Chapter 64 – That One Horror Film

  The rain hadn’t stopped since midday. It came in waves now, sometimes just trickling, sometimes coming down like buckets, but it was always there. The sky was choked in grey, low-hanging clouds that pressed down on the earth like a dying breath.

  Ezra pulled his hood tighter, the fabric soaked through long ago. Water traced down the nape of his neck, his cloak clinging to his skin like a second, unwanted layer. As he crested the hill, the logging yard sprawled out below him, a wound carved into the forest, silent and still.

  The first thing he noticed was the absence of noise.

  No birds. No insects. Not even the rustling of branches in the wind.

  Just the whisper of rain.

  Ezra's boots hit the flattened earth with a squelch. The mud was thick and almost black, sucking at his soles with every step like something beneath was trying to pull him under. As he descended, the skeletal remains of machines loomed out of the mist, ghosts in the clearing.

  A harvester sat slumped near the entrance, its long mechanical arm half-extended, fingers open like it had reached for something before freezing in time. A feller had toppled onto its side, its cabin door hanging ajar, the glass cracked and stained dark. A log loader stood tall and still, its claw crushed around splintered wood. The rain glistened on every surface like sweat on cold skin.

  Ezra ran a hand along the rusted frame of the loader, and his fingers came away red, not rust.

  It was thicker.

  He froze.

  A distant clang echoed through the clearing. Metal striking metal.

  He spun. Nothing moved. The mist swirled, slow and heavy.

  They were supposed to have evacuated.

  That’s what the briefing had said. The workers had all been pulled out a week ago due to rising Shadowmane sightings in the area. Ezra and Marcel were told the site would be abandoned.

  This wasn’t abandoned.

  It was desecrated.

  He stepped around the loader and nearly gagged.

  A body lay slumped beneath it. Human. Or it had been. Now it was a mangled mess of flesh and cloth, pinned beneath one of the loader’s massive wheels. The head had been twisted around—facing backward—eyes frozen in a look of pure terror. A scream locked in a mouth that no longer held a tongue. Both arms were gone.

  Ezra’s pulse spiked. His breaths shortened.

  He swallowed hard and kept walking.

  He passed a skidder, its tires shredded, windows blown out like something had burst from within. Inside, a second corpse lay curled in the driver’s seat, hand still clutching the gear lever. The torso had caved inward, ribs exposed like pale fingers. Blood had dried into a black crust on the dashboard.

  Ezra didn’t look away. He couldn’t. He just kept walking. Step by slow, wet step.

  The depot building loomed ahead, long, low, its sheet metal siding sagging under the weight of the rain. The doors were open. One was torn clean off. The other hung from a single hinge, creaking with the wind.

  He hesitated at the threshold. The shadows inside were thicker than they should’ve been. Who was he kidding, they weren’t shadows... They were stains.

  Still, he stepped inside.

  The air changed instantly.

  It was heavier. Like walking underwater. The scent of oil and rot was so strong it coated his tongue. A dull, buzzing silence filled the space, oppressive and unnatural.

  Rows of tools hung on the walls, though many had fallen. Wrenches, chainsaws, axes. Some were bent. Some were broken. Some were missing entirely.

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  The back wall bore a smear of blood that trailed toward the storage room. Ezra followed it. The floorboards creaked underfoot, damp and soft. Mold climbed the edges of every surface like ivy.

  He reached the end of the trail.

  Another body. This one smaller. A teen maybe?

  The hands were torn. Fingernails ripped off. They’d tried to climb the wall. Escape it. But there was nowhere to go.

  Ezra stared for a long moment.

  They hadn’t just died.

  They had been hunted.

  His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He turned to leave, and froze.

  A mirror. Cracked. Dusty.

  His reflection stared back at him, face pale, eyes wide.

  Then he saw something move behind him.

  He spun, dagger out.

  Nothing.

  No breath. No footsteps. No whisper.

  Just the mirror. Silent. Waiting.

  Ezra backed away slowly, refusing to blink.

  He stepped outside into the rain again, but even it felt different now. Colder. Like the sky itself was recoiling from the place.

  A fresh trail of mud cut across the clearing.

  He followed it.

  More claw marks. Deep gouges in the ground. Something massive had moved through here, fast. But they weren’t recent.

  He must have been imagining things earlier.

  The tracks led a bit further into the forest, away from the main logging site.

  Ezra crouched, studying them. There was something odd, another set of tracks layered beneath the claws.

  It must have been dragging something with it.

  He stood slowly. The air pressed in. The fog was thicker now, coiling around the machines like fingers. It felt like the clearing was shrinking, like the trees were creeping closer.

  A sound echoed.

  A faint squelch.

  Followed by a long, wet drag.

  Ezra didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

  The sound stopped.

  Nothing.

  Ezra didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

  The silence around him was so deep it seemed to scream in his ears. Only the distant patter of rain against the canopy, a soft, endless drumming on soaked leaves, gave the moment any sound at all. The scent of rot still lingered, seeping into his clothes, into his skin. He forced himself to breathe shallowly, the air thick with a coppery, almost sweet stench, blood, decay, something worse.

  Then he saw it, off to his right, through a thin veil of rain and brambles: a weather-worn structure of faded wood and corrugated steel. The kind of place workers might huddle in during storms or while taking their lunch. A rain shelter. Half-sunken into the earth like it was trying to hide.

  Relief and dread warred in his chest as he approached. Shelter meant a place to regroup. But there, he could be ambushed.

  The front door was closed, warped from water damage and dark with age. Ezra gripped the handle and tugged. Nothing. It was locked, or jammed. A groan echoed from the hinges, and he quickly let go, glancing over his shoulder.

  He stepped carefully around the side, boots squelching through damp moss and wet mulch. Vines curled like veins across the walls. At the back, he found it: a jagged hole splintered through the wooden siding, as though something had burst out, or more likely, in.

  Ezra crouched low and ducked through.

  Inside, the stench hit him like a physical blow. The air was humid, clotted with the unmistakable reek of old blood, like rust and meat left in the sun. His stomach twisted. He gagged, covering his mouth with his sleeve.

  With a trembling hand, he clicked on his flashlight.

  The beam cut through the gloom and landed on a scene that belonged in a nightmare.

  The first body sat slumped in a chair, headless, neck a raw, gaping stump. The blood had dried black around it, congealing down the front of a flannel shirt. One hand still clutched a tin lunchbox, now rusted shut and speckled with mould.

  Ezra staggered back, bumping into a wall. His light darted across the floor.

  The second body had been torn in half, legs splayed out awkwardly near the shack’s door. Its guts—intestines, unmistakably—lay coiled across the floor like ropes of sausage, glistening. Ripped flesh and pink organ meat shimmered wetly beneath the beam. The body’s upper half was curled into the corner, mouth open in a frozen scream, eyes wide and unseeing.

  And then, there was the third.

  Or what was left of it.

  Chunks of meat were strewn across the floor, flung like garbage. A left arm lay draped over a broken wooden crate. A single boot, still laced, sat in a puddle of blood, its owner nowhere to be seen. A leg, hacked off clean, leaned against the far wall like someone had tried to prop it up. The rest was... indecipherable. Just bits. Flesh and bone and ruin.

  Ezra pressed his back to the wall, swallowing hard. He felt bile rising and had to force it down.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  The site had been evacuated. The merchant’s guild never mentioned any casualties. There had been no warnings, no red flags on the request.

  His eyes flicked back to the headless man in the chair. Maybe… maybe it was recent?

  He stepped forward, boots crunching on dried blood and splinters. Slowly, cautiously, he reached out and touched the man’s wrist. Cold.

  Stone cold.

  Ezra pulled his hand back. His mind was racing, every thought shouting over the other. Should he call for Marcel? Should he run?

  His instincts screamed that something was still here.

  And then he heard it.

  Crack.