“Yeah, but I’m not trying to convince anyone Bigfoot is roaming around in Ashmore County,” she said.
“Can you two stop flirting so Whit can give me the scoop?” Shane said.
That shut them up. Delilah stood up, whispering,“Gross,” under her breath before she headed up the porch steps past Silas and June.
Whit leaned an elbow on his knee, marshmallow forgotten. “It wasn’t Bigfoot. And it wasn’t a bear…or a deer, or a wildcat, or nothin’ like that. I know what I saw.”
A chill crept up my spine at the mention of a wildcat. That’s what people had said about the Painter, too…and it drew my eyes to the darkness at the edges of the yard, the woods behind the house.
Beau raised an eyebrow. “You see it clear this time?”
“Clear enough,” Whit said. “It was tall—like, too tall. Lanky. Moved wrong. Like it was gliding instead of walking. And the woods went quiet when it showed up, like everything just stopped breathin’.”
The fire popped, sending sparks into the air. Nobody said anything.
Until Holden spoke.
“I’ve seen it too,” he said.
Every head turned.
“You?” Shane asked, blinking.
Holden didn’t flinch. “Yeah, when we were kids…me and Whit used to sneak out of the house at night to go throw rocks off the big bridge out at Foggy Creek. I didn’t tell anyone because I figured I’d imagined it. But Whit’s description matches.”
Ash narrowed his eyes. “Same shimmer eyes?”
Holden nodded. “And that weird sense of pressure in the air. Like…something was bending the space around it.”
Shane went very still. Then: “Okay, now I’m listening.”
I could see the gears turning behind his eyes—the same gears I’d watched spin every time we got a new lead.
He was switching into story mode.
…and that meant he was almost definitely going to haul me out into the woods for some kind of factfinding mission.
“I mean, we’ve got two sightings, same location, consistent description, temporal separation, no confirmed hoaxes,” he muttered. “That’s enough for a mini-series at least. Maybe even a cross-season thread.”
“Or,” I offered, “it’s just the same weird fog tricking two people in the same place.”
“Sure,” Shane said. “And that’s what we’re gonna find out.”
He turned toward Whit. “We need a route. Points of contact. Exact timing. I want to interview both of you separately. And if there’s anything out there, we’re bringing the full setup—night-vision, EMF, audio recorder, IR cams. I’ll get the episode arc down before I forget it…three parts minimum. First one’s the setup—festival, folklore, initial sightings. Second is the investigation. Third is the fallout.”
“The fallout?” I asked.
He nodded. “Something always happens. Could be mundane, could be mind-blowing. Either way, we follow the thread.”
Beau muttered under his breath, “You’re gonna get us all killed.”
I smirked. “You scared?”
“Not scared,” he said. “Just not in a rush to meet somethin’ thatglides.”
“Wasn’t it you who said the woods were safe around here?” I asked.
“Around here, yeah,” Beau said, holding me closer. “The woods around Foggy Creek are a whole other thing.”
