The knock came again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Jack Mercer stood frozen, staring at the motel window. The curtains were drawn, but the glass rattled with every strike. Outside, the fog pressed close, smothering the lone streetlamp of the parking lot.
"Who's there?" Jack's voice cracked.
No answer. Just tap-tap-tap, steady as a heartbeat.
He grabbed the shattered radio from the floor and hefted it like a weapon. With his free hand, he yanked the curtains back.
The window was empty. The fog swirled against the panes. Then, a handprint bloomed in the condensation. Small. A child's.
Jack recoiled. The print began to move and dragged the glass down. Letters formed:
H E L P
The radio in his hand crackled to life.
…Jack… Emily's voice, frail as cobwebs. …the tower… break the circle…
"What circle?!" he shouted.
The handprint smeared and vanished. The radio died.
Jack didn't sleep.
At sunrise, he drove into the woods. Emily's locket bounced against his chest with each pothole. The forest looked different in daylight—less sinister but wrong. It is like a corpse wearing makeup.
He found a collapsed radio tower with its metal skeleton half-buried in dirt. Vines choked the base, but the words THEY LISTEN still glared in rust-red letters. Jack kicked at the vines. Underneath, symbols were carved into the metal: overlapping circles and jagged lines.
"Like a cult diagram," he muttered, snapping pictures with his phone.
A twig snapped behind her.
Sheriff Roy Dalton stood ten feet away, his thumbs hooked in his belt. His badge gleamed, but his eyes were dull, like tarnished coins. "This ain't a tourist spot, Mercer."
Jack forced a smile. "Just hiking."
"Hiking." The sheriff spits tobacco juice. "Funny. Walter called. Said you've been askin' about things best left buried."
"Walter's got a guilty conscience."
"He's got a family. We got families." The sheriff stepped closer to the crowd. "You don't. Therefore, here is your warning: pack up. Or disappear."
"Is that a threat?"
The sheriff's smile did not reach his eyes. "It's a promise."
Jack didn't pack. He drove to Betty's Bites. The diner was empty, except for Darla, who was scrubbing coffee stains.
"You look like hell," she said, looking at me.
"Feel like it." He slid into a booth. "Why'd Emily Carter have to die?"
Darla's rag stilled. "Who told you about Emily?"
"Walter. The sheriff. The whole damn town."
She glanced at the door and sat across from him. "Emily wasn't chosen. She had stumbled into the woods on the night of the festival. Saw somethin' she shouldn't have."
"The Revenant?"
Darla flinched. "We do not say that name. But yeah. After she vanished, the hunger worsened. I started taking' more than one. Animals first. Then, old man Haggerty in '93. His wife followed, like she was sleepwalkin'."
Jack leaned in. "And ten years ago?"
Darla's face shut down. "Coffee's cold. Want a refill?"
"Who died in 2013?"
She stood with her voice trembling. "Get out."
The answer was received at midnight.
Jack sat on his motel bed, photos of the tower symbols spread around him. They matched sketches in Evelyn's journal—ritual markers she'd called them. Bindings for something older than the town itself.
The bathroom faucet was dripping. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Except… he shut it off.
Jack crept to the bathroom door. The locket around her neck pulsed cold.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
He flicked the light on again.
The sink overflowed with black water, and the water was not clear. It spilled onto the tiles, reeking of decay. Words bubbled to the surface, etched in the foam:
THE TOWER HOLDS IT. BREAK THE CHAIN.
The water drained suddenly, slurping like a hungry throat would. Beneath it, coiled in the drain, was a clump of hair. Blond. Like Emily's.
Jack stumbled back, crashing into the wall. His phone buzzed. A notification:
1 New Voicemail.
He played it. Static. Then a man's voice, frantic:
"They're lying! The circle is not in the woods— it isunderthe town hall! I tried to—[garbled scream]—the pipes… they're watching—"
Click.
The caller ID: Unknown. However, the area code was Millhaven's.
Jack checked the time. A voicemail was sent at 11:59 p.m.
Tonight.