They radioed me just after noon while I was fixing the northern
fence line near Lake Owen, splicing wire with frozen
fingers and trying not to think about how lonely the wind felt
that high up. I just finished hammering the
post in when the crackle of static broke over my belt radio.
Then came Natalie's voice, calm, clipped, always half a second
from barking. Callaway, you copy?
Copy. You're the closest unit to
Section 32. We've got an unregistered fire
ring reported in a ravine northwest of Dead Horse Ridge.
Some hikers called it in yesterday.
Probably just a bunch of kids poaching elk tags.
But dispatch tried hailing the permit holders. 3 hunters from
Cheyenne. No response.
I want eyes on it before nightfall.
I didn't ask why they'd send just one guy into Wendigo Gulch.
I already knew I'd been here seven years, long enough to get
sent on the errands no one else wanted.
I was the solo guy, the Widowmaker slot, just me, a
badge, and a sidearm I rarely used.
They gave me the calls that were more check it out and report
back, then send backup, which suited me fine most of the time.
Still, when she said Section 32, my stomach twisted just a
little. That wasn't the name printed on
the map. Officially, it was just a chunk
of low ravine Backcountry with no trails and very little foot
traffic, unless you counted the elk that bedded down there in
the cold months. But if you ask the old timers at
the feed store down in Centennial, or the quiet skinned
Ute guy who sold me jerky, sometimes they'd call it
something else. When to go Gulch.
Stupid name myth stuff. I didn't care for it.
Still, I felt that knot in my chest when I pulled off the
gravel road and loaded up my pack with the usuals trauma kit,
Garmin sidearm, flare gun, emergency SAT phone.
Though I already knew from experience that the signal in
that part of the forest was about as useful as a wet match.
It was a three mile hike in over crusted snow and Black Rock,
just steep enough to feel like the mountain was trying to shove
you back down every time you found your footing.
The trees out there were different, bigger, older, as if
they'd been spared from the wildfires and thinning projects.
Pine trunks black with age, Moss grown thick enough to muffle
your own footsteps. When I reached the Gulch, the
temperature dropped like a curtain being pulled.
The campsite sat maybe 10 yards off a frozen Creek bed.
No tents pitched, just three cots laid bare under 1/2
collapsed tarp. One of the camp chairs was
overturned. I found a pot of coffee on a
cold burner, half full, still warmed.
There was food on a metal plate, half eaten elk steak from the
smell, not even cold, which meant someone had been here very
recently. But the place had the kind of
quiet that wasn't right. No birds, not even the tick of
melting snow from the tree limbs.
The rifles were what really set me off.
All three leaned against a boulder by the fire ring, stocks
still dry, safety off. No shell casings.
Nearby, a box of ammunition, unopened, sat on a log.
No one left guns like that, not seasoned hunters.
Not unless they left in a hurry. I crouched down, tried to make
sense of the tracks. At first glance, it looked like
a mess of boots scuffed into the snow and pine needles.
But as I traced it farther out, I realized what I was actually
seeing. Bare footprints, wide spread.
No shoes. The toes dug into the frozen
ground, deep enough to split skin.
I followed them with my eyes until they vanished into the
woods, toward a Ridge that dropped off hard into the deeper
Gulch. They weren't walking, they were
running. I thumbed my radio.
Dispatch, this is Ranger Callaway.
I found the camp. No sign of the hunters.
Gears all here, but I hesitated. Something's off.
Please advise. Static.
Nothing else. No squelch, no carrier ping.
I waited, then tried again. Still nothing.
Sunlight was thinning behind the Ridge now that late afternoon
Gray that says you've got about an hour before it's too dark to
matter. I made the call to stay put,
mark the location, spend the night, hike out in the morning
to get a better signal. If they came back, I'd be here.
If not, I could guide A-Team back in tomorrow.
I pitched my tent in a tight clearing maybe 30 yards from the
site. I didn't like being that close
to the gear, but I didn't like leaving it unmonitored either.
I set up a small perimeter with clacker wire and old soda cans,
redneck motion sensors, but they'd worked more than once.
Night fell fast. I lit no fire, not out of
caution. I just didn't feel like warming
myself while those empty boots sat by a cold campfire across
from me, like ghosts waiting to be told what went wrong.
Around midnight, I heard it. At first I thought it was wind,
a low push through the trees, slow and rolling, but it had a
rhythm to it. Inhale.
Hold. Exhale.
Too wet, too close to be the wind.
I didn't move. Then it shifted off to the left
of my tent, maybe 20 feet out. Same sound, same slow drag of
breath, like something was pacing, heavy but careful.
Something that knew how to move quiet, even when it weighed a
lot. Pine needles crackled, but just
barely. I held my breath, gripped the
flare gun under my sleeping bag. I didn't call out, didn't want
to break whatever thin veil of distance still held between us.
It circled, slow as a clock hand.
Then it stopped, right by my tent door.
I could feel it like pressure in my ears.
No smell, no heat, just presence.
That's when the scream came. It wasn't close, not yet.
It came from somewhere deeper in the Gulch, echoing off the rock.
But I'll never forget how it sounded.
Not like a man yelling, not like someone in pain.
It was studied, drawn out, broken up in places like the
thing doing it. Had heard screaming before, but
didn't understand where it started or ended.
My chest went cold. Another scream followed, closer
this time. Then silence.
I don't remember falling asleep, just that at some point I
stopped shaking long enough to close my eyes.
When I woke again, just before dawn, the tent was still, but
outside, in the pale Gray light, I saw them.
Gouges in the bark of the trees, Three of them clawed deep, 12
feet up and in the snow, a new trail of barefoot prints
circling my tent. When the sun finally broke over
the Ridge, it didn't bring any warmth with it.
The light just made everything look worse.
I sat hunched outside my tent, staring at those claw marks
carved into the pine, like something was trying to dig its
way to the sky. 12 feet up, maybe more.
I don't spook easy. I've been bluffed, charged by
black bears, pulled bodies from snowmelt creeks, even been lost
once in Yellowstone for a full 12 hours with nothing but a
busted compass and a dying radio.
But this, this was different. It wasn't panic.
It wasn't even fear, not really. It was the kind of cold dread
that settles in your gut and sits there, heavy as lead,
whispering you're already too far gone.
I packed quickly, tent down, gear strapped, flare gun back on
my hip. The snow had crusted overnight,
and the prints around my tent had hardened into near perfect
casts. 5 toes, wide ball, deep heel, human, barefoot.
But they weren't mine, and they weren't here the day before.
I followed them against every instinct I had, not because I
wanted to, but because something told me I needed to see where
they went. Something in my bones said it
mattered. They led away from the clearing
in a jagged looping pattern, like whatever left them couldn't
quite decide where it was going. The tracks twisted around trees,
doubled back, then broke in a straight line toward the deeper
Gulch. I followed them for maybe half a
mile until they stopped. Not faded, not obscured, just
stopped. Like the thing had lifted itself
clean off the ground. That's when I smelled it.
Rot. Not the sharp, sweet kind that
comes with a fresh kill, but the deep, earthy stench of something
long dead. It came in waves, almost like
heat. I took a few cautious steps
forward, scanning the tree line. Nothing moved.
The forest was still frozen in that unnatural hush.
No birds, no squirrels, not even the creak of branches.
Then I saw it. A rib cage.
Not human, probably elk. But it was wrong.
It had been hoisted into a tree 20 feet off the ground, jammed
between two limbs like a macabre offering.
The spine had been split clean down the middle and peeled open.
Ribs bent outward like skeletal wings.
Snow had dusted over the exposed bone, but the meat was still
red. Steam curled up from where it
hung. I stood there a long time,
watching my breath fog the air, trying to piece together the
timeline. The hunters were here.
Maybe 2 days ago. I'd spent the night in their
camp. Now I was looking at a fresh
kill, suspended like it had been displayed.
That was when I heard the branch crack behind me.
I turned slow, one hand dropping to the grip of the flare gun,
the other brushing against the butt of my sidearm.
I didn't draw yet. I waited.
The trees gave me nothing at first.
Then something shifted far back, maybe 30 yards off.
At first I thought it was a bear.
Big shape, hunched, half hidden behind a stand of spruce.
But then it stepped out and I saw its arms.
Too long, wrong angle at the elbows, skin the color of ash
pulled tight over bone. It was a man, or had been, once.
He was naked. Feet, blood black from cold,
chest rising and falling in quick bursts like a dog that had
run too far. His mouth hung open and in it,
clenched between his teeth, was a strip of flesh, dark, stringy,
still dripping. He didn't look at me at first,
just kept dragging his feet through the snow, slow and
twitchy like a puppet whose strings were being pulled by
someone drunk. His shoulders jerked now and
then, sharp and sudden, like he was trying to shrug something
off that clung to him from the inside.
Then he stopped, head turned, and his eyes locked with mine.
They were Gray. No whites, no pupils, just flat,
dull like river stones. That's when he said it.
Brian. My name in my own voice.
I didn't move, didn't breathe. I don't even know if my heart
kept going. Brian, help me.
The voice was perfect. Same cadence, same tone, same
rasp I get in the winter after too many days in the cold.
It was me, and it wasn't Then it smiled, or tried to.
The lips didn't move right. The corner split, revealing more
teeth than should have been in that mouth.
I saw blood, fresh and frozen, crusted along the gums.
The thing cocked its head like a dog hearing a new sound.
Then it whispered, almost like it was asking a favor.
You left me here. And then it started walking
faster, arms swinging wide, joints bending all wrong.
That's when I broke. I turned and ran, crashing
through the snow, barely able to see through the trees, breath
burning in my lungs. Behind me, I heard something
laugh. Not loud, not like it thought
something was funny, just amused, like it knew I wouldn't
make it far. I hit the slope before I
realized I'd veered off trail. My foot caught a root under the
snow and I went down hard. The snap in my ankle felt like a
firecracker going off in my leg. Pain bloomed instantly, bright,
hot, and overwhelming. I rolled to my back, gasping,
trying to drag myself up the incline.
My pack caught on a branch and I screamed, not from the pain, but
because I heard it again, my voice right behind me.
Brian. That night I built a fire out of
desperation more than skill. I was shaking too hard to focus,
but I knew if I didn't keep it going, I'd be dead by morning.
My ankle was swelling fast, and every movement sent a bolt of
lightning through my leg. The woods stayed quiet for a
while, then they came. First one, then two more, all of
them moving in that same jerky, too loose way.
Like marionettes that had forgotten how people walk.
They stayed just outside the firelight.
I couldn't make out details, only shapes, outlines.
But I heard them whispering, sometimes in the voice of the
hunter, sometimes in my own, and sometimes in a voice I hadn't
heard in five years. Sophie, my ex-wife.
She was dead, had been since the crash, but the voice that
floated out from the dark was hers, gentle, broken, calling
for me. Brian, come home.
I bit down on my fist until I tasted blood.
They circled all night. I didn't sleep, just sat there,
fire dwindling, clutching the flare gun like it was my last
prayer. And maybe it was.
I don't remember how many days passed after the fire burned
out. Time bent out there, folded over
itself like the trees, crooked and heavy with silence.
My watch had frozen sometime after the second night, and I'd
stop checking it. When you're lying in the snow
with a broken ankle, no food, and shadows circling just
outside your reach, minutes start feeling like hours, and
the hours they just stop meaning anything.
I tried rationing what little I had, but it was useless.
My hands were too cold to tear open wrappers, and by the third
night my stomach didn't care anymore.
I'd vomited bile into the snow and wept when I tasted blood on
my tongue, thinking for one God awful moment that maybe it had
come from something else, something I didn't remember
eating. That idea clawed at me more than
the cold. I started seeing things, more
than just the figures in the dark, more than the familiar
voices calling out from the tree line.
I saw my mother sitting cross legged in the snow, humming a
lullaby she used to sing when I was a boy.
Her lips were blue, but her voice was warm.
She kept pointing at something just behind me, smiling.
Not much time left, Bree, she said.
I turned once, just once, but there was nothing there.
Only more snow, more trees. The smell of rot was thicker
now, clinging to me, sinking into my beard and the fibers of
my jacket. By the time the rescue crew
found me, I didn't have the strength to cry.
I heard them before I saw them. Two men calling my name from
somewhere above. Real voices, Human.
I didn't believe it at first. I was sure it was another trick,
another game played by whatever was left of the hunters, or
whatever had taken their skin. So I stayed quiet, hiding behind
1/2 buried log, clutching the flare gun like it was a
crucifix, finger frozen to the trigger.
I didn't move until one of them got close enough for me to see
the badge. Real patch, real face.
He looked scared when he saw me. Not cautious, scared.
He dropped to his knees, called for the other one, and then I
passed out. They said I was lucky.
Hypothermic, frostbitten, but alive.
They airlifted me to Laramie General.
I woke up three days later with an IV in my arm and the raw skin
of my lips crusted with dried blood.
My right foot had turned black in places.
I couldn't feel two of my toes and I couldn't stop shaking.
They questioned me, of course. First it was the local sheriff,
then two agents from Fish and Wildlife, then someone in a Gray
suit who never gave me a name. They wanted details, timelines,
coordinates, who I saw and what I thought happened.
I tried to answer, I really did, but every time I opened my
mouth, I'd hear it again, my own voice echoing from the woods.
Brian come home. Eventually.
I just said what I could. It mimicked their voices.
It made them eat. That was all I managed before
the nurse gave me something to sleep.
They didn't believe me, of course.
Not really. They ran blood tests, brain
scans, psychiatric evaluations. Said I was suffering from
isolation, psychosis combined with post traumatic stress, said
I probably hallucinated the voices and imagined the bodies,
that I'd broken my ankle in a fall and crawled into some fugue
state brought on by exposure and starvation.
But they couldn't explain the claw marks.
They couldn't explain the fingerprints found around my
tent, my own overlapping a dozen others in directions that made
no sense. They couldn't explain how I'd
survived 4 nights with no food, no water, and internal injuries
that should have killed me if not for what the surgeon called
an almost superhuman pain tolerance.
And they sure as hell couldn't explain what the search team
found when they went back in. Three corpses.
Or parts of them, anyway. One was impaled 25 feet up in a
lodge pole, Pine still bleeding when they cut him down.
The others were arranged around the fire pit in the original
camp, arms folded neatly across their chests, faces peeled back.
One was missing his jaw entirely, and none of them had
eyes. The bones weren't picked clean.
They were gnawed. They found the sight I
described, the elk rib cage in the tree.
They took photos, bagged the remains, burned the carcass on
sight. Then came The Cave.
I hadn't seen it myself, but the team stumbled across it a half
mile from the main site. Shallow entrance lined with claw
marks, with bones littering the floor inside.
Deer, elk, something canine and human.
One of the texts said it looked like a butcher's den.
Another swore he saw something still wet hanging from the
ceiling before they sealed it off.
And on the far wall, scrawled in what they guessed was blood and
soot, where 4 words gouge deep into the stone.
Hunger doesn't die. After that, they shut the whole
area down. No official statement, no
warning. Just a line drawn across a map
and a half whispered order Passed through the Ranger
stations. No patrols.
Passed Dead horse Ridge. Not without a team, not without
authorization. They gave me early retirement,
medical discharge, psychological grounds.
I didn't fight it. I left Wyoming 3 weeks later,
moved N bought a cabin in Montana with what was left of my
pension and haven't set foot in a forest since.
I tried once, went for a walk near Glacier in the spring, got
maybe half a mile in before I heard something move behind the
trees. Too slow, too measured, I turned
around and haven't been back since.
I keep the flare gun, though it sits by my bed, loaded, cleaned
every month. Habit, I guess.
Sometimes, when the snow falls hard and the wind hits just
right, I swear I hear it again. That breath, that broken,
stitched together scream. And once, just once, I heard her
voice. Sophie, whispering my name from
the tree line, soft and mournful.
I didn't answer. I won't, because I know now
that's how it starts. If I had to pinpoint where
things started to unravel, I'd say it was the second night I
spent up there. But that wouldn't be the full
truth. The unraveling started long
before, maybe when I volunteered, or maybe when I saw
the tower for the first time and convince myself it looked quaint
instead of what it really was. I'm Dana Cruz, and I used to be
a fire lookout for the Forest Service.
Last winter I took a solo offseason post up in the
Sawtooths, something they called a low risk visual position.
It was supposed to be easy, just me, a tower, and 30 days of snow
covered silence. They called it Lookout 47, but I
couldn't find it on any official database.
When I asked around, the senior Ranger gave me this weird smirk
and said that one's grandfathered in old Cold War
calm site or something. Don't worry about it.
That should have been a red flag.
The chopper dropped me off mid January.
No trail in no Rd. just a clearing about 100 yards from
the tower where the rotors kicked up snow and rattled the
trees. They didn't even kill the
engine. One guy tossed my gear onto the
ground while the other shouted over the noise.
See you in a month. Keep the radio on.
Then they lifted off and I was alone.
The tower looked older than it had in the photo.
It rose out of the snow like a skeletal lighthouse, narrow and
too tall, blackened wood three stories high with steel support
beams that look like they've been cut from old railway track.
There was frost along the windows and the whole structure
groaned when the wind moved through it.
Inside it was Spartan. Single bed, propane stove, hand
pump, sink, old file cabinet, and a shortwave radio bolted to
the wall. On the 1st floor was the
composting toilet and the trap door.
A thick steel latch held it shut.
Painted over probably 20 * a red sticker red.
Do not open. Maintenance access only.
The heat came from a cast iron wood stove that had clearly been
patched over with steel welds. The chimney rattled every time
the wind picked up. The whole thing felt lopsided,
like the Earth had tried to shake it off at some point but
gave up halfway. The first few days were fine.
The snow fell in long drifting sheets.
I set up my perimeter, check insurance, took wind and
humidity readings and logged them by hand.
I monitored smoke columns and kept an eye on lightning strikes
on the Ridge, though they were few and far between.
And then I started noticing the birds.
Dead ones, always crows or Magpies, always around the base
of the tower. I thought maybe they hit the
structure during low visibility, but what stood out was the
placement. Four or five corpses a day, laid
out in loose circular patterns, always facing the same direction
toward the western Ridge. The trees out there leaned
slightly too. At first I chalked it up to
heavy snowfall or wind shearing, but then I took a straight edge
and held it up against the trunks.
Every single one on the western line tilted the same way.
Not bowed, tilted, as if they were leaning towards something
they couldn't quite reach. On day 4, just after dusk, the
radio crackled. Now, I'm not talking normal
static. I've heard faulty signals.
This was a clipped, looped message that faded in like it
was pushing through something thick.
Fire line breach, visual confirmation coordinates, static
request acknowledgement. I responded like I was supposed
to, gave my call sign, marked my location.
Dead air. It played again exactly 47
minutes later. Same words, same breathless male
voice. I triangulated the coordinates,
figured maybe a repeater was malfunctioning.
I pulled out my old topographic map and found the location.
It LED right back to me. Lookout 47.
The next day I called dispatch. They brushed it off as
interference from old relay station.
Still bouncing. Signal said it happens
sometimes, especially in the mountains.
I asked about the station number, the one attached to the
message. Silence on the other end.
Then that's not a current call sign.
Might be Cold War leftovers. Just ignore it.
That night I kept the radio off. I figured if it wanted to talk,
it could wait. But around midnight, I woke up
to something different. The tower was moving, swaying.
I've felt wind storms before. This wasn't wind.
It was like something huge had brushed the tower, like
something was moving through the forest, slow, deliberate, and
heavy enough to shift the snowpack.
I climbed the ladder to the second floor and stared out the
West facing window. There were no lights, no
movement, but for a moment, just before I turned away, I saw
something glint in the darkness between the trees, like glass
catching moonlight. I watched for another hour, but
it didn't happen again. The next morning I found a new
ring of birds, this time inside the perimeter fence.
The weirdest part? No tracks, no paw prints, no
drag marks, just a perfect circle of feather and bone
melting slowly into the snow. I didn't say anything in my
logs, didn't want to get flagged for a psyche vowel, but I did
start sleeping with the hatchet next to my bed, just in case.
And the trapdoor. It started rattling at night.
Not banging, not shaking, and just rattling like something
underneath was breathing too hard.
By the end of the first week, the tower no longer felt like
shelter. I stopped thinking of it as
mine, stopped calling it home base in my log.
It wasn't a tower anymore. It was a bone sticking up out of
the earth, something left behind by something larger.
I hadn't slept right in days, not because of noise, but
because of the silence. It wasn't a peaceful quiet
either. It was hollow, intentional, The
kind of quiet that feels like someone holding their breath.
It started with my watch. I wear a digital Casio I've had
since I was 15. Bomb proof sync to dispatch time
every Monday. On day eight it told me it was
9:43 AM. The wall clock said 947.
I didn't think much of it, maybe the battery was lagging.
But by that night, the watch was ahead 4 minutes fast, and when I
synced it the next morning, I watched it drift second by
second backward until it matched again.
The next morning, off again. That's when I took out my
compass. Same problem.
Inside the tower, the needle jittered like a scared dog's
tail. Outside, fine, clear as a bell.
I walked a perimeter just to be sure. 20 steps W turn N needle
flickers in the window, reflection of the tower, then
steadies again the moment I'm in the open.
Whatever was happening, it didn't want to leave the
structure, and neither did I. Not because I felt safe, because
I felt tethered, like leaving too far would snap something
inside me. Every night I found more bird
rings, now in pairs, like mirrored Halos.
One larger, one small, always perfect, always facing West.
By day 11, I stopped marking them in the log.
I just burned them. It was that or bury them.
And I kept remembering that note in the journal.
Burn the birds, don't bury them. Yeah, the journal.
I didn't find it in a file cabinet or on a shelf.
I found it in the wall behind a nailed board above the sink.
I heard something rustle. I figured it was a mouse.
Instead, I pulled out a leather bound notebook that had been
sealed in waxed canvas, completely dry despite the
humidity. It was stamped with faded ink.
Property of West Wells, 1963. Most of it was torn out or
missing. The entries that remained were
written in a tight, manic script, some words repeated over
and over. Phrases like watch the shadows
between the stairs, Don't sleep inside more than three nights.
That's how it learns your face. If you look down the trap door
too long, it looks back. One page had a sketch, charcoal
and jagged, a figure crawling up from a hole.
No face, no eyes, just an open, stretching mouth, like a black
tunnel. Too many fingers.
I should have burned the whole thing, but I didn't.
I just kept reading. Then came the photo.
I hiked the Ridge that afternoon.
My trail cams had picked up flickers, movement on the
fringe. I figured it was just elk.
The storm had cleared and the sky was sharp and glassy.
About two miles from the tower, tucked into a windbreak of stone
and scrub, I found a half burned tent, melted nylon, a scorched
coffee pot, and near the fire pit, an old camera, vintage
Kodak with a cracked lens film still inside.
I hauled it back, loaded it into the chemical kit I had stashed
in my equipment box, and developed the negatives in a
collapsible basin by headlamp. There were 4 exposures.
Three were ruined, just streaks and shadows.
But the last one, it was me, standing at the top window of
the tower, taken from outside, somewhere low and far away.
It was a perfect match. Same coat, same hair in a knot,
same glove with the duct tape knuckle.
But there were two things wrong. First, my eyes were closed.
Second, I was facing the window. Whoever took the picture was
inside the tower, looking out at where the photo was taken.
I didn't sleep that night. I barricaded the trapdoor with
an iron tool chest and wedged my snowshoes over it crosswise.
I kept the camera pointed at it. I used every damn headlamp I had
and left them on until the batteries died.
But just before dawn, I must have dozed off.
When I opened my eyes, it was 3:11 AM.
Every light was off. And the trap door, It was open 6
inches. I didn't hear it.
I didn't feel it. The air smelled like ozone and
cedar SAP, like the moment before lightning hits.
I got up slowly. The camera was still running.
I played the footage. It showed me rising at 2:47 AM,
silent, barefoot, walking to the trap door.
I knelt, I whispered something. Then I opened it and stared
down. I didn't move for 13 minutes,
just stared. When I stood up and walked back
to bed, I glanced at the camera and smiled.
The real me, the me watching this the next day, never
remember doing any of it, but there it was, on tape, frame by
frame, smiling like someone who knew they weren't alone anymore.
I stopped logging entries after day 17.
Not because I forgot, because I didn't trust my own handwriting
anymore. There were entries I never
wrote, phrases I'd never say. Things like it wears the skin
first, then the voice. You'll feel it watching when
your heartbeat echoes back wrong.
Don't open the door unless you're outside already.
Some entries were written in my style, but with words that felt
off, like someone trying to imitate me without understanding
what the words meant, like a bad translation of myself.
That's when I knew something wasn't trying to scare me, it
was trying to replace me. Day 19.
The trap door was open again when I woke up.
Nothing around it was disturbed, but I could feel it.
This pressure in the room, like the oxygen, was thicker.
I left the tower around noon just to get away.
I hiked A2 mile loop I'd done at least five times before, only
this time, when I crested the Ridge, the tower wasn't there.
I mean, it was, but it wasn't mine.
It was older, thicker beams, no solar panel.
The windows were square instead of rounded.
It looked like the photo they gave me, the black and white one
from the 1950s. At first I thought I'd gotten
turned around. I pulled out my compass.
It spun wildly, then settled on South.
I walked a straight line for 40 minutes.
The tower never got closer, so I turned back, using a stream as
my guide. When I reached my tower, my
actual tower, there were two sets of footprints circling it.
Identical boots, same depth, but different gates, one dragging
slightly, the other light and fast.
Neither trail LED away. Day 21.
The voices returned on the radio.
Only now they weren't looped. They were live, and they sounded
like me. Assignment received.
Fire line perimeter established. Tower is secure.
I yanked the battery. It kept transmitting.
I smashed the unit with the hatchet.
It kept going. That night, I gave in.
I opened the trap door fully and went down.
It wasn't a utility hatchet. It was a staircase spiraling in
iron, far deeper than the structure could possibly allow.
The air grew warm the lower I went, like a furnace had been
running for years. The walls were stone but smooth
and glistening, etched with one number again and again, 47
etched so deep they formed grooves.
I don't know how far I descended.
Could have been 5 minutes, could have been an hour.
Then I reached the bottom. There was a mirror, 7 feet tall,
no frame, free standing, set into the wall like it had grown
there. And it didn't reflect me, not at
first. Just static, like snow on an old
TV screen. Then something stepped into
frame. It was me, but wrong.
Taller, paler, my face stretched into a grin that didn't end.
Eyes black, no pupils, like someone was holding a reflection
of my body, like a costume. It raised its hand and tapped
the glass. I ran.
The static chased me, not sound but a feeling, like every step I
took was being replayed a second behind me, like the world was
trying to rewind and pull me back.
I climbed until my lungs burned. When I burst out of the Hatch,
it was morning, snow on the ground, light flooding the
tower. But there was another Dana
standing at the window, back turned.
Same build, same coat. I blinked and she was gone.
Day 23, the final day. I counted.
I made a decision. I wouldn't sleep.
I'd stay up until they came. Let them take me, fight me,
mimic me. I didn't care.
At exactly 2:47 AM, something whispered beneath the
floorboards. Not words, just breath.
Wet and slow. Then it spoke.
You've been out, but you never came back.
Let us fix that. I turned every camera on, lit
every flare. I had the windows fogged.
Ice crept up from the corners. The whole tower groaned like it
was sinking. Then the trap door slammed open.
Something crawled out. I only saw its arms, long Gray
jointed, like spider legs, but fleshy.
Each finger had my fingernails, my scars, my knuckle tattoo.
It dragged a second me up behind it, blank eyed and naked, mouth
gaping, chest rising like it had just learned how to breathe.
It turned to look at me, and I saw myself flinch.
I raised the flare gun, fired once, then everything went
white. When they found me, if they
really did, I was alone. I was barefoot, sitting on the
roof of the tower, whispering coordinates that didn't exist.
They airlifted me out, said I'd been exposed to carbon monoxide
from the stove, said my radio equipment must have
malfunctioned, said my Cam footage was corrupted.
But I know what I saw. I know I didn't come back alone
because sometimes when I pass a mirror at night I catch myself
smiling and I'm not smiling. They told me Wildwood Ridge was
a quiet post. That was the word they used.
Quiet. Not remote, not underfunded, not
cursed. Just quiet.
The Ranger station was small, barely big enough for one person
to sleep, eat, and breathe without going stir crazy.
The nearest town was 30 miles down a winding 2 lane Rd. that
rarely saw traffic. No cell service, no Wi-Fi, just
static trees and time, which frankly was what I thought I
needed. I took the transfer after a
burnout incident at my last park.
I won't go into details, but it involved a missing kid, a four
day search, and a recovery that still makes me flinch when I
close my eyes. So when my supervisor offered a
slower post I jumped at it. Now I think they were just
trying to get rid of me. I arrived late on a Tuesday,
mid-october, sun already dipping behind the tree line by the time
I pulled into the dirt. Turn out where the Ranger
station sat. The building looked older than
the National Park system itself. Shingles curled like old
fingernails. Windows fogged, door groaning
like something didn't want to be opened.
Inside, the air was musty. The fridge didn't hum.
The power flickered. The log books were sparse,
months missing between entries. Most just said all clear, one
written in smudged pencil. Just read.
If you see them, don't stare. I laughed nervously at that,
thinking it was a joke, a ranger's version of cabin fever.
I'd write something funnier when I left.
I never did. My first two days were
uneventful, just long hikes through overgrown trails, fallen
branches, the occasional rustle of a squirrel or whitetail
bounding through the brush. Honestly, it was nice.
The silence helped, but even then I started to notice things
that felt off. The birds didn't sing past dusk.
I mean, none. Like someone flipped a switch
and every living thing shut its mouth right after sunset.
There weren't even crickets, just wind moving through
branches like a giant exhaling. And the woods, God, the woods
felt watchful. Like the trees weren't just
trees but sentries waiting. I chalked it up to nerves.
Then came the third night. I was going over trail maps by
Lantern light when I heard it. Not loud, just soft taps on the
window behind me. I froze.
The kind of freeze that sinks into your bones, like your body
knows something before your mind does.
I turned around slowly. There was a silhouette at the
edge of the tree line. Not close, maybe 40 feet back,
just far enough that the darkness swallowed most of it.
But it was tall, human shaped shoulders, 2 broad head cocked
at a weird angle like it didn't understand how necks worked.
And it was facing the cabin, facing me.
I blinked, gone. I went outside with my
flashlight, trying to be brave. Nothing but quiet trees and cold
air. No Prince, no broken twigs.
But when I came back inside, I noticed something on the
doorstep. A small wooden figure, roughly
carved, humanoid. No face, no eyes, just watching.
I didn't sleep that night. The next morning, I radioed the
main Ranger office, told them I thought I had a trespasser,
maybe someone messing around, pulling a prank.
The voice on the other end sounded bored.
You're alone up there, Hayes. Ain't nobody hiking that far out
this time of year. I asked if the old logs ever
mentioned things left at the cabin.
Carvings. Strange visitors.
The reply crackled through What logs?
That day, I hiked out farther, wanted to clear my head, hoped
that maybe I'd find boot prints, something to make it make sense.
But around mile 4, I noticed something across the ravine.
A figure standing between 2 trees, motionless, facing me.
It wore a ranger's uniform. Mine.
I called out. Hey, you all right over there?
Nothing. No movement.
I waved, raised my binoculars, but as soon as I focused, it was
gone. Like it had never been there at
all. That night, I locked the doors,
shoved furniture against the windows, kept the flashlight by
my side. In bed.
I didn't sleep much, but when I did, I dreamed of trees
whispering my name in reverse. And when I woke up, heart
racing, throat dry, I found something new.
Another totem. But this one was different.
It had a hat like mine, and it was sitting on the pillow beside
me. I told myself I'd leave the next
day, walk down to town, call someone, tell them to send a
truck or hell, a damn helicopter.
But then I opened the front door and found footprints in the mud
coming from the woods leading right to the cabin, but none
leading away. And the forest.
The forest was still breathing. I stopped logging my patrols
didn't see the point anymore. Every trail either looped back
on itself or disappeared entirely, just gone, like it had
been swallowed whole by the forest overnight.
I'd mark a tree with tape. Walk 10 minutes and end up right
back at it. Only now the tape was cut and
tied into a little noose. I told myself I was just tired,
overworked, isolated. But I couldn't shake the feeling
that the woods were laughing at me.
And I don't mean that as a figure of speech.
I mean that one morning I stepped outside and I heard a
low, breathy chuckle from the branches overhead.
Nothing visible, nothing moving. Just the sound of something
trying to imitate human amusement.
Badly. The totems kept showing up.
One day it was on the porch again, next day inside the
firewood box, then on my pillow. Always there, always closer.
But they were different now, more detailed.
The first ones had been crude blocks of wood with sticks for
arms. Now they had realistic
proportions. Bent knees, fingers, clothes
carved into the surface. One had my scar, the little one
above my eyebrow I got in a bike wreck when I was 12.
Another had my watch carved exactly like the one I wear.
Even the face was cracked the same way.
That was when I started keeping them, lining them up on the
shelf across from my bed. I didn't know why.
Maybe I thought, if I could watch them, they couldn't watch
me. But the collection kept growing,
dozens, and one morning I woke up and saw that they'd been
rearranged, all of them facing my bed.
The worst was the one I found under my pillow.
I'd fallen asleep with the Lantern on, figured maybe the
light would help. I woke up around 2:00 AM with
this pain in my neck, like I'd been sleeping on something hard.
Reached under the pillow and pulled it out.
A totem with my face perfect, down to the tired eyes and
crooked mouth. Except the eyes were burned out,
hollow sockets blackened around the edges like it had been held
to a flame. I threw it in the stove and
watched it burn, and as it blackened and cracked, I heard
something outside scream. I found the journal that night,
under the floorboards, right where the old wood creaked.
The loudest leather bound, moldy pages, stuck together with
moisture and time, belonged to someone named Ranger Glenn
Powers, dated 1982. He wrote about everything, the
whispers, the totems, the vanishing trails.
He'd been assigned to Wildwood Ridge, too.
Said it was supposed to be a quiet place for recovery.
I read the entries obsessively, flipping pages with shaking
hands. One passage burned into my
brain. Don't answer if you hear them
say your name. Not forward, not backward.
That gives them permission. Another.
I burned a totem once. The forest didn't like it.
I woke up with roots in my mouth.
The last entry was just a frantic scrawl.
The altar calls, The altar sees, The altar remembers.
Then just symbols scratch deep into the paper with something
sharp. Not letters, spirals, branches,
eyes. My radio started mimicking me.
At first I thought it was just feedback, static, maybe solar
interference. But then it played back my exact
words before I said them. I'd say Ranger Haze checking
perimeter, and two seconds before that the radio would
crackle to life with Ranger Haze checking perimeter in my own
voice. Sometimes it would talk at night
on its own, whispers, weeping, and once, just once, I swear it
played a recording of me dreaming, my own voice gasping.
Don't open the door, don't let it in.
I gave up trying to sleep after that, started patrolling at
night just to get out of the cabin, just to feel like I was
doing something. But the trails were wrong.
I'd walk a straight line and end up in places I'd never seen
before. One time I came across a spiral
of feathers and teeth laid out in the mud, perfectly
symmetrical. Another night, a hiker stumbled
out of the woods toward me, shirtless, filthy, eyes Milky
white. I called out.
Hey, you OK? You need help?
He opened his mouth and spat up mud, thick, black, rotted
smelling sludge full of bark and hair.
Then he ran on all fours into the trees.
I didn't follow. The next night I woke up to the
radio playing music, a warped, scratchy version of some old
country song. Something about watching from
the Ridge. I turned it off. 5 minutes later
it clicked back on and started playing my screams.
I hadn't screamed, not yet. But I did the following night
because I finally saw the thing that had been leaving the
totems. It was standing by the edge of
the woods. Tall, too tall, legs like
stilts, arms hanging too long, wearing my uniform, the face a
mask, carved wood, my face burned into it, eyes hollow,
mouth open in a smile. And behind it, more of them,
dozens, motionless, lined up like trees that had learned how
to stand on their own. I ran back inside, slam the
door, nailed it shut. But in the morning the nails
were gone, stacked neatly by the door, and the totem on the porch
had changed again. This one held a tiny wooden
Lantern, and in its chest was a real human tooth.
I think I'm being LED somewhere. The forest wants me to go
deeper, and I'm starting to want it too, because when I'm in the
woods, the fear goes quiet and the whispers sound like they're
saying my name, just not the way I remember it.
I haven't slept in, I don't know, days, weeks.
Time doesn't work right out here anymore.
The sun rises too early, sets too late.
Sometimes it doesn't rise at all, just lingers behind the
trees like it's afraid to come through.
The totems cover every surface in the cabin now.
Some of them move when I'm not looking. 1 turned its head while
I blinked. Another one was crying.
I found myself talking to them. Not like a joke, not like a
breakdown, like a ritual. I'd come in from patrol, mud on
my boots, blood sometimes too, though I can't remember from
what, and I'd kneel in front of the shelf, press my forehead to
the floor, and whisper. I see you, I see you, I see you.
I don't remember when I started doing that, but I do know what
happened when I missed a night. The next morning I woke up and
found a fresh totem nailed to the inside of my door, through
the wood splinters everywhere. It had no eyes, no face, just a
hollow hole where the mouth should be, filled with dirt and
ants. Carved into the door next to it
were the words. You're forgetting who you are.
That was when the forest opened a path for me, a new trail, one
I swear hadn't existed before. It wasn't on the map, it wasn't
even possible. It cut through areas too steep,
too dense, too far north. But it was there now, laid out
with black stones and hanging bones from tree branches like
wind chimes. The air buzzed with electricity
and the birds followed me, silent heads cocked, watching.
At the center of it all was the altar, exactly as described in
Glenn Powers Journal. Stone cracked, covered in lichen
and bloodstains that hadn't dried even though the nearest
human had vanished months ago. Around it, totems, hundreds.
Some carved fresh, some ancient, weathered by time, Some that
look just like the ones from my shelf, and a few that look just
like me. One had my eyes, one had my
exact jacket, stained with the same oil I spilled 2 nights ago.
One was whispering, not speaking, whispering.
Its wooden mouth clicked open and shut as it muttered join us,
join us, join us. I radioed for backup, or I
thought I did. I hit the emergency beacon, held
the button down. I screamed into the mic, but all
I heard on the other end was my voice.
Calm, confident, Me. I'm fine, no assistance needed,
just lost in the trees for a moment.
Except I hadn't said that. I don't remember walking back to
the cabin. The next thing I knew I was
standing in front of it, holding a totem.
It was bleeding. Not SAP, blood.
I dropped it and ran inside, locked the door, tried to write
everything down, tried to remember who I was, but the log
book wasn't mine anymore. The pages were filled with
entries I hadn't written in handwriting that wasn't mine.
He walks deeper now. The forest knows his name.
He is almost one of them. I tried burning everything.
The totems, the clothes, the furniture, the fire.
Wooden light. No matter how much fuel I
poured, it just hissed and laughed, a dry choking sound
coming from the chimney even though the flue was closed.
I think I'm already gone. Sometimes I catch glimpses of
myself in the mirror and the face looking back isn't mine.
Sometimes I talk and the voice isn't mine.
The whispers used to be outside. Now they're in my head, and they
know every thought I've ever had.
This is my last transmission. If you're hearing this, don't
come looking. Don't try to find the altar.
Don't follow the path lined with bones.
Don't trust the voice on the radio if it says it's me,
because I don't know if I'm still Eliot Hayes, and I don't
think I'm the only one who looks like me anymore.
They took my face. They took my voice.
They took everything except the part that still screams.
When the search team arrived, they found the cabin abandoned,
no signs of struggle, bed made, food untouched, fire still warm.
On the table sat a new totem, fresh blood still damp in the
carvings. It was smiling, and it had
Elliot's exact face. His uniform was found hanging
from a tree branch half a mile away, neatly folded, pressed. 1
searcher. Beckley wandered off during the
second night. They found him curled in a
hollow log, repeating. They wear us like bark.
They grow into our skin. They airlifted him out.
He hasn't spoken since. The station has been shuttered,
officially decommissioned. Unofficially, no Ranger has
taken the Wildwood Ridge assignment since.
But sometimes, late at night, locals say you can hear a voice
on the old Ranger frequency, calm even.
Asking for coordinates, asking for backup, asking if they look
OK. It's me, Elliott.
I'm still out here. I'm just a little lost.
I always thought the rain in Olympic was an old school
lullaby, soft and slow, like the forest trying to hush itself to
sleep. Most nights I'd lie in my bunk
at Storm King Ranger Station, listening to every cedar shingle
drink it in while Lake Crescent breathe just beyond the tree
line. But on October 17th, 2015, the
storm didn't sing. It muttered, then growled like
it already knew what was coming up the trail.
I'd pulled the late shift, logged out of dispatch at 10:30,
and stepped into my cabin half numb with exhaustion.
Wet uniform on a hook, damp boots by the stove, quick swipe
of a towel across the hair, then sweatpants, wool socks, T-shirt.
I cracked the Lantern just bright enough to scratch out a
line or two in the station log. No incidents.
Barred owl calls times 3. Lake level, normal.
The ink was barely dry when something sliced clear across
the water, a scream pitched so sharp it felt aimed straight at
my spine. At first I tried to logic it
away. Cougar yowl, drunk campers
fooling around echo off the basalt cliffs.
Except it happened again, closer.
And this time it wasn't a lone cry, but a jittery chorus of
footfalls beating the path to my door.
By the time the hinges rattled under frantic fists, adrenaline
had wiped the sleep from my eyes.
I cracked the door on its chain and got a face full of rain,
mud, and panic. Two women, one brunette, one
blonde, stood there, drenched, pupils blown wide, breathing
like they'd sprinted the Devil's Mile.
Blood painted the brunette's sleeve so dark it looked black
in the Lantern light. Please, the blonde gasped.
He he bit her. That word bit hit harder than
the wind driving lake spray across the porch.
I killed the chain and swung the door open.
They tumbled in, water puddling on my floorboards.
The injured 1 Mara, she'd tell me later, clutched her upper arm
with the kind of grip you use when you're afraid something
inside might spill out. I peeled back a soaked fleece
jacket and wished I hadn't. Teeth marks deep as a dog's,
wide as a man's, flesh lifted in ridges, Blood pulsing, slow but
steady. While I cinched a pressure
bandage, Her friend Katie talked fast through tears.
They decided to night hike the old spruce railroad grade for
kicks, Flashlights in one hand, phone cameras in the other.
Inside the tunnel, they heard a scraping sound, a rhythmic click
like rocks tapping glass. Then a shape slipped out of the
dark ceiling, hit the ground on all fours, and stood naked, mud
streaked. I shine bright as a cat's.
He barreled into Mara, pinned her to the wall, sunk his teeth
into her shoulder and shook. Katie emptied a mini pepper
spray canister in his face. He growled, spat blood, and kept
coming until she hurled her flashlight at him and they
bolted. 4 miles of switch back later, the only light they saw
was the glow from Storm King cabins.
He followed us all the way down. Katie said, voice cracking.
We heard him behind us until the last curve.
The moment she finished, my radio squawked.
Jess's cabin was 20 yards down slope.
She'd heard the commotion. I gave her the short version. 2
victims, 1 bite wound, possible assailant still active.
She answered with a clipped copy.
Jess, speak for I'm already lacing my boots.
I locked the door, slid my Glock from the gun safe.
Chambered around. Mara's blood looked nearly black
against the gauze. Her teeth chattered, though the
cabin was warm. I shoved spare mags into my
parka pocket and glanced at the rain streaked window.
No flashlight beams out there, no silhouettes.
Just 1000 wet branches bowing under the wind.
I'm going after him, I told them.
Jess will stay with you. You're safe here.
Safe felt like a paper promise, but it was all I had.
I stepped onto the porch and the night swallowed me whole.
Rain drumming the roof, wind hissing through the furs.
Every instinct screamed to hold fast, guard the door, wait for
backup. Yet something uglier than fear
crawled under my skin. The picture of that tunnel, the
width of those teeth marks, the way Mara's pulse fluttered under
my fingers. Whatever made that wound was
still out there, somewhere between the old rail bed and the
lake. Maybe.
Licking pepper spray off his lips and deciding if he was
hungry enough for seconds, I clicked on my headlamp, drew a
deep breath, and started down the trail.
The barrel of my Glock angled low but ready.
Rain sheeted across the beam, turning every droplet into a
silver dash. Somewhere ahead, the forest
exhaled a low, hollow moan, as if it knew I just traded a
wooden door for a thin line of light and a prayer.
And if Tunnel Man really was waiting in that black throat of
concrete above the lake, I plan to make sure he never tasted
anyone's blood again. The Ranger compound faded behind
me, just a pinprick of yellow back through the fur needles.
Every other light in Olympic felt smothered by the storm.
No moon, no cabin porch glow, nothing but my headlamp cleaving
a tunnel through the sheets of rain.
The beam made the drops look like silver nails driven hard
and fast from the sky. I cut left, taking the
maintenance spur that parallels Lake Crescent before climbing
onto the old Spruce railroad grade.
It's one of those places visitors call quaint, right up
until darkness turns it into an ink spill.
Tonight the path was a slit of slick gravel hemmed in by
dripping sword ferns, and the lake looked more like a slab of
black metal than water. 5 minutes in, I found the first
print, barefoot, length of my own boot sunk an inch into mud,
soft as pudding. A lazy heel dragged groove
trailed each step, as though the guy couldn't decide whether to
stand or crawl. Rain was already pooling in the
hollow, grinding flecks of grit into the shape, but I could
still see tiny crescents at the front toenails.
Human, definitely fresh. A second print, a third, then
dozens, weaving like drunk zigzags, but always aimed uphill
toward the tunnel. Occasionally a bead of darker
fluid, a diluted smear of blood, spiraled away with the runoff.
The sight tugged me forward with a queasy magnetism.
You don't get many breadcrumb trails.
This polite and Ranger work. Jess, you copy?
I thumbed my radio. Static hissed like the lakes own
voice. No bars.
The basalt cliffs on three sides turn calms into coin flips, and
tonight the storm loaded the dice.
I slid the radio back, pulse jackhammering.
The grade began tunneling through thicker forest, fur
trunks crowding close, branches clasping overhead.
Something about that close green corridor made sound play tricks.
The rain seemed to fall on three different rooftops at once, and
my own breathing echoed back as if someone paced me shoulder to
shoulder. I clocked every detail to stay
grounded. The Moss slick ties under foot,
the iodine Tang rising from decaying cedar chips, the faint
hush of waves crawling the rocks below.
A sharp clack clack snapped the air in front of me.
Two taps, pause. 3 taps, Stone on stone.
My spine straightened so hard it hurt.
Cougar jaw. No, the rhythm was mechanical,
intentional, almost like someone sending a code they expected me
to read. I killed my light and crouched.
Night swallowed the grade, but the storm kept its own dim glow,
enough to silhouette the yawning mouth of the World War 2 tunnel,
100 yards up trail. Even with lightning absent, the
wet walls glistened faintly, like the throat of some giant
sea creature waiting to draw breath.
Clack, clack. I stepped off the gravel, boots
sinking into Fernduff, and listened.
Rain ricocheted on Alder leaves. The lake ticked stones below.
Then a new scent loomed, rank, metallic, mixed with the briny
stink of tide flats. It pushed through the forest,
Musk like bad breath, headlamp, back on low beam.
The Halo caught more footprints, deeper now, toes digging in as
if the owner sprinted beside one.
I found a broken quartz Pebble, already stained rusty red.
Blood slick, probably his clicking stone.
My lamp quivered over the tunnel entrance, 30 feet high, lined
with crumbling concrete ribs, blacker than midnight.
In there, graffiti sprawled everywhere, most of it the usual
names and dates except for a fresh smear.
Charcoal spirals wrapping a stick figure deer, its jaw a
gaping Crescent. The lines glistened wet, still
shedding droplets. A gust barreled out of the
tunnel, carrying the fishy ammonia odor so strong my eyes
watered. I raised the Glock 2, handed
slow breaths to keep the tremor out.
The beam now barely bit 10 feet into the tunnel before
disintegrating into misty smoke. Somewhere deep inside, water
dripped in an arrhythmic pattern that almost but not quite
matched the tapping stones. It felt like hearing someone
talk behind a wall thick enough to thin every consonant.
Park Ranger? I shouted, voice bouncing back
shredded and small. Step into the light with your
hands up. Silence answered, first from the
tunnel, then from the woods behind.
When you realize the whole world's gone still in a
rainstorm, that's when your heartbeat sounds like violence.
My next step sent a Pebble skittering.
It ricocheted off the wall with a metallic Ting, and right then
the tapping resumed, but faster and right above me.
I swung the light upward. For half a second the beam froze
on pale limbs splayed across the arch, Fingers, spider crawling
the concrete ribs, head twisted at an angle no neck should
manage. I shine. 2 green coins flared in
the glare. Then the figure jerked sideways,
melded with shadow. Gone.
Dust motes spiraled where it had been, skin ice cold.
I back toward the tunnel mouth for open space, but a wet slap
echoed behind me. Bare feet hitting gravel.
I spun. Nothing.
Lamp wobbled, searched tree line only ferns bowing under the
deluge. A voice rasped from somewhere in
that compound. Darkness stretched thin as
fishing line. It ended in a gurgling laugh
that shot adrenaline straight into my teeth.
My headlamp flickered, battery icon bleeding red.
Perfect timing. Rain hissed down louder, like
static turned to Max. I thumbed the radio again.
Jess about 50 yards inside the tunnel.
Suspect is mobile, and crackles devoured the words.
The only reply was wind keening through the treetops like
distant screaming lamps. Sputtering, I inched backward
until my shoulders brushed the basalt.
Outside the arch. The tunnel echoed.
Every drip magnified every shaky breath.
Footsteps slapped once more behind me.
This time I lunged around, weapon up.
Empty grade ferns jigged in the wind, and my Halo caught twin
droplets sliding off a branch. Red, not rainwater.
I tracked the streak up to bark. Gouged my fingernails, heartbeat
vibrating in my ears. I whispered.
Show yourself a breath so close it stirred the hair by my ear
answered. My light died.
The dark stampeded in thick and absolute.
Somewhere close, gravel scattered the rush of something
sprinting. I pivoted by instinct.
Glock raised, finger tightening on the trigger.
I could no longer see. Thunder cracked overhead, a
white flash silhouetting a lean form lunging out of the trees,
arms outstretched, teeth bared. I pulled the trigger, but the
storm swallowed the gunshot and the scream together, and then
everything was motion and rain and the smell of salt wrought
breath closing in. When people talk about time
slowing down during a fight, they forget to mention the way
memory breaks apart. The Thunder flash seared the
tunnel mouth white, and in that strobe I saw everything at once.
The attacker's ribs knotted with bite scars, water glittering on
his teeth. Arms veined like tree roots.
Then darkness crashed back in, thick enough to choke on.
My first shot went wide. Muzzle flash lit maybe 3 feet,
but he was already inside that radius, swinging a fist that
felt more like a wooden mallet. Stars burst in my skull.
The Glock skittered somewhere into black water.
The next moment my shoulders slapped slick gravel and a knee
speared into my chest, forcing air out with a squawk I barely
recognized as my own. He smelled of brine and rotted
kelp, breath hot enough to scald despite the cold rain.
Fingernails cracked, soil packed, dug for my face.
I clawed at his wrist, felt tendons flex like braided wire
under mud. Slick skin.
He growled the same half word, graw spittle flecking my cheek.
Then teeth flashed, aiming for my throat.
Instinct, not bravery, saved me. I jammed my forearm between his
jaws. Pain detonated as incisors
punched through raincoat and flesh, but bone stopped the bite
before he severed anything vital.
I screamed, half rage, half terror, and head butted him
square in the nose. Cartilage crunched.
Warm blood sprayed my face. His weight shifted.
I used the opening, rolled us sideways and slammed an elbow
into the side of his neck. He hissed, scrambling like a wet
cat. My knee found his ribs once,
twice, until something gave with a hollow snap.
He retreated a yard on all fours, hacking wet breaths that
sounded too close to barks. Lightning pulsed outside,
silhouetting him, thin, shaking, yet still coiled to spring in
the brief bloom of light. My eyes snagged on a glint
halfway between us. The Glock, 10 feet, maybe 12,
felt like a mile over slick ballast.
He moved first, lunging for me instead of the gun.
I fainted, right dove left, palms skidding through ankle
deep water, fingers latching cold steel in the same motion.
I spun onto my hip, brought the pistol up two handed.
His shadow loomed, arms wide, head thrown back in an animal
scream. I fired.
The tunnel exploded with sound and light impact.
Folded him mid stride, a Crimson mist mixing with rain spray.
Second shot, center mass dropped him to his knees.
He pitched forward onto gravel, clutching his stomach, howling
something that might have been words if pain hadn't chewed them
into mush. I crab crawled back, gun trained
on the dim lump. Adrenaline tried to shake the
weapon from my hands. He twitched, fingers raking
stones, then went still. Except for ragged breaths.
Every drip in the tunnel sounded like a gun cocking.
I held aim, counting them. One Mississippi, 2 Mississippi
by 20. I risked the radio again.
Static. Then Jess's voice finally
punched through, warped but clear enough.
Luke status, suspect down tunnel mouth.
Need medevac backup rabies protocol.
I'm a bit on our way. The words tasted surreal.
Suspect down, like this was paperwork, not a man bleeding
into midnight water. But the training took over.
Unload mag, replace with fresh, keep him covered from 8 yards.
My arm throbbed where teeth had met skin.
Blood ran warm inside my sleeve, washed cold outside by rain.
Minutes stretched until red, blue strobes painted the forest
wall. Jess arrived first, pump action
ready, eyes wide even for her deputies right behind, guns up.
I barked positions, voice wobbling like bad radio.
They cuffed the suspect. He didn't resist, just whimpered
and muttered about Echoes and the hollow under Storm King.
Paramedics rolled in, slit my raincoat, flushed the bite,
wrapped my forearm. Another team packed gauze into
the attacker's wounds, slipping an airway between Crimson foamed
lips as they loaded him onto a litter.
He locked eyes with me, pupils blown black nose Crooked, Still
smiling through blood. The mountain's still hungry, he
rasped, words wet and ruined. They pumped fentanyl and
whatever fight remained leaked out of him.
Sirens carried him into the storm.
Jess stayed silent while deputies swept the tunnel with
beams and cameras, evidence piled fast.
Quartz clicking stones stained dark, rabbit pelts half eaten, 2
driver's licenses from missing hikers laminated in gore and
charcoal spirals on concrete still damp enough to smear.
When the adrenaline dump finally let go, I shook so hard Jess had
to guide me. Outside, dawn bled Peach across
Lake Crescent, mist curling like breath from a tired giant.
Wind rattled the fur crowns. Rain had slackened to drizzle,
fragile as cobweb threads. I remember thinking the world
looked exactly the same, which felt obscene after what had
happened in the dark. A month later, I sat in Clallam
County Superior Court, arm in a sling.
Rabies shots, complete nightmares, just finding their
stride. The man, Caleb Norris, 29,
runaway vet with a pharmacy in his bloodstream, pled guilty to
attempted murder and two counts of assault.
Bandages cocooned his torso. Eyes stared through people like
they were tinted glass. When the judge asked if he had
anything to say, he leaned toward the microphone, lip
splitting around the gauze. I kept it fed, but it's still
there, voice barely above a whisper.
Storm King needs more. Court officers hustled him out
before reporters could scramble. Didn't matter.
The phrase headlined every local site by noon.
I drove back to the Ranger station, stepped into my cabin
and found an envelope on the bunk.
No return address. Inside, a photo of Mara and
Katie outside Harborview Medical Center, arms raised in mock
victory, stitches peeking under gauze on the back in looping
Sharpie. Because you were there.
We're still here. I pinned it above the desk,
right over my incident report. Some nights when fog presses
against the window and raindrops tap like quartz on quartz, I
catch myself staring at that picture, listening for footsteps
in the tunnels echo. Then I remember the storm, the
scream, the taste of kelp rot breath.
And I checked the safety on my sidearm before bed.
I signed on for a second season at Olympic.
Someone has to walk the great after dark, make sure Storm
King's hunger stays caged. If the mountain ever asks for
seconds, I'll be there, flashlight up, heart hammering,
ready to make the night sing Thunder again.