Narrator

Neat, like someone had arranged them.

And on top of the stack was a strip of hide with hair still attached, folded like cloth.

Luke bent to examine it, fascinated in that way people get around evidence.

"'That's not natural,' he said.

Tessa's voice went sharp.

"'Don't touch it.'

Luke froze, then pulled his hand back like he'd been burned.

He looked up at her.

"'What is it?'

Tessa shook her head once.

"'Just don't.'

She didn't explain, and that was when I started feeling something that I didn't have a name for at the time, that Tessa knew more than she was sharing, and she was rationing it like medicine.'

around early afternoon we heard voices ahead not hikers chatting not the occasional hey as people pass these voices were low and rough carrying on the still air we rounded a bend and saw them two men standing just off the trail where it widened near a big poplar

They looked like they'd stepped out of a different decade.

Both wore faded camo and dirty boots.

One had a gray beard and a cap pulled low.

The other was younger, maybe in his thirties, with sunken cheeks and eyes that didn't blink enough.

Each held a rifle, not pointed at us, but present the way a big dog is present even when it's lying down.

Tessa stopped like she'd hit a wall.

The older man smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes.