Boyd walked down the main street with heavy steps. The morning sun beat down on his back, but it couldn't warm the cold that had settled in his chest since the night before. Two more deaths. Two more graves. And the certainty that sothing was fundantally wrong.
A few ters from the clinic, he stopped.
Jade appeared, pulling a hand-cargo cart. Resting atop the tal fra was Tobey's body, wrapped in a stained sheet. The wheels creaked against the uneven asphalt, a dry, persistent sound that seed to echo the man's state of mind.
He didn't look at the sheriff right away. His face was locked, eyes fixed straight ahead, as if any shift in focus might cause him to collapse. His hands gripped the tal so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
"I'll take him first," Jade said when he finally stopped. His voice was low, stripped of emotion. "Kenny went to get Gina."
Boyd nodded. He didn't trust his own voice at that mont.
They walked together toward the improvised cetery on a patch of soft ground almost directly across from the diner. Wooden crosses and stones marked the lost lives, so carved with nas, others bearing only lonely dates. Too many markers for such a small community.
Along the way, people began to watch.
Doors cracked open. Curtains shifted. Faces appeared in windows, too curious to pretend they hadn't heard anything during the night.
Boyd felt their gazes settle on the cart. On the sheet. On the human shape beneath it.
Whispers cut through the air.
"It was at the clinic..."
"I heard glass breaking."
"They say it was an attack."
No one truly approached. They stayed at a distance, forming small, disconnected clusters, speaking in hushed voices.
Jade kept his eyes forward the entire ti. Jaw clenched, steps too rigid. Every whisper struck him like an invisible blow.
Then he stopped.
He turned suddenly, his sharp gaze sweeping over the small groups scattered along the street.
"What are you staring at?" His voice rang out loud and harsh. "Never seen a body before?"
The murmuring died instantly.
So people looked away. Others stepped back instinctively.
Boyd took a step closer. He didn't touch him, but stood near enough to be felt.
Jade inhaled deeply through his nose. Once. Twice. Then he turned forward again and resud walking, his shoulders far too tense for soone still pretending to be in control.
The sheriff didn't bla them. If he were on the other side, he might want answers too.
But understanding didn't make anything easier.
When they arrived, Boyd picked up a shovel leaning near the crosses, and Jade did the sa. They began to dig in silence.
The soil gave way easily, but every movent felt like punishnt. Sweat ran down their faces, mixing with dust as ti passed unnoticed. There was no urgency. Only necessity.
When they finished, they laid Tobey into the grave.
Jade remained still, staring at the fresh earth as if expecting his friend to sit up at any mont and announce it had all been a cruel joke.
The miracle didn't co.
Not long after, Kenny arrived, pushing the cart with Gina.
Boyd approached Gina's body, resting beneath a simple sheet. He picked up the shovel again, feeling the familiar weight of the wooden handle. Burying people you knew never beca easier. It only turned into a desolate habit. The three of them worked together until both graves were finished, side by side.
"How's Kristi handling it?" the sheriff asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Sad, but busy," Kenny replied, eyes fixed on the ground. "She's at the clinic taking care of my dad. I think she needs the distraction. Standing still right now would break her."
Boyd nodded. He understood. Sotis work was the only anchor to sanity.
He turned to Jade, who was still crouched like a rigid statue, his hollow stare fixed on Tobey's improvised cross.
The sheriff took a deep breath and shifted focus. "Kenny, I need you to co with to investigate the stone that was thrown through the clinic window."
"I'm coming too," Jade said sharply, lifting his head at once.
"You need to eat and rest," Kenny countered gently, exhaustion heavy in his voice.
"I'm not hungry." The reply was sharp. Jade stood, wiping his dirty hands on his pants. His eyes were red and feverish. "Tobey is dead. Soone threw that stone. Soone let those things inside. If it were a monster that learned how to break glass, I need to know. If it were a person..." His voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "I need to know."
Boyd and Kenny exchanged a knowing look. They had seen that expression before. The desperate need to find soone to bla so the chaos could make sense.
"Alright," the sheriff conceded. "But you're eating first. This isn't a negotiation. If you pass out, you help no one."
Jade hesitated, jaw tight, then nodded.
Before they left, Kenny seed to rember sothing. "Did you check on Frank?"
The sheriff stopped, tilting his head as if digging through rubble for a buried mory. "Damn. I... forgot."
Disbelief hit him hard. Frank had been locked in the cell since the day before, devastated, and the chaos at the clinic had simply erased him from Boyd's mind. "We'll stop by the station first," he ordered, quickening his pace.
The sheriff's station, set up in an old post office building, had a chalkboard at the entrance reading:
NIGHTS WITHOUT INCIDENTS: 96.
Boyd wiped the number away with the palm of his hand as he entered.
Inside, a map of the United States showed where each resident had co from before encountering the fallen tree. Jade stepped closer, studying the markings with analytical interest.
"The map shows where everyone was when they saw the tree," Kenny explained before he could ask. "Florida, Ohio, California. The starting point doesn't matter. The destination is always this place."
"That's impossible," Jade muttered, shaken. "Statistically. Geographically. It violates the laws of physics."
"Welco to town," Kenny replied bitterly.
Frank lay on one of the cells' benches, staring at the ceiling. The place slled of urine. There was no bathroom, and the chamber pot Boyd had left hadn't been emptied in ti.
"Frank. Sorry it took so long. We had a serious situation last night," Boyd said, opening the door.
No response.
"We brought food and water," Kenny added, setting the items on the small table.
The man remained motionless, like a discarded puppet. "I should've boarded the window," he whispered hoarsely. "You said, board the windows. And I didn't..."
The sheriff felt his chest tighten. Guilt. He knew that weight. A burden he'd carried since losing his wife. "If you want to see soone... or go sowhere before you leave..."
At last, Frank looked at him. "There's a place I want to go."
Jade, listening closely, interrupted with suspicion. "What do you an, 'leave'? You said there's no way out of this place."
Kenny pulled him aside and explained about the Box. When soone caused another's death through negligence or cri, they were sentenced to spend the night inside a rusted tal structure, at the rcy of the creatures.
Jade looked at the Box through the window and went pale as he realized Boyd's word "leave" was a euphemism for execution.
The investigation began imdiately afterward. They knocked on doors near the clinic, gathering fragnts of an uncomfortable truth.
"I woke up to the noise," said a middle-aged woman, her fingers trembling around an empty tea mug. "I looked out the window and saw a silhouette running."
"Can you describe it?" Boyd asked, while Jade paced impatiently across the porch.
"It was... thin. Long hair, I think. Definitely a woman."
Kenny committed it to mory, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh.
The second resident, an older man with stubble and a coffee-stained T-shirt, confird the story minutes later.
"I saw soone running away from the clinic," he said, scratching his beard, the rough sound breaking the silence. "Couldn't see the face. Too dark. But it was a woman. I'm sure of it."
"How can you be sure if it was dark?" Jade demanded aggressively.
The man didn't flinch. "The way she ran. And... she was wearing a dress. I saw the fabric moving in the moonlight."
Boyd exchanged a heavy look with Kenny. "It was a person," the sheriff confird. "Not the monsters."
Jade froze for a second, processing the information. Then the pain on his face crystallized into pure fury. "A person. Tobey died because a person threw a stone? It wasn't an accident. It wasn't bad luck. It wasn't fate. It was soone. Soone chose to do this."
"Jade," Kenny tried to calm him.
"Who?" Jade shouted at Boyd, wild. "Who did it? You have to know. You had to see sothing."
"We don't know yet," the sheriff replied, his voice firm and controlled, the tone he used to defuse volatile situations. "But we'll find out."
"When?" Jade was nearly screaming now. "Tomorrow? Next week? anwhile, whoever did this is walking around like nothing happened?"
"Tobey is dead. And soone here..." His voice broke, anger giving way to grief once more. "Soone here killed him."
Boyd placed a steady hand on the young man's shoulder, feeling him tremble with adrenaline. "We will find out who and why. But not right now. You're at your limit. If you break now, you won't help in the search."
Jade wanted to argue, but exhaustion won. He nodded, defeated.
"A woman in a dress," Kenny repeated. "A lot of won wear dresses here, but being out at night and not getting caught by the creatures... That's what doesn't make sense."
Boyd frowned. "We need a eting. Everyone needs to board their windows. And I need to warn them that the talismans protect closed rooms, not just entire houses. We need layers of defense."
---
At the diner, Sara operated on autopilot. Smile. Write. Serve. Clean. The cycle masked a mind spinning like a scratched record.
They're fine. Daniel and the family are alive.
She should have felt only relief, but dread gnawed at her stomach. The voices had promised not to touch the longti residents, only the newcors. But the family was still there. And what if they asked for sothing again? The thought hit her like a punch. Her hands trembled slightly as she wiped down a table.
"Sara."
She turned sharply. Nathan stood in the doorway, his face tense, shoulders rigid. The urgency in his eyes made her heart race.
"Sara, co with . We need to talk. Now."
She dropped the cloth on the counter, the damp fabric leaving a dark stain on the wood, and excused herself from Tian-Chen with a quick nod. The older woman simply nodded back.
They stopped behind the diner.
"What are you doing here? You know you can't just show up like this," she whispered, digging her nails into her palms.
"At the clinic last night... two people died," Nathan blurted out, hands shaking. "A newcor... and Gina."
Sara's world went silent. Gina's na struck her like a physical blow, stealing the air from her lungs.
"And there's more," Nathan continued, panic rising. "Boyd is investigating. He's asking if anyone saw sothing near the clinic. What are we going to do if he finds out it was you?"
Sara barely heard him. The world's sound dulled to a muffled hum. Gina was dead. All the satisfaction she'd felt over the family's survival evaporated, leaving only ash. The voices had promised safety for the townspeople. They had lied.
"Sara. Sara." Nathan shook her shoulders. "Are you listening to ?"
"Don't panic," she forced her voice to stay steady, even as she collapsed inside. "If you lose control, they'll get suspicious. Go back to work and act like nothing happened. I'll do the sa."
She paused, forcing herself to hold his gaze. "No one is going to find out."
Nathan hesitated, fingers still gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave marks. She saw the doubt in his eyes. The uncertainty. The fear.
Then he nodded. Slowly. Reluctantly. Confidence returning, or at least the illusion of it.
He released her shoulders and turned away, heading back toward the barn where he worked. His steps quick, almost a run.
Sara stayed there for a mont.
Then she returned to the diner with chanical steps. Picked up the damp cloth she'd dropped. Cleaned another table.
Smiled at a custor. Took an order. Brought food.
She kept working as if nothing had happened.
As if she weren't carrying the weight of two deaths on her shoulders.
But inside, guilt weighed like stone.
The voices had lied.
And Gina's blood was on her hands.
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