Morning in Blackpine Ridge arrived gray and damp.
Allison woke to the sound of rain ticking against the motel window and the distant grind of a logging truck on the main road.
She showered in water that never quite got hot, dressed in layers, and walked to the gas station for coffee and a packaged pastry that tasted of cardboard and sugar.
The sheriff’s office opened at eight.
She was there at eight-oh-five.
The deputy behind the desk was young, maybe twenty-five, with a nameplate that read J.
Harlan.
He looked at her press credentials with the expression of someone who had been told to be polite to outsiders and was trying very hard.
“Sheriff’s not in yet,” he said.
“You can wait if you want.”
Allison waited.
She used the time to study the corkboard on the wall.
Missing-person flyers for the four hikers were pinned there, already curling at the edges.
Two men, two women.
Smiling faces from happier days.
Beneath them was a topographic map of the surrounding forest with red pins marking the last known locations.
The pins formed a rough arc that curved toward the deepest part of the ridge.
Sheriff Cole arrived at eight-forty, a heavy-set man in his fifties with a mustache that had gone mostly gray and eyes that had seen too many winters.
He took one look at Allison and sighed.
“You’re the reporter.”
“Allison Reyes.
I’d like to see the full case files on the disappearances.”
“They’re open investigations.
I can’t just hand them over.”
“I filed a formal request three days ago.
Freedom of information still applies in this county.”
Cole studied her for a long moment, then jerked his head toward a side office.
“Come on.”
The files were thin.
Incident reports, witness statements that amounted to “last seen heading up the trail,” photographs of torn clothing and clawed bark.
No autopsy reports because there were no bodies.
No DNA results that pointed to anything useful.
The official conclusion on each was the same: presumed animal attack or accidental death, investigation ongoing.
Allison flipped through the photos of the claw marks.
The gouges were deep, parallel, and higher than any black bear she had ever read about could reach.
In one image, the bark had been stripped in a pattern that looked almost deliberate.
“These don’t look like bear to me,” she said.
Cole’s expression didn’t change.
“You’re not a wildlife biologist.”
“Neither are you, from the look of these reports.”
He closed the folder.
“Miss Reyes, people get lost in these woods every year.
Most of them turn up.
Some don’t.
That’s the reality of living next to a million acres of national forest.
I suggest you write your story about the tragedy of it and go home before the weather turns.”
“The weather’s already turned.
And four people don’t just vanish without a trace in six weeks.”
Cole stood.
The conversation was over.
Allison left with copies of the public portions of the files and the clear sense that the sheriff knew more than he was saying.
She spent the rest of the morning walking the main street, talking to anyone who would talk.
The woman at the hardware store claimed the disappearances were a shame but that the woods had always been dangerous.
The owner of the closed diner said she had felt “something off” for weeks but couldn’t explain what.
An old man smoking on a bench outside the post office told her the ridge had been “wrong” since before his grandfather’s time, then refused to say more when she pressed.
By early afternoon the rain had eased to a fine mist.
Allison drove out to the first trailhead marked on the map, the one where the most recent hiker had last been seen.
The parking lot was empty except for a battered green pickup.
She recognized the man leaning against the tailgate immediately.
Derek Hale straightened as she got out of the car.
“You’re persistent,” he said.
“It’s a professional requirement.” She locked the car and walked toward the trailhead kiosk.
The map under the plexiglass was faded, but the red X someone had marked with a marker was still visible: the last known location of the fourth missing person.
Derek fell into step beside her without being asked.
He moved quietly for a man his size.
The mist beaded on the leather of his jacket.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he said.
“I’m not alone.
You’re here.”
A corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“That’s not safer.”
They walked in silence for several minutes.
The trail climbed steadily, the trees closing in until the sky was only a narrow strip of gray overhead.
The air smelled of wet earth and pine resin.
Allison’s boots sank slightly into the soft ground with every step.
“You own the auto shop,” she said eventually.
“I do.”
“And you live out here somewhere.”
“I do.”
“And you know what’s happening to these people.”
Derek stopped walking.
Allison took two more steps before she realized he was no longer beside her.
She turned.
He stood in the middle of the trail, rain darkening his hair, eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made the back of her neck prickle.
“I know enough to tell you to leave,” he said.
“That’s all you need.”
“Not good enough.”
He closed the distance between them in three long strides.
Suddenly he was close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his body, could smell the clean scent of soap and something wild underneath it.
His voice dropped.
“There are things in these woods that don’t care about press credentials or good intentions.
They care about heat and blood and the sound a person makes when they realize they’re not at the top of the food chain anymore.
You keep walking these trails alone, and you will become one of the missing.
Do you understand me?”
Allison held his gaze.
Her pulse was too fast, but she refused to step back.
“Then stop warning me and start explaining.”
For a moment, something flickered in his eyes, gold again, brief and bright.
Then he stepped away, the space between them flooding with cold air.
“Go back to town, Allison.” He used her name like a warning.
“While you still can.”
He turned and walked back down the trail the way they had come, leaving her alone under the dripping trees.
Allison stood there until the sound of his boots faded, then continued upward alone.
She found the site an hour later.
Yellow crime-scene tape still fluttered from the trunks of two pines.
The ground was churned.
Deep gouges scored the bark of a nearby oak at a height that made her stomach tighten.
She photographed everything, measured the distance between claw marks with a small tape from her pack, and collected a few soil samples in plastic bags even though she had no lab to send them to.
On the way back down, she felt watched the entire time.
That night she sat on the edge of the motel bed with her laptop open and the photographs spread across the mattress.
The claw marks did not match any animal in the field guides she had downloaded.
The spacing was wrong.
The depth was wrong.
The height was impossible.
She was still staring at them when a soft knock sounded at her door.
Allison froze.
The motel was quiet.
No one had any reason to visit her.
She moved to the door and looked through the peephole.
The walkway outside was empty.
She waited thirty seconds, then opened the door a crack, chain still engaged.
A single folded piece of paper lay on the concrete.
She picked it up, closed and locked the door, and unfolded it under the lamp.
The handwriting was sharp, angular.
Stop asking questions.
The woods are listening.
No signature.
Allison stared at the note for a long time.
Then she folded it carefully, placed it in her notebook, and went to the window.
The trees behind the motel were a solid wall of black.
Somewhere out there, something moved through the undergrowth with deliberate care.
She did not turn off the light until dawn.