Chapter One
Tim’s flashlight cut a beam through the dark, his breath fogging the air as he searched the spaces between the trees. “Hello? Who’s out here? Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
“Hello? I’m the forest ranger! Does someone need help?”
No response again, but his skin prickled with the sense of being watched. He cursed as he headed back toward the station. Forty-five minutes since he’d heard the voice call out for the second time. Forty-five minutes he’d been thoroughly searching the woods, shouting into the silent darkness. But he hadn’t found anyone in distress. He hadn’t found anyone at all. Shit, there shouldn’t be anyone way up here on the mountain at night. Alone. In the dark. No one except for Tim, anyway. But he’d definitely heard a man’s voice calling from a distance. Calling for help.
But had he really heard it? Or had he imagined it? Tim wasn’t overjoyed that he’d begun to question his own sanity lately, but he was determined to consider it calmly and rationally. Because he’d also been certain he’d heard a baby crying in the woods during his last few shifts, but after frantic searching many a night, had found nothing. A baby crying on the mountain at night was creepy as fuck, but tonight all he’d heard was a grown man’s voice, which was considerably less odd. A man wandering the mountain trails at night might be unusual, but it made more sense than a baby. So why was he experiencing that same unease, a deep, underlying feeling that something was very, very wrong up here?
Cursing again under his breath, he quickened his pace as he trudged through the woods. A bead of moisture trickled down his back. Tim was in good shape, well accustomed to roaming this terrain on foot, so he shouldn’t be sweating like this. And it was cold outside. Springtime didn’t mean dick in Singing Bear Village, especially this high up on the mountain. It was his nerves making him sweat, and that pissed him off. A forest ranger should not be nervous in the damn forest.
He let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the lights of the station up ahead, anxious to get back inside. As he climbed the ladder, he got an eerie sensation again, like there were eyes on him. Once inside the small cabin, he quickly closed the door, removing his ranger jacket and hanging it on a hook. His uniform shirt was damp under his arms and down his back, and he untucked it as he paced the floor, wondering if he should call Myles. But he was reluctant to contact the sheriff’s office about this. Because for the first time in Tim’s life, he didn’t trust his own instincts.
For weeks he’d been up here chasing phantoms. He didn’t need to drag Myles into some futile search for something that could very well be all in Tim’s mind. But be it his imagination or not, Tim Patterson was not one to ignore his duties when he heard a cry for help. Even if he couldn’t find the source. Just like he couldn’t find the source of the other weird sounds he’d been hearing up here over the past month. The sounds...and the shadows. Shuddering, he ordered himself to shake it off and focus on his job.
There were only twenty minutes left in his shift, and he determined to use them wisely, so he could in good conscience tell himself he’d done his best tonight. Grabbing his binoculars, he opened the door and stepped out onto the deck, peering at the woods below. All was silent as he studied the base of the tree-line, where he’d seen the shadows moving so many times before. But tonight, blessedly, there was nothing to see out there but trees.
Stepping back inside the cabin, he began to clean up, readying to close the station down for the night. As he busied himself, he pondered why that male voice he’d heard earlier had him so rattled. It was understandable that he was jittery after all the other shit he’d been experiencing. Plus, the fact that he was now privy to the truth about what secrets lay beneath the mountains here always made him a little edgy, despite being assured by JT and the rest of the village bozos that he needn’t be concerned with that. But tonight, he’d heard a plain old human voice calling for help, so it shouldn’t have gotten him so freaked out. It could have been a random hiker shouting to a friend. Or perhaps it was another damn conspiracy theorist, following internet rumors of strange activity in this area.
But Tim hadn’t come across any such wanderers in months. ‘Keep Out’ signs and Tim’s very presence here seemed to have become a deterrent for thrill-seeking tourists. He also reminded himself that sounds could be tricky in this area. With the mountain range surrounding the lake down below in the village, noises sometimes seemed closer, or farther away than they were. The deep, sustained honk of the lake ferry often bounced off the peaks in confusing ways, for example. But that voice tonight...there was something about it that made the hair on Tim’s arms stand up, even now as he thought about it.
After closing down the station, he descended the ladder and started down the path that led to the new road, where his truck was parked. It was a simple half-mile hike, but he walked faster than usual, anxious to be off the mountain. Halfway to the road, as his sweat began to cool under his light cotton shirt, he realized he’d forgotten his jacket back at the station. For a moment he considered going back, but quickly decided fuck that. He could grab it next time he came.
It was annoying, being nervous walking this path he was so familiar with. He didn’t just work on these mountains, he’d grown up hiking them, lived here in the village his entire life. But everything was different now, ever since Elliot and JT and the rest of those assholes revealed the truth to him, the lies they’d been keeping for so long.
But was that the only reason he no longer felt comfortable up here? No, it was something else. It had been something else for a month now. And tonight’s events felt like the last straw. He could no longer keep silent about what he’d been experiencing. He didn’t want to have to share it with those smug assholes, to reveal his weakness in being afraid. But he was afraid. And he wanted someone to assure him there was nothing to it. Someone who might know better what anomalies lurked in the forest.
A twig snapped to his left, and he stopped on the path, shining his flashlight into the woods, sighing when he spotted a squirrel scuttle up the side of a tree. The forest ranger isn’t supposed to be afraid of the forest, he reminded himself, but jogged the rest of the way down the path until he reached his truck.
As he drove down the steep mountain road, comforting heat blasting through the vents and warming his body, suddenly he knew what it was about that male voice that had him so spooked. He’d first heard it when he stepped outside the station to do a random check, which prompted him to begin a wider search. Ten minutes later, after venturing into the woods, he’d heard it again, still from a distance, but clearer the second time. The sound was identical. Absolutely identical to the first time he’d heard it, word for word, pitch for pitch.
That’s it. That’s what’s fucking weird about it.
When he heard the voice call ‘I need help!’ the first time, Tim wasn’t exactly focused on the vocal inflection, but it must have registered. Because when he heard it a second time, it was spoken the same way, with the emphasis on the second word. ‘I need help!’ It stood out, because in Tim’s experience, a person would normally emphasize the last word—I need help. But the phrase was spoken the same way both times, like an echo repeating itself ten minutes later.
And while it registered as a male voice in Tim’s mind, something about it spoke to his deeper instincts. Something about it sounded wrong. False. An imitation of human desperation.
Or maybe he was losing his damn mind. Maybe he hadn’t heard any such thing. Maybe he hadn’t experienced all the other, weirder things over the past month either. Perhaps the revelations of learning the truth about Singing Bear Village were becoming too much again, and he was on the verge of cracking under the pressure.
No. Not again. I’m over that now.
He’d had one very bad night last year after temporarily convincing himself he was fine with everything he’d learned, that having to sign some shadow-government nondisclosure agreement about his own hometown was digestible. One very bad night where his acceptance of new realities crumbled, and he crumbled along with it. He shivered, thinking of Tyler, then quickly pushed the memory aside as he pulled onto the main road and headed toward the comforting lights of the village. He didn’t need those memories surfacing right now, emotions so conflicting they made him nauseous with regret and embarrassment even as his cock swelled at the mere hint of Tyler’s name in his mind.
Enough. Don’t think about that. Get a grip and deal with what’s happening now.
Tim was not the type of guy to wallow in uncertainty. He refused to do so any longer. Be it imagination caused by stress, or something quite real, his recent experiences on the mountain were creeping him out, and he needed answers. And his only option was to turn to a group of people he’d never quite managed to get along with, even before he was forced into silent complicity with them. A group that mocked him as often as he mocked them, an old dynamic within which he was trying to establish a new standing. A group of longtime adversaries that had newly become unwanted, yet unshakeable allies.
It was time to talk to the assholes in the village. And hope they didn’t laugh directly in his face. They’d laughed in Tim’s face plenty in the past, as he’d laughed in theirs. He prayed that this time they’d understand that he was being serious.
That this time, Tim was genuinely scared, and needed their help.