A forest barely surrounded by a picket fence in the dead of night. She could feel herself running, but it was completely involuntary. It was like her muscles were dead weight, pulling themselves along and braving through branches and rocks that resulted in a ridiculous amount of scratches. She didn’t know how she was running, nor did she know how she was doing it, but at least she knew what she was running from. A horrible growl. No, she thought, more like a screech. She looked down on herself as she was running and almost puked from all the blood all over her hands and attire. She tried so, so hard to run faster, but it was beyond her control. She didn’t know why, but she was scared. And she was right to be scared. All of a sudden, she felt something claw at her heels, cutting them open and making her fall flat on her face. Something very heavy was crawling on top of her. Whatever that was grabbed her head with its long, cold claws, and screeched once again as it started to crush her skull. 

And then she woke up in a cold sweat. Disoriented, she tried to adjust to the darkness and all but flashbanged herself when she turned her phone on. It was 2AM. No texts from her father, but that didn’t really surprise her. She gave it some thought and determined that it wasn’t completely pointless to go back to bed, so she flipped over her impromptu clothes-pillow-thing and tried to go back to sleep. 

Amelie Harper was on the highway bus from Bellac, capital to Fort Vouivre. She had been having recurring night terrors for a few days now. They started after her mother’s funeral, which took at least a week to prepare because they couldn’t dig her body out of the ruins of The Ark. It kinda made sense, she thought. Delayed trauma response, or whatever. She learned about that in Psychology II in high school and it sounded about right. 

That’s exactly why she wanted to go back to Fort, she reckoned. Everything was just so stressful lately, and she needed to shift gears, slow down. She was finally drifting asleep.

It was the best thing she could do if she wanted to slow down a bit. Nothing much ever happens in Fort Vouivre.  

 

The bus arrived one hour late. It was noon and Amy found herself in the midst of an intense power struggle with her luggage.

 

“Need some help with that?” It was Chase. Her best friend. It was the first time they had seen each other in five long years.  

Fort wasn’t overly conservative as far as small towns to the north of Bellac were concerned, but it was mostly a mostly white area controlled by old money and inherited power. That alienated both of them, Amy being of Asian descent on her mother’s part and Chase being a latino. It was no wonder they warmed up to each other right away when they met in middle school. They spent a good part of their childhoods in sleepovers and their families became pretty good friends as well. At least Amy’s mom did, her father was a lot more reserved when it came to social situations. 

It had been a while, but neither of them cared. They were basically brother and sister and a lousy five years apart wasn’t gonna change that.  She ran up to him and gave him a giant hug, the kind of hug you can only give after missing someone for half a decade. Both of them had tears in their eyes, but neither of them wanted to admit it.

 

“Amelie Harper,” Chase pulled away after he got it all out of his system. “You haven’t grown an inch in five years.”

 

“Dickhead.” They both broke into laughter in the middle of the station. Amy usually lived a comfortable distance away from herself, her father raised her to be quiet, to listen, and to only speak up when prompted to. That all went out the window when she was with Chase. 

 

They split the luggage between them (most of the heavy stuff was carried by Chase, as per his request) and headed home. It wasn’t a terribly long walk from the station, but very few things in Fort were.

 

“Been a while, huh? You’re finally home. How’s it feel?”

 

Amy hesitated for a bit. “Just really cold at the moment”

 

Cold, and exhausted. As soon as they got to Chase’s house (technically his granddad’s house, but he argued that it’d be his when they were all dead anyway, it was basically his already) she was out like a light. The house hadn’t changed one bit from the last time she’d seen it. It was one of the last all wooden houses still standing in the city, with only a single story and a small basement Chase reworked into his room when he turned sixteen. Amy took his mom’s old bedroom, which sort of slightly smelled like wet cardboard, but not enough to stop the prodigal daughter from passing out as soon as she tucked herself in. 

A few hours later, there wasn’t any more natural light coming from the window. Chase barged into her room. 

 

“Yo, Amy, wake up.”

 

“Leave me alone, it’s still so early.”

 

It was 9PM.

 

“You’re not sleeping your first day in Fort away. C’mon, shower and pack your guitar. We’re going to Cosmo’s”

 

“The burger joint? Aren’t we a little old for that?”

 

“No, silly, that one was shut down because they had rats in the kitchen. You’ll see. Now get off your ass and shower, you stink.”

 

For a small town north of the capital, Fort was quite lively. The all new, all different Cosmo’s was near the clocktower plaza, in a neighbourhood known for keeping Vouvreian nightlife strong with its clubs and pubs. Amy had to admit she liked the walk there, even if she would rather be sleeping. She was surprised at how much she could recognize. The Farlom sisters’ bakery, the old Toy Factory, even the pawn shop she got her first guitar in when she was 10, and… the Vouivre Marine Research Center. Her father’s old place of work. It sent a chill down her spine, but she couldn’t really put her finger on why.

The new Cosmo’s was different, for sure. It ditched the neon trappings of its surroundings and opted for a more subdued, vintage vibe. Wooden stools and tables, pictures from various points in the city’s history and a stage where three friendly looking, beer gut bearing weekend rockstars were playing their heart out to ZZ Top songs. While Chase was finding both of them a seat at the bar, Amy was fixated on the wooden dragon bust hung up on the wall. Subtle. 

 

“Amy, this is Samuel. Samuel, this is Amy. You’ll get along great,” the bartender waved at her as he finished cleaning a few glasses. “We’ll do proper introductions later, but first, what do you want? Drinks on the house.”

 

“Drinks absolutely not on the house,” Samuel shot back, almost immediately.

 

“Fine. Drinks on me.” Amy didn’t drink too often. Not because she didn’t want to, she couldn’t find the time between the endless band rehearsals and… Whatever she did with her father. Another chill ran down her spine. “Amy?”

 

“Uh, a rosemarie. Old fashioned.”

 

“You fucking hipster. Rosemarie old fashioned and a gin and tonic for now, Sammie.”

 

The bartender turned away to prepare their drinks. 

 

“So,” Amy giggled. “Sammie, huh?”

 

“Zip it, Amelie.”

 

She wasn’t prepared for introductions right away but she knew the gist of what she wanted to say. She also knew to avoid the dead mom, and the earthquake in the first place. And the asshole dad. Maybe talk about the band, but not the frontman, because he was her ex. On second thought, she let Chase and Samuel do most of the talking. 

Luckily for her, Samuel actually chewed their ears off, talking about how he and Chase met. Turns out Chase stumbled into Cosmo’s a year ago, heartbroken over an ill-fated lover, to drink his sadness away and dump four months of relationship trauma on an unassuming bartender.

 

“Hey, I tipped pretty well, you can’t complain.”

 

“I honestly thought it was all pretty funny.”

 

 Chase narrowed his eyes. “Pardon?”

 

“Yeah, man, drunk Chase is pathetic.”

 

“Wow, low blow. Maybe drinks should be on you after that.”

 

Next it was Chase’s turn to tell Samuel how Amy and him met. A couple of drinks later, Samuel outed Chase’s side gig as a birthday clown to support his stand-up career. Chase, by then completely intoxicated, directed some very unkind words in Spanish to his friend. 

It was only a few moments later when the ZZ Top tribute band unceremoniously ended their set and started packing their things. 

 

“Hey, Amy, you’re up.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“What, did you think I asked you to bring your guitar just to look cool? Show them how it’s done, hotshot.”

 

Before the conversation could continue, an old man burst through the backdoor being chased by security guards, climbed onto the stage and pushed the lead singer onto the ground. 

 

“Back the fuck off! Leave me alone. They’re coming. They’re coming for me!”, he screamed as he was dragged out of the place by two bouncers.

 

Chase finished his drink in one go. “Jesus, what a nightmare.”

 

“What was that all about?” Amy fixed her eyes on the bouncers. They looked like they were fed up with him.

 

“Third time this week he’s done this. The old man just comes here to cause a ruckus and keeps going on about how ‘they’ are coming for him,” Samuel sighed as he prepared another gin and tonic for Chase. “Noone even knows his name. It’s kind of sad.” 

 

Almost immediately after, the man threw a brick through the window. The alarms blared right back at him and Amy felt as if they were driving a knife through her skull. She tried to cover her eyes but ended up just shaking and hitting her head in hopes of blocking out some of the sound. 

 

“Oh, God, Amy, are you okay?” Samuel immediately stepped away from the bar to help. 

 

Chase stepped in. “She’ll be okay, just don’t touch her right now. Do you have any spare earplugs?”

 

“Yeah, of course. Do you want me to drive you two home?”

 

Chase looked at her and Amy nodded slightly. 

 

The earplugs helped a bit but the ride back home was still unbearable. They had their windows down to block out the sound and the cold but it didn’t stop Amy from clearly hearing the old man a block away from Cosmo’s screaming “You’re next!” at the car. It didn’t stop her from noticing the busy chatter of an after midnight nightlife district Fort Vouivre, or the intricate sounds that made up the internal workings of every traffic light they stopped by. Overwhelming was selling it short. She tried to close her eyes and drive the earplugs further in, shutting down all outside stimuli when they got home. She could still hear Samuel and Chase whispering, and the creaking of every wooden plank she stepped on, and even the sound of blood flowing through her veins as it was pumped from her heart. She collapsed onto the bed and immediately fell asleep to the same old dream of a forest surrounded by a picket fence. 

She woke up because a ray of light was stubborn enough to creep through the curtains and shine right on her overstimulated, hungover face. The house looked different early in the morning, with the sunlight putting a spotlight right on all of its imperfections. Amy glanced towards the old grandfather clock before remembering that it was there just for show. Chase’s actual grandfather hated clocks and the ticking sound they made, so he stripped theirs of the gears and motor driving it one time he was particularly upset at it. 

 

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Chase’s French was truly one to be pardoned. He was in the vague vicinity of the kitchen, wearing a purple apron with the words ‘kiss the chef’ poorly embroidered onto it, contemplating his burnt pancakes. “I hope you’re ready for part two of the city tour, we’re gonna grab breakfast in a café a few blocks from here.”

 

Amy stumbled onto the kitchen stool before putting her glasses on again. “So,” she looked Chase right in the eyes. “Did you fuck him?”

 

“What?”

 

“Samuel, did you sleep with him?”

 

“Jesus, of course not. I was busy taking care of your autistic ass.”

 

“Well, my autistic ass was a perfect excuse for you to sleep with him,” she stood up, dramatically, bringing her fists down at the table. “And you didn’t! What are you, gay?” 

 

“Ha, ha. Very funny. I changed my mind on the café thing, enjoy burnt pancakes for breakfast. Hope you’re happy with yourself.”

 

Amy grinned big, like a little kid. Of course she was. Her eyes darted across the living room and landed on a small box laying right by the front door. “What’s that?”

 

“Oh, that’s actually for you. I was gonna wait until you woke up to give it to you, but I was bored so I opened it already. It’s a cassette tape. Very retro, very cute.”

 

Amy’s attitude changed immediately. “That’s… weird.”

 

“What, the cassette tape? Sure, but so are you.”

 

“No, idiot, I mean the fact that someone sent me a package right here. Did you tell any of our old friends I was coming here?”

 

Chase hesitated. “No.”

 

Both of them shared an awkward moment of silence.

 

“Might be my dad,” she said. She really hoped it wasn’t. “Do you have any way of playing it here?”

 

“Not really, but Sarah might. You remember Sarah, right?”

 

Boy, did she. Sarah was Chase’s cousin and by proxy, probably Amy’s second closest friend. She was the youngest out of the three by about a year, and she made Amy seem outright extroverted. It was a challenge getting her to open up but when she did, they all became inseparable until an accident killed Sarah’s mom and left her dad wheelchair bound. She shut right off again after that. Amy wanted to get into contact after it happened, and again after she left Fort, and again when her mom died, and again last night. But she never did, and she felt terrible about it.

 

“Yeah, sorta.”

 

While it was true that most places in Fort were never more than a short walk away, most was the operative word in that sentence. Sarah’s house was right on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a forest which only terrified Amy a little bit but was reigned in by the fact that it lacked any sort of picket fence around it. It was an old house too, bigger than Chase’s, with a 1986 Vauxhall Austra parked in front of its garage.

Sarah’s dad struggled to open the door from his wheelchair, but he was delighted to see Amy again.

 

“Oh, my dearest Amy. It’s been so long! I heard about Eleanor, I’m so, so sorry…” he could read the discomfort in her eyes. “You guys are probably looking for Sarah, no? No use in screaming my lungs out, she probably has her music way up. Her room is upstairs, second door to the left.” 

 

Sarah’s room smelled like a weird blend of cigarettes and herbal tea. Chase coughed as soon as they walked through the door. The walls were red, but you’d be hard-pressed to notice as they were all covered in various posters, from Night of the Living Dead to Neon Demon and Primer. Bookshelves bent from the weight of the books in them, which included, amongst other things, a complete collection of the Animorphs. And Amy could only notice one thing. 

 

“Pornography,” she blurted out suddenly. Chase turned back and looked at her funny. “The music, I mean. Pornography by The Cure”

 

Sarah got up from her computer chair and smiled at Amy. “Yeah! On vinyl and everything.” 

 

“Oh God, you two will be insufferable,” Chase whimpered. 

 

Amy tried to wave at her, but Sarah high-fived her instead. She didn’t look a year younger than Amy anymore. The fact that Sarah was easily ten inches taller helped, but so did the fact that she traded the ponytails and high waisted skirts for her naturally curly hair dyed to a faded orange and a small-shorts-with-a-big-sweater outfit that Amy could never hope to pull off. Wow. 

 

“Amelie Harper. It’s been a while. Chase hasn’t shut up about you ever since he knew you were coming back.”

 

“Well, I hope he said good things?” 

 

“For the most part, yeah,” Chase was looking through Sarah’s CD and Vinyl collection. “Hey, Sarah, don’t you wanna show Amy your Green Day discography?”

 

“Shut the fuck up. It was… a phase,” her cousin snickered. “What do I owe the pleasure to?” 

 

“We’re trying to listen to whatever this is.” Amy took the tape from her bag.

 

Sarah had to take her boombox out of her state of the art tech box to play the tape, but she almost wished she hadn’t. Her and Chase were horrified by the tape but Amy was staring into the wall, not saying a word. 

Dei gratia. It sent yet another chill down her spine. She knew why this time, though. 

 

“Dei gratia, that’s part of the Ark’s slogan.”

 

Chase gulped. “That’s… fucked.”

 

The Ark was a think tank. The biggest research facility in the country, situated west of the capital in a small city called Saint Jonathan. It was the home of the country’s brightest, housing both hotshot Silicon Valley start-up kinds and the biggest profile, most established scientists, professors, engineers and sociologists with published articles to their name. It was where Amy’s dad worked after the VMRC and before moving to Belart with her. It was where Amy’s mom was working the night of the earthquake that killed her and so many others.

 

“So,” Sarah spun around lightly in her computer chair. “What now?”

 

“So, we try to get to the bottom of this.” Amy darted right back.

 

“What if it’s just a fucked up prank?” Chase wasn’t as eager to find out where that recording came from.

 

“Then there’s not much to worry about, right?” She shrugged. 

 

He still wasn’t eager but Sarah didn’t need to be told twice. 

 

“Well, if this was a digital recording I could tell you a lot more, but right now all we have is a piece of plastic,” she held it up and the light from her desk lamp shone through the thin material, showing a small piece of tape with a simplistic shark drawn on it, right next to a rough scribble that read 3b.

That was the VMRC logo and Amy’s dad’s old office, respectively. 

 

Chase giggled nervously. “Oh, you’re fucking kidding.”

 

“I mean, I told you it could be from dad.”

 

“Time-out, you two. What exactly is going on?” Sarah interfered. 

 

“That was my dad’s office.”

 

“I don’t remember your dad being a mad scientist.”

 

“Yeah, me neither, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Did anything weird happen over at the VMRC after I left?”

 

In the time it took Chase to wack his head around just to say ‘not that I remember’, Sarah had already pulled up a folder with archived news on one of her monitors and started scanning through it.

 

“A few years ago they made a deal with a big software company. Their thing is online security and they mostly do work for scummy data harvesting projects.”

 

“Why do you have an archive of news articles?” 

 

“You could say it’s a hobby.”

 

Chase held his head as if it was gonna fall out of his neck.

 

“Let me guess, you want to break into your dad’s office.”

 

“You know me so well,” she smiled slightly. 

 

Sarah clicked her lips. “I can drive you if I can come with. I’m bored.”

 

The car carried the same vibe as Sarah’s room. It smelled like cigarettes again and its presentation just screamed late night joyrides and Nick Cave CDs bumping from the old stereo. 

Amy took a deep breath and looked at her two friends.

 

“Alright, so, has anyone here commited a crime before?”

 

“I don’t have to answer that,” Chase was fighting his seatbelt.

 

“What are you, a fucking cop?” Sarah simply turned the car on and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal as they went. 

 

It was the weekend, so they didn’t expect an awful lot of movement in the building. The plan was driving around it to identify potential security cameras and most importantly, blindspots. Amy thought the best way to enter was through the window that led to her dad’s office, which was always left open because he liked to hide away and smoke in there. Even though he was an ass, Sarah felt a spiritual connection with the man right then and there.

Their plan kinda fell apart when they pulled up to the VMRC and a man in a white coat approached them.

 

“Amelie Harper? It’s been so long! You probably don’t remember me.”

 

“Who the fuck is this?” Sarah whispered, annoyed.

 

“Oh, how could I forget? You’re…”

 

“I’m Herbert! Herbert Newman. I worked with your old man. How’s Charles holding up?”

 

“He’s… fine? I guess. I don’t live with him anymore.”

 

“Oh, God, yeah, that makes sense. You’re nineteen, right?”

 

“Twenty one, actually.”

 

“You kids grow up so fast.”

 

Sarah and Chase stood still, like statues, in hopes they wouldn’t be seen by the scientist.

 

“Actually,” Amy coughed. “Dad asked me if I could bring him some things from his old office when I got here, so, yeah.”

 

“Oh, yeah! Absolutely. Let me get his office door for you.”

 

As soon as he did, he walked out and turned to Amy. “I’m really sorry about Eleanor.”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

As soon as he was gone, Chased coughed. “Well, that was kind of a dick move on our end.”

 

“You make fun of people for a living, you’re not exactly a paragon of morality,” Sarah responded. “Plus, I don’t trust him. Sketchy motherfucker.”

 

“Sarah, you don’t trust anyone,” Chase was already snooping in the bookshelves. “What exactly are we looking for?”

 

“Whatever looks incriminating, I guess,” Amy sat down in front of the computer, which was a far cry from the old, greyed out Dell that used to be here when her dad was still in town. For one, the computer demanded a USB drive to even boot. It was also remarkably clean and spotless considering everything else in the room was covered by a layer or two of dust. She looked down at one of the cabinets in the desk. “Does anyone here know how to pick a lock open?”

 

Neither Amy nor Chase was surprised when Sarah got up, almost excitedly. “I do, give me your hair pin.”

 

Amy instructed her to open the lock… then open it again. With a second twist of the hair pin, the cabinet made a clicking sound and Amy took the top part off, revealing a bottom compartment where her dad used to hide the cigarettes. The USB drive was right there, between cobwebs and another few layers of dust. 

The computer booted right up, to a very slightly obtuse operating system, almost user hostile. Sarah said it could be the software company’s own custom Linux distribution. Amy and Chase had no clue what she was talking about. It was a clean install, there was nothing actually in the computer, and all the files were stored in the USB drive. A seemingly random assortment of marine biology related files, all in folders with names that sounded normal enough for this kind of work. Except for PL_DG, a subfolder that was stored deep amongst pictures of lab results for squid ink. It was password protected but DeiGratia was an early guess by Amy that granted them access. 

The computer took a second to load the new folder before spitting out at least three hundred different files, all encrypted with not enough time or clues to solve any of them. There was only one outlier, only one file with a readable name. 

AbrahamDarmond.pdf was essentially a scan of a scientist’s profile, but it could be argued that it was too in depth. His telephone number and known relatives were crossed out, but his home address was clearly on display. Blood type, allergies, medical procedures, past illnesses, a thorough list of hospitalizations and medications followed. His picture was also crossed out with a black, inky X but Amy and Chase could make out that it was the old man that broke into Cosmo’s last night. 

 

“This feels illegal,” Chase tried to interject. “Maybe we should call the police.”

 

Sarah hit him behind the head. “How are you going to explain any of this to the cops?”

 

Amy got another chill down her spine. More intense, this time. It made her shake ever so slightly. He didn’t know the man but the document seemed so familiar, like she’d seen it before. It unsettled her to her core. A feeling of deja vú so strong it made her sick. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The night I come here that guy wrecks the one bar we’re hanging out at, makes us go home, the morning after I get this tape and it all leads right back to him.”

 

“So you’re saying that nut job is doing all this Scooby-Doo bullshit just to talk to you?” Chase eyed the document up and down.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“And it somehow has to do with your dad.”

 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” 

 

“Will you drop this?”

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

He sighed. “Let it be known that I think this is a terrible idea.”

 

Amy smiled slightly. “Let’s try to go to his house. With a weapon, preferably.”

 

“I have a crowbar in the trunk.” Both of them stared at Sarah, who was still on the office chair. “Oh, really? What about that is out of character for me?”

 

They waited a bit longer to get out of the building, trying not to bump into Herbert again, which gave Sarah time to confiscate the USB drive for further investigation, unbeknownst to both her friends. It was a fifteen minute drive from the VMRC to Abraham’s house with basically no traffic as they approached it, but it was late by then, so that wasn’t necessarily an indication of anything. 

The house was in an old money suburb, which explained its intimidating size. It also, for a lack of a better word, looked like shit. All the lights were out and no one came to the door when Chase rang the bell. All diplomatic options exhausted, they used the crowbar to break in through the backyard fence door. 

Entering the house overwhelmed Amy again. Same old chill down her spine, getting worse with every step she took. And then, when they were going to enter the house through a backdoor, it hit her. 

 

“Stop,” she got in front of both of her friends and used her phone’s flashlight to see clearly. A trail of bloody footsteps started from the backdoor and led directly to a small shack in the garden. All of them gulped, almost simultaneously. 

 

Chase was probably the strongest of the three, so he led the charge, crowbar in hand. He opened the door slightly, waiting for the girls to shine a light through the door.

The first thing that hit them was the smell, one like a rotten animal carcass that had been left for too long in the sun. The second thing, maybe more alarming, was Abraham’s corpse laying on the ground, pale and wide-eyed, with what seemed to be like a huge scratch mark across his neck. The third thing was the growl from a humanoid figure crawling on the wall that made the trio run out of the shack before they could get a good look. 

That growl- No, that screech, made Amy blow up again. Sarah had to hold her hand the whole way out of the house and Chase all but kicked the fence door down to get to the car.

Amy remembered the forest, the dream, the screeching. She could hear the car engine as it came alive, and the tires screeching as Sarah stepped on the gas again. The screech. The forest. The sound. It was all too much. All she could do was close her eyes and pass out.