Jonas

The roof sagged, one of the porch rails was busted, and the propane heater made this god-awful wheeze when it kicked on.

And after the year I'd had two deaths in the family, a breakup, and a department reward that left me answering to a 23-year-old, I needed quiet.

First three nights were fine, nothing spooky.

I split firewood, went out hiking during the day, ate badly, and didn't care.

I brought a generator for power and I rotated between watching old DVD and reading paperback I hadn't touched in years.

I think I slept 12 hours a night.

It felt good.

Only strange thing in that time was this black and white photo I found.

It was in the bottom drawer of a desk Carl used to keep in the spare room.

I was looking for matches and came across a bunch of odds and ends.

The paper clips, thumbtacks, one of those old plastic rulers that always smell faintly of cigarette smoke, and underneath that stuff was a frame photo.

It showed a boy, probably eight or nine, standing near the tree line, dressed in old clothes of rolls, and touched flannel.

Something about the picture looked off, though.

His head was turned slightly, and his face was blurred, like he moved just as the picture was taken.

Not super unusual for old film, but the blur didn't look like motion.

It looked, smeared, like someone had rubbed it with their thumb.

I figured it was just some old hunting buddy's kid or something, maybe even Cal himself.

I put it back and didn't really think about it again until later.

Fourth night, things got weird.

It had started to drizzle that evening, and the temperature dropped fast.