Page 78 of Forever Gone

He switched on the roof light and compared the coordinates with the display.

The numbers matched.

Connor picked up his flashlight and got out.

Cold had settled into the valley since sunset. The air carried leaf mold, wood smoke from some distant house, and the mineral scent of the creek running below the road. His boots crunched along the shoulder as he swept the beam over the trees.

Nothing.

The phone could have been thrown from a moving vehicle. Linda might have driven past, switched it off, and continued toward Tennessee or Virginia. A last network contact did not guarantee that the device remained nearby.

Connor walked fifty yards north.

The beam caught reflective paint on a tree, then an empty drink can crushed near the ditch. Farther ahead, the roadside widened around a break in the brush.

He raised the flashlight.

Two wheel ruts left the pavement and climbed into the woods. Branches hung across the entrance, concealing it from anyone driving at normal speed. The track appeared unused, but fresh tire marks had pressed through the layer of dry leaves near the road. Connor took out his phone and photographed the impressions from several angles before returning to the SUV.

The turnoff was too narrow to enter cleanly. He reversed, angled the hood toward the opening, and eased between the branches. Twigs dragged along both sides of the vehicle. The headlights found a dirt track climbing through the trees, its ruts barely accommodating the SUV.

He advanced at walking speed.

The road twisted twice, then leveled near the top of the slope. Tree trunks passed close to the mirrors. A low branch struck the roof with a hollow knock that made Connor grip the wheel harder.

Connor had always hated these woods after dark.

Old stories returned from childhood.

Men at the feed store used to speak about these woods after drinking past the point of caring who listened. Hunters heard footsteps circling their camps when no one else had been on the mountain. Dogs refused to follow trails beyond certain ridges. A boy vanished near an abandoned mine and returned two days later unable to explain where he had been.

Most of the stories changed with each telling.

One remained clear.

Old Amos Pike had leaned toward Connor across the counter when he was ten and said, “There are things walking around those woods that shouldn’t be.”

His father told Amos to stop filling the boy’s head with nonsense.

Connor had laughed because his father did.

That night, he kept the bedroom curtains closed.

The trees opened.

An old barn stood in a clearing, its roof sagging at the center. Weathered boards covered the walls, some split or missing. One sliding door hung slightly forward from the track, leaving a narrow black gap between it and the frame.

Connor stopped twenty yards away.

The engine idled.

No lights showed inside. No vehicle stood in the clearing. The place seemed abandoned, yet the dirt before the doors held tire tracks too recent to have survived the last rain.

A warning tightened low in Connor’s stomach.

He shut off the engine and listened.

The sudden quiet made the woods seem closer. Leaves moved overhead. Something small rustled through the brush behind the barn. No insects called. No night bird broke the stillness.