Chapter Four
ROXY
The headlights carve twin tunnels through darkness so thick it feels solid, pressing against the windshield like something alive.
My hands grip the steering wheel at ten and two, knuckles white from more than just the cold seeping through the car’s failing heater.
The Appalachians rise on either side of the narrow mountain road, ancient sentinels that don’t give a damn about one photographer stupid enough to venture this deep into territory that forgot civilization existed decades ago.
My camera bag sits in the passenger seat, expensive equipment nestled in foam padding, each lens a small fortune I can’t afford to replace.
Three days documenting ‘abandoned’ territories for a nature magazine spread that’ll probably pay half my rent if I’m lucky.
But the shots are worth it, untouched wilderness, forests that haven’t seen human footprints in generations, the kind of raw beauty that reminds people why they should care about places like this.
The kind of beauty that also kills you if you’re not careful.
And I am being careful. GPS marked on my phone, emergency beacon in my pack, enough supplies for five days, even though I’m only planning three.
My mother would say this was inevitable.
At twenty-six, I’m apparently still proving her right about my talent for ending up exactly where I’m not supposed to be.
Especially in mountains like these ones, where it’s said that things go bump in the night.
The road curves sharply, gravel and snow crunching beneath tires as I navigate another hairpin turn.
My high beams catch something ahead, movement, frantic and desperate.
I ease off the gas, squinting through the windshield as a figure stumbles onto the road, waving arms overhead in the universal signal for ‘Stop! Please, God, stop!’
My foot hits the brake automatically, training from too many defensive driving courses overriding the voice in my head screaming that this is how horror movies start.
The car slides slightly on loose snow before the tires catch, bringing me to a halt twenty feet from where the man now stands in my headlights, swaying like he’s drunk, concussed, or both.
He’s wearing tactical gear, the expensive kind with too many pockets and reinforced elbows, but it’s torn in places, dark stains spreading across the fabric that my brain identifies as blood before I consciously process what I’m seeing.
His face is pale, almost gray in the harsh LED glow, eyes wild with something beyond panic.
Absolute terror.
The kind that comes from seeing something that breaks your understanding of how the world works.
I unlock the doors before common sense catches up with sympathy.
He lurches forward, grabbing the passenger door handle with hands that shake so badly it takes him three tries to get it open.
Freezing cold air rushes in, carrying the smell of copper, smoke, and something else underneath, something sharp and predatory that makes my nose wrinkle.
“Drive!” He gasps, falling into the passenger seat in a graceless heap, sending my camera bag tumbling to the floor. “Jesus Christ, just fucking drive!”
“Hey!” I reach for my bag instinctively, protective of equipment that cost more than my car. “That’s five grand worth of—”
“They’re coming!” His hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my forearm with bruising strength.
His skin is ice-cold even through my jacket, and up close I can see the glaze in his eyes, the way his pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any color left.
“You have to go. Now! Before they catch our scent.”
Scent?
He said scent, like we’re prey, animals are hunting.
“Listen, I’m happy to help, but you need to let go of my arm and tell me what happened. Are you hurt? Do you need to go to a hospital?” I keep my voice calm, the same tone I use when photographing skittish wildlife, nonthreatening and steady even as my heart rate kicks into overdrive.
His laugh is sharp and broken, each breath bubbling wetly in a way that suggests internal bleeding. “Hospital, yeah, sure. Where they can—” He coughs, dark blood spattering his lips. “Where they can’t help. Where nothing helps. Because they’re not human.”
The words hang in the small space between us, competing with the engine’s idle rumble and the wind howling through the pass. I should be focused on the blood, on getting him help, on any of a dozen rational responses to finding a dying man on a mountain road.
Instead, my brain catches on two words.
Not human.
“Okay.” I ease my arm free from his grip with gentle pressure, keeping my movements slow and nonthreatening. “You’ve clearly been through something traumatic. Let me just—”
His hand snaps out again, this time grabbing the wheel, yanking it hard to the right. My foot slips off the gas, the car lurches violently, tires losing purchase as we careen toward the guardrail that’s the only thing between us and a hundred-foot drop into darkness.
“What the hell are you… Stop!” I fight for control, trying to straighten the wheel, but he’s stronger than he should be, desperation lending him strength that contradicts the blood soaking through his gear.
“I can’t stop. They’ll find us. Dragons, vampires…
fucking monsters!” The words tumble out between labored breaths, his other hand scrabbling at the door handle like he’s considering jumping even as we accelerate toward disaster.
“I saw them change! Saw what they did to Damien, to Harry. Ice and fire a-and—”
The front tire drops into the pothole at precisely the wrong angle, the impact sharp enough to jolt the steering wheel out of my hands as the laws of physics lose their grip on us.
The car fishtails hard, rubber screaming against asphalt as I overcorrect, heart slamming into my throat while the world tilts sideways.
For a split second, there’s nothing beneath us but air, the suspension rebounding once, twice, and then failing as the road vanishes and the trees rush up to meet us.
Time doesn’t stretch or soften the way people claim it does in moments like this.
It slams forward at full speed, unforgiving, a brutal compression of metal and momentum that hits all at once.
The airbag detonates into my face with explosive force, snapping my head back as heat, powder, and chemical burn choke my lungs.
The windshield fractures in a blinding white web before collapsing inward, safety glass pouring through the cabin in a violent cascade that stings exposed skin and lodges everywhere at once.
The car rolls.
Once.
Twice.
My body is yanked and thrown, reduced to dead weight, restrained only by the seat belt carving into my chest and hips hard enough to drive the air from my lungs.
Pain detonates along my ribs as gravity loses all meaning, the car flipping end over end while the world shatters into violent flashes of dark and light.
Up becomes sideways becomes down again in rapid succession, my head snapping back, then forward, teeth cracking together as something inside my chest gives with a dull, internal thud I feel more than hear.
Sound collapses.
The roar of the crash drops away all at once, replaced by crushing pressure, as though the world has been shoved underwater.
My ears scream, a high, piercing ring swelling until it’s the only thing left, drowning out the metal tearing itself apart around me.
Everything moves in silence now, the car tumbling through a void where only vibration and impact exist.
The cabin becomes a storm.
Loose gear breaks free as momentum refuses to release us.
The camera bag slams into my shoulder, rebounds, then smashes into the door beside my head, each hit registering as a distant, muted blow.
The emergency kit ricochets wildly, striking the dash, the windshield, my knee, the impacts reduced to dull shocks that reverberate through my bones.
Granola bars explode from the center console, wrappers bursting as they pelt the interior like debris caught in a confined blast zone.
Another roll.
The seat belt screams under the strain, fibers biting deeper as my body whips against it, spine jolting with every impact, ribs burning as if they’re being crushed inward.
Pressure builds behind my eyes, vision narrowing until the edges smear and darken, the world tunneling while lights blink on and off in warped, delayed flashes.
Then everything flickers.
For a terrifying half-second, the darkness thickens, heavy and absolute, consciousness slipping like it’s being pulled through a narrowing gap. I float somewhere weightless and detached, pain distant, thought dissolving, and then sensation slams back in all at once.
Another violent impact snaps my head forward, stars bursting across my vision when sound crashes back into existence in a distorted rush, metal shrieking, glass raining, something heavy tearing loose beneath the car.
My stomach lurches hard, nausea rising as the world continues to spin, refusing to settle, refusing to let me orient or breathe properly.
The motion finally begins to slow.
The last rotation drags instead of snaps, the car grinding sideways before dropping hard, suspension collapsing with a brutal crunch that rattles through bone and teeth alike.
The impact hammers the breath from me again, my vision blurring as the world lurches one final time before slamming to a stop.
Silence follows.
Not peace.
Just the ringing.
The ringing in my ears swells until it’s all I can hear, layered over my own breathing while it tears in and out of my chest in ragged bursts. The smell hits next, burned rubber, coolant, hot metal, and blood, all thick enough to taste.
But I’m alive.