Jonas

Big prints, but this time, they were heavier, deeper, and they were overlapping mine.

Whoever it was had been behind me, not beside the trail, not somewhere else, directly behind me, walking where I'd just walked.

I didn't think.

I just ran.

I veered off the main path and cut into a narrow gully that dipped down toward a dry stream bed.

I knew the area well enough to think I could loop around and reach the road without being seen.

It was the perfect plan, but I figured I'd be harder to follow that way.

Big mistake.

The moment I hit the bottom of the gully, I saw them more markers.

Not stone's time.

These were made of sticks tied together with rough twine jammed into cracks in the rock face.

Three of them, all different.

One had something dangling from it.

A little strip of denim in a single human tooth, threaded like a bead.

My knees almost gave out.

I stumbled back a step and just stared at it, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

There was no good explanation.

None.

I scrambled back up the slope.

My legs were shaking so badly I slipped twice and tore my palms in the loose gravel.