Bard and Calypso arrived in Red River.
Calypso used her smartphone’s GPS to track down the road the facility was supposedly on.
They turned and slowly made their way up a hill through dense pine forest.
It started to rain.
Bard noticed movement in the trees and turned his head.
A bat landed directly against his windshield.
The wind had begun to pin it against the glass, so Bard slowed down.
It was staring straight at him.
An unmistakable white tuft of hair covered the top of its head.
“Well, hello again,” Bard said. “Did you actually need something?”
For several seconds, the bat simply stared at him.
Then it pushed away from the windshield and disappeared into the night.
“Until next time, I guess.”
They finally reached the crest of the hill.
Before Bard’s eyes was something he really didn’t want to see.
That fucking weird-ass garage was sitting right there in a pristine meadow.
A small stream trailed along the edge near the forest.
The garage door was wide open.
The lights were on.
Bard immediately began a U-turn.
He pulled up perpendicular and opposite Calypso.
“Let’s go park a little ways down. We’re gonna have to hike back in. Don’t wanna get caught here with our cars.”
Calypso pointed toward a small trail she had noticed along the edge of the property. The dirt road they were currently on connected to it.
“Maybe we can park back in there.”
Bard looked around.
It didn’t seem like the greatest option. If they needed to leave quickly, they would be farther in, with this thing behind them.
But as it were, anything coming through here would most likely either be going in or going out.
Or so he hoped.
“Okay. I guess so.”
They drove around to the edge of the property and found that the road wound downward into a small camping area.
They parked their cars on opposite sides of a little fire pit between two ancient cabins of almost comically tiny size.
Both of them got out.
Bard peered at the cabins for a moment.
He walked over to one and looked through the window.
Pitch black.
“Turn your truck lights on again for a second.”
Calypso did.
From where the Bronco was parked, Bard figured the headlights should illuminate at least some of the interior.
They did.
Kind of.
The inside remained strangely dark.
Then Bard realized why.
The entire cabin was full of spiderwebs.
Layers of them.
Enough to make the darkness itself look opaque.
A grin crept across his face.
“Any other day, I’d be making a note to come in here and check all this shit out.”
He looked back toward Calypso.
“You can turn them off.”
The headlights died.
“But today we have other things to do.”
“Maybe next lifetime,” Calypso chuckled.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
They walked on foot back up the side of the hill until they found somewhere they could peek toward the garage without exposing themselves.
Calypso settled beside him.
“We’re gonna have to sit here the whole night?”
Bard looked at her.
“We just finished sitting somewhere else doing exactly this.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bard said. “Is it starting to get boring? I know it’s not the most exciting part of the adventure, but it’s something we gotta do.”
“I know. And I really do want to help. I’m just getting really exhausted and kind of cranky after all this shit.”
“Keep at it. Eventually you won’t be fazed anymore.”
Calypso stared at him.
“I feel like I have been, and then something keeps hitting the reset button on my tolerance.”
Bard pointed back toward the campground.
“Well, there are a couple really cute cabins. If you need somewhere to go take a break.”
“No, no. I’ll stay here. This is perfectly comfortable.”
She adjusted herself on a tree stump.
Bard quietly grinned and returned to watching the garage.
He scanned as much of the meadow as he could.
The light spilling from the open garage was actually useful. It illuminated a large portion of the wet grass surrounding the structure.
Of course, it made looking into the woods practically impossible.
Broken clouds drifted across the sky. Between them, stars appeared and disappeared while the light rain continued to fall.
The moon emerged through one of the larger openings.
It had passed first quarter only a few hours earlier, hanging just over half illuminated above the dark pines.
Calypso looked up.
“The Moon’s still in Scorpio. Sun’s in Leo.”
Bard glanced at her.
“Still?”
She checked her phone.
“For like another half hour. Then Sagittarius.”
“Okay.”
She shrugged.
“Just saying.”
They went back to watching the garage.
Time passed.
The moon eventually disappeared below the horizon.
A little starlight remained between the broken clouds.
Light rain continued to fall.
Calypso went back to her truck and returned wearing a sweatshirt.
Bard finally lit a cigarette.
He winced as he searched through his pockets for the lighter, his injuries reminding him that he probably shouldn’t be sitting on the side of a mountain in the middle of the night.
Eventually, he found it.
A tiny flame illuminated his face.
Then the garage door started to close.
Bard immediately put the cigarette out.
“Dammit.”
“You mean yes, finally,” Calypso whispered as she returned.
The garage door reached the ground.
Darkness swallowed the meadow.
They waited.
And waited.
Bard checked the time.
Almost two in the morning.
Then the garage door moved again.
Both of them hunkered down.
The door slowly rose.
Intense blue light poured from beneath it, spreading across the wet meadow.
The rain glowed blue as it fell through the light.
The door continued upward.
Finally, Bard could see inside.
Sure enough.
There was the vintage police car that seemed to keep crossing paths with him.
“That’s them,” he whispered.
The vehicle slowly pulled out of the garage.
Bard and Calypso remained completely still.
The police car rolled across the meadow and proceeded down the hill.
Once it was out of sight, its siren suddenly came alive.
Red and blue light flickered between the distant trees.
Thankfully, the sound quickly moved away, out toward the road.
Farther.
Farther.
Until the roaring siren became something almost indistinguishable from the howl of a distant wolf.
Then it was gone.
The rain quietly halted.