Chapter One
The pen ranout of ink. Jesse tapped it on his napkin and attempted to scrawl, but it refused to come back to life. His journal page was blemish free so far. He refrained from doodling in margins, and took great care with every pen stroke. Someday it’d be part of his legacy, but right now the most exciting thing it contained was a detailed account of how long he took to move halfway across the country.
Which was a snoozefest. He wasn’t even sure why he’d put it in there, except he wanted to chronicle everything he did in St. Louis.
Jesse tossed down the empty pen and it careened into his coffee cup. In his rush to keep the cup upright, he almost smacked it over again. Smooth. He suppressed a sigh. This wasn’t his finest morning. The woman he was supposed to meet was running late and he still had to go home and grab his suit jacket, badge, and gun.
Too bad he couldn’t approachSpooky True Talesas himself. He had to use a cover ID. The podcasters, Peyton and Celia, spent far too much time accusing the FBI of covering up the reality of aliens and other conspiracies. They were like him, uncovering the truth and dangers hidden from the world. If they met Special Agent Jesse Dawes, then they’d probably see that as validation for every strange theory that came their way. Or they would think he was feeding them lies. No, Jesse couldn’t participate in conversations about aliens without raising some eyebrows and concerns, but his persona Ephraim O’Shay could.
If the FBI found out that Jesse believed in the strange and paranormal, that he had an active interest in investigating the bizarre, then he could kiss his career goodbye. Sometimes he was still surprised he’d made it through the bureau’s rigorous background check.
That was why he kept his journal. Digital files could be hacked, but physical ones could be kept safe at home. He would pass on his record of anything weird that he encountered living in St. Louis. Exactly as his great-uncle Ephraim had done.
Jesse dug into his messenger bag. His table was at the front of the coffee shop, so he could watch passersby while waiting for his contact from the podcast.
A woman in jeans walked past, and then the door to the shop chimed as it opened. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, like him, and she wore casual clothes. Along with jeans and a lightweight jacket, she had on a black T-shirt with the phraseThey’re here!A couple of UFOs decorated the words. Her earrings were little green men, and the sunglasses she settled onto her dark brown hair were bright green as well. She looked just like her picture on theSpooky True Taleswebsite.
She asked, “Ephraim O’Shay?”
“Celia Sanchez. It’s a pleasure.” Jesse held his hand out toward her and she shook it quickly and confidently.
Celia slid onto the other seat at the small table. “I was going to buy your coffee.”
“Sorry, couldn’t wait. Morning caffeine is required prior to diving into the world’s mysteries.” Jesse slid his journal into his messenger bag and took out the manila folder.
“Down to business,” Celia said. “I can appreciate a serious man.”
Jesse laid the folder between them on the table. “I’ve got to get to work soon.”
“Then I guess we’ll make this quick.” Celia opened the folder.
“Not sure quick will do it justice.”
Celia laughed. “Rarely does, am I right?”
He wasn’t sure if that was a flirtation or an attempt to make small talk. He kept his mouth closed and waited while she looked over the file. The sooner the documents were away from the coffee shop, the better. While he could claim he pulled a few of them for a new case, some of those records weren’t supposed to be in civilian hands. Crowley Construction hadn’t done anything illegal that he could prove. The company was massive, and had a CEO known for quashing investigators like a bug.
If Celia could understand the case without more explanation than what he laid out in the folder, then he had enough evidence that he might have a case he could take to his supervisor. His life would get so much easier if he could walk into the field office and request resources. No more late nights poring over conspiracy threads, or gathering articles, looking for common threads. He could get warrants. Do shit during the day. Maybe have more of a life.
A wrong note in the coffee shop’s music dragged Jesse out of his mental groove. The music warbled off key, filtered through the speakers with cracks despite being connected to satellite radio. A man in a black hoodie sat in the far corner of the shop, bent over his laptop as he typed away. Two women sat at one of the tables with notebooks in front of them, but were spending more time chatting and drinking coffee than writing. Another woman was using her phone with one hand while sipping from the cup in her other. An artist scowled at his sketch book. The baristas stared at their phones between taking or filling orders.
Overall, the place demanded a miserable kind of quiet. An undefinable pressure weighed on the whole coffee shop, as if drawing too much attention would bring dreadful consequences.
The neighborhood surrounding the coffee shop had the same feel. In the three months since Jesse moved to St. Louis, the oppressive wrongness had stretched down the street like the specter of Christmas Future.
The epicenter was across the street from the coffee shop.
The building loomed around its neighbors, even though it wasn’t the tallest. Despite the clean new brick and shining windows, it struck Jesse as a terrible place to live, and they weren’t finished building. But he had seen the company before: Crowley Construction. They built in over a dozen major US cities and several international ones. This building of theirs wasn’t the first Jesse had encountered, but it did have the strongest sense of wrongness to it.
Jesse itched to point it out to Celia. He bounced his foot, unable to suppress his anxious energy.
“Give me the big picture,” Celia said. “You said in your email that you think they’re running experiments. What kind?”
Damn, he was really hoping she’d spot it on her own. Jesse scooted closer, wincing as his chair scraped the floor, and lowered his voice. “I know the impact they’re having, and where. But I don’t know how they’re doing it. Their building records don’t indicate any unusual materials. I figure it has to be something that they’re putting in afterward.”
“Like what?”
Jesse bit his lip. Admitting his craziest theory might turn Celia away, but then she did run a podcast about the strange. As odd as Jesse’s hypothesis was, he’d heard weirder on her show. “An alien. Or some kind of extra-dimensional presence.”
