Page 73 of Silent Shadows

She breaks the silence after a solid ten minutes. “So, do you think we have something here?”

I glance toward her, not sure how to respond. My throat feels dry. “Y—yeah, I do. Do you?” I look at her earnestly, waiting for her reply.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Even though this area’s been mostly quiet?”

My eyes go wide. Cryptids. She meant Bigfoot. Not if there’s something between us. “Well, uh, quiet doesn’t mean empty.” I attempt to recover.

“Mm-hmm. Sure.”

I smile despite myself and adjust my backpack strap.

“The desert works differently,” I explain. “Movement patterns shift out here every day. Water access changes. Temperature changes. Human traffic changes. Most people searching this terrain are expecting dense forest behavior in open country.”

“And you’re not?”

“No.” I pause. “I think if something like this exists, it survives by adapting better than we do.”

She studies me carefully as we keep walking.

“You really don’t sound crazy when you talk about this.”

“That continues to be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

She laughs. God, I like making her laugh. That realization lands badly enough, I immediately start talking about something else before my brain can unpack it.

“There’s actually a whole theory about southwestern forest migration corridors tied to abandoned uranium sites.”

Daisy groans playfully. “There he is.”

“What?”

“The little conspiracy man inside you.”

“It’s not conspiracy-based,” I assure her.

“You just said uranium.”

“That’s geology.”

“It’s giving History Channel at 2 a.m.,” she laughs.

I point at her while we walk. “Okay, first of all, History Channel lost all scholarly credibility after ‘Ancient Aliens.’ Can't peer review that malarkey.”

“You watched ‘Ancient Aliens?’”

“Everybody watched ‘Ancient Aliens,’” I say.

She laughs again, shaking her head.

And because I enjoy humiliation, I keep going.

“There’s also this entire thread about the Loveland Frogman sightings correlating with waterway movement patterns in Ohio⁠—”

Daisy stops walking. I stop too.