Chapter 1

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There's a body in the leaves.

You want to believe so badly it's a cluster of rocks you haven't seen before, some sort of animal carcass left untouched. But no, with one arm stretched out, fingers dirty and half-curled, there was a human body before you.

"Holy shit," You curse under your breath. It couldn't be. There's no way. This was such a good area, quiet miles of empty forest and private acreage owned by the quiet old man up the road. This wasn't the haunted residential streets of the city- you were out in the country to avoid this!

You pull your boot knife from its holder, a simple little thing you carried just in case. You scan the woods. The mix of orange and purple leaves nearly covering the strange corpse stands stark against the evergreens scattered through the area.

You step towards the shape amongst the leaves. A man, you're fairly sure, face-down in the leaves with some sort of latex mask. Fuck, had he been out here since Halloween? You inch closer, only a few feet from him now. If he'd been out here a few days already, he'd have started to smell, right? And the scavengers would've taken parts... but aside from the strange brown and black stains that mottled his outfit, he looked... intact.

God, those must be bloodstains! and worse, his sleeves have scorch marks across the cuffs. This wasn't some unfortunately timed natural cause- this man was murdered!

What if they were still out here? You're still as a deer under the scope, waiting for something to pull the trigger. Your heart slams against your ribcage. You can't see anyone else- you don't imagine any of the tree trunks are thick enough to truly hide anyone, either. No, there's nothing, no one out here. The whistling wind reminds you that you're alone, except for the body in the leaves.

Calm down. Maybe he had some ID? You could at least take it back with you to your house and hope to get some reception, if you're lucky, and you could tell the police immediately. You reach for his back pocket, fingers just snagging against the singed blue jumpsuit- the corpse flinches. Your ass hit the ground, crunching fresh leaves as you stumble back with a stifled cry. Breath, wet and labored, wheezes out of the mask, still face-down in the leaf litter.

Well, that changes things.




Your phone buzzes in your pocket. The single bar of service connects twenty feet from your porch. Your arms feel like dead weight as you drop the pull to your sled. It took twenty minutes of fighting gravity and the man's unconscious form just to get him onto your little firewood sled, another hour to lug him back to your porch. Finally, you could call an ambulance and get this guy in better hands. You pulled your phone out of your pocket--

Something tugs at your pants legs, you glance down. You bury your disgust at the sight; the three remaining digits of his left hand- you don't look too closely as the shattered remains of the other fingers- grasps at the fabric, pale and bloodied and filthy and burned against the denim. Holy shit, how was he awake? His fingers twist as your thumb hovers over that first 9.

"Hey, hey," You try to shush him, but hardly dare move in case you injure him more- you'd barely been able to flip him onto his back and madhandle him half onto your sled, only discovering more bloodstains and scorched skin and fabric. First aid told you not to move people, but if you'd left him out there he would've died long before the paramedics could find him that deep in the trees. "I'm calling you an ambulance, it's okay!"

He yanks with his three-fingered grasp- nearly toppling you over. Even as injured as he is, he's strong. His other arm flails, reaching uselessly towards you- clearly uncontrolled, flapping against his stained uniform for whatever he was trying to communicate.

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