I'm a 34 year old independent livestock hauler based in
Gallup, NM. A few hours ago I agreed to
shuttle 8 Angus steers from Sanders to a feed lot outside
Cayenta before sunrise. Triple pay if I arrived before
the desert heat settled in. To meet that deadline, my
dispatcher pointed me toward Indian Route 13, a dirt corridor
across Navajo Nation that local drivers rarely use after dark.
I'd heard scraps of folklore, shape shifters, hitch hiking
shadows, but I chalked it up to scare tactics for tourists.
I logged the manifest, checked the trailer locks, and rolled
out just before 11 on a moonless, humid night in
mid-july. The 1st 20 miles were
uneventful. The Kenworth vibrated across
washboard gravel while a distant thunderhead flashed over the
Lukachukai Mountains. My CB stayed silent.
Cell bars vanished the moment I left the highway.
Inside the trailer, the cattle shuffled each time lightning
silhouetted the rig against the Mesa walls.
I noted their restlessness but pressed on, climbing Buffalo
Pass at a steady 45. At the summit, a sheet of rain
swept across the windshield. Wipers fought mud and grit as I
eased down the descent. According to the odometer,
milepost 41 was the first cattle guard past Luka Chukai.
I rolled over it at a crawl. The steel slats clanged under 18
wheels, and in the beam of my highlights I noticed fresh
gouges carved deep across several bars, 4 perfect parallel
channels, each longer than my forearm.
No tire could cut metal like that.
I logged the anomaly into my dash recorder and kept the
Kenworth pointed downhill. The road narrowed between
sandstone Bluffs. GPS lost signal entirely,
leaving me alone with the engine drone and the irregular slap of
rain. A sour smell drifted through the
vents, coppery mixed with damp sage.
I cracked the driver side window to clear the cab, but the odor
clung to the upholstery. 1/4 mile later, the dash camera
detected movement ahead. I leaned forward.
The headlights washed over a shape Crouch just beyond the
next cattle guard. It was man sized but arranged
wrong. Elbows flared, weight balanced
on what looked like elongated forearms.
The figure held perfectly still, facing my truck.
I eased off the throttle, shifting down to third, ready to
stop if it was an animal or a person in distress.
The shape rose with abrupt precision, straight from all
fours to full height without bracing on its hands.
In that instant, I saw limbs that hung too low, a silhouette
easily 7 feet tall, and eyes that reflected amber like a deer
at night. Before I could register more
detail, the figure pivoted and moved sideways into the juniper
scrub at impossible speed. No lunge, no stumble.
Just a blur that cleared 20 feet in seconds.
It disappeared beyond the reach of the headlamps.
Chalk tightened my grip on the wheel.
Every instinct said reverse, but the hall schedule loomed in my
mind. I crept over the guard at 10
mph, scanning the road edges. Nothing stirred except wind
kicking loose grit across the asphalt.
Past the Bluffs, the landscape open to a vast flat where Route
13 paralleled Whiskey Creek. Lightning flickered behind me,
etching the rig's shadow. Across the sage flats, the
cattle bawed in chorus, hooves striking aluminum panels hard
enough that I felt the impacts through the seat.
The trailer's infrared monitor lit up with a new BLOB of heat,
a signature that didn't match a steers outline, then blinked
off. Before I could zoom, static
hissed through the CBA male voice cut in for half a word,
crackled and vanished. I tried a radio check.
No reply. The copper and sage odor
intensified, almost metallic enough to taste.
While I replayed the image of that uprighting shape in my
mind, the Kenworth rumbled toward the next cattle guard.
Rain eased, but the sky offered no stars, just low clouds, as if
the darkness itself pressed closer to the cab.
My headlights hit the empty grate.
No figures waited this time, only slats of galvanized steel
wet with rainwater. I released a breath I hadn't
realized I was holding, nudged the throttle, and watched the
speedometer climb back toward 45. 2 minutes later, a dull
clang echoed along the trailer frame, as though something had
bounced off the roof. I checked mirrors, rain, slick
metal, and empty desert. The cattle resumed their
restless shifting, and the sour smell lingered.
I reminded myself there were 8 steers, 2000 lbs apiece, and I
was sealed inside solid Detroit steel, doing a job I'd done 100
times. Yet the desert felt different
tonight, somehow, crowded, though nothing moved.
Reaching the flats far side, I aimed for the faint glow of many
farms, sodium lamps beyond the horizon, counting the miles
until pavement. Behind me lay Buffalo Pass and
one inexplicable sighting I couldn't justify even to myself.
Ahead, however, waited. Darkness without folklore.
Just a man, a truck and a deadline.
At least that's what I told myself as I crossed the third
cattle guard and continued E into the unlit miles of
Reservation Road 13. By the time I cleared the
sandstone Bluffs, it was 12:43 AM.
The GPS display still showed a frozen grid, and the odometer
placed me roughly 25 miles from the junction with US191-A head
stretched A10 mile ribbon of packed dirt that locals call the
Whiskey Creek straightaway. No turns, no ranch lights, no
roadside homes. I kept the cruise lever at 45,
more out of habit than comfort. Every sense felt keyed to the
trailer behind me. The cattle had grown louder
since the sighting near Buffalo Pass Hooves struck the aluminum
walls in sharp bursts, then settled into nervous shuffling.
I toggled the infrared monitor. 8 heat signatures drifted in a
tight cluster near the forward gate.
No 9th shape, no glitches this time.
Still, I couldn't ignore the metallic taste in the air or the
way my forearms tingled as if an electric fence hovered inches
from my skin. 5 minutes down the straightaway, the odor
intensified. Wet copper mixed with something
resinous like fresh cut juniper. The cab vents carried it no
matter how wide I open the side window.
My left hand hovered over the CB handset.
I keyed up. Anybody rolling West on 1/3
tonight? I'm eastbound with livestock.
Need a radio check. Static answered, then a single
word in a low male voice cut through syllables I couldn't
translate. The transmission dropped before
I could respond. I tried again.
Cycling channels, same result. Silence.
Then a click, as if someone lifted a mic and set it back
down. The high beams showed the next
cattle guard, 1/4 mile ahead. It sat slightly raised above the
roadway, framed by warped cedar posts.
As I closed the distance, a dark form blocked the center of the
grate. At first glance, it looked like
a man wearing a heavy coat. Shoulders hunched another 100
feet and the shape clarified. Long arms braced against the
metal rails, knees bent outward at an unnatural angle.
My foot eased off the throttle. The Kenworth slowed to 30, then
20. The figure didn't flinch.
At 50 yards, I hit the air horn, 3 fast blasts, loud enough to
rattle the dash. The shape reacted, but not the
way an animal would. It tilted its head as if
measuring the truck, then dropped to all fours and
scuttled off the guard, disappearing behind a low berm.
The motion was smooth, precise, too fast for anything on that
terrain. I felt my scalp tighten.
I steered onto the guard, listening for damage.
The tires rolled across with the usual metallic rumble.
Halfway over, something clanged against the right rear quarter
panel, A hollow strike like a tire iron hitting sheet metal.
The steering wheel jerked in my hands.
I corrected, kept the rig straight, and accelerated to 50.
In the side mirror, I caught a glimpse of movement in the dust
cloud, something sprinting parallel to the trailer for a
few seconds before veering away. The cattle bawled again, this
time a sustained chorus that filled the cab through the
bulkhead. The floor vibrated under my
boots as 2000 lbs of beef shifted from left to right.
I glanced at the monitor for a heartbeat.
A 9th heat BLOB flared bright red near the rear gate, then
vanished. Sweat collected at my
collarbones despite the AC set to 68.
Static burst from the CB. The same male voice returned
louder, the cadence urgent. 3 words, then a sharp crack as if
the transmission had been cut mid sentence.
I thumbed the handset and kept it pressed, hoping some Highway
Patrol unit might hear my location ping.
Nothing came back. 8 miles remained to the paved Hwy.
The straightaway felt twice that length.
I kept the headlights on high, eyes sweeping for movement.
A ruined trading post building appeared on the right cinder
block shell roof long collapsed. My front bumper passed the
structure when a dark blur shot from behind it, straight toward
the road. I saw a long arm, hand splayed
with thin extended fingers. Instinct overruled caution.
I swerved left tires digging into loose gravel.
The trailer fishtailed. I counter steered, engine RPM
spiking. Something heavy struck the side
wall near the third axle, two bangs in rapid succession, then
a scraping that traveled toward the rear doors.
I wrestled the rig back onto the dirt lane, mirrors vibrating so
hard the images blurred. The cattle settled but kept
lowing, their voices ragged. I couldn't risk stopping.
No tow or law enforcement unit could reach me before dawn.
The only option was to reach many farms and real pavement. 3
miles to go. The smell of copper faded, but
the Tang of dust replaced it thick enough to scratch my
throat. The side and roof cameras
offered no clear picture, just static and brief flashes of
distorted shapes. Each flash suggested movement
along the roof racks, but I couldn't hold my gaze there
without drifting off the road. A final cattle guard marked the
end of the straightaway. I crossed it at 60.
No impact, no figures waiting. Beyond, the dirt strip curved S
toward the US 191 junction, and faint orange light from a lone
communication tower glowed against the clouds.
Relief should have followed, yet my pulse stayed high.
The trailer rocked once, twice, as if a heavy object shifted on
the roof and landed inside the steel frame.
I focused on the tower beacon ahead.
Every muscle locked. Whatever had followed me from
Buffalo Pass felt closer now, perhaps on the rig itself.
The next miles would decide whether I reach town in one
piece or join those campfire tales I'd written off as
superstition. The communication tower beacon
hovered ahead like a fixed point on a map, but every bump in the
road reminded me something heavier than rain.
Pressed against the trailer roof.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle,
easing the Kenworth past 60, fast for this washboard grade
but short of losing control. A metallic rattle travelled from
front to back. Overhead.
The sound stopped at the sleeper berths rear window.
A flat palm Gray, mud streaked, claws extended, slapped the
glass once hard enough to spider web the inner safety layer.
I jerked forward in the seat and nearly veered into the drainage
ditch. The cattle exploded into balls
so loud the audio monitor clipped.
I floored the pedal. The tachometer redlined.
Diesel roar filled the cab. There was no shoulder wide
enough to pull over. No service turn out, no cell
signal to reach Navajo police. 8 tons of beef and steel were the
only shield I had. I pushed the rig through shallow
potholes, trusting momentum to keep the trailer upright.
Each jolt shook the roof. Sometimes the weight above
shifted, sometimes it didn't. I kept my eyes on the tower.
At 1:17 AM, the dirt lane widened and joined a strip of
cracked asphalt. The final mile to US 191 sodium
lamps from Many Farms Chapter House glimmered beyond a low
rise. I downshifted to keep traction
on the pavement, then accelerated again, forcing the
engine past its comfort zone. A final clang landed near the
rear doors, followed by silence. The way station sign appeared.
State Port of Entry. It's floodlights casting sharp
white across rain. Dark pavement.
I hit the parking apron so fast the truck's front suspension
bottomed out. Gravel sprayed against the scale
house wall. I cut the engine, grab my
flashlight and jump down, boots skidding on wet concrete.
The night air smelled of diesel and cattle, nothing else.
Rain eased to a mist. I swept the beam along the
trailer roof. No movement.
I circled to the back. The right hand door hung ajar by
half an inch, safety chain still hooked but latch lever torn
loose. 4 gouges scored the aluminum skin from roof line to
floor, each groove wide enough to lay 2 fingers inside.
A wad of coarse black hair dangled from the upper hinge,
greasy with dried fluid the color of rust.
Inside, the steers crowded the forward stall, eyes rolling
white. None were cut, none missing.
I slammed the door and dogged the latch with a spare bolt,
double checking the pin. Around me, the floodlights
showed only damp asphalt. In the empty scale lane, a
Doughty officer stepped from the doorway, coffee in hand,
curiosity on his face. Before he could ask, I raised a
palm. Lost a roof strap on the dirt.
Grade, I said. Steers spooked.
I'm fine. He eyed the claws in the metal,
opened his mouth, then shut it. Under his breath came a single
word in Navajo. I recognize the tone from the
radio, but not the meaning. He waved me off the scale.
Paperwork could wait. Daylight.
I pulled the rig to a rest slot, engine idling at low RPM.
Dawn edged over Black Mesa, a thin orange band pushing back
the cloud base. In that growing light, the
desert looked ordinary. Red sand flats, a barbed wire
fence line, one gravel Rd. leading back toward Buffalo Pass
Ordinary, but the rear window still held a fractured imprint
the size of a spread hand, and the trailer door still bled dark
streaks where claws had raked aluminum.
I reached for the trip manifest on the passenger seat.
The paper listed Sanders departure, Kayenta arrival, and
an estimated runtime. That meant I should be rolling N
on 191 right now. I folded the sheet twice and fed
it into the trash barrel by the scale house, watching the paper
darken in the drizzle. Flagstaff lay six hours West,
all on maintained Hwy. The detour would burn fuel and
time, but it offered shoulders, traffic and phone service.
I climbed back into the cab, set the route and eased onto the wet
pavement. The cattle settled into tired
huffs. The cracked sleeper window
stayed taped for the rest of the trip.
As the sun cleared the horizon, I checked the mirror one more
time. The trailer's gashes caught
early light, dull silver against Gray metal, then faded from
sight when I merged with northbound traffic, Reservation
Road 13 dropped behind a low rise and disappeared.
I kept my speed steady, hands locked at 10 and two, and told
myself overpasses and truck stops were better company than
shortcuts, no matter how many hours they added.
The better part of my adult life Fighting wildfires across New
Mexico, chasing flames across mountain ridges and steep
canyons, cutting fire breaks in choking heat.
It was dangerous work, but straightforward enough.
You could see the fire, you knew its patterns, and you trusted
your team. After nearly 10 years stationed
out of Albuquerque, I figured I'd seen just about everything
the land could throw at me. Then I got assigned to the
Chuska Mountains. On a controlled burn, the
Chuskas stretched along the Arizona, New Mexico border,
rising sharply from the red earth of the Navajo Nation.
They were thickly forested, jagged, and known for
unpredictable winds that could turn even the most carefully
managed fires into disasters. We'd set up our mobile fire camp
just east of Tohachi, working alongside tribal firefighters
who knew this land better than I ever would.
Their cautionary tales were abundant, filled with quiet
warnings about ravines you shouldn't enter after dark,
places where your eyes played tricks.
I respected their experience, but I was a man who trusted only
what I could see and measure. Fire was real, folklore wasn't.
I didn't know how wrong I was until it was too late.
The late afternoon sun pressed down heavy on the Ridge as I
double checked my gear. My crew had spent the morning
setting backfires along a steep draw, and now I was tasked with
scouting ahead toward a place called Coyote Wash to confirm
reports of stray smoke plumes. The tribal crew leader, Ben
hosting, approached as I clipped my radio onto my vest.
You shouldn't go near that ravine alone after dark.
Ben said quietly, nodding toward the West.
Things down there might fool you.
I smiled politely, but shrugged it off.
I've worked plenty of ridges alone before.
Nothing down there but brush and dry heat.
Ben didn't smile back. He just stared at the distant
slope, his expression unreadable beneath the brim of his dusty
ball cap. Finally, he shook his head.
Just be careful. Things are different here.
I set off toward the ravine around 5:30, the heat of the day
still radiating up from the baked soil beneath my boots.
The Ridge was silent except for the faint crackling of distant
fire lines. As I crested the Ridge
overlooking Coyote Wash, I stopped for a moment to wipe
sweat from my face and study the terrain.
It was rugged, dry earth and brush leading down towards
shadows already creeping across the Canyon floor.
A thin tendril of smoke rose from near the bottom of the
wash, exactly where no fire had been set.
Strange. I keyed my radio Unit 4-9 to
base, Got eyes on smoke near Coyote Wash, requesting
confirmation of burn perimeter static.
No response. Unit 49.
Anybody copy? Still nothing.
I glanced at my GPS signal fluctuated erratically, bouncing
in and out. Typical of rugged terrain, I
thought. With no other choice, I started
downhill to investigate. As I got closer, the smoke
drifted sideways, moving almost parallel to me, staying just
beyond my reach. When I stopped, it stopped too,
hanging unnaturally still in the fading air.
I blinked and adjusted my goggles.
Certain fatigue was playing tricks on me.
When I took another step, the smoke moved again, matching my
pace exactly, as if tethered to my movements.
My pulse quickened as the silence around me grew heavier.
I'd seen strange fire behaviors before, but nothing like this.
There was no breeze, no thermal wind to move the smoke, just dry
heat and unnatural stillness. I turned around to retrace my
steps uphill, but a shadow made me pause mid stride ahead.
Further up the slope now, the same thin column of smoke
reappeared, drifting lazily as if waiting.
An uneasy sensation settled deep into my chest.
Unit 4-9 to base. I tried again, my voice tighter.
Something's not right here. Need backup immediately.
My radio crackled in response, faint static clearing just long
enough to hear something that turned my blood cold.
It was my voice, my exact transmission from moments ago,
warped and low, repeating slowly.
Unit 4-9. Something's not right.
I stared at the radio. No, Impossible.
I forced down the chill and tightened my grip on the GPS.
The screen flickered uncertainly.
Unable to lock onto any satellites, I had no choice but
to rely on landmarks. Taking a deep breath, I pressed
uphill again. Faster now.
I kept my eyes focused straight ahead, but the smoke drifted
again, reappearing just beyond the next rise.
It was more dense now, thicker, shaped like a smudged
silhouette. Every rational instinct told me
it was an optical illusion, a trick of heat stroke or fatigue.
But illusions don't follow you, and they don't mock you with
your own voice. A sudden snap of branches to my
left startled me, and I swung my flashlight toward it.
Nothing. Just dry brush, shifting in the
growing twilight. When I turned back to the trail,
the smoke column had vanished, leaving only empty air.
In the uneasy feeling that I wasn't alone, I picked up my
pace again, scrambling over loose rocks and patches of scrub
brush. My heart pounded painfully.
The edge of twilight closed in, the sunlight draining fast from
the sky, shadows pooling thickly around me.
The quiet seemed to press down harder, suffocating.
It was then, with evening's darkness only minutes away, that
I heard it again. My voice.
Unit 49. Anybody copy?
The words were a harsh whisper, coming from somewhere in the
thickening shadows behind me. Garbled, slow, stretched
unnaturally like a distorted recording.
I spun around. The slope was empty, still, and
yet I knew something watched from just beyond my vision.
The smoke, or whatever hid within it was taunting me.
It wanted me to panic. And God help me, it was working.
I've been trained to handle emergencies.
Wildfire crews practiced constantly for moments of chaos,
teaching us how to stay calm, move deliberately, and keep a
clear head, no matter what. But nothing had prepared me for
whatever this was, something intangible, something that
defied logic or training. I was alone, cut off,
disoriented. Everything I'd once trusted felt
suddenly meaningless. My heart was hammering.
The last echoes of that twisted mimicry of my own voice still
rang in my ears, and I forced myself to breathe deep, steady
breaths. I scan the terrain desperately,
looking for something familiar. The trail I'd taken down into
Coyote Wash now seemed to vanish behind me, swallowed by the
gathering dusk. I reached into my pack, pulled
out the emergency radio, and switched frequencies.
Unit 4/9 distress call. I need assistance now.
Does anyone copy? This is an emergency.
The channel crackled, then cut abruptly to silence.
I stared at the radio, willing someone, anyone to reply, but no
one answered. The GPS was useless, flickering
endlessly between coordinates. I was blind out here.
Reaching into a side pocket, I found a roll of bright orange
flagging tape. I quickly tied a piece around a
nearby tree branch, marking my position.
Logic said it would guide me if I circled back accidentally,
something tangible to follow. With one last glance at my
makeshift marker, I moved uphill through the brush, boots
slipping slightly on loose gravel and dried leaves.
Within minutes, my flashlight caught a splash of color ahead.
Relief surged through me. It was the bright orange of
flagging tape. I hurried forward, grateful to
find familiar ground. But as I drew closer, confusion
turned quickly to dread. The tape hung exactly as I'd
tied it, But this wasn't a new location.
It was my tape, my knot. Right where I'd left it.
I'd somehow walked in a complete circle.
Impossible. I'd climbed straight uphill.
I knew it. My pulse quickened again, a raw
panic threatening to breakthrough my discipline.
I had to stay calm. I picked a new direction, using
a distant silhouette of a tall ponderosa tree as my landmark,
and pushed forward, heart hammering in my chest.
Minutes passed, each step deliberate, eyes locked onto the
tree. Yet when I finally reached it,
nausea surged in my stomach. There was my flagging tape,
fluttering softly from a branch beside it, taunting my sense of
logic. I hadn't even approached this
spot before, I was certain. Yet here it was again.
My tape. My knot.
I ripped the tape down in frustration, throwing it aside
and pushing blindly forward into the brush.
It was fully dark now. The temperature dropped sharply,
chilling the sweat on my skin. Shadows move strangely in the
beam of my flashlight, shapes morphing among the trees,
forming and dissolving. Before I could fully grasp what
I was seeing, the smoke reappeared.
Only now it moved differently. It seemed thicker, darker,
hanging low in the underbrush, sliding smoothly between
branches and trunks. Ahead, through the gloom, I
noticed a faintly glowing outline in the smoke.
My throat tightened as the shape slowly became clearer.
A tall, thin figure crouched in the shadows.
I stopped cold. My flashlight beam fixed
directly on it, but it remained vague, insubstantial, almost
fading into the darkness. A trick of the light Fatigue.
I took a step back slowly, watching the shadowed form
closely. It shifted subtly, matching me
step for step in perfect synchronization.
When I stopped again, it froze, mirroring me.
Cold realization shot through my veins.
This thing was copying my movements, but how could smoke
mimic a living person? I forced myself to move again, a
quick step to the side. It moved with me, exactly,
fluidly, without hesitation. My skin crawled with the
undeniable sensation that I was being mocked.
Get away, I shouted into the darkness, my voice shaking more
than I wanted to admit. Leave me alone.
The radio hissed sharply from my belt and I instinctively grabbed
it, holding it up as if to ward off whatever lurked ahead.
From the static came a distorted echo of my voice, mocking me in
an uneven, rasping whisper. Leave me alone.
I spun around, flashlight frantically searching the
shadows, adrenaline driving me into a near Sprint uphill, but
now my feet tangled in the dark undergrowth.
Each step felt heavier, slower. My boots sank into patches of
ash covered ground and the familiar smell of burnt soil and
brush suddenly filled my nostrils, stronger than before.
As I pushed upward, my foot snagged something hidden in the
darkness, sending me sprawling. The flashlight bounced away,
rolling down a small incline. In the dim spill of its distant
beam, I saw clearly what had caught my boot footprints.
My footprints stamped clearly into the soft earth facing
downhill. But there was another set,
identical yet reversed, overlapping my own steps as if
I'd already gone both directions on this very path.
Fear pulsed through my chest as I scrambled to my feet and
grabbed the flashlight, clawing at the loose rocks and dirt,
desperate to climb out of this nightmare.
My lungs burned from exertion and panic.
Then, somewhere behind me in the darkness, I heard my own voice
again, clear and cold, whispering my call sign with
slow, broken laughter. Unit 49.
My legs nearly buckled. I knew with absolute certainty
that if I turned around, I'd see it clearly.
That figure, that impossible mocking form borne from smoke
and shadow. I didn't look.
Instead, I ran faster, pushing my body beyond exhaustion,
following instinct rather than logic.
Through blurry vision, I caught a distant flicker of fire light
above camp. It had to be camp.
A surge of relief gave me strength as I staggered forward
closer now, believing I'd finally escaped.
But just as I reached the edge of that comforting glow,
something seized my pack, violently jerking me backward.
I crashed hard onto the rocky ground, gasping, choking on dust
and ash. Looking up through stinging
eyes, I saw it clearly above me, smoke curling downward into a
funnel like shape, descending toward my face with silent,
ruthless precision. In wildfire training, we learned
never to panic. Panic clouds judgement, slows
reaction times and kills faster than flames.
I'd repeated those lessons 1000 times, but in the grip of
something so inexplicable that logic slipped away like sand
through my fingers. Alone on my back in the dirt,
staring up at a funnel of dark smoke inching toward me, every
rational thought vanished. Adrenaline surged through me,
raw instinct driving my limbs. I twisted violently, kicking out
and scrambling backward, fingers clawing the rocky slope.
Loose gravel shifted beneath my boots, and I managed to tear
free from the grasp of whatever held me.
Staggering upright, I lunged uphill again, breath coming in
ragged gasps. The darkness closed around me,
oppressive and heavy. Behind.
An unnatural rhythm echoed the unmistakable sound of boots, my
boots, matching my pace step for step.
A fraction delayed, mimicking my own movements.
I didn't dare turn around. If I saw that shadow again, I
wasn't sure I'd have the strength to keep running.
Sweat poured down my face, mixing with dirt and soot,
stinging my eyes. My lungs burned fiercely, each
breath feeling sharp and brittle.
My pace slowed involuntarily, muscles betraying me from
exhaustion. In that desperate moment, as
despair began creeping into my heart, a thin beam of light
pierced the trees ahead. Hey.
I shouted, voice raw and desperate.
Over here. Please help.
The light shifted, cutting toward me through branches and
brush. My knees buckled with relief as
a familiar figure emerge from the darkness, Ben hosting,
flashlight in hand, expression grave.
Stay there. He called firmly, raising one
hand. Don't move another step.
I froze, obedient and desperate as Ben quickly closed the gap
between us. He glanced sharply behind me,
eyes narrowing as he scanned the slope.
I turned, expecting to see that funnel of smoke or worse, but
now there was nothing, only empty darkness and still air.
You OK? He asked, grabbing my shoulder
firmly. I something.
I gasped, unable to articulate the terror that still clawed at
my throat. There's something following me.
Ben didn't respond immediately, instead pulling me gently
upward, toward the faint glow of the camp's perimeter.
We climbed steadily, silently, his flashlight beam scanning the
trees around us, searching as we moved.
Ben murmured words I couldn't understand.
Low and rhythmic, likely Navajo. Something passed down by elders,
something private and protective.
I didn't ask what they meant right then.
I just needed their calm, steady sound to anchor me to reality.
Minutes later, we emerged from the tree line.
The sight of the trailers and distant glow of campfires filled
me with a sense of overwhelming relief, breaking the final
threads of tension that had kept my body upright.
My legs gave way and I sank to the ground near the closest
fire, breath ragged and uneven. Crew members came over quickly,
eyes filled with concern. Someone handed me water.
Someone else wrapped a blanket around my trembling shoulders.
I swallowed greedily, ignoring their murmured questions,
focusing solely on steadying my shaking hands.
After a long moment, Ben knelt beside me, his voice low and
calm. Can you tell me exactly what you
saw? I don't know.
I managed, forcing the words past my dry throat.
It followed me, it copied me, my voice, my movements.
It wasn't human, it wasn't natural.
A quiet tension settled over the crew, eyes shifting nervously
toward the shadows beyond the campfire.
Ben stood slowly, nodding once, understanding without needing to
press further. That's why we don't burn here
after sundown. An older Navajo firefighter
stepped forward quietly, offering a grave nod of
agreement. Smoke doesn't always rise when
it's done. Their words settled over me
heavily, confirming the impossible reality of what I'd
experienced. There were no questions, no
skepticism. They understood completely, and
somehow that frightened me even more deeply.
The following morning, I left the camp quietly, avoiding eye
contact. I couldn't bring myself to face
those knowing glances or silent nods again.
When the assignment ended, I turned down every subsequent
offer to work in tribal lands. Years passed, yet that single
night stayed etched deeply into my memory.
Always there, lingering just beneath the surface.
To this day, in the silence between sleep and waking, I hear
it. My own voice, warped and
distorted, calling back from the darkness of Coyote Wash Unit 49.
Anybody Copy? I spent 30 years reading the
stories people left behind in the dirt, and the job had left
its own story on me. Most of that time was with
Border Patrol's Bortac, working the harsh corridors of the
southwest, where the tails were always grim.
I learned to read the Earth like a book.
But the ghosts of those stories, traffickers, cartels, the
desperate and the dead, hollowed me out.
When I retired, I bought this small camper, took my aging
Belgian Malinois mix boom, and went looking for silence.
The small jobs I took? Finding lost hikers or stray
livestock. We're supposed to be simple,
honest work without new ghosts. The morning air in the Cibola
National Forest was crisp, smelling of pinon and cold
stone, the kind of quiet I'd been searching for.
I was sipping coffee from a tin mug while Boone lay in a patch
of sun. That's when I heard the engine,
a heavy duty truck pulling off the fire Rd.
The man who got out looked like he'd been carved from the land
itself, skin like cured leather, a body wound tight with a
tension that seemed to vibrate in the still air.
He introduced himself as Silas. Webb said he had a ranch
bordering the Zuni Mountains, land his family had worked for
100 years. He was losing cattle, not a
whole herd, he said, his eyes scanning my setup one at a time,
8 head in two months. I asked the usual questions.
Fences check daily. Rustlers, they take a truckload
and leave tracks. Predators.
A cougar kill is a mess, Webb said, shaking his head.
Drag marks, blood everywhere. Coyotes leave even more of a
scene. These, they just vanish.
No sign of a struggle, no blood. They're there at sunset, gone by
morning. He was offering good money, but
it was the puzzle that gnawed at me.
In my experience, there was always a trace.
I told him I'd take the job. The Web Ranch was a sprawling
expanse of juniper scrub that ended abruptly at the dark,
imposing maces of the Zuni Range.
The place was unnervingly quiet. I noticed the absence of ranch
dogs right away. When I asked, Webb's face
tightened. Had a couple.
They got spooked a few weeks back.
Just ran off. I started my work where the last
heifer was seen. For hours, Boone and I walked a
slow grid, finding nothing but the mundane tracks of the
remaining herd. Then Boone stopped.
He didn't bark. He let out a low, guttural whine
from deep in his chest, a sound I hadn't heard in years.
His ears were pinned flat, his tail tucked tight.
I trusted that sound more than my own eyes.
I knelt beside him, my hand on his trembling back.
My gaze followed his. On a flat piece of sandstone was
a single dark stain, the color of old rust.
A few feet from it, snagged on a choya, was a tuft of Hereford
fur. It wasn't much, but it was a
start. The faint trail LED away from
the open pasture, pointing directly toward the mouth of a
Canyon that cut into the mountains like a black wound.
The farther we went, the heavier the air became.
The normal sounds of the wild faded into a deep, oppressive
stillness. Boone's anxiety grew, and he
pressed hard against my leg, a constant, trembling weight.
We found the rib cage in a small clearing.
It was shockingly, unnaturally clean, like an anatomical
specimen someone had boiled and placed carefully in the center
of the clearing. I circled it, and in a patch of
damp sand I found the tracks. The story was there.
I saw the distinct cloven hoof prints of the heifer, and my
blood went cold. Alongside them was another set.
They started as large canine tracks, but as I followed them
the pattern changed. The stride lengthened, the print
elongated, the claw marks receded.
Within 10 yards, the tracks were unmistakably the Prince of a
large, barefoot human. I stood up slowly, a profound
dread washing over me. My instincts, honed by decades
of tracking dangerous men, screamed that this was wrong.
But this puzzle was unlike any I had ever faced.
I had spent my life tracking things that made sense.
This didn't. The light was starting to fail.
Going back was the safe play, but my professional pride, the
part of me that was the legendary Bortac tracker,
wouldn't let it go. I made the call to camp here to
see what the morning light would reveal.
I was a man who tracked monsters of the human variety.
I had forgotten there might be other kinds.
It was a mistake I would regret before the sun even set.
I backed the truck up to the edge of the clearing,
positioning the camper so the door faced the Canyon.
A small, smokeless fire of dry juniper was more for the
illusion of safety than for warmth.
The sun dipped below the mesas, and the shadows bled together
into a solid, impenetrable blackness.
Boone wouldn't eat. He wouldn't even take water from
my hand. He crawled into his travel crate
in the back of the camper, and I could hear the faint, steady
vibration of his shivering. Night fell, and with it came a
silence so total it felt like a wait.
No crickets, no rustle of night creatures, not even the whisper
of wind. It was the dead, sterile silence
of a soundproof room. I sat in my camp chair for
hours, the cold weight of a shotgun loaded with buckshot
resting across my lap, my eyes trying to Pierce the darkness.
I saw nothing, heard nothing. Around midnight, the chill
finally drove me inside. I locked the camper door, a
flimsy barrier against the immense emptiness outside.
Lying on my bunk, the shotgun on my chest, I stared at the
ceiling, every nerve fiber stretched taut.
Sleep was an impossibility. The silence was a pressure
against the thin aluminum walls of the camper.
Then I heard it. It wasn't the frantic scratching
of a bear. It was a slow, methodical
scrape, a single hard point like a sharpened piece of Flint being
dragged with immense pressure along the side of the camper.
The sound started at the rear and moved with excruciating
slowness toward the front, a high pitched metallic shriek
that vibrated through the floor and up my spine.
Boone had gone completely quiet in his crate.
The silence from him was more terrifying than any sound he
could have made. The scraping noise continued,
steady and unwavering, until it stopped directly beside the
door. I held my breath, my muscles
locked, my finger on the shotgun safety.
I waited for the handle to jiggle, for the lock to break.
Nothing happened, just the return of that crushing,
absolute silence. I didn't move for the rest of
the night. I sat on the edge of the bunk,
the shotgun aimed at the door, and waited for the dawn.
As soon as the first week Gray light filtered through the
window, I unlatched the door and stepped outside.
Boone wouldn't follow. He stayed huddled in the back of
the cab, a low whine coming from his throat.
The first thing I saw was the mark on the camper.
A single deep gouge was carved into the aluminum, running the
entire length of the vehicle. It was perfectly straight, as if
drawn with a ruler. It was a statement.
Then I turned my attention to the clearing.
In the exact spot where my camp chair had been, there was
something new. A collection of bones had been
arranged on the ground. They weren't from the cow.
They were from smaller animals, coyotes, rabbits, maybe a deer,
and every single bone had been snapped cleanly in half.
They were laid out in a tight, intricate spiral on the dusty
earth. It wasn't a kill site.
It was a sculpture. It was a message delivered with
cold, calculating intelligence. I was here, I watched you.
This is what I can do. A wave of nausea hit me.
All thoughts of the job, of the money, of solving the puzzle,
evaporated. They were replaced by a single
primal command that echoed in my own head.
Leave. I moved with a frantic energy I
hadn't felt in years. I kicked dirt over the bone
spiral, not to hide it, but just so I wouldn't have to look at it
anymore. My hands shook so badly that it
took me 3 attempts to properly hitch the camper to the truck.
Boone, seeing his chance, leaped from the camper into the truck's
cab before I even had the passenger door fully open.
He scrambled onto the seat and pressed himself into the far
corner, his wide, terrified eyes fixed on the mouth of the
Canyon. I threw myself into the driver's
seat and turned the key. The engine roared to life,
shattering the stillness. I didn't bother with the rough
track. I slammed the truck into gear
and crashed straight through the scrub brush, the camper lurching
and groaning behind me. I didn't look in my rearview
mirror. I didn't need to.
I could feel the unseen attention on my back every
single inch of the way. The truck engine stayed running
as I pulled to a stop in front of the ranch house, a cloud of
dust chasing me in. I left the driver's side door
open. Silas Webb came out onto the
porch, a flicker of something like hope in his eyes that died
the second he saw my face. I walked up the steps, my boots
heavy on the wood, and pulled the wad of cash his deposit,
from my pocket. I placed it on the porch railing
between us. Job's off.
I said. My voice was flat, devoid of any
emotion I could control. What did you find?
Webb asked, his own voice tight. Did you find what took them?
My eyes moved past him to the heavy wooden door of his house,
and then I saw it. Carved into the dark wood of the
lentil above the door frame was a small faded symbol.
It was an intricate spiral, identical to the one made from
broken bones in the clearing. In that instant, every piece
clicked into place. The spooked dogs, the vanishing
cattle, the deep, abiding fear in this man's eyes.
He hadn't been hiring an investigator.
I found what you wanted me to find, I said, my voice dropping.
A rib cage picked clean, tracks that start with four legs and
end with two. I found the thing you've been
leaving offerings for. The rancher facade on Webb's
face collapsed, all the tension drained out of him, replaced by
a look of pure soul deep exhaustion.
He looked past me, toward the dark line of the Zuni Mountains.
It's been here forever, he said, his voice a ragged whisper.
My great grandfather. He made a deal, an arrangement.
We leave it be out on the mesas, and we pay a tithe so it leaves
the family alone. He swallowed hard.
But the last few years, the tithe wasn't enough.
It wanted more. I stared at him, the full,
sickening truth settling in my gut like a block of ice.
He hadn't been looking for a solution.
He had been looking for a sacrifice.
He was hoping to put a new piece on the board, to give the
creature a new toy to occupy its attention.
You didn't lose those cows, I said, the words falling like
stones in the quiet air. You fed them to something that's
been watching you for 100 years, and you were hoping it would
take me next. He didn't have the strength to
deny it. He just lowered his head, a man
utterly broken by his inheritance.
I turned without another word, walked back down the steps and
got into my truck. I left the money sitting on the
railing. I put the truck in gear and
drove away from the ranch, away from the man in his terrible
bargain. The feeling of unseen attention
was a physical weight on my shoulders, a pressure at the
back of my neck that didn't release until the truck's tires
hit the paved surface of Hwy. 53.
I pointed the hood east and pressed the accelerator to the
floor. I didn't stop until I saw the
lights of Albuquerque spreading out in the valley below.
The endless anonymous glow of the city felt like a shield.
The next morning, I found the biggest RV dealership in the
city. A salesman in a cheap suit
walked out to meet me as I pulled the camper into the lot.
I want to sell the camper, I said before he could start his
pitch. Well, we mostly do consignment.
Take a small percentage. I'll take whatever you'll give
me for it. I cut him off today in cash.
An hour later, I drove out of the lot with a check in my
pocket and an empty trailer hitch on the truck.
I could still feel the phantom vibration of that slow,
methodical scrape. I knew I would never sleep
inside a thin metal box again. That night, I checked into a
sterile motel room on the outskirts of the city.
I double locked the door, wedged a chair under the knob, and sat
on the edge of the bed. Across the room, curled on the
thin carpet, Boone was finally asleep, his breathing deep and
even. The evil was still out there in
the mountains. Webb was still trapped in his
horrifying pact. But we were out.
We were free. And in that moment that was the
only victory that mattered. The land West of Albuquerque, NM
is a stark tapestry of sandstone mesas, ancient lava flows and
sun bleached plains. It is a place where history is
not measured in centuries, but in millennia.
The Pueblo of Laguna and the Pueblo of a Coma are two of the
oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America.
They're people, having carved a life from this demanding
environment for countless generations.
Their cultural and spiritual identity is inextricably linked
to the land itself. Specific mesas, springs, and
rock formations are not just features of a landscape, but
living, sacred parts of their cosmology.
To an outsider, much of this land falls under the purview of
the Bureau of Land Management, BLM.
Designated for public use like grazing, mining, and recreation.
The boundaries are often marked by little more than a weathered
fence post or a faded sign for weekend adventurers from the
city. These are abstract lines on a
map for the people who have always been there.
They are the border between the mundane world and a place of
immense power, a place where the oldest laws still hold sway.
I had the spot picked out for weeks, a perfect sandstone rise,
coordinates cross referenced between three different
topographical maps and satellite imagery.
It offered a clean, unobstructed view of the western sky, far
from the light pollution of Albuquerque.
Yet it was less than a 90 minute drive.
It was by every metric, I valued the ideal location.
The four of us, me, my girlfriend Chloe, our friend Ben
and his colleague Maya, cruised West on I-40, the familiar
silhouette of the Sandia Mountains shrinking in the
rearview mirror of my truck. Ben was telling some loud
rambling story about his CrossFit gym, and Chloe was
laughing. Maya, a grad student in
anthropology, was quiet in the back, watching the landscape
slide by. She had a way of looking at
things, at the mesas and the arroyo's, as if she were reading
a text. I couldn't see exits coming up.
I announced, breaking into Ben's story.
Not the main one for Laguna, the one after.
A few miles past the casino in the old mission church, I took
an exit that led to nothing but a frontage Rd.
A minute later I turned the truck onto a dirt track that was
barely more than two tire ruts in the pale earth.
The suspension groaned as we bounced over rocks and washouts.
20 minutes of this and we came upon it.
A single rust browned metal T post driven into the ground.
Bolted to it was a faded sign pocked with what looked like
holes from a shotgun blast. The words were barely legible.
Private Pueblo land, no trespassing.
I stopped the truck. This is it?
Ben asked from the back. This is the old boundary.
I said, tapping a finger on the laminated BLM map I had on the
passenger seat. The land swap agreement was 10,
maybe 12 years ago. This sign is obsolete.
According to the federal government.
The official reservation line is another 2 miles east.
We're on public land here. Perfectly legal.
Maya leaned forward, her gaze fixed on the sign.
Are you sure, Liam? Sometimes those things are
complicated. It's not complicated.
I said, maybe a little too sharply.
It's a line on a map, a legal survey.
We're fine. Ben clapped his hands together.
Good enough for the government, good enough for me.
Let's find this five star resort of yours, Liam.
I put the truck in gear and drove past the post.
In the side mirror I saw Maya look back at the sign until we
rounded a bend and it was gone. The spot was even better than
the map suggested, a wide, flat topped sandstone formation that
rose about 100 feet from the surrounding scrubland.
It gave us a commanding 360° view.
To the east, the sky was already starting to show the faint Dome
of city glow, to the West, nothing but the vast dark
expanse of the El Malpai lava fields.
Across a wide, shallow Canyon from our position was another
Mesa, slightly higher than ours, its edge a sharp, dark line
against the sky. We were completely, utterly
alone. I felt a surge of satisfaction.
This was preparedness. This was freedom.
We set up camp quickly. The tents went up, the fire pit
was established, and soon the smell of grilling sausages cut
through the clean, dry air. The initial mood was
celebratory. Ben cracked open beers, Chloe
put on some music from a small speaker, and we watched the high
desert sunset paint the clouds in violent strokes of orange and
purple. You know, Chloe said, leaning
against me. Sometimes I forget how quiet it
can get. There's nothing, not even
crickets. She was right.
The silence was profound, a solid thing that pressed in from
all sides. As the last sliver of sun
vanished below the horizon, the sky transformed.
The thin air at this altitude made the stars look like holes
punched in black velvet. I was pointing out the Summer
Triangle to Chloe when Maya, who had been sitting on the edge of
the rise looking out over the Canyon, stiffened.
Liam, who is that? Her voice was quiet, but it cut
through the night. We all turned to look where she
was pointing. On the Crest of the opposite
Ridge, silhouetted perfectly against the deep indigo of the
twilight sky, were four figures. They were distinctly human in
shape, but that was the only discernible feature.
They were impossibly still, standing evenly spaced from one
another, facing our campsite. My mind immediately started
cycling through explanations. Other campers who got a late
start, locals out for an evening hike.
Probably just people from the Pueblo.
Ben said, though his voice had lost its boisterous edge.
He grabbed the high-powered binoculars from my truck's glove
box and raised them to his eyes. He was silent for a long moment.
What do you see? I asked.
I can't make out any features. He said, his voice low.
No clothes, no faces, they just look dark, like shadows.
An involuntary chill moved down my spine.
The distance was significant, maybe half a mile across the
Canyon, but even from here their stillness was unnatural.
People don't stand like that, not for so long.
Hello. Ben shouted, lowering the
binoculars. His voice carried across the
Canyon, the sound quickly swallowed by the immense space.
There was no reply, no wave, no movement at all.
We stood there, the four of us watching them.
The sausages on the grill started to burn.
Chloe turned off her music. The silence rushed back in,
heavier than before. My rational explanations felt
thin, inadequate. Why would anyone stand on a
remote Ridge in the dark, just watching?
Why? No fire, no flashlights, no
sound. For the next two hours, they
remained. We ate in near silence, our eyes
constantly drawn back to the four shapes on the Ridge.
As full night descended and the moon began to rise, they became
harder to distinguish from the gnarled juniper trees that
dotted the ridgeline. Yet we knew they were still
there. The feeling was inescapable.
We were being observed. Finally, the cold and a creeping
dread drove us from the fire. I'm turning in, Chloe said, her
voice small. One by one we retreated to our
tents, zipping the thin nylon walls shut against the vast,
silent dark. I lay there in my sleeping bag,
my heart beating a little too fast, staring at the fabric
ceiling. I told myself it was nothing.
I told myself that in the morning they would be gone and
we would laugh about how jumpy we'd been.
But as I listen to the profound, unnerving silence of the land, I
couldn't shake the image of those 4 motionless figures
watching us from across the dark.
I woke with a jolt, the pale Gray light of dawn filtering
through the thin nylon of the tent.
My first conscious thought was of them.
I unzipped the tent flap with a single sharp pole and looked
out. The opposite Ridge was empty,
just rock and juniper, stark against the brightening sky.
The air was cold and still. A wave of something that felt
like relief but weaker and more fragile washed over me.
They're gone. I said to Chloe, who was just
stirring beside me. Soon we were all out of our
tents, coffee brewing on the camp stove, the morning ritual A
flimsy shield against the memory of the night.
See. Probably just some kids messing
with us. Ben said, stretching his arms
over his head. His voice was a little too loud,
his cheerfulness a little too forced.
They got bored and went home. I agreed with him, seizing on
the logic of it. Exactly.
We'll probably see their tire tracks on the way out.
Only Maya was quiet. She stood at the edge of the
rise, sipping her coffee and staring at the empty Ridge as if
she could still see them there. We tried to salvage the day with
our planned hike, but the mood was broken.
The vast, silent landscape no longer felt like a majestic
wilderness. It felt like an empty room where
you knew someone was hiding. Every dark recess in the rocks,
every oddly shaped tree drew our eyes.
The silence itself felt different.
It was no longer peaceful. It was expectant.
We cut the hike short after an hour and returned to the
relative safety of the campsite, the unspoken feeling of being
watched following us the entire way.
As the sun began its descent that afternoon, the anxiety
returned, thick and suffocating. No one suggested music this
time. We built the fire higher, it's
crackle the only sound to push back against the immense quiet.
We all kept scanning the opposite Ridge, a shared
compulsive habit. It remained empty for a few
hours. As the light faded and the first
stars appeared, I allowed myself to hope it was over.
Chloe had gone to the truck to get another jacket.
She was halfway back to the fire when she stopped dead.
A small, sharp gasp escaped her lips.
She pointed her hand trembling. Liam.
My head snapped in the direction of her gaze.
My blood went cold. It was at the base of our own
sandstone rise, just at the edge of the fire's flickering light.
One of the figures. It stood in the same unnaturally
rigid posture, a solid black shape against the scrub brush no
more than 100 yards away. It hadn't been there seconds
before. There had been no sound of its
approach, no crunch of gravel or snap of a twig.
It was simply there. Panic, raw and electric, shot
through our group. I started to yell something, a
warning, a challenge, but the words caught in my throat.
Ben reacted with rage. I'm done with this, he snarled,
his fear coiling into aggression.
He grabbed the heavy 4 cell Maglite from the truck.
Ben, no. Maya cried out.
Don't. I yelled, finding my voice.
He ignored us. He strode toward the figure, the
flashlight beam cutting a stark white path through the darkness.
He walked with a purpose that was terrifying to watch.
The figure remained motionless as Ben closed the distance.
Something strange happened when he was about 20 feet away.
The figure seemed to thin. It didn't run or fade, it was
more like the darkness it was made of became indistinguishable
from the deeper shadows of the juniper Bush behind it.
And then it was gone. Ben swept the powerful beam back
and forth across the empty space.
Nothing. He called back, his voice shaky
but loud. It's gone, Nothing there.
He walked back to the fire, his face pale in the flickering
light. He was trying to project
bravado, but his hands were shaking.
I'm going to my tent for a minute.
He disappeared inside. A moment later we heard a
choked, guttural cry. We all rushed to his tent and
threw back the flap. Ben was sitting on his sleeping
bag, his shirt pulled off. He was staring at his own
reflection in a small hand mirror.
Across his back were 3 deep parallel gouges, raw and red
against his skin. They were perfectly straight, as
if drawn with a ruler, yet they looked like claw marks.
They were beginning to bleed, the dark fluid welling up along
the lines. Nothing.
He whispered, his voice trembling uncontrollably as he
looked up at us, his eyes wide with a horror that was beyond
fear. Nothing even touched me.
That broke me. My carefully constructed wall of
logic, of rational explanations crumbled into dust.
This was not a prank. This was not a misunderstanding.
This was real. Pack now.
I ordered, my voice tight and unfamiliar.
We're leaving. Absolute animal terror gave us a
frantic energy. We threw our gear into the bed
of the truck with a clumsy, desperate haste.
Tents were collapsed without being folded.
Sleeping bags were tossed in. The cooler of food was abandoned
next to the fire. All that mattered was getting
into the steel cage of the truck and driving away.
I jumped into the driver's seat, Chloe beside me with Maya and a
pale, shivering Ben in the back. I jammed the key into the
ignition and turned it. The engine turned over with a
healthy, strong crank. It did not catch.
I tried again. The headlights blazed, the
dashboard lit up. The radio would have played if
I'd turned it on. Every electronic component was
perfect, but the engine would not fire.
It was a simple, mechanical and complete refusal.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel, my knuckles
white. I tried again and again, my
initial panic giving way to a rising tide of helpless fury.
A small, horrified sound came from Maya in the back seat.
Liam, stop. Her voice was so strange that I
actually did. I turned to look at her.
She was staring out the back window at the ground illuminated
by the trucks reverse lights. She slowly opened her door and
got out. I followed, my heart pounding
against my ribs by the stark white light of the headlamps.
She pointed to the ground, scratched into the hard packed
dirt enclosing the truck, the fire and the flattened space.
Where our tents had been was a circle.
It was near perfect, and within its boundary, etched into the
earth with a precision that was impossible, were strange,
intricate symbols, a mix of sharp geometric lines and what
looked like the stylized forms of animals.
They hadn't been there that morning.
They surrounded us completely. We were trapped.
There was no talk of trying to cross the circle.
The symbols etched into the dirt were a barrier more absolute
than a concrete wall. We rebuilt the fire, it's light
pushing back the darkness but offering no comfort.
We huddled together, four people on a tiny island in an ocean of
hostile silence. I don't think any of us slept.
Every half hour, like a grim ritual, I would get back in the
truck and turn the key. The result was always the same,
the healthy, strong crank of a perfectly functional engine that
simply refused to catch. After each failure, I would
return to the fire. The metallic taste of dread
thicken my mouth. We didn't see the figures again,
but the feeling of being scrutinized was a physical
weight. The air itself felt heavy, dense
with a pressure that made it hard to breathe.
We just sat there, listening to the fire crackle, waiting for
the sun. The moment the eastern sky began
to bleed from black to Gray, a decision was made.
Without a single word being spoken, we were walking.
I looked at my truck, my meticulously maintained Ford.
I looked at the expensive tents, the Yeti cooler, the camping
chairs. Thousands of dollars of gear
that 12 hours ago had been my pride.
Now it was just trash. We abandoned it all.
I grabbed a backpack, stuffing it with 4 bottles of water and a
handful of protein bars. The others did the same.
We were leaving everything else behind.
I consulted my paper map, my hand shaking so badly it was
hard to focus. The Interstate was too far
north. Our only chance was New Mexico
State Road 124, about 7 miles South across a landscape with no
trails. Stepping out of the circle of
symbols felt like breaking the surface of water after being
held under for too long. We scrambled down the side of
the sandstone rise and began the trek across the Canyon floor.
The terrain was a brutal mix of loose rock, thorny scrub and
steep sided arroyo's that forced us into long detours.
The New Mexico sun climbed the sky and the heat became a
physical force. Ben, already weakened, stumbled
constantly. The scratches on his back were
an angry red and his face was a mask of vacant terror.
Chloe and I had to support him between us for much of the way.
Maya walked ahead, her face a grim, determined mask.
She never looked back. The silence of the land was
absolute. No birds, no insects, just the
crunch of our feet on the gravel and our own ragged breathing.
After five hours that felt like 5 years, I saw it.
A thin black line shimmering in the distance.
Asphalt. We stumbled the last half mile,
our legs cramping, our throats raw from thirst.
We collapsed onto the shoulder of State Road 124, a cracked and
empty 2 lane highway. We were lucky.
Less than 20 minutes later, a dusty Ford Ranger slowed and
pulled over. An old rancher with a face like
a dried riverbed looked down at us.
He didn't ask what happened. He just saw the state we were
in, told us to climb in the back, and drove us to the
sheriff's substation in Grants. The state police officer who
took my report was a young man with a professional detached
air. He listened to my story, his
expression unreadable. I left out the symbols, the
figure vanishing, the scratches. I just said our truck wouldn't
start and we had to walk out. He nodded, his skepticism clear.
I can give you a ride back to your vehicle, Sir.
He said, his tone suggesting he expected to find 4 hungover
campers who didn't know how to work a fuel pump.
The drive back was surreal. The officer made small talk
about the weather. I just nodded, my mind a blank
wall of exhaustion and fear. When we pulled up the dirt track
and the campsite came into view, a pit formed in my stomach.
It was just a campsite. The tents were half collapsed,
the cooler sat by the dead fire pit, and my truck was parked
exactly where I'd left it. The air was clear and light.
The oppressive, heavy atmosphere from the night before was
completely gone. I got out of the patrol car, my
legs unsteady. I looked at the ground around
the truck. The dirt was smooth.
The intricate circle, the bizarre symbols.
They had vanished. There was no trace they had ever
been there. Well, the officer said, arms
crossed. Gonna try it.
I walked to my truck on numb legs.
I slid into the driver's seat, the familiar smell of the cab
doing nothing to soothe me. I put the key in the ignition,
fully expecting the same dead result.
The engine roared to life on the very first turn.
It idled perfectly, the sound deafening in the afternoon
quiet. The officer gave me a look that
was a mixture of pity and annoyance.
Sometimes you just got to let him rest, he said, as if
offering a piece of mechanical wisdom.
He followed me back to the main road, then turned off, leaving
us alone. The drive back to Albuquerque
was conducted in a thick, suffocating silence.
The friendship, the easy camaraderie we'd shared just two
days before, was gone. It had been replaced by a shared
trauma that was too monstrous to put into words.
We never properly spoke of it again.
The group shattered. Ben quit his job.
The last I heard, he was living with his parents, diagnosed with
severe agoraphobia and refusing to go outside.
The scratches on his back healed into thin white scars he would
carry forever. Chloe and I broke up a month
later. We couldn't look at each other
without seeing the terror in the other's eyes.
Maya changed her major at UNM from anthropology to archival
studies, choosing the quiet, predictable safety of library
basements over field work. As for me, the engineer, the man
of logic and reason, my world was broken.
The simple mechanical fact of my truck refusing to start and then
starting again was an impossibility I could not
reconcile. The world no longer operated on
the principles I understood. New Mexico, the place I was
born, the landscapes I had loved, now felt alien and
threatening. Six months after that weekend, I
sold my truck, put in for a transfer and took a job with an
engineering firm in Munich. I left the vast open spaces for
the old human built certainty of Europe.
I have not been back since. Sometimes, late at night, I pull
up a satellite view of that part of the world.
I look at the patch of pale sandstone, a meaningless speck
in a sea of brown and green. The wind and the rain have
smoothed over our tire tracks. The land remains quiet and
undisturbed. Under the vast, empty sky.
It holds its silence. The trespassers are gone.
The land endures.