Bright Light Dark Thunder

Chapter 1

One

Istand among the ruins. The screams continue, though the throats that made them have long since been choked of life. But the worst sound is not their cries. It’s the sick laughter of a lone, cruel man among the bones, blood, and dust.

My chest heaves. My hands grip my sleeping bag like I'm falling. I open my eyes only to narrow slits. Warm sun paints the outside of my tent, making the inner wall glow. I let go of the sleeping bag and sit up, blinking.

I'm not thousands of miles across the ocean. Not in the desert. I'm in Montana. Camping. In my tent. Safe.

I need oxygen. Exiting my tent, I take a lungful of cool, wet, early morning mountain air. The night was warm, so I'm just in my boxer briefs. But no one is around for miles.

That's how I want it.

No.

That's how I need it.

I can't be around people.

People are why I wake up sweaty and heaving breath. They're why I exile myself here, why I poison this paradise with my presence.

But I'm not afraid of them. I'm afraid for them.

Because it ain't what was done to me that robs me of peaceful sleep.

It's what I’ve done that makes me fear my dreams.

Three days ago, I drove my pickup from my remote cabin into Pine Hollow for a rare visit.

The town had changed a lot since I was last there.

Growing. Expanding. The storefronts weren't faded anymore, and the American flag outside the post office was brand new. More California money was coming. Not ideal for a man who wants to stay disappeared. It had been in the back of my mind lately that I’d stayed in Montana too long.

But seeing all that civilization in front of me, taking root and flourishing, gave me a sense that now might be the time to start thinking about moving on.

I parked in front of Mackenzie's General Store, the bell above the door jingling as I stepped inside.

"Hello," Mary, the pretty young redhead behind the counter, greeted me. She smiled brightly.

"Mr. Cole? Walker, right?" she said. There was another sign it might be time to leave. She recognized me.

I nodded, polite but distant, gathering what I needed quickly, hoping to be in and out without much conversation.

"Stocking up for winter already?" Mary leaned over the counter when I approached. Her shirt had dipped just enough to be noticeable. "Summer's barely over."

"Better early than hungry," I replied, my voice sounding strange from disuse.

She laughed a little too enthusiastically. "I like a man who plans ahead."

I grunted in agreement but gave nothing more.

"The Harvest Festival is next weekend.” She stole glances at me while bagging my items.

I grunted in non-committal agreement.

Her smile dimmed but didn't disappear. A pretty girl like Mary showing interest should have made a man feel good. And maybe if I were a good man, that would've been true. But I wasn’t a good man. I was barely a man at all. I was as close to being a ghost as you can be without being dead.

"You plan on hunting?" she asked, tapping the ammunition box with a chipped pink fingernail.

"Some. Fishing mostly."

"Good." She leaned forward. "Be careful if you do. That ridge past Miller's Creek?"

My thumb paused on the receipt. "What about it?"

"Grizzly nearly took Tommy Bishop's arm Tuesday morning," she said, voice dropping. “He was fishing with his father.”

“He got away?”

She nodded. “He’s alive. Father was able to shoot at the bear, and it ran off.”

My palms started itching. "They track it?"

She shook her head, red curls catching the late summer light. "They're not putting him down."

My jaw had tightened. "Why?"

"I guess the bear's part of some university study." She frowned, clearly not liking it any more than I did. "Wildlife cops say Tommy 'provoked it by being in its territory.'" She used air quotes.

“But if it attacked one person, odds are it’s going to attack another.”

Mary shrugged. It wasn’t an indifferent one. Just one that said it didn’t matter if she liked it or not. There was nothing she could do about it.

I knew I shouldn’t get involved. If I hunted and killed that bear, I’d have to leave for sure. Too much heat would fall on a man who wasn’t supposed to exist.

I tipped my chin at the ammunition behind Mary. "Give me some of that .338."

I caught her trying to suppress a smile as she grabbed it. "You could take down a pretty big animal with that..." she hinted.

"Never hurts to be prepared," I called out as a goodbye.

It felt like a final one.

Now, as I walk through the woods, I’m pulled toward the territory she warned me about.

I had convinced myself this was just a fishing trip. But my rod and tackle are still lying in the tent.

It’s my rifle that adorns my shoulder.

By late afternoon, I work my way upstream, following game trails until I reach a clearing where the weak gray sun breaks through. I approach cautiously, my boots silent against pine needles and moss. My training makes stealth second nature.

The clearing tells its story before I've taken three steps in.

Rusty brown stains splash across boulders. Dried pools mark the dirt where the boy must have fallen, tried to crawl, then collapsed again.

I kneel beside a large boulder where the most substantial bloodstain centers. My fingertips touch the surface, feeling the flaky texture where it's dried black against the stone.

My eyes fix on a sneaker lying on its side, laces still tied. It's small. A child’s shoe. I sigh.

I follow the deep gouges cut into the soft earth where massive paws dug for traction to the edge of the clearing on the opposite side. Branches hang broken at odd angles, showing the path of something massive pushing through.

I make my way to the forest’s edge and find a clear paw print.

I drop to one knee, placing my open hand beside the nearest print. The tracks tell the opposite story from the kid's shoe. It swallows my spread fingers with room to spare: a male grizzly and a monster at that—seven, maybe eight hundred pounds.

I follow the trail, rifle not on my shoulder but now in my hands. The prints lead away from Miller's Creek, deeper into the wilderness, toward the high ridges where few people venture.

The thought comes again that I should let this be. Not my problem. Never was. And I don't get involved anymore.

I only ever make things worse.

But the thought doesn’t catch since I follow the tracks for another half mile, noting how they weave between the densest parts of the forest, avoiding natural clearings and open spaces.

I should let this be. But I can’t.

I keep thinking of the boy’s shoe.

And the blood.

Some predators, once they cross a line, don't go back.

I should know.

The terrain steepens dramatically. A ravine cuts through the landscape, forcing me to navigate loose shale that shifts treacherously beneath my boots.

I distribute my weight carefully, placing each step with precision.

One wrong move, one cascade of tumbling rocks, and I'll announce myself to everything within a quarter mile.

It's good that my eyes are unnaturally sharp. The storm clouds have fully rolled in, darkening the sky early.

At the ravine's peak, a wall of thorny brush stretches before me with no way around it. I pull my jacket sleeve over my hand and push through, feeling barbs tear at my jeans, hearing the soft rip of fabric at my shoulder. Blood beads on my forearm where a thorn finds skin, but I barely notice.

Past the thicket, the forest grows suddenly, unnaturally quiet. The constant background chorus of birds falls silent. No squirrels chattering, no insects buzzing. Just the whisper of wind through pine needles.

The hair at my nape rises. My body recognizes what my conscious mind is still processing.

I'm not alone.

My movements become even more deliberate, completely silent as I move through the trees. I ease the rifle into position, ready.

The clouds release their water, pelting the leaves and filling the silence.

I hold perfectly still.

The air feels different, too, not just from the pressure change caused by the storm. I've felt this before, on other lands, hunting different prey—the unmistakable weight of another apex predator's presence.

There's a flash of not-too-distant lightning, and movement catches my eye.

The grizzly materializes like an apparition between trees at the clearing's edge. Even half hidden by undergrowth, its size is staggering. Its massive shoulders roll and bunch as powerful forelimbs dig into the earth, tearing at roots and soil with a brutish but casual strength.

I study it through narrow eyes. Its coat isn't the uniform brown I'd expect—it's mottled with scars, particularly along its right flank.

Long, pale marks where something—or someone—fought back.

One particularly vicious scar runs from shoulder to mid-back, where the fur has never grown back properly.

Scarred like me.

The bear freezes. Head up, nose high, nostrils working furiously.

I maintain trigger discipline, my finger on the trigger guard, not on the trigger itself. Not yet. The bear's head swivels with terrible precision until it faces me directly.

We can't see each other, not clearly, but we both know.

The thunder rolls closer as we lock in this standoff, neither of us willing to make the first move.

I raise my rifle fully now, the familiar weight settling into the hollow of my shoulder. Through the scope, the world narrows to a single point of focus—just behind the bear's ear, where skull meets spine.

My finger slides naturally to the trigger, muscle memory from a thousand similar moments. Less than a half pound of pressure separates life from death.

Through the scope, the bear is still magnificent. And I can't deny the strange kinship I feel with it. Both killers by design—the bear by God, me by man.

Both dangerous.

Both alone.

Our scars tell the story of our sins and our survival.

The crosshairs remain steady as unwanted memories surface. Faces flash behind my eyes—countless targets fallen to similar precision shots. The weight of those deaths follows me daily, shackling me to nightmares that chase me no matter where I go.

The thought twists something inside me. If some ranger stumbled across me right now and saw what I really am, wouldn't a bullet behind my ear be just? One clean shot to remove a threat to humankind. Clinical. Efficient. The exact decision I'm contemplating now.

My finger eases off the trigger. I decided long ago that I don't choose who lives or dies anymore. I hunt whatever I need to survive. For food, nothing more.

I no longer deserve to make these kinds of decisions. It's why I've exiled myself.

I lower the rifle slowly. That nagging voice was right from the start. Let it be. Let someone else make that call—people who are still connected to society's moral machinery.

The bear pauses once more to test the air, massive head swinging in a deliberate arc. Something in its demeanor changes—perhaps sensing the tension has broken. With surprising grace for something so large, it turns and lumbers away deeper into the forest, disappearing between the trees.

Light bursts and thunder crashes overhead as the spattering of rain turns heavy.

My thumb clicks the safety back on the rifle.

Something settles inside me like sediment at the bottom of a disturbed pond.

Not relief. Not regret either. Just... existence.

The liminal space I've inhabited for years now: a kind of living death. Purgatory by another name.

I turn away from where the bear disappeared, water already soaking through my jacket at the shoulders. Six years in this place. Longer than anywhere since... before. The cabin ain’t much, but it's been something close to home. As close as someone like me gets, anyway.

Time to move on. That's clear now.

Mary recognized me immediately in town. Called me by name without hesitation, like I belonged there. Dangerous. I've let myself become visible again. Let myself form patterns and become predictable. I’ve created connections, however thin.

Even the forest knows me now: the trails worn between my cabin and the best fishing spots, the trees I've marked, the places I've hunted. I've left too much of myself here.

I'll pack tonight and become a ghost again.

I go to turn when the hair on the back of my neck stands up. A presence. Close. Too close.

Cold metal presses against my skull. The unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked splits the air.

The torrential rain masked their approach. Rookie mistake. Fatal mistake.

"Don't move."

The voice is harsh.

But feminine.