Page 107 of Pareidolia

My fingers pick up a blood-soaked leaf and it’s still warm.

But the body is gone.

Red on white.

My eyes lift to the trees and I see it again.

A flicker of color.

Crimson eyes.

My own personal demon, here to hide the bodies I make.

It’s got eyes on its wings.

Fuck, had the man I killed really seen the same thing I had all those years ago? Was he trying to hide from my monster?

I stick the bloody leaf and bone shard into my pocket and start forward. Whatever it is, it’s not going to get away from me again.

Whatever it is, I’m going to find it.

I only make it a few steps when the flash of color shows up again and then disappears deeper into the trees. I swear I can see a faint flicker of red light, like it’s trying to lure me closer.

Maybe there is a downside to my inability to feel fear, because I’m pretty sure I’m about to follow a monster into the forest.

The sudden sound of crunching leaves and gravel behind me crashes through my thoughts of running into the trees. The asshole said all his friends were dead—was he a liar, or is it someone else?

I whirl as someone takes hold of my arm, wondering if I can manage to make two bodies disappear tonight. It helps that I didn’t have to do anything with the first one. The fact that I didn’t, and I’m now being stopped from chasing an answer through the forest that might tell me what happened when I was fifteen is frustrating.

The fact that I turn around and the man who has a hold of me is tall with curious dark eyes and a fucking ranger hat on straight out of a cartoon is even worse.

Some random camper is one thing—most of those people are from out of state—but if I kill a ranger with Duskfen stamped across his stupid hat, I’m probably going to get into trouble. My eyes drop to his name tag and my heart nearly stops.

Daniels.

Ranger Daniels.

Rory had a brother, older than us by a few years. Some asshole jock with dark hair named…

“Hey, I asked if you were okay.” He interrupts my thoughts, and then, like he can’t help himself, he confirms them. “I’m Noah Daniels… we had a report of smoke coming out of the forest. Have you seen anything?”

A dead body.

I saw a dead body. Or a dying one, at least.

I saw a flash of red and white.

And now I’m seeing a man who’s the spitting image of what my first victim might have looked like if he’d ever had a chance to grow up.

“No. I mean… no. Yes?” I stutter out. It’s probably the least helpful I’ve ever been, but at least it’s a startled kind of helplessness that people usually take as innocent.

“So is that a yes or a no?” The bemused smile on his face tells me he isn’t suspicious. Either that or he’s determined to make me feel comfortable around him so I somehow confess everything.

“I saw a fire earlier, but by the time I got to the tower it was out. I think there were campers out there.” I look down at my wrist, wincing because I don’t have a watch to justify the movement. “It’s late, you know?”

Late.

So late that he needs to get out of here and leave me alone. Whatever I saw in the forest is probably long gone by now, but there’s still a part of me that wants to try following it out into the trees. My eyes drop to the ground—a few feet behind us, there’s a splash of blood on the dirt.