my chest.

It gently swam under me, staring with watchful eyes. Its body scraped against the bottom, rocking me from side to side.

Please leave. Please…

My thoughts were screaming inside of me, teeming with ways to escape, but I couldn’t move. The creatures beneath the water were fickle, unfeeling, and mysterious.

When they first began to attack humans, no one really noticed. There were bodies everywhere from the floods, from the broken dams, from the failed levees. No one noticed that the creatures within the water had developed a taste for our blood.

The creature below me ran its long, taloned finger down the side of my kayak, taunting me. My breath grew quiet. It was surely going to kill me, but instead, it slowly lifted a knife out of the water, pushing it onto the top of my kayak.

I had never seen the creatures so much as place a fin out of the water. The skin was speckled with earthen tones of brown, green, and black. Its talons were curved, perfect for maiming and clawing. A slit sat beneath the bottom of its palm where a long barb would emerge. Its fingers were webbed, knit together by thin, stretchy pieces of wrinkled skin.

The knife clattered into my lap as the creature knocked into the kayak. Then, it reached up once more, and it grabbed my hand. My fingers trembled, and my body shook with adrenaline and fear. Panic coursed through my very veins, vibrating beneath the skin as it hummed within me.

The wet and coarse palm of the creature was as cold as ice. The skin felt slick against mine, difficult to grasp.

Its eyes were getting closer to the surface.

Every fiber of my being squirmed; I nearly forgot to breathe. It was coming to me… It was coming to the surface.

A gunshot rang through the quiet, and I looked up to see an old man standing on his roof, gun in hand. It was a warning shot, but the creature didn’t need to be warned again. It disappeared beneath the water, racing into the somber depths. The old man lowered the gun, taking a deep breath in relief.

He and I gazed at each other, silently absorbing the features of another human. He was the first living person that I had encountered in months.

His eyes were light blue, folded beneath wrinkles and gray hair. His jaw hung to the side, shocked to see another human as well. Age spots rested upon his hands as he clutched tightly to the gun. He swallowed hard, unable to speak at first.

Breathlessly, I stared, unsure if he was a friend or a foe. My fingernails dug into my paddle. Every muscle twitched in anticipation, preparing to paddle for my life. I would make a good meal. He could salt me and pickle me, store me in a jar. I’d give him sustenance, and he’d free me from this place. A terrible trade, but at least I’d be with my family.

He clenched his jaw before speaking. “That one is different,” he said. “It’s all alone. No pod like the others. It’s been hanging around my house. I don’t know if it means harm or it’s just curious.”

I didn’t reply. My mouth was frozen in place, lips quivering as they struggled to move. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken or heard my own voice.

“You can come inside if you want. I have some food and fresh water that I collect. It isn’t much, but you’re the first human I’ve seen in several months. I was starting to think I was the last.”

I still didn’t answer. I had learned my lesson about strangers after nearly being eaten by them.

He wet his lips, considering his next words cautiously. “Listen, I’m going to put some food on the roof. You don’t have to come inside. I’ll leave you alone.”

He hobbled to a skylight in his roof, pulled it open, and disappeared inside. He returned a moment later with a single can of tuna.

“It ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got.”

My mouth watered, and my stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten in two days.

He gently placed the can on the farthest end of the roof where I could easily slip by on my kayak and get it. Slowly, he put his hands up in surrender. He limped back to the skylight and climbed back inside.

I sat quietly in my kayak for a moment, pondering the can of tuna. My stomach ached, and I went against every ounce of my best judgment. I cut through the water swiftly to reach that stupid can. I ripped it off the roof, tore it open, and consumed it with my fingers. I dug into the can like an animal, unable to stop long enough to chew. I simply shoveled it down, swallowing without thinking. I barely tasted it.

The old man peered at me through the skylight, smiling to himself.

After satiating my appetite for the time being, I nodded to the man.

He nodded back, grateful I didn’t decide to kill him like I feared he’d kill me.

I paddled onward, but I stopped, turning back to look at the old man’s house. Maybe I could stay for one day more. Just one.

My name is Matthew, and I’m posting this in the hope that someone, somewhere, can give me some answers.

About six months ago, I started talking to a girl online through one of those crappy dating apps. Honestly, I was just about done with them. I’d spent years bouncing from one app to another without any luck, and I had almost accepted that I was going to be alone.

Then Caroline messaged me.

She had dark hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that made it impossible not to look twice. Before I knew it, we were talking every day.

For three months, we texted constantly. As strange as it sounds, neither of us liked talking on the phone. We were both too nervous, so texting became our way of getting to know each other. Somewhere between the good morning texts and the late-night conversations, I found myself telling her things I’d never shared with anyone else. She knew my fears, my regrets, and dreams I hadn’t even admitted to myself.

Eventually, she asked if I would come visit her.

She lived in a tiny town in Tennessee, while I was from Cincinnati, Ohio. I worked as a delivery driver and had built up a little vacation time, so I promised I’d make the trip in the fall.

As excited as I was, I couldn’t shake the nerves.

It had been years since I’d been with anyone, and now I had this beautiful woman telling me all the things she planned to do once she finally got her hands on me. Every message made me grin like an idiot.

When the day finally came, I packed an overnight bag, typed the address she’d sent me into my GPS, and hit the road.

The drive passed quickly as I imagined finally meeting her. We’d had conversations I never thought I’d have with another person. I trusted her in a way that surprised even me.

A glance at the GPS showed 50 miles remaining.

I pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. The sun was beginning to disappear behind the hills, and I wanted to make it before it got too late.

About an hour later, the GPS instructed me to turn onto a dirt road.

I frowned but followed it.

Then it directed me onto another dirt road.

Then another.

I looked down again.

10 miles remaining.

By now it was already nine o’clock.

The farther I drove, the more isolated everything became. There were no houses, no streetlights, no road signs—just endless fields disappearing into the darkness.

Then the rain came.

Within minutes it was pouring so hard the windshield wipers could barely keep up.

“Fucking great,” I muttered.

Through the wall of rain, I spotted a weathered wooden sign standing beside the road.

As I rolled closer, I slowed enough to make out the faded lettering.

HOGS FOOT
Population: 54

I laughed to myself.

“Hogs Foot? What kind of name is that?”

Then I remembered I was in rural Tennessee. Maybe it wasn’t as strange as it sounded.

Just beyond the sign stood an old metal bridge.

Calling it “metal” was generous. It looked like rust held together by stubborn memories. The bridge was barely wide enough for one vehicle, and every board beneath my tires creaked as if it were about to give way.

I eased across, gripping the steering wheel tighter with every foot.

At that point, I didn’t have much choice.

My GPS had stopped working miles ago.

My phone had lost all service.

And I could’ve sworn the back roads had been leading me in circles.

When I finally reached the other side of the bridge, the road opened into what could barely be called a town.

There was an ancient gas station with a single pump that looked like it hadn’t been replaced since the 1960s. Beside it sat a small corner store that also served as the town’s inn. Next door was a combination bar and diner.

That was it.

Three buildings.

One lonely road.

And a population of fifty-four.

As I pulled into the gas station, something hit me almost immediately.

The smell.

A massive pig farm sat somewhere nearby, and the stench was overwhelming. I’m a city boy, so maybe I just wasn’t used to it, but this was different. The odor was so thick it seemed to coat the inside of my mouth. It settled in the back of my throat until I could almost taste it.

I shut off the engine and stepped out of my car, grateful to stretch my legs after hours on the road.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, the little town already felt… wrong. I made my way into the little old store

The place looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 1960s. The fluorescent lights overhead had been stained yellow from decades of cigarette smoke, giving the entire store a sickly glow. Wooden shelves lined both walls, stocked with canned goods that looked old enough to be collectibles. Dust-covered advertisements for cigarettes, motor oil, and soda still hung on the walls, faded relics from the sixties and seventies.

The whole place smelled like stale tobacco, gasoline, and mildew.

In the back of the store stood an elderly man, somewhere between seventy and eighty years old. He wore a flannel shirt beneath a pair of mud-caked overalls and a faded red cap that had probably seen better decades.

He looked up as I walked in and smiled.

“What can I do for you, young man?”

“My GPS quit working,” I said. “I can’t seem to find my way back to the interstate.”

The old man nodded as if he’d heard the same story a hundred times.

“Yeah… that happens around here. I don’t leave town much myself, but there are a lot of twists and turns before you get back to the interstate. You’re about forty minutes from it.”

Forty minutes?

I stared at him for a second.

How far had I driven? I knew I’d been on those back roads for a while, but it hadn’t felt like I’d gone that far off course.

“I ought to have a map around here somewhere,” the old man said. “Don’t mind letting you have it. Give me just a minute.”

He disappeared behind a curtain leading into the back room, his boots shuffling slowly across the old wooden floor.

A few moments later, the front door swung open.

A massive man stepped inside.

He had to be at least six-foot-four, with shoulders so broad they nearly filled the doorway. His thick beard covered most of his face, and his filthy overalls looked as though he’d been rolling around in mud all day.

“Daddy!” he shouted.

From behind the curtain, the old man answered, “What is it, Billy?”

“Mama wants you.”

“I’ll be home in a little bit, boy. I’m helping a customer right now.”

Billy slowly turned his head toward me.

I froze.

His eyes weren’t angry.

They weren’t friendly either.

They were… empty.

It was impossible to tell if he was looking at me or staring straight through me. His face held no expression whatsoever, like the lights were on but nobody was home.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Billy let out a childish sigh before turning around and walking back outside.

The old man returned a few seconds later, lighting an old pipe.

Name is Oscar by the way,“That’s my boy, Billy,” he said with a proud smile. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah…” I replied awkwardly. “He seems nice.”

The words left my mouth before my brain had a chance to stop them.

Why did I say that?

The old man chuckled.

“Well, I can’t seem to find that map.”

He took another puff from his pipe before continuing.

“But I’ve got a couple rooms upstairs. You’re more than welcome to stay the night.”

The last thing I wanted to do was spend the night in this town.

“I appreciate it,” I said, “but I think I’m just going to try my luck.”

“Suit yourself,” the old man replied. “Just be careful out there, young man.”

I thanked him, gave a polite wave, and walked back outside.

As I approached my car, the lone light hanging over the gas pump illuminated the front tires.

Both of them were flat.

I stared in disbelief.

“Great…”

I figured I must’ve driven over a piece of rusty metal while crossing that old bridge.

I turned just as the old man was locking the store for the night.

He looked at my tires and sighed.

“Well, that ain’t no good. You ain’t goin’ nowhere tonight with tires like that.”

As much as I hated the idea, I knew he was right.

“I guess I’ll be staying after all.”

The old man smiled.

“I’ll have someone come by in the morning and get those fixed for you.”

He reached into the pocket of his overalls and handed me an old brass key.

“Your room’s right up those stairs beside the store.”

He pointed toward a weathered wooden staircase that looked about as trustworthy as the bridge I’d just crossed.

I thanked him again.

He climbed into an old rust-covered Ford pickup, started the engine, and slowly drove away into the darkness.

I grabbed my overnight bag and made my way upstairs.

There were only two doors.

As I reached the top of the steps, it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to ask which room the key belonged to.

Then I noticed one of the doors had its curtains open.

A television flickered inside.

Billy sat at a small table facing the window.

As I unlocked my own door, I could feel his eyes on me.

Without moving.

Without blinking.

He simply sat there, staring.

Finally, the old lock gave way with a loud click.

Inside, the room was pitch black.

I reached along the wall, searching for a light switch.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the silhouette of someone standing motionless in the corner.

My heart nearly stopped.

I slapped the switch.

The room filled with light.

It was nothing more than an old mannequin wearing a dusty trench coat.

I let out a shaky laugh and put a hand over my chest.

“Jesus…”

I shook my head.

Get it together, Matthew.

The room smelled stale and musty, buried beneath decades of cigarette smoke. The green shag carpet was threadbare and full of holes, but surprisingly, the bed was neatly made with clean sheets.

It wasn’t much..

But it would do for one night.

As I unpacked my bag, I realized I’d left my phone in the car.

I sighed and headed back downstairs.

As I passed Billy’s room, I noticed the curtains were closed.

Guess he decided he’d had enough of watching the new neighbor.

When I reached my car, I searched every seat, every pocket, and every inch of the floorboards.

Nothing.

My phone was gone.

I could’ve sworn I’d left it in the car.

Maybe I’d dropped it inside the store.

I searched anyway.

For nearly an hour.

Nothing.

Eventually, exhaustion won.

I told myself I’d worry about it in the morning.

Then I went back upstairs, locked my room, and did my best to get some sleep. The next morning, I made my way downstairs to see Oscar.

“Morning,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen my phone, would you?”

Oscar looked up from behind the counter and slowly shook his head.

“Haven’t seen no phone,” he said. “But I might have one for sale.”

He bent down beneath the counter and pulled out an old flip phone wrapped in yellowed plastic packaging. It looked like something that had been sitting there for fifteen years.

I raised an eyebrow.

“That’s it?”

Oscar chuckled.

“We don’t get much cell service out here, son. Ain’t much need for fancy phones. You’re probably lookin’ at the only one in town.”

He slid it across the counter.

“You might be able to get a signal on it. Can’t promise nothin’. But once you open it, you own it.”

I looked down at the dusty package.

I’d be lucky if the thing even turned on, I thought.

I handed him ten dollars anyway.

To my surprise, the phone powered up.

Now came the hard part.

Caroline’s number.

I don’t know if anyone else does this, but once I save someone’s number in my phone, I never think about it again. I couldn’t remember all of it, but after talking to Caroline every day for months, pieces of it started coming back.

I quietly repeated seven… three…”

I stopped.

“What was the last number?”

Oscar looked up to hand me my change here you go son seven dollars and $.43 is your change
“Yeah… I think that’s right.” seven that’s it. I’m sorry thank you. Took my change from the old man.

Oscar grinned.

“Had a feelin’ you were callin’ your old lady.”

“Oh, she’s just a friend.”

“Sure she is.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I Immediately tried texting Caroline to let her know what happened. I got a text back almost instantly saying I was worried about you. Can’t wait to see you.

“Your tires ought to be fixed by tomorrow,” he said. “So you can let your lady friend know you’ll be on your way if everything goes as planned.”

He pointed toward the diner next door.

“Why don’t you head over there? Tell ’em Oscar sent you. My sister runs the place.”

Only then did I realize how hungry I was.

“That actually sounds like a good idea.”

I thanked him and headed next door.

The bell above the diner’s door jingled as I stepped inside.

It felt like walking into another world.

The smell of fresh coffee, bacon, and biscuits filled the room. Country music played softly from an old jukebox in the corner while a handful of locals quietly ate breakfast.

Behind the counter stood a heavyset woman with dark hair pulled into a bun.

She smiled the moment she saw me.

“Well, good mornin’, hon! Grab yourself a seat anywhere and make yourself at home.”

I’d always heard people talk about Southern hospitality.

Apparently, they weren’t exaggerating.

She walked over with a coffee pot in one hand and a notepad in the other.

“What can I get ya, honey?”

“Bacon and eggs, please.”

“Good choice.”

She winked.

“I’ll have it right out.”

The food was worth every minute of the wait.

About forty minutes later, she returned to clear my plate.

“Well?” she asked with a smile. “How was it?”

“It was delicious.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

She leaned in with a grin.

“The bacon’s fresh.”

I paid my bill, thanked her, and stepped back outside.

The moment the door closed behind me, the smell hit me again.

The pig farm.

It rolled through the air so thick you could almost chew it.

Still…

Aside from that smell, Hogs Foot didn’t seem like such a bad little town.

The people were friendly.

The food was good.

If you ignored how isolated the place was, it almost felt… peaceful.

That evening, around seven, I wandered back to the diner and decided to have a few drinks while I waited for morning.

One beer turned into two.

Then three.

Just as I was thinking about heading upstairs, the front door opened.

A fair-skinned redheaded woman, probably in her late twenties, stepped inside.

She looked around the room before taking the empty stool beside mine.

“You look like you’ve had a day,” I joked.

“You have no idea,” she laughed. “Blew a tire crossing that old bridge. Been lost ever since.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

She gave me a puzzled look.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not laughing at you. The exact same thing happened to me.”

She smiled.

“Well… at least I’m not the only one.”

“I swear it’s that bridge.”

She nodded.

“I honestly didn’t think my car was going to make it across.”

For the next hour we talked just like two old friends she told me that she was headed to meet an old friend from college. She hadn’t seen and years.

She was funny.

Easy to talk to.

And for the first time since I’d gotten stranded, I almost forgot where I was.

Then reality crept back in.

What am I doing?

I hadn’t driven all the way from Cincinnati to spend the evening flirting with another woman.

I’d come here for Caroline.

Feeling guilty, I paid my tab, wished the woman goodnight, and headed back to my room.

The alcohol had given me just enough courage.

As I climbed the stairs, I made up my mind.

To hell with it.

I’m calling her.

For three months we’d hidden behind text messages.

Tonight, I was finally going to hear her voice.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the cheap flip phone from my pocket.

My hands were shaking.

Part excitement.

Part nerves.

I smiled to myself as I dialed her number.

For the first time since we’d met…

I was finally going to hear Caroline’s voice. I listened as the phone began to ring.

For a second, I smiled.

Then my smile disappeared.

It took me a moment to realize what I was hearing.

The ringing wasn’t coming from the phone in my hand.

It was coming from the room next door.

I frowned.

Caroline didn’t answer.

I shook my head, convincing myself it had to be a coincidence.

Still, the thought nagged at me.

I pressed the call button again.

Once again, the ringing came from the room beside mine.

This time, I hung up immediately.

A knot formed in my stomach.

No…

Is Caroline here?

Did she come to surprise me?

Or am I just being an idiot?

I sat on the edge of the bed for nearly fifteen minutes, arguing with myself. Finally, curiosity got the better of me.

I quietly stepped into the hallway.

Billy’s curtains were still open.

I crept toward the window and carefully peeked inside.

The television flickered in the corner, casting long shadows across the room. The bed was empty.

No Billy.

No Caroline.

Just an old flip phone sitting on the table beneath the window.

It looked exactly like mine.

My heart began to race.

There’s one way to find out.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Caroline’s number again.

The instant I pressed the call button, the phone inside Billy’s room began to ring.

Every hair on my body stood on end.

There was no doubt anymore.

Somehow…

Caroline’s phone was in the room next to mine.

I ran back to my room, slammed the door shut, locked it, and shoved a chair beneath the doorknob.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely breathe.

None of it made sense.

Nothing about this town made sense.

Before I could collect my thoughts, my phone buzzed.

A text message.

From Caroline.

“Sorry I missed your calls, baby.

Are you behaving?

Not talking to any pretty little redheads at the bar, I hope.

I love you. I won’t let anyone come between us.”

A chill ran the length of my spine.

How did she know about the woman at the diner?

And “I love you?”

We had never once said those words to each other.

Not once.

With trembling fingers, I typed back.

“Who is this… really?”

The reply came almost instantly.

“I’m tired of doing this over the phone.

I think it’s time we finally meet face to face.”

Before I could even process what I’d just read—

Knock.

Someone was at my door.

I froze.

Another knock.

Trying not to make a sound, I listened.

Then I heard Billy’s voice through the wood.

Soft.

Almost playful.

“Here, piggy piggy…”

A pause.

“Tell me where you are, boy.”

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst through my chest.

“Get the hell away from my door!” I shouted. “I’ll call the cops!”

Silence.

Complete silence.

Not a footstep.

Not a breath.

Just my heartbeat.

This was my chance.

I flipped open the phone and dialed 911.

A woman answered immediately.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

I took a deep breath, trying my best to sound calm.

“I… I think someone’s trying to break into my room.”

“Can you tell me where you are?”

I explained as much as I could.

She spoke in a calm, reassuring voice.

“All right, Matthew. Stay on the line with me. An officer will be at your door in just a moment.”

Moments later—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“There he is,” the dispatcher said. “That’s our officer now. He’ll help you from here.”

That’s when something hit me.

Ice flooded through my veins.

I had never told her my name.

I slowly lowered the phone from my ear.

The knocking grew louder.

Faster.

Harder.

I crept toward the small window in the door and looked outside.

Billy.

He was standing there, smiling.

I stumbled backward.

The dispatcher…

Billy…

Oscar…

None of them were trying to help me.

I remembered the tiny bathroom window.

I sprinted inside, locked the bathroom door, and climbed onto the sink.

The old window had been painted shut for years.

I pulled.

Nothing.

I pulled harder.

The paint cracked.

The frame groaned.

Then it burst open.

At that exact moment—

CRASH!

The front door exploded inward.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the room.

Then came Billy’s whisper.

“Here… piggy piggy…”

That was all the motivation I needed.

I threw myself through the bathroom window.

Branches tore at my clothes as I crashed into a patch of overgrown bushes below.

Ignoring the pain, I scrambled to my feet.

Across the road, I could see lights glowing from the pig farm.

There had to be people there.

Maybe someone could help me.

Behind me, I heard glass shattering and Billy screaming.

I ran as fast as I could.

When I reached the farm, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The parking lot was packed.

Dozens of trucks.

Dozens of cars.

The smell of the farm was stronger than ever now, carrying a sickening odor the closer I got.

I’d only seen three vehicles since arriving in Hogs Foot.

The sign had said the population was fifty-four.

It had to be everyone in town.

Relieved, I hurried toward the barn.

Then I heard a voice.

I peeked inside.

What I saw still haunts my dreams.

Oscar stood on a stage beneath a massive crucified pig.

The gentle old man was gone.

His voice thundered through the barn.

“People are swine! Filthy! Corrupt! If they choose to live like pigs… then they deserve to die like pigs!”

My blood ran cold.

In the pig pen below the stage lay the redheaded woman from the diner.

At first, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.

Then it did.

Her arms and legs had been amputated below the elbows and knees.

Her nose had been cut away, leaving her face resembling the snout of a pig.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

Billy suddenly burst through the barn doors, shouting something to Oscar.

Oscar’s expression changed instantly.

He looked furious.

I didn’t wait to hear another word.

I turned and ran, hopping an old wooden fence.

I didn’t make it far before I fell face-first into a pile of mud.

Looking around to see what had tripped me, I realized the ground surrounding me was littered with a horrifying mixture of human bodies and pig carcasses, all caked in mud a smell that I will never forget that’s same smell that I noticed when I first got into town

The sight made me vomit

After taking a moment to pull myself back together, I started Fighting to get back to my feet on the slippery ground, I finally found my footing and sprinted toward the tree line, running faster than I ever thought possible.

Behind me, I heard shouting.

Then Billy’s voice.

“There he is!”

I glanced over my shoulder.

His flashlight danced through the trees.

He couldn’t have been more than five hundred feet behind me.

“Here, piggy piggy!”

I ran until my lungs burned.

Until my legs felt like they would snap beneath me.

It felt like hours.

In reality, it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.

Billy’s voice sounded closer.

“Come back here, boy!”

I turned, certain he was about to grab me—

And everything went black.

⸻

I woke up three days later in a hospital.

The doctors told me I’d been in a car accident just outside Nashville.

They said I’d driven into a guardrail while intoxicated.

When I started talking about Hogs Foot… about Oscar, Billy, and people turning into pigs… they blamed it on the concussion.

According to them, there was no town called Hogs Foot. And they gave me my phone although it was in 1 million pieces.

No bridge.

No gas station.

Nothing.

I was there for a full week before I was discharged.

The first thing I did was trying to call Caroline thinking if this all was just a concussion, I kept her hanging for the last week Not sure if I wanted to It took all of my courage, but I made the call to only be met with a unavailable number. Figured she blocked me. Can’t say I blame her. I went to pick up my car, the whole front end was bent all to hell, but it still worked and luckily, I didn’t get in to any kind of legal trouble don’t know how that happened, but I’m not going to complain
As I drove home, I kept telling myself the doctors had to be right.

Maybe it really had been the concussion.

Maybe I’d imagined everything.

I’d never had a concussion before.

How was I supposed to know what one could do to your mind?

Then…

I heard it.

A faint ringing.

I looked around the car.

The sound was coming from the glove compartment.

My hands trembled as I opened it.

Inside sat the cheap old flip phone Oscar had sold me.

Its screen glowed in the darkness.

Incoming Call

Caroline.

"Poor Helen," says the young, pretty blonde nurse out of nowhere while filling small paper cups with pills.

"What's so poor about her, Deb?" asks Susan, caught off guard by her sudden interest in the new tenant.

"Well, it's just that her kids just dropped her off here yesterday."

"So? How's that anything different from the rest of them?"

"I don't know. She just seems so much brighter, more lively than the ones we normally get. You should have seen her begging not to be left here. She was ugly crying about helping with the grandkids and housework, but they weren't hearing it. Just turned around and left."

"Maybe it was hard for 'em and they needed to just rip the band aid off. Ya know?"

"Still…"

"Still what? You don't know why she is and you of all people know what happens when they get this age, start losing themselves, it's dangerous to have them around your kids or driving around. You never know when it's gonna happen."

Helen was not used to being pitied or treated as a threat, so this conversation she couldn't help overhearing threw her for a loop. She wondered why they were talking so loud. The paisley armchair she was sitting in wasn't that far away from them in the common room of her new retirement home. Maybe they thought she couldn't hear over the TV at almost full volume or maybe she was almost deaf like the rest of these folks.

Taken out of her book, she looks around at the other old people trying to avoid eye contact with the two attendants. They all look so lifeless, she thought, so ready for something to happen, a phone call or a visit or even a game of bridge to start up, anything to break up the waiting in the sunlit room they all gathered in.

The blonde nurse named Debbie comes around to pass out the afternoon pills, handing out paper cups with the tenants' names on them.

"Miss Palmer? Here's your afternoon dosage. Only a couple of pills for arthritis and blood pressure, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Here you are. I hope you enjoy your time with us here, if you need anything be sure to let any of us know."

"Hmpf," she replies and pretends to go back to her book. Debbie hangs around for an awkward moment, before continuing her rounds.

*Condescending Bitch,* they both thought of the other.

Helen begins to try to truly read her book again, a trashy horror paperback with a black cover with only eyes and sharp teeth visible under the author's name. It was generic and an effort to get through in some parts, but she read classics already, some multiple times. She often likes to read schlock when depressed, she tells herself, but deep down she loves it more than Austen and Hemingway.

This room doesn't allow for her focus though, the loud chatter and even louder volume on the TV news keep her from becoming engrossed in her book. It was one of those dreadful 24/7 channels, always breaking news, always bad, interspersed with fluff and opinionated talking heads.

"…has to be done about this wave of crimes across the country. Young parents massacred in their home, torn to shreds. It's unconscionable. The police aren't trying hard enough to solve this, but that's what happens when you defund the police. If only…"

The pundit with all the solutions to every problem continues blathering on until the host interrupts.

"…110 percent with you. We'll be back with Dr. Madison after this."

The commercials are always the same. Some aging irrelevant actor says silver and gold markets are going to crash soon, put your life savings into copper. Sign up for your free investment packet.

*Feel young again with the power of the wolf. Extracts from wolf blood can improve your mobility, vision, and vitality. It even cures heart disease and erectile dysfunction. Call now for an extra month supply free.*

Happy, dancing people at a barbecue with the whole family hides their eczema or arthritis or shingles, but thanks to [insert new drug] here they don't have to.

"We're back with Dr. Madison…"

It's drivel and fear mongering she never would have watched at home. Helen used to spend her days in her garden, reading, and finding new recipes. Her new infatuation was Asian cooking, the style was so different from American and European dishes.

Helen struggles to get out of the worn in chair, flare ups in her knees make her hope the Aleve she took earlier kicks in soon.

"Susan?" Helen says after checking her name tag. "Is there a kitchen here I could use to cook sometimes?"

"Miss Palmer, you don't have to cook for yourself anymore. We take care of all that for you. Your kids spoiled you with the premium package. Besides, all the cooking is done off site. We have a company that delivers hot meals three times a day."

"But I liked to cook. I was experimenting with some Jap…"

"We do have a microwave in our break room if you would like to use it. We did use to have a nice kitchen, but the insurance was too high so corporate took it out."

"Where was it?"

"Have you seen that room with the dining room with the vending machines? The kitchen was connected to that but they turned it into storage."

"That's a shame. I think I'll miss that and my garden I had. The biggest zucchini comin'…"

"You know Helen, if you wanted any food from outside I could get it for you. Just help me with the gas, it's ridiculous right now. Almost $6 a gallon, but I'd be happy to do that for you."

"No, that's alright. I think I'll just go to my room for the night. Thanks anyway."

—-------

"Mom, it's only been 2 months. Give it some more time."

"Dave, I don't like it here."

"I know. You told me on the phone last week."

"But it's true. Everyone just sits around all day watching TV and playing cards. Nobody wants to try anything new. I tried to play Mahjong with some of the girls, but they wouldn't even try it. They said it was a Chink game." She whispers.

"Seriously, maybe don't hang out with them anymore."

"Dave, they are all like that. They just watch the news and old crime procedurals on repeat. If I have to watch another episode of NCIS again, I'll blow my fucking brains out."

"Mom!"

"Please, just let me stay in your guest room. I'll help with the cooking and picking up the kids from school."

"Mom… you know you can't drive anymore. The DMV took your license."

"That girl hit me. In the back."

"I know, Mom."

"Did I tell you one of them tried to extort money from me? I know gas isn't $6."

"Mom. I just can't do this. Work is up my ass. Jeffrey is failing math…"

"I can help him with that. I have a god damned math degree."

"But it's that new math, the common core stuff. I don't even understand it."

"Dave, there is no new math, it's just a diff…"

"Mom, I can't… Georgia doesn't want to."

"Why? I always got along with Georgia."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, I tried to."

"No, you didn't. I have to go, Mom. I have to stop at the grocery store before picking up Daniel from soccer practice. Just try to make the best of it."

Dave closes the door behind him with a loud thunk. Helen ugly cries.

—--------

"That new woman that always reads those garbage books is so uppity," says Harold sitting in front of the TV.

Billy joins in, "I hear ya. She is always looking down on us like her eyes are on top of her head."

"…mauling, this time in California."

"See that Bill. Those hippies really think they have it figured out, but they're no better than anybody else."

"Thank you for coming in again, Dr. Madison. We know you are a busy man, following this wave of mutilations that has the world terrified. The President is holding a press conference later today. What do you think, Doctor?"

"It's shameful. I can't believe our country has fallen into such a sinful state. Most the victims are young people in the prime of their lives. Something has to be done…"

"They need Jesus. That's what they need. Back in the 80's we didn't have any of this. Kids could play outside without worrying about pedos." Harold preaches to the TV.

"Actually, the 80's had some of the worst crime rates in history," Helen inserts from behind the semicircle of chairs around the 70 inch flat screen.

"Well, not in my town they weren't. Where'd you hear that crap from?"

"I read it in a book. It was trying to figure out what happened to the massive crime rates and why they dropped off so suddenly. Turns out legal abortion became available to poor people. When people most likely to be criminals are never born you have less crime."

"Baby killers. You one those hippies, too?"

"God no, I find it detestable. In fact, the book's finding was more about being unwanted is what led to crime, not being poor. It's just that poor babies were more likely to be unwanted... I'm not uppity."

"Huh?"

"I heard you, you sour grump. I just don't want to be here, but I haven't had more than a phone call from my son in 4 months. I guess I'm stuck here."

"We're all in that boat, darling. You get used to it."

"But do you get used to hating your children?"

"Yeah, you do."

"…of the wolf. Be the alpha and feel young again. Call now for…"

"Who is dumb enough to fall for that crap?" Helen snickers at the advertisement.

Billy bursts into laughter and starts nudging Harold on the arm. "She's calling you dumb!"

"Screw you, Billy. That stuff works. I'm moving around better. My joints don't hurt as much anymore. I think I even have new hairs sprouting in my bald spot. Hell, I had my first hard on in a decade. Looking at you, Sister." He says to Helen with a wink.

"Vile man. I should've stayed in my book."

Helen leaves the circle in a huff.

—-----

"NCIS will be right back."

*A Reverse mortgage was the ticket to independence for me in my golden years…*

"You know my friend did one of those, said it worked great for her," Beth says.

"Huh?" Helen replies from her daydreaming. "Oh yeah, I bet so."

"My kids sold my house for me. Used the money to pay for this place, ya know."

"Yeah. Mine, too. Do you miss your house?"

"Sometimes, until I think about all the upkeep. After Bob died, I couldn't handle it anymore and hiring somebody was so expensive. Plus, you can't be too careful, nowadays. Shysters, most of those handymen."

"Uh huh. Can't trust anybody. I had a boy in my neighborhood who would help me with the heavy work, but he went off to college. My son tried to help, but he was so busy."

"Hey ladies," Harold calls while sauntering over. Maybe that wolf extract was working for him, Helen thought. The hair on his head was definitely thicker and he was much more active, more virile. It was hard to ignore.

"Hey Harold," Beth giggles at him sheepishly.

"Ready for our walk?"

"I've been waiting all day. Let's go. Bye Helen. I'll see you tomorrow for bridge."

She begins flipping through channels before giving up and going to bed.

—----------

Helen opens her door to find Harold standing confidently at the threshold.

“What could you possibly be thinking knocking at my door this late?” Helen already knew what he wanted. His hungry eyes were the same ones he's been looking at every woman with for weeks now.

“I was just thinking about a nightcap and saw your light still on, Sister.” He says pushing his way into her room with a bottle of brandy and some glasses.

“Don't you barge into my room, you buffoon. I'm not interested.”

“Come on, Girlie, maybe a drink will knock that stick loose. It can't be comfortable for ya.”

“Girlie? Harold, you get out, now. I'm already exhausted by you. I'm going to sleep.”

Harold closes the distance between them until Helen can feel his breath. “I could join you, I'm a little tired, too.” His voice is quiet and guttural and his hungry eyes are fixed on her. Harold smiles big enough to bare teeth.

“No, I don't… I mean I'm not … I haven't shared a bed with anyone since my husband.” She step back into her night stand. The lamp rattles and almost falls over.

“Are you scared, Sister? Cause none of this fun if you don't want it. I'll leave you be, okay.”

“That would be best, I think.”

Harold takes his bottle and glasses and begins to leave, at the door he stops. “I did have something to talk to you about. I've been thinking about something you said a lot lately. About the unwanted kids and how you kinda maybe hate your son.”

“Hate is a strong word, but what about it?”

“I was thinking that I kinda understand those kids now. I told ya you get used to hating your family, but that's a lie. You don't, really. I keep having these uh… uncomfortable thoughts.”

He stands quiet for a long moment, before really leaving.

“Good Night, Helen.”

“Yeah, night Harold.”

Helen also had some uncomfortable thoughts, but she quickly pushed her excitement away.

Before laying down for the night, she decides to have a sherry to calm her nerves.

—------------

"What do you mean he's gone?" Debbie says, trying to be quiet, outside of Helen's room.

Susan, panicking, says, "He's not there. The room's empty. The window's broken and his clothes are torn to shreds. You think it's one of those attacks?"

"Isn't there like a chewed up corpse left after?"

"I, I guess so. It looks like a freaking bear was tearassing through it, smells like it too."

"I'll go call the police. I hope he's okay, he's been doing so much better lately. Did I tell you he hit on me the other day? I almost went for it, too."

"Really? Debbie, come on, he's like 80."

"A young 80, but I did say almost. Besides, have you been paying attention, it's almost like he was aging in reverse."

Helen heard enough and went back to sleep.

—---‐-

"…this time in our own town. The family was found mutilated in their home this morning. Police are looking into any leads they can find. A manhunt is underway for the victim's grandfather, Harold Messner, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances from Harvest Moon Retirement Home 2 nights ago. Authorities are…"

"I can't believe it, Beth."

"He has been especially vigorous lately. It's possible."

"Gross. He was an oaf, Beth. You're better than that."

Beth gets up as quickly as she can muster. "He tried to warn me about you. Said you were stuck up. I should have listened." She then storms off.

"…power of the wolf. Now formulated for women. Regain your independence. Call now for an extra…"

"Who buys this crap?" Helen spits at the TV while thinking about how much she misses her garden.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Above the conference room table, the thin metal hands of the clock wound their way around the white face of it. Curls of steam rose from untouched coffee mugs, soft afternoon light filtered through the white plastic blinds, and cars rumbled by outside with muted chatter. The woodwork of the room was showing its age today, scuffed, chipped, and scratched from countless years of administrative work going to and fro. The scent of coffee, glue, and copy paper hung on the air around the table, but with the door to the conference room shut, it seemed to thin in favor of the dry smell of dust that lingered despite numerous cleanings. That was Jabo’s Fork in a nutshell; an old thing still chugging along like an antique car, refusing to submit to the effects of time in the shadow of the mountains around it. Yet, like so many small towns, it too had its fair share of problems, and it was this that brough us here as the other people around the conference table stared in shock at the sheriff.

“David, come on.” Mayor Jonathan Hilco blinked at him with the half smile of a man who doesn’t want to believe his ears. “You can’t be serious.”

Across the flat expanse of polished oak, Sheriff Kowalski nodded, no humor in his stoney expression. “I am.”

Lisa Renfield, dressed in her usual pinstriped pantsuit, shook her head at Kowalski in amazement, hands shaking as if she were watching the money disintegrate before her very eyes. “That property is worth millions. Just the price on the house alone could fund the town’s administration budget for an entire year. Besides, every day the park stays closed, we lose even more money. I can’t believe we’re even discussing this.”

“It’s still a crime scene, Lisa.” The sheriff narrowed his dark eyes at her and jabbed a finger at the louvered blinds covering the courthouse windows. “We’ve got four missing people connected to the Watkins property, three of them local residents. For God’s sake, Cindy Fadro went to school with your niece! Erin Martinelli’s father was on the football team with John in high school! If we sell that place we’ll never get a better chance to find out what happened to those girls, and opening up the park around Smoke Point will guarantee contamination. Every two-bit podcaster this side of the Mississippi will be out there, climbing around with their cameras to look for ghosts, while real evidence might get buried or lost thanks to their tramping.”

Leaning forward so that his prodigious belly mounded against the edge of the conference table, Douglas Finberger tried to calm the situation even as his face reddened with similar levels of disbelief. “Let’s not lose our heads here, yeah? Look, David, we’re all saddened about what happened to Ed Watkins and those two girls, but it’s been several months without a single lead or update. We’ve humored you this long in keeping the park closed, but you can’t seriously expect us to throw away this kind of opportunity based on cold cases. After all, you’ve always said your boys needed more funding; think how much equipment and training we could get from the estate sale.”

That’s going to go over well.

Seated to the left of Sheriff Kowalski, I sucked in a breath and waited for the inevitable eruption to follow the county auditor’s remarks. I’d been a deputy sheriff for years in Jacob’s Fork, and had served under David Kowalski since I was a rookie cop. He was a good man, and a strong leader, but he could get easily fired up when confronted with the bureaucratic red tape of local governance. I had been there when our tiny force went through some really tough cases; the drug ring that came in from Boise six years ago, a Kootenai poaching racket that murdered a hunter four years ago, or last year when a crazed gunman from out of state tried to shoot up an elementary school during Valentine’s Day. Most of the time, being a cop in the forgotten stretches of northern Idaho was easy, but these cases were always fresh in the minds of anyone who stayed on Kowalski’s force. For this reason, he’d been pushing more funding for nearly a decade, and always he got the same excuses about the county budget. To bring it up now, after everything that had happened concerning the Wickenshire House, was tantamount to throwing gasoline on a bonfire.

He swiveled his head to blink at the county commissioner, and I thought for a moment Sheriff Kowalski might explode, his face shading red like an overripe tomato. “Are you kidding me, Doug? We can’t sell that place in good faith, not when this might happen again, and opening up the mountain would be like ringing a damn dinner bell. I’ve got Andy Todd watching the mountain, and there are new markers in the woods as far as the Benson Ranch . . .”

“Oh, good lord, not this again.” Lisa slumped back in her chair, cradling her forehead in one hand with a groan of annoyance. “Andrew Todd is hardly a credible source, especially considering where he was the night of the disappearances.”

“. . . which means our suspect is still at large.” The Sheriff talked right over her words and instead directed his attention to our mayor, who looked more uncomfortable by the minute. “Now I say we seize the property as per eminent domain and seal the mountain off for good. I’ve got some dynamite down at the station from when we collapsed that old copper mine, and it will be enough to make sure the access road is completely demolished.”

“This is insane.” Charles Hubour, head of our local chamber of commerce, looked down his long nose at our badges from the opposite end of the table. “You’re going to mothball a six-million-dollar property and an entire public wilderness recreational area which is fully taxpayer funded because of a few piles of bones? You guys have guns, what are you so afraid of?”

Shifting in my chair, I did my best not to let my temper boil alongside the sheriff’s as the room scrutinized me like a bug on a card. I’d been promoted to detective after I apprehended the Valentine’s Day shooter by ramming his car with my own before the ensuing firefight broke out. Kowalski had overseen the promotion himself, and while he was still as tough on me as the day I joined, I knew he’d been proud. My own father left when I was ten, so to me the sheriff was as much a father figure as I ever had. When he let me take the lead on investigating the Wickenshire vanishings last winter, I gave it my all, only to fall short as none of the clues we found led to anything substantial.

I turned that place upside-down. I know I missed something, I just need more time.

“The markers are a health hazard.” Sheriff Kowalski jerked a thumb over one shoulder toward the distant mountains, though I could see his embarrassment at the words, as he and I both knew the real reason why we never removed them. “And more than that, they’re part of the crime scene. If we want to catch whoever is doing this, we need them intact, and there’s no way we can rely on private owners or nosy hikers to keep them there.”

“Oh please, now you’re just grasping at straws.” With a snort, Lisa crossed her arms and stuck her chin out with a waspish tone to her voice. “Honestly, at this point it looks more like covering up evidence to me. Besides, since when did we authorize you to hold onto explosives?”

Something inside of me snapped, and before I knew what I was doing, my mouth was running. “You know what, maybe next time you stop some maniac from gunning down a room full of kindergartners then you can dictate what we have in our arms locker.”

“Enough!” With a slam of his open palm on the table, Mayor Hilco brought the room to silence once more. “The Smoke Point Mountain is part of the public domain; we cannot keep it closed while the people are paying taxes for it. As it is tied to our administration, I’ll officially sign the paperwork to be reopen it by the end of the week.”

Sheriff Kowalski sighed, and I felt my chest deflate. There it was. Our defeat. Over an hour spent in this stuffy room, and none of them had listened to a word we said.

Un-freaking-beleivable.

Pausing for a moment to straighten his tie, the mayor continued. “As zoning laws are technically gray as to where it lies, the Wickenshire Estate is hereby considered an important local landmark of Jacobs Fork, therefore under my jurisdiction. We are not going to destroy any county infrastructure, not in this economic climate.”

The other officials flashed smug, triumphant smiles at us, but Hilco wasn’t finished.

“Instead,” He angled his head our way, and I could see him and the sheriff exchange a knowing look. “It will be remanded to police custody for an additional month, along with the access road leading to it, after which it will be taken into official holding by the county. If, in that time, the sheriff’s office finds anything substantial to lead to a breakthrough in the missing persons cases, the deadline will be extended by another week. Dismissed.”

Squawks of protest came from the other members of the cabinet, but the sheriff rose to his feet with a grim, yet satisfied look on his haggard face, and I followed suit.

“David.” Mayor Hilco raised a hand to stop us as the others filed from the conference room. “Stay. You too, detective.”

Once the door to the room swung shut behind the last exiting bureaucrat, the mayor sat back in his chair with a sigh, then threw a furtive glance toward the door. From his pockets, he fished out a box of cigarettes, slipping one between his lips. He crossed to the end of the room to push one of the windows open, and from outside the quiet bustle of passing cars and chatting pedestrians flowed in.

“Thought you quit?” Without a hint of judgment, Sheriff Kowalski produced a lighter from his shirt pocket and ran the flame under the mayor’s unlit cigarette tip.

He snorted, and Mayor Hilco pulled in a long drag before exhaling so that little plumes of smoke flowed from his nostrils. “As far as my wife knows, I did. You know, I never had a bad smoke. Bad drinks, bad coffee, bad dates, but a smoke was always a smoke. Damn shame the stuff is so bad for you.”

“Yeah, well, so are the burgers at JoAnne’s Diner.” Leaning against the windowsill beside him, Sheriff Kowalski produced his clay pipe and a small tin from his other shirt pocket, out of which came a small bag of loose black tobacco. “I swear, someday they’re gonna write ‘Bacon’ on my autopsy as cause of death. I’d never make it as a rabbi.”

That brought a tired smile to the mayor’s lined face, and he offered me a cigarette, which I politely declined. I wasn’t a smoker, though I had to admit the smell of Sheriff Kowalski’s cherry pipe tobacco made me want to reconsider. It truly was unfortunate how something so pleasant also caused cancer. Much like the town, it didn’t kill you at first, just crept up on you slow, until one day you realized you were stuck on this path as much as the next person. I wondered in abstract if Cindy or Erin were decomposing on some hidden trail or crevice somewhere on the rocky slopes to our north, trapped forever on their own path that we couldn’t find.

After another few quiet drags, Major Hilco let his shoulders slacken, and tugged at the knot in his tie with a weary groan. “Please tell me you boys can find something up there.”

Sheriff Kowalski glanced out the nearby window, his eyes far away in thought. “We’re doing the best we can, Jon. Anything dead’s gonna be dry bones by now. Anything living . . .”

Silence reigned once more, but after a moment, the mayor lifted his eyes to me. “You both have my support, you know that. The park opening was a necessary concession; I want this solved as much as anyone, but it’s been over six months since the fire. I can’t keep the others at bay for much longer. Find something for me to hold over their heads, or we’ll be forced to move on with the property.”

I straightened up, sensing the wight in how he addressed me first. This was still my task, my investigation to see through to the end. They were both relying on me to find new evidence. I couldn’t let the sheriff, or the mayor down, not when so much was at stake.

The families deserve to know what happened.

“I’ll find something.” I nodded, in a bid to inject more confidence into the statement than I truly felt.

“Good man.” Whether he believed me or not, the mayor bobbed his head in a similar gesture of approval and waved us off with a tired sigh. “I’ll be at a commerce summit in the Moose Lodge for the afternoon. Call my personal number if you need anything.”

With this signaling the impromptu meeting to be over, I followed the sheriff as he put out his pipe, the two of us making for the conference room door.

We slipped through the maze of corridors to the stairwell of the county courthouse and finally emerged onto the town square. It was a sunny day for Idaho, golden rays dancing on the courthouse green as we trudged for the sheriff’s pickup.

“Go ahead, say it.” I shook my head at myself as we rounded to our respective doors on the weather-beaten truck, its green and tan paint chipped from thousands of kicked up pebbles on backroads.

Sheriff Kowalski raised an eyebrow that bore faint traces of gray, settling into the driver’s seat and adjusting his faded gray Stetson with the grunts of an aging man. “Say what?”

Leaning an elbow on my own door, I noticed how worn the dark navy sleeves of my coat were. It hadn’t been more than a year since my promotion, and already it seemed like twenty. “That I should have kept my mouth shut. Renfield’s been gunning for a police budget cut for years; I just gave her enough ammo to make that happen.”

To my surprise, a wry grin slid over my boss’s lips, and he chuckled as we rumbled on down main street, a warm southern breeze flowing into the cab. “She can’t do nothing she couldn’t do yesterday, Derrick. If anything, it’s good she got some return fire for once. Ever since she headed that park commission, Renfield’s had stars in her eyes over running for mayor once Hilco leaves. One of these days all them spoiled uptown fools will vote her in and she’ll try to melt our badges for the silver, but it ain’t right now.”

As the streets of Jacob’s Fork rolled by, I watched the people on the sidewalks and in the windows of local shops, talking and shopping with relative peace. A few even waved as we passed by, noting the sheriff’s emblem on the truck door. One young woman tucked a strand of light blonde hair behind one ear, and I thought back to the missing person’s files, those faces I’d poured over for hours.

Two young women, one old man, one middle-aged hiker. No connections between the hiker and the first three, save for the location and circumstances. No footprints, no scent trail, no bodies.

“You really think we’ll find anything?” I voiced aloud my gloomy reservations and tried not to think about how any one of the people outside my window could be our suspect.

He let out another deep sigh, and the sheriff’s weathered face reflected my own doubts. “After this long? I don’t know. It’s like I told Hilco; if there are any bodies out there, they’ll be in pretty bad shape, but if somehow they are still alive, then we’re looking at some nasty business as far as trafficking is concerned. After this long, those girls could be in Yemen for all we know.”

My stomach knotted at that, and I winced at the sudden realization that I would honestly rather find their corpses than know the victims might still be suffering an unknown fate. “I’ll give the house another once-over this afternoon, to see if I can dig something new up. Did the reservation elders ever come back with any information?”

Steering the pickup around another turn in the sleepy streets of our town, Sheriff Kowalski frowned. We were on decent terms with the local Native American reservation many miles across the county from Jacob’s Fork, helped by the fact that the sheriff himself was a half-blood relative to their tribe. Still, there were tensions between the two communities, primarily around drugs and gambling, which drew both tourists and troublemakers alike. “Nothing useful. They’ve got enough problems of their own with the casinos, alcohol, petty crime, you name it. If one of theirs snatched our people, we’ll never know about it, and wouldn’t have the jurisdiction to go after them even if we did.”

We reached the police station on the opposite end of town and parked in the small lot where the other patrol vehicles waited. Ours was a small department, perhaps a few dozen or so deputies on the force in total, but we did have extra staff for administrative and forensic work that could help pull some of the weight. With an entire county to manage, and the upheaval surrounding the Wickenshire case, many of us had pulled 14-hour shifts for multiple nights in a row when the vanishings first happened. Between increased patrols around Smoke Point Mountain and search teams looking for evidence to pass on to the forensics lab, some of our boys had resorted to sleeping in cots set up in the rec room just to avoid falling asleep at the wheel. As the weeks went by, with nothing to show for it, this titanic effort had been scaled back, until all that was left was a hefty dossier on my desk and bad memories.

“Hey, Sloan.” As we passed through the front lobby and into the offices beyond, Sheriff Kowalski turned to wave at a nearby deputy seated behind another desk. “Drop what you’re doing; you’re on assignment with Junger in the field. Grab your files from evidence and get on it.”

Deputy Clyde Sloan looked up from his paperwork, saw the two of us, and understanding crossed his face in a measured grin. “You got it, boss.”

Turning to throw one last glance at me, the sheriff flicked his eyes toward the station doorway, which lay in the direction of the northern mountains. “Try to be back by dark.”

I said nothing, but we both knew what he meant as the man lumbered away to his office.

Clyde and I had been partners back when we were both cops on the beat, developing a close friendship and working on several cases together. Always the team player, Clyde applauded my promotion to detective, but I felt bad leaving him behind to the regular roadwork. Despite a habit of running his mouth to the irritation of most polite sensibilities, or his enduring love for chewing tobacco that he’d been trying to kick for years, Clyde was a good cop. He’d been with me when I brought down the Valentine’s Day shooter, and the only reason I got credit for the kill was because he went left around the wrecked car while I went right, thus engaging the suspect first. Loyal and headstrong, he deserved a promotion of his own, but the sheriff couldn’t just hand out pay-raises like candy, not when the local bureaucrats wanted to trim the budget every other year. Still, that never stopped him from working like a dog to earn his keep, and in less than fifteen minutes we were rolling along the lonely backroads of northern Idaho, the mountains looming closer as the warm summer breeze flowed through the open windows of my car.

“Still hard to believe it’s August already.” From the passenger seat, Clyde shuffled through the files within the overstuffed binder, paging through weeks of evidence to unearth a property map of the Wickenshire Estate. “At least we won’t be knee-deep in snow this time. Where are we fixin’ to start?”

I leaned over to tap on a section of the map north of the house, a spot marked with multiple little X’s inside of circles. “Boulder fields. That’s where the hunter went missing, and where they found Erin’s phone. We’ll try there while we have light, then the house when it gets late. Power should still be on; I don’t think the county ever bothered to shut anything off up there.”

For a few moments, we sat in silence as the car rumbled along, the mountains drawing closer, green trees flashing by along the roadside.

“Heard they want to sell the place.” Clyde drummed idle fingers on his knee as he stared out the passenger window, the evidence folder lying in his lap. “What kind of fool came up with that idea?”

“Renfield.” I turned onto the final route leading to the mountain road, civilization falling away behind us as the wilderness swallowed us up. “With some help from Hubour and Finberger. They’re going to open the whole park back up in a few days.”

He hissed a curse between his teeth, and Clyde rolled his eyes as he fished in his shirt pocket for a tub of chewing tobacco. “Ain’t never seen someone so money-hungry. Place has four bodies on it, and she wants to turn a dime on their graves. If that snooty pencil-pusher ever gets in as mayor, I’m moving to Florida, I swear to God.”

Despite the grimness of the setting, I couldn’t help but feel a thin smile crawl over my lips at his complaints, reminiscent of older days on the force together. “Still set on being a swamp man when you retire?”

“Yessir.” The twinkle returned to his eye, and Clyde nodded with an amused chuckle at his own vision of paradise. “I’m gonna build a little house by the water, a good fishing boat for the dock, and mix up a nice cold drink while I watch the sun go down on the gulf. Just me, the gators, and my dog. A man could live his whole life anywhere else and never have it that good.”

We laughed, but the looming shadow over us dampened the jovial mood as the trees closed in, the harsh stony tip of the mountain towering upward into the sky. Smoke Point Mountain wasn’t especially grand when compared to other, more notorious places in the US like Denali or Olympia, but it was prominent enough for our little valley that everyone’s eye was drawn to the granite peak every time they looked across the horizon of Jacob’s Fork. Supposedly local miners had used it as a communications point way back in the olden days, sending up smoke signals like the Kootenai did to let their bosses know another train load of iron ore was on its way down from the nearby range that the mountain sat detached from. Eventually telegraph lines came in, and made the smoke signals useless, but the name stuck, and the mountain stood by its lonesome, like an outcast before the other line of tall stone crags, good for hikers, hunters, and not much else. It had been made into a public park in the 1970’s during the environmental push, but the Wickenshire House escaped absorption into government ownership by remaining the one private homestead left on its cold slopes.

Every bump in the gravel road that wound its way up the mountain side brought back memories, dark flashes of countless days and night searching for signs, for hope, for anything to let me know I was close to the truth. So many hours spent combing the forest, pouring over topographically maps, even a few helicopter rides to scout for unseen trails from above. Seemingly endless calls from concerned locals, the numerous emotion-heavy pleas from the families of the missing, the accusations from pot-stirring journalists that wanted to find something juicy for a story that could go viral on social media. They were all disappointed, angry, confused, even fearful when the days dragged on and I continued to discover no further clues. They vented their fury at me, the only one they could point a finger at, despite the sheriff doing his best to vent the backlash away from our department. How could they know how many times I walked the grounds of the estate, paced through the silent halls and corridors, and gazed out the lifeless windows into the wilderness beyond? How could they know how many nights I went without sleep, abused gas-station alertness pills, drank gallons of the worst sort of coffee, beating myself to death over the failure to find anything? All for a dead end.

All for nothing.

And somehow, it was all my fault.

At last, as we pulled up the narrow driveway, the thick rows of evergreen trees fell away, and a spindly shadow or rusted cast iron reared upward into the fading sunshine. The gate was more rusty than last time I’d laid eyes on it, as if whatever oil or paint on it had given up the fight long ago. Around it, the long stone walls of the courtyard stood cracked along the mortar joints, settled with a kind of age that radiated a weary grief I felt in my bones. It was like seeing an old friend slowly choke to death on cancerous lungs, a place that I remembered fondly from better times, when I myself was nothing more than a boy.

“Still burned out.” Clyde spat tobacco juice into a plastic Coke bottle and shook his head in amazed dread at the landscape around us. “Not a single blade of grass, even with all the rain we’ve had. Scorch must’ve gone deep.”

The fire had happened on the night of the first disappearances, burning the entire 100-acre plot of the Wickenshire Estate from the property line inward, right up to the stone wall. There, inexplicably, the flames had stopped, not so much as tarring the stonework, leaving the enormous house and its manicured gardens intact. A strange anomaly of fate, it left a small oasis of greenery in a large field of barren rocks, dead soil, and crumbled remnants of what had once been plant life. Above this towered the house itself, an edifice of a bygone era, once a thing of immaculate beauty, and now . . . now I felt sick at the mere sight of it.

Unlocking the thick steel padlock we’d left to keep random people from accessing the property, I drove us through the gate, right up to the front of the house itself. It was a tall building, two stories high but it seemed much higher, built from local quarry stones over a hundred years ago. Victorian in its design, there was not another house like it in all of Idaho, a strange misfit of architecture among the timber-framed rustic ranch houses and log cabin-themed ski lodges that dotted the land. Wooden shutters lined every window, the sills carved from smooth granite, and the roof bore uniform rows of slate that would likely outlive me. A wide wooden porch covered the front half of the house, the pillars shaped like those of the Greek Pantheon, and beneath the eves of its awning stood the double French doors that had devoured Erin and Cindy whole.

I didn’t have to tell Clyde on what to bring for the trek up the mountainside. He was as experienced as I was and kept up with me as we shouldered our packs, making our way through the ornamental gardens within the courtyard walls to the back gate that led to the burned expanse beyond. Once we traversed this, we finally passed into the forested sections of the mountain slope that hadn’t been touched by the fire.

It was a quiet, morose place. Many people often didn’t understand how silent the mountains could be, especially if they came from a place filled with noise like the city. Tourists would ask us if hunters ‘killed all the animals up there’ or if ‘there wasn’t enough oxygen’ which I found amusing, given the evident lack of awareness in their statement. The truth, as always, was that there were animals in the mountains, they just had to be pickier than their lowland cousins, more cautious of how much energy they expended, and often moved down into the lowlands throughout the seasons. Hunters didn’t kill them all, there certainly wasn’t an oxygen problem for so insignificant of a peak, and it was often the case that the noisy, clumsy, inexperienced urbanites had been right next to a bird or critter that they never saw simply because that animal didn’t want to be seen.

However, this part of the mountain had changed since the vanishings, and even as a local, I noticed the heavy, oppressive silence. No birds sang, not in the distance or around us, and I couldn’t see any movement flitting through the branches overhead. No signs of recent deer or other tracks dotted the sparse portions of earth, and even the stones that clattered under our boots echoed too loudly in the quiet. At one point, we did spot a single, black crow rustling about in a stand of blackberry bushes, and Clyde called out to it with a friendly ‘hello there’, only for the thing bolt off into the treetops as if we’d startled it. Wind whistled and wailed the higher we climbed, mournful and chilly despite the season, the daylight slanting lower in the sky as the evening wore on.

We spent hours looking through the boulder field, a massive plain of rocks and rubble left behind by ancient glaciers. Clyde scanned the area with a set of binoculars, I checked every gap between the stones with my flashlight, and we marked our progress with chalk on the boulders as we inched over the slope yard by yard. We used a metal detector to look for old shoe islets, belt buckles, anything that might indicate where a body could be. I sent up a drone the department had been given during the first search operation in December to scan the area from the sky, circling round and round in hopes of spotting something from a different angle. We combed that placed front and back, until the light got low enough that I couldn’t put it off anymore.

“Let’s go.” I zipped up my backpack and shined my flashlight toward Clyde, who stood not far off down the slope, prodding at another crevice. “We’re out of light, and we still need to search the house. Sheriff’s going to get antsy if we don’t report in soon anyway.”

Clyde turned to respond, but his face hardened into an alarmed frown as he starred past me into the trees, and he slid one hand toward his service pistol. “Junger . . .”

I spun around to spot a strange object hanging amongst the branches of a nearby spruce, swaying to and fro in the cool evening breeze. Even from this far away, I knew we hadn’t missed it on our first walk through, the object dangling right over the path we’d taken into the boulder field, dull and pale in the gleam of our flashlights. It hadn’t been there five minutes ago, I was sure of it.

Together Clyde and I stalked forward, closer and closer until we stood mere feet away from the thing in the tree, stunned into mutual silence.

The thing was held suspended by an odd form of hand-made twine, which looked to be twisted together from roots, vines, or even thorn bushes, until each strand was as thick as my pinky finger. Each strand interconnected with another in a crude net, almost like a spider’s web, the knots tight and strong. These supported a basket of sorts, made from what at first glance looked like branches, circular in shape, with white and yellowed patches showing in the flashlight beam.

Bones.

Dozens of them.

Four broken sections of elk antler were circled together as if an embrace, stripped of any flesh or meat at the base, dried out from endless days in the Western sun. More smaller bones were interwoven with mats of reeds and thorny stems, the gaps pasted shut with a thick, black sludge decorated with a carpet of ebony petals. I’d seen markers like this in searches before, had seen them appearing more and more in the landscape around the house, and knew why the sheriff did his best not to mention them in his reports. They were all like this, odd, eerie things that appeared from nowhere, but they were all on the ground and, save for five pillars built around the house itself, were no bigger than knee-high. We still didn’t know what they meant, or who left them, but we knew it had started around the first vanishing. This one was hanging as if left for us as a gift, and the smell that emanated from it nearly knocked the air out of me, a pungent mixture of wet dirt, wood rot, decayed flesh . . . and roses.

Always roses.

Even then, it was what lay in the middle of the macabre basket that drew me forward, until my hand reached out almost without my beckoning to scoop the tiny item from its place.

With a cracked glass screen and sun-faded purple case, the cellphone looked as though it had lain on the mountain for months, but no sooner was it in my hands and the tormented display lit up.

As soon as my eyes registered the face on the lock screen, I swore under my breath, Clyde doing the same, and rivers of ice flooded my veins.

Cindy Fadro stared back from the phone, smiling in the stillness of the background picture, with pretty features, blonde hair, and sky-blue eyes. We’d never found her phone the night she disappeared, only her friend Erin’s. After so long without a charge, exposed to the elements including Idaho’s vicious winter snows, it shouldn’t have been working. The only way this device could still be functional was if someone had kept it.

Or taken it.

Bzzzz.

The phone vibrated in my hand once, and an icon slid up before my eyes.

New message available.

Heart pounding, I dared to tap the screen, and found no entry code blocking me, the device opening up for us to access Cindy’s message files without complaint. They were old, most of them several months old, missed calls and texts from dozens of people who wanted her to be alive, to be okay, to come home.

According to the phone, she’d never viewed any of them.

One new message glowed at the top of the roster, and as I clicked on it, I tasted metal on the back of my tongue, my ears ringing with a shudder of unease. It was a picture, grainy and blurred by motion as if whoever had taken it was moving while doing so, but the subject was clear enough to make out.

It was us, Clyde and myself, walking through the woods on our way to the boulder field. Our backs were to the camera, leaves from a blackberry bush half-obscuring the unknown watcher, and under the picture, a single line of text appeared while my friend and I blinked at one another in horrified realization.

Hello there.