Chapter Text
The next few recordings were fairly routine. The storm came and went, and his father mostly spoke of the damage it left behind, the repairs that needed to be made, and his own exhaustion at the end of each day.
“...One of the trees that fell on the eastern path was the size of a small mansion!” Radu said in one of them. “I don’t know how many days it’ll take me to clear it. This whole thing is already exhausting as it is, and now I… ah, I don’t know. I haven’t been sleeping too well these past couple of days.” A small pause.
“Also… I’m pretty sure I saw that guy again.” A frustrated sigh came through the tape. “I just wish he would approach me, whoever he is. He’s shown up a couple of times now, always in the distance, always watching. But every time I go out, or try to interact, it’s like he just… vanishes.”
Another pause followed, along with a faint creak, as if Radu was shifting in his seat. “Plus… last night, I woke up in the middle of the night. At first I thought it was just muscle pain—God knows I’ve been hauling a bunch of things these past couple of days—but then…I could’ve sworn I heard someone calling me from outside.” A moment of hesitation passed. “And I know it’s insane to even say that, but… I think it was my dad.”
Gabriel blinked and rewound the tape. No. He had heard that right.
“I’m aware that’s impossible. But… who else would speak Romanian? And… I just know it was him. When I got up, when I went outside, there was no one there. Or so I thought at first. Then I saw him again. That man, skulking behind the trees.” A longer pause.
“He was… looking at me.” Another small shift, the chair creaking again. “I think he was smiling.” The distress in his voice was unmistakable now, clipped, tired, stretched thin.
“I’m not proud of it, but I just… ran back inside the cabin. Locked the door. Stayed there till dawn.” Silence lingered. “…Maybe I should have followed him.”
Gabriel stared into space, almost missing the last few sentences of the tape, which shifted back to something mundane. Plans for the next day’s maintenance work, spoken in that same careful, deliberate tone, as if nothing had happened at all.
He felt… confused, mostly. A bit worried, too. Was his father hallucinating? Imagining things? Or was he actually being stalked?
He put on the next tape, fidgeting with his headphones, pulling his fringe out from under the headband. He was suddenly, inexplicably warm. Uncomfortable.
The next six or seven tapes only made it worse. What had started as confusion slowly turned into something closer to distress. Radu still talked about his job, but it had gradually taken a backseat to everything else. The mentions of the strange man, on the other hand, were now constant.
What worried Gabriel the most was the simple fact that, aside from his father, no one seemed to know about it. At least, that’s how it sounded.
“Went to restock on supplies at Trudid, passed through the district office as well…” Radu’s voice wavered slightly, whether from exhaustion or something else, Gabriel couldn’t quite tell. “I was… I was going to tell them about the man. I truly did. But when I went in, and was face to face with Rogers, I… I just couldn’t.” A quiet exhale, a shaky breath followed. “Rogers recommended me for this job. What will he think if I start spouting nonsense? Plus, I need this job… I just need to hold on until the end of the season. For Tammy. For Gavriil.”
Another tape, short and completely devoid of the mundanity of his everyday life.
“He won’t stop.” Radu sounded tight, wound up. “He’s outside the cabin. Every. Damn. Night. Always out of reach. Even when I wait for him outside, he’s somewhere else, on the other side of the cabin, behind the shed, by the ranger station…”
His voice faltered, something catching in his throat. “He keeps talking… in my father’s voice. He, he…”, a soft creak was heard, his voice came muffled. “I’m scared. I— I don’t know what to do.”
Gabriel felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle.
He pulled the headphones off in one swift motion and glanced around the room. It was just as empty as when Georgina had left, shadows gathering in the corners where the desk lamp couldn’t quite reach. He pushed himself up and moved toward the windows, checking them one by one. A couple were cracked open, letting the cool night air in.
He shut them firmly, latching them with more force than necessary, and blamed them for the shiver running up his spine. The view outside was exactly what he expected, dark and still, save for a shifting bush that made him pause, only for a fussy skunk to shuffle out from underneath it. He exhaled, tension easing slightly.
Then he paced. Aimless. Restless. He checked the door. Still locked. He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. A small voice in the back of his mind suggested that maybe this was enough for tonight. Maybe he should just go to sleep. Leave it for tomorrow. Hell, he had a month, he could space them out, take it slow.
But the glow of the screen held him in place. The tapes, still piled in the cardboard box, sat under the desk lamp, lit in a way that felt almost… hallowed. He sat back down, turning a pen between his fingers.
For a moment, he considered waking Georgina. But what would he even say? ‘Hey, Gina. Want to sit with me while I listen to my father slowly lose his mind in the same room we’re sitting in?’ No. He let out a quiet breath. This was something he had to do on his own.
The next three tapes were, on the surface, surprisingly normal. At least, they would be, to someone who hadn’t heard the earlier ones. Radu sounded different. Shorter. Clipped. Like he was speaking through his teeth the entire time.
There were no mentions of the man. None of the strange things he had been seeing. But there was something else missing, too. The small things. The admiration. The easy tangents. The mundane chatter was still there, barely, but anything personal was gone.
Well… almost. At some point, he had gone into Trudid to resupply.
“Had a phone call with Tammy today. It… it didn’t go well.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “She… she was going on about something or other, and I just… We had a fight. A bad one.” A cough followed, then a short silence. “I wanted to tell her… I wanted…” He stopped. The silence that followed felt heavy. Final.
When he spoke again, it was about something else entirely, trail maintenance, a deer that had been relocated recently. Like nothing had happened.
Gabriel dragged a hand over his face. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming and breaking everything in sight. It had taken his mother years —prodding questions, quiet fights, and, finally, two full bottles of wine one Easter Sunday— to tell him about that phone call. She rarely drank, but when she did, she drank like she was trying to put out a fire inside herself.
It had been the last conversation she ever had with his father. The last phone call she had with his father before he, in her opinion, ran off. Gabriel didn’t know whether to credit her or resent her for keeping his father’s unraveling to herself. Then again, knowing her, she might not even have recognized it for what it was.
All she told him then was that his father had been irritated. That they had a massive fight over nothing. That she told him not to call her again until he had sorted himself out. And he never did. Gabriel wished, not for the first time, that his mother was still alive. He didn’t know if they would ever have had a good relationship if she were, but… he could ask her, at least. If she knew what had been happening to his father. If she cared. Even a little.
After that, the tapes grew sporadic. A few days missing here and there, as if Radu was struggling to keep up with his reports. And when he did record, everything felt lifeless. Mechanical. Yet somehow desperate, too, as if his father was clinging to this dull, routine part of his job to distract himself from sleepless nights… from whatever it was he was going through.
On one tape, marked July 31st, he mentioned going to town again. Calling his sister. “Spoke with Ira today… Asked her how Igor is doing, how his shop is panning out. Not like he ever picks up the phone….” A soft chuckle followed, laced with exhaustion, but fond nevertheless.
“She told me Gavriil is growing. He even stood up last Monday for the first time…” Gabriel listened to his father sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was thick and heavy. “I missed it. His first time standing up and I— I wasn’t there. I want to go home… I want to sleep. I—” Soft sobs echoed in Gabriel’s headphones.
After a while, the tape ended with a resolute click. He realized that his eyes were wet, too. He rubbed them, harshly, taking a couple of deep breaths. Checked that the tape had recorded correctly on the laptop. Filed it away.
Then he put on the next one, marked “August 3rd, 1981,” in letters far more shaky and illegible than the rest. The first thing he heard was a deafening silence, broken only by heavy panting. Gabriel furrowed his brow and adjusted the volume, turning it higher. Now he could make out faint creaking, probably the ranger station, or the cabin his father had been staying in, settling into the night. Every so often, a distant night bird called, but otherwise there was nothing.
He was about to turn off the tape, chalking it up to his father accidentally leaving the recorder running, when he heard… something. Something like whispering, muffled and far away. He turned the volume all the way up, straining to make out what was being said. Was someone staying over with his father?
What he was met with made him freeze in his chair. He stopped the tape and rewound it to the very beginning, keeping the volume fully up. His father’s labored breathing was almost overwhelming, but now, behind it, he could hear the whispering.
The first thing that struck him was that the voice was very familiar. It took him a moment to place it, but when he did, he started. He only remembered it vaguely, but it was exceptionally similar to his uncle Igor’s voice. Only it lacked the warmth, the gravelly calmness he remembered from childhood, the voice that had lulled him to sleep after nightmares.
No. This was different. The tone was cold, smooth, and hollow, as if whoever was speaking was forcing air through their lungs. As if breathing had to be a choice for them.
The second thing he noticed—more important, probably—was the language. They were speaking Romanian. Despite his mother’s open reluctance, even disdain, for the language, Gabriel understood it fluently, thanks to Aunt Ira. Even so, whenever he spoke it, he could feel how wooden and stiff the words came out of his mouth. And this was definitely Romanian.
He caught a few words here and there. The voice was halting and airy. Like it had to force each sound out. It spoke of the forest, of things it had seen and It kept calling his father by name. ‘Won’t you come, Radu?’ it whispered, soft enough to almost disappear under his father’s breathing. ‘Come and see. Your father is here. I have things to show you’ . Gabriel felt his fingers twitch against the desk, fighting the urge to tear the headphones off. Father? But that was Uncle Igor’s voice. Then again, he never met his grandfather. Maybe their voices were similar.
Behind the whispering, he heard his father draw in a sharp, uneven breath. It broke halfway through, turning into something closer to a sob. “Leave me alone,” Radu said. “Please. Just… leave me alone…” His accent was thick, his English strained, words stumbling over each other.
‘Radu, my boy’ , it went on, quieter now. Careful. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. I found something. Down in the caves. Something… godly.’ Despite the tone of it sounding almost reverent, the way it said it felt wrong. Like it didn’t quite understand what godly meant.
A loud thud followed, sudden enough to make Gabriel flinch.
“SHUT UP!” Radu shouted. “You are not my father! Leave me alone!” Another crash came, wood on wood. Maybe a chair was thrown.
‘Come, son,’ the voice said again, unchanged. Still soft, patient and utterly wrong. ‘Don’t leave me alone again.’ Radu didn’t answer. The whispering stopped. For a few long minutes, there was nothing but his breathing, ragged and uneven, filling the silence in short, shallow pulls.
Gabriel found himself holding his own breath, listening, and waiting. Hoping that was the end of it.
However, soon enough, the whispering was back. Judging by the shift in the audio, it came from a completely different angle now, further away. Now the voice was painted in a different hue,something thinner and sharper.
‘Fine,’ it said. ‘Don’t come.’
There was a low sound, thin, wavering, like air passing through something hollow. It rose and fell without rhythm. Gabriel felt the hairs on his arms lift. Was that… laughter?
‘I hear you have a son… perhaps I should visit, show him what I found beneath the earth.’
The reaction was immediate. Gabriel felt his legs go numb, something in his stomach twisting violently, as he heard his father scream “DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY SON!”, separated by time, but united in the same sharp, blinding dread.
Heavy, hurried footsteps followed. A door slammed hard enough to rattle something loose, thrown open and hitting the wall. Somewhere, further away now, the voice was laughing again.
The next few minutes were nothing but movement, his father’s breathing, ragged and frantic, swearing under his breath as he ran. To where, Gabriel didn’t know. His father probably didn’t either. The tape cut off abruptly, right in the middle of a shouted curse.
Gabriel stayed where he was. For a moment, it felt like he was sinking into the chair, like the weight of it all was pressing him down, the room closing in around him. Only then did he notice he was sweating. It ran in thin lines down his neck, soaking into the back of his shirt.
The office felt smaller now. Tighter. The shadows in the corners seemed deeper than they had any right to be. He had the sudden, childish urge to duck under the desk and hide. He swallowed it down. What would he even be hiding from? This had already happened. Years ago. Whatever that thing was…it wasn’t here.
He pulled his jacket off, the fabric sticking slightly to his skin. The fear was still there, sharp and restless, but it was starting to turn into something else. Something hotter. Angrier. Who was that? What did it want with his father?
A flicker of something like embarrassment or regret passed through him, quick, but sharp. For a moment, he had almost convinced himself that Radu had been imagining things. Apparently not. Clearly not. He pressed a hand flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat there, grounding himself.
Then, with hands that weren’t quite steady, he reached for the next tape, labeled “August 7th, 1981”. The writing on the label was neat, almost deliberate.
The first thing Gabriel noticed was how different this tape was from the last. Instead of oppressive silence, ragged breathing and those thin, reedy whispers, he was met with the dry, constant buzz of insects, wind moving lazily through the trees, and a distant bird call that came and went without urgency. It made him feel even more on edge.
After a while, his father spoke. He sounded exhausted, but calm. “I followed it,” Radu said. “For hours, just running through the woods. It kept its distance, always just out of reach. Always talking about…” He paused.
“I followed it all the way to the abandoned mines up north. And then, when the sun came up…” Another pause. “It just… disappeared. Stopped talking. Like it had never been there. I looked for hours. There was nothing. No trace of it, except…” Gabriel heard a soft click, the faint hiss of a lighter, then a long, steady inhale.
“Right by the entrance of the mines, I found this.” Something crinked, thick and paper. “I thought I lost that postcard Tammy sent me. Thought I misplaced it…Turns out it took it. It has her address on it. Our address.” Silence lingered for a moment.
“Since then, it’s stayed away. Days now. I only catch glimpses of it. Like it’s… waiting. Taunting me.” When he spoke again, his voice was tighter. Rougher. “I’m going there tonight.”
Gabriel felt the sweat on his skin turn cold. His hands tightened around the edge of the desk. “I’m not waiting for it to show up at the cabin again,” Radu went on. “And I’m not letting it get anywhere near my son. I’ll leave in an hour, to get there before dusk. I’m taking the shotgun from the station.” His father let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but not quite. “Though I don’t think they gave us that for something like this…”
Silence stretched. “Anyway.” A faint shift, like he adjusted his stance or picked something up. “I’ll take care of it. I just have to go there. That’s all. It’s been leading me specifically there anyway, so there’s no point dragging anyone else into it. After tonight… it won’t bother anyone again.”
The insects droned on. The wind moved through the trees, steady, indifferent. Then, quieter, closer to the recorder, Gabriel listened to his father’s voice, familiar, beloved, and impossibly far away. “Northfork Ranger Station. August 7th, 1981.Ranger Radu Filipescu, signing off.”
The tape clicked.
Gabriel scrambled for the next tape, knocking the box over in the process. He swore, loud and sharp, as the tapes spilled across the desk, a few clattering onto the floor. He yanked the headphones off, as they felt like a vice around his head now, and crouched down to gather them.
His hands were shaking. There was a low buzz in his ears, growing louder, pressing in, as he sorted through them, one by one. It felt like it took forever.Eventually, he managed to narrow it down.
The date on the label read August 21, 1981. But the handwriting wasn’t his father’s. Instead of that broad, almost cursive script, these letters were blocky, slanted, someone else’s entirely.A knot tightened in his throat. Something sharp and sour twisted in his chest.
It took everything he had to put the tape in. The first few seconds confirmed exactly what he feared, quickly and merciless.
“This is Ranger Kenny McDonald, at Northfork Ranger Station. The date is August 21st, and the initial search for Ranger Radu Filipescu was called off yesterday evening due to a storm system moving into the area. Conditions made it unsafe to continue. Ranger Radu Filipescu was reported missing on August 14th, after failing to check in for several days.” A brief pause and paper shifting was heard. His voice was older, steady and flat.
“Initial search efforts were conducted in the surrounding area. I’ve been assigned to take over duties at this station until further notice. The station was found in a… somewhat disorganized state. No signs of forced entry. No immediate indication of struggle.” He cleared his throat, quiet but deliberate.
“Most recent reports on file date back to June 2nd. Nothing logged after that. Standard procedure from here on out. I’ll be maintaining patrols, logging any findings, and coordinating with the district office once the weather clears. No confirmed trace of Ranger Filipescu at this time. End of report.”
Gabriel stayed still long after the tape clicked off, listening to the blood rushing in his ears. The writhing weight in his stomach and the knot in his throat seemed to spread through the rest of his body, heavy and suffocating. Something wet landed on his hand. It took him a moment to realize he was crying.
And once he did, it was like something inside him gave way. He folded into himself in the chair, shoulders shaking violently, and for a while the only sound in the ranger station was the echo of his own ragged sobbing. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted. By the end of it, his head no longer felt foggy, but flooded, almost muddy with grief.
His thoughts drifted helplessly between the crushing realization that his father was truly gone, and the equally painful understanding that he would have to be the one to tell Aunt Ira. His aunt had never been delusional about Radu. Whenever they spoke about him, especially after Gabriel had moved in with her, Ira never lied to him, not even when he was young enough that other adults might have thought it kinder to soften things. She never believed Radu had run away, and she never believed he would abandon his son willingly. But she also never clung to false hope. As the years passed, and no phone call came, no letter arrived, no body was found, she quietly accepted what had most likely happened. And now Gabriel would have to confirm it.
Eventually he forced himself to stand. His head felt heavy, his limbs stiff and sore. He went into the kitchenette and drank straight from the sink, cold water spilling down his chin as he washed his face and pushed his damp hair back with trembling hands.
After a while, he returned to the desk and shut the laptop down. He didn’t have the strength to keep going tonight. He switched off the desk lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The only light left came from the moon filtering through the windows in pale strips.
Slowly, he made his way to the door. The lock stuck for a moment before finally giving in with a rough click. Gabriel pulled the door open and stepped into the cool night air. The chill hit his face immediately, easing the pounding ache in his head just a little. He stood there for a moment, exhausted to the bone yet unable to make himself move any further.
And as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, across from the ranger station, just beyond the cabins, he saw a figure.
It was tall, standing stiff and perfectly still among the trees, half-swallowed by the foliage. The way it stood there didn’t even look deliberate. More like it had simply stopped in that spot and never moved again.
Gabriel felt his breath catch in his throat as he squinted into the darkness beyond the ranger station. For one desperate second he tried to convince himself it was Georgina. He knew it wasn’t. When the figure spoke, his heart lurched.
“Gavriill. My boy. I’m so happy you’re here.”
The voice sounded dead. Not hollow or even distorted, just dead. Like something forcing words through the throat of a corpse. And beneath that, buried under the rot of it, was his father’s voice. Almost perfect, aside from everything that made Radu Filipescu the man he was.
“My son, you came just in time... I was coming to find you, you know. I’m sorry it took so long. But now we can be together. Won’t you come with me?”
Gabriel’s whole body locked up. Fear rooted him where he stood, so complete he couldn’t even turn around., couldn’t yell, couldn’t force himself back toward the station. After a long, terrible moment, he managed a weak shake of his head. The effort made his muscles ache.
The figure stayed still. When it spoke again, the voice had changed to something soft, velvety, yet sharp around the edges, wrapped in an Oklahoma drawl that turned every sentence into equal parts comfort and command. His mother.
“Gabriel.” His stomach twisted violently. “You need to come with me now. I have something to show you in the caves. Once you see it... we can be together again. All three of us. Wouldn’t you want that, sweetie?”
The world tilted. The trees swayed slowly around him, the forest seeming to breathe with the night wind. Somewhere deep inside himself, a voice screamed at him to run. To hide. To get away. But it was drowned beneath something heavier, a need to step closer.Tears burned down his face. He hadn’t heard his mother’s voice in years…Not since hospital rooms and morphine and the smell of antiseptic. For one impossible second, he was a teenager again.
“I missed you, Mom,” he choked out. “So m-much.” The figure did not move, but Gabriel had the horrible sense that it was pleased. “But you’re not here,” he whispered, voice breaking. “N-not here. Not in the caves. You’re dead. Dad is d-dead.” He swallowed hard. “And I’m not dying here too.”
For a moment, the forest seemed to go still. Gabriel heard something creak somewhere nearby, like wood shifting under weight, but he didn’t dare look away from the figure.
“Gavriil, my boy,” it said, slipping back into his father’s voice. This time the malice underneath showed through. “You won’t have a choice.” The thing laughed, that awful sound like wind dragging through a hollow cave. “I will come back here again and again. And if I don’t get you, there’s always the other o- ”
The rifle shot cracked through the night like thunder. Gabriel saw the figure jerk backward with the impact, almost slow enough to follow with his eyes. It let out a shriek, high and layered, too many voices tangled together at once.
Somewhere to his right, Georgina shouted a curse. Then he heard her shout.
“GABE, YOU STUPID FUCK! GET INSIDE, NOW!”
It was like ice water had been dumped over his head. His legs finally obeyed him and he ran. Half stumbling, half falling, he bolted toward Georgina’s cabin. His hands slipped against the handle before it was unlocked from the inside. The door flew open so suddenly it nearly knocked him backward.
Georgina grabbed him by the arm, hauled him inside, and shoved him further into the cabin before slamming the door shut. His legs nearly gave out now that he was inside, his eyes scanning the cabin wildly, her slept in bed, the other full of stuff and clothes. He watched her rush to the open window, snatching up the rifle leaning against the wall beside it. Gabriel tried to look past her, toward the dark outside the window. She scanned the darkness outside and swore again.
“God damn it! The fucking thing’s gone already.”
After a second she turned around. Her eyes swept over him, his pale face, red swollen eyes, the way he was shaking so hard he could barely stay upright. She shoved tangled hair out of her face and spoke in a voice far calmer than the situation deserved.
“Gabe,” she said. “What the fuck was that?”
Sunlight filtered through the windows of the diner, amplifying the smell of coffee grounds and fresh frybread in the space. The afternoon rush had mostly died down by now, leaving behind the low murmur of conversations and the occasional clatter of dishes from somewhere behind the counter.
The beams fell in warm, dusty streaks across the table where Gabriel and Georgina sat with half-finished plates of food between them. Every now and then, amidst idle conversation and bites of food, he glanced towards his phone.
It had been over three weeks since Gabriel’s first night at the station. It had taken hours for Gabriel to calm down enough to tell Georgina what he knew. To her credit and to his immense relief, she did not dismiss him or called him crazy. She sat, listened calmly and patiently, and then sat through the recordings of his father, face set in a grim expression that made her almost look like a stranger.
When it was done, they sat silently, the rising sun shining through the station’s windows, Goegina staring into space, clearly trying to process. Gabriel felt unable to look at her. In the end he couldn’t stand the silence.
“I’m sorry, Georgina.”
She looked at him, looking confused.
“What for, dummy?”
He sighed indignantly, despite himself, and shrugged.
“I don’t know. For bringing this to your attention. For luring this thing here? Or… I don’t know!”
He felt her heavy palm land on his shoulder, jolting him out of his spiral.
“Gosh, you actually are a dummy.” Before he could protest, she drew him in in a bear hug, warm and rough, but comforting nevertheless. He hesitated, then reciprocated, relaxing for the first time in hours.
“... My dad is gone.” He said finally, hiding his face in her shoulder, feeling smaller than he ever felt.
“I know. I’m so sorry, Gabe.”
They stayed like this for a while. After that Georgina managed to wrangle him in her cabin, along with a glass of water and a melatonin tablet. Despite himself, he slept for almost the whole day and night, deeply and dreamlessly. He woke up at dawn the next day, hearing Georgina snore in the other bed, still piled with miscellaneous clothing, which made him smile, despite it all.
The figure didn’t appear after that. Gabriel was not sure if he was relieved or not. He kind of wished he could hear his mother’s voice again, tainted as it was. He managed to shake of the want soon enough.
The next days were filled with plans and ideas, most leading to nowhere. Georgina readily agreed with him that informing the main office about what was actually happening was a bad idea. She also shot down Gabriel’s idea to hike towards the caves the moment it left his mouth.
“I thought we were supposed to be smart about it, dude. And that does not sound smart at all.”
The solution came somewhat unexpectedly, when Georgina’s cousin decided to visit her at the ranger station. Gabriel had met Sam Strongarm once or twice before, as he made it somewhat of a habit to visit Georgina wherever she may be posted, and knew him to be a reliable and outgoing man. Nevertheless, it took some convincing from Georgina for him to relent. Sam listened to the tapes, and Georgina’s side of the story.
By the end of it, the easygoing expression Gabriel associated with him had long vanished, replaced by a tight, uneasy look. In the end, Georgina asked him for a favor. And he agreed to do it.
A few days later, an anonymous report reached the district office. A hiker claimed to have wandered into the abandoned cave system north of the station and stumbled upon what looked to be human remains deeper inside. He panicked and left immediately afterwards.
The authorities arrived soon after. What they found inside the caves made local news for weeks.
They recovered the remains of Ranger Radu Filipescu, along with the bodies of several missing hikers and campers dating back years. Most had been hidden deeper within the cave system, in narrow passages and collapsed chambers difficult to access without deliberately venturing further inside.
But it was the last body that drew the most attention. The corpse was old, early estimates placed it at over a century dead, the remains partially preserved by the cold and dry conditions within the caves. According to the initial reports, the man appeared to have died of starvation. What the reports struggled to explain, however, was the bullet wound lodged in the center of its chest. Fresh enough that it seemed like it was inflicted a couple of weeks ago.
Georgina had to be involved, of course, but only partially. And if the authorities found it strange that the son of one of the recovered bodies was currently stationed a few miles from where his father had died years ago, they didn’t say so out loud.
Right now, Georgina was watching Gabriel check his phone again, a soft chuckle slipping out of her.
“Could you maybe relax a bit?”
“No. I never do. Why would I start now?” Gabriel muttered, but he put the phone down anyway.
She took a sip of coffee and nodded. “Fair point.” A sigh. Then she looked at him again, gaze thoughtful. He let her stare for a moment before leaning back in his chair.
“What?” he said. “I know that ‘mother hen’ look of yours.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Me? Don’t accuse me of such sentimentalities.” She laughed when he rolled his eyes, but the amusement faded quickly. “It’s just… are you sure? About this?”
He nodded. Calm, but deliberate. “Yes. I really am.”
The idea had come to him after the call with his aunt.
He had dreaded that conversation more than anything, but the thought of a government official delivering the news instead felt worse. So he kept it simple. He omitted things. A lot of things. He was not proud of that, but it felt necessary. What would he even have said to Ira?
So he told her what the authorities had told him: that his father had been on routine maintenance and patrol near the cave system, and that at some point he had suffered a heart attack. That was what the coroner had listed. He was middle-aged. Fit, but not invincible. So that was the version she heard.
Ira took it the way she took most things: quietly and pragmatically, no denial or dramatics. Just acceptance, folded neatly into grief. She also agreed with his decision to stay at the station for the remainder of Georgina’s assignment, which would run into mid-October.
“It will do you good, Gavriil,” she told him softly. “A change of scenery. Nature. I think you should do it.”
So he had requested it from the main office. His justification was simple: the tapes were more numerous than expected, and too fragile, too degraded for safe transport. That part wasn’t even a lie. Georgina had, in fact, found another box in the shed—worn, waterlogged recordings spanning 1981, 1982, and 1983.
All they were waiting for now was approval from headquarters.
The phone in Gabriel’s pocket rang, making both of them flinch slightly. Gabriel stood and stepped out of the diner, pacing just outside as he answered, voice low and clipped. Georgina stayed at the table, watching him through the window, coffee in hand.
When he came back in, he looked lighter.
“Well?” she asked.
“They said yes,” he said. “Both to my request and yours.”
She let out a low whistle. “So Northfork’s a two-ranger station for good, huh?”
“Seems like it.”
“Good,” she said. Then, softer, almost offhand. “At least if anything like that happens again…”
Gabriel finished it without hesitation. “No one’s isolated out there.”
Georgina nodded, satisfied. He sat back down and lifted his mug.
“To the end of isolation,” she said, clinking hers gently against his.
He nodded. For a moment, he thought of his father, and of the figure. It came in sharply, the cold air, the dark trees, the voice breaking the silence. And then it was gone again, like it couldn’t quite hold in the daylight.
He looked at Georgina instead. Felt the warmth of the mug in his hands. The sun spilling across the table in uneven, lazy patches. The smell of coffee, grease, and old pine drifting in from somewhere outside.
“Amen to that,” he said at last, and took a sip. Outside, Trudid kept moving at its usual slow pace, and the day rolled on gently through the heat.