Holden
Everything was going wrong. Or right, depending on how Holden looked at it.
Hours after Zaid’s return, Maidei and Frank came back with news that the other two rangers positioned in Deadswitch were missing, no sign they’d even reached the cabins that summer. Which was impossible. Both rangers had been checking in until the last scheduled date.
Frank raised the alarm to the local sheriff and was quadrupling the search and rescue efforts.
They were finally bringing in a helicopter.
“This is just like what happened with the Deadswitch Five.” Angel paced the floor of the Hub, holding her copy of Without a Trace. She smacked her palm against it as she thought. “Vanished with no evidence. Without a trace, if you will.”
No one in the room reacted to her dumb joke. Holden joined Maidei in poring over the Deadswitch maps at the table, but he wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for. Seated on the floor in front of the blank feed screens, Zaid pulled apart the defunct drones, all their intricate parts arranged in piles on the hardwood. He swore beneath his breath a lot.
Frank left the Fort again for his umpteenth meeting with the state police. Holden trusted Frank to relay the urgency of the rescue mission to the authorities, but wished he could be there and actually contribute. Waiting here left him restless.
“What if there’s been a time-traveling kidnapper in the hills all these years?” Angel halted in her pacing. “Maybe erasing the tracks of their victims is part of their signature or whatever. They take pride in it. They would need a hiding place... an underground cavern system? I mean, that’s a good place to keep a bunch of bodies...”
Maidei rubbed her forehead. “Can we please not talk about our rescuees as though they are already dead?” She cast a glance at her empty vintage Deadswitch Wilderness Area mug at the table’s corner.
“I can make you more coffee,” Holden offered.
“No, but thank you. I’m still jittery from the entire pot I drank this morning.”
“Okay, I might have gotten a little off track,” Angel admitted. “But I still think we shouldn’t ignore the similarities of the two cases, especially considering the victim count is around the same.”
“Person count,” Maidei corrected.
“Right, of course. That’s what I meant.”
Zaid released another string of expletives, ending on something that sounded an awful lot like blistering elephant cock. He threw a screwdriver across the floor and then rubbed his forehead in the same manner as Maidei.
“I think you need to call in a professional,” Maidei suggested.
Zaid dropped his hands. “Who?”
“I don’t know. Are you still talking to Victor?”
“Victor’s at a lab in Missouri. If he can come, it’ll take him a couple days to get here. We might not have that time.”
“Is this an official missing persons case?” Holden asked, wincing involuntarily when both Zaid and Maidei nodded.
“The researchers, yes,” Maidei said. “We’re still waiting for more news on the whereabouts of the rangers. The family of Dupont’s team were phoned. They’re all single, so the sheriff contacted their parents... well, except Dupont. We can’t get ahold of her father.”
“Where is he?” Holden asked.
“The Yukon.”
Holden raised his eyebrows.
“From what the sheriff has garnered, it sounds like he’s been up there living off the grid since his wife passed away.”
Angel shuddered. “Sounds like my worst nightmare. Being here for less than a week is testing my limits.”
“Is there no one else the sheriff can contact?” Holden asked.
Maidei shrugged. “Yarrow and Ghosh are the main people in her life. They’re with her now, hopefully, wherever that is.”
Cam ran off yesterday. Emmett’s off looking for her... never came back last night.
Dupont’s final recording. Soon she’d be on the mountain alone, with a dead man, two of the very few people she cared about MIA.
If Holden hadn’t uncovered the recordings, how long would it have taken the university to realize they were missing? Did any of them have family they contacted daily? Did their roommates keep close track of their schedules?
Lauren was a great roommate because she stayed out of Holden’s life, except for those rare dinners. She’d seemed fine with the idea of him leaving for two weeks, perhaps even delighted to have the place to herself. And he hadn’t given her a firm return date, either.
If something happened to him up here, he didn’t know if anyone would worry about him when they couldn’t reach him. Probably not Lauren, and certainly not his parents. Maybe his boss, eventually, when the busy season hit and she actually came looking for Holden and Angel. But that wouldn’t be for another few weeks.
Holden turned away from the others toward the windows, surprised when his eyes burned. There was something inherently tragic about his aloneness. About Dupont’s aloneness. That wasn’t the reason he’d gone looking for her—but now it felt like another reason to stay. However long it took.
He needed to at least let Lauren know of that possibility.
Holden blinked until his vision cleared and turned back toward the others. “I need to call my roommate and update her on everything, but I have no service.”
“There’s a landline at the ranger station.” Zaid picked up another screwdriver and pointed it toward the front door. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll take you down in my truck.”
“It’s only a couple of miles, right? I can walk. I need the exercise, anyway.”
Zaid shrugged. “If that’s what you want. It’s quicker if you cut west and straight across.” He made an incline with his hand. “Go down the hill until you cross the decommissioned forest road. You’ll see a dirt path that’ll take you right there.”
Holden nodded and headed toward the hall.
“Holden?”
He turned. Maidei watched him from the table with a frown.
“Be careful.”
“I’ll head to the ranger station and come right back,” Holden promised.
“Still,” she said.
“I’ll take Francis.”
This seemed to placate her. Holden got the dog harnessed and headed out to a sunny, quiet afternoon. Very quiet. The forest smelled different from the ones in Oregon. Dustier, sharper, more mineral... alien. But it was just a forest, its basic parts the same as the ones he’d been in before.
As soon as Holden chose a direction, Francis dragged him along, sniffing every rock and shrub and peeing on everything that looked moderately appealing.
Be careful.
Like he really needed something else to be anxious over.
He kept his eyes glued to the path before him, careful not to slip on the decaying bark, until the old forest road crept into view up ahead, an apocalyptic-looking relic layered in overgrowth and crumbling asphalt. Holden walked along it until he found the dirt trail Zaid had mentioned, but stopped when a road sign distracted him.
The official names of the wilderness area and national forest had been scraped off the sign. Olive paint filled the remaining lettering, bleeding into the surrounding wood.
Wilderness Area
Permit Required
National Forest
Holden staggered, suddenly dizzy. His inner ear rang as he regained purchase. He rubbed his eyes and kept moving, ignoring the misplaced dread that lingered in his stomach. The roof of the ranger station peeked through the trees, and he began to jog, Francis happily complying.
Holden arrived out of breath to an unlocked but empty station. He called around for Frank a bit before giving up and locating a rotary phone on the desk, a beige antique permanently grimy from several decades’ worth of use. The numbers on the paper placard were worn to an inky blur.
He checked his phone for Lauren’s number and dialed it, holding the receiver between his shoulder and his ear.
“We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error...”
“Fucking rotary phones,” Holden muttered. He mashed the switch hook and jerked the dial around, entering Lauren’s number again.
“We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been...”
Holden pulled the receiver away from his face and stared at it like he was waiting for it to admit to a prank. He tried again and received the same message. Maybe he was one of those millennials who’d forgotten how to operate a rotary phone. Anything was possible, but the only way he’d know for certain was if he tried dialing another number.
He thought of Siena Dupont. Of her father. His parents didn’t know he was here.
Holden’s fingers twitched on the dial.
Francis released a guttural growl. Holden’s attention flicked to the dog, who stared at the door with his hackles raised.
Holden turned toward the window. The receiver slipped from his hands.
A buck. No, not just a buck. A shadow.
It stood amid the trees, the rack as large as the deer. Holden squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, but the silhouette remained blurry, like the animal was sucking the light from the sky.
A yearning tugged at his heart, burning red-hot like a warning.
He needed to reach it. Capture it. Send an arrow through its eye. Carve into its belly, pour out its viscous onyx insides. Tear away strips of its flesh and eat it, chewing and chewing until cosmic gore trickled down his chin and seeped into the collar of his shirt. Snap off the ribs. Suck out the marrow. Feast until dusk, until the buck filled the entire track of his gut. Until he’d proven himself. Until...
“Holden?”
Holden blinked.
He stood in a dark room. Francis’s tags clinked together as the dog hurried toward the open station door to greet Frank.
“It’s almost eight. What are you doing in the dark?”
Holden exhaled a stale breath and sank to the floor with the last of his energy. Every muscle in his body twitched and vibrated. He shook like he was starving.
His mouth tasted of blood.