The morning brought with it the kind of bone-deep exhaustion Alex had only ever read about. Every muscle screamed, his head throbbed, and his throat felt like he'd gargled with gravel. The first thing he did was limp over to his stove to make coffee, only to remember his five-gallon jug of water was now a damp spot on his charred floorboards.
"Of course," he muttered, his voice a dry croak. "Survive the monster siege, die of dehydration. Seems about right."
He settled for chewing on a stale granola bar, the taste of ash and smoke still thick in the air. He sat at his desk, pulled the oldest logbook toward him, and cracked it open. The spine groaned in protest.
"Okay, Elara, you ready for some riveting historical research?" he said into his radio.
"Born ready," her voice came back, sounding tired but determined. "What have you got?"
Alex squinted at the faded, elegant cursive. "Logbook, Tower 7. Watcher, Carl Abernathy. Starting June 1st, 1958." He flipped a few pages. "Okay, June 4th. Carl reports… clear skies and a 'remarkably fat squirrel' near the base of the tower. This is groundbreaking stuff."
Elara actually laughed, a real, genuine laugh. It was the best sound Alex had ever heard. "Don't you dare dismiss Corporal Nutsy. He could be a key witness. Maybe the creature is just a really, really big squirrel with a bad attitude."
"A squirrel that can mimic human voices and carve threats into trees?" Alex asked, a small smile tugging at his lips despite himself. "That's one messed-up squirrel."
"The woods are a strange place," she quipped.
They fell into a rhythm. Alex would read through the mundane, day-to-day entries of a man who lived sixty years ago, and they would crack jokes. Carl Abernathy, it turned out, was obsessed with the weather, complained at length about the quality of his canned beans, and wrote surprisingly moving descriptions of sunsets. For hours, there was nothing. It was just the lonely, peaceful record of a man doing his job. Alex was starting to think their grand idea was a bust.
Then, he found it.
"Whoa, hang on," he said, leaning closer to the page. "Okay, listen to this. August 12th, 1958. 'Heard that strange clicking again last night. Must be pranksters up from town, but Lord knows how they get this far out. Sounds like pebbles on the windowpane, but it comes from all directions at once. Scared off a whole family of deer.'"
Alex and Elara were silent for a moment, the humor gone.
"The clicking," Elara whispered. "He heard it too."
"Yeah," Alex said, his heart starting to beat a little faster. "But he just thinks it's a prank. He doesn't sound scared, just… annoyed."
He kept reading. A week later, another entry. "September 2nd, 1958. 'Found some strange carvings on the big aspen to the north. Look like spirals and circles. The local kids have too much time on their hands. Going to have to report it if it continues.' He saw the symbols, Elara. The exact same ones."
"But he wasn't attacked," she pointed out, her mind clearly working. "The creature was here. It was making noises, leaving marks. But it never hurt him. It just… watched."
"So what's different now?" Alex wondered aloud. "Why are we public enemy number one?"
He had no answer. He finished Carl's logbook. The last few weeks of his stay were normal, with no more mention of clicks or carvings. The final entry was a simple "Season's end. Heading home. A quiet summer."
It left Alex feeling deeply unsettled. The monster had been here, and it had left Carl Abernathy alone.
"Okay, on to the next one," he said, setting aside Carl's book and pulling another from the footlocker. This one was a simple spiral-bound notebook, its pages yellowed. The handwriting was a messy, almost frantic scrawl.
He read the first entry aloud.
"Logbook, Tower 7. Watcher, David Miller. May 28th, 1962. 'Taking over for the previous fellow, who apparently left mid-season last year. The ranger who brought me up said he just packed up and walked out. Said the quiet was getting to him.'"
Alex paused, a cold feeling creeping up his spine as he read the last line to himself before speaking it into the radio.
"'I've been here six hours, and I don't think it was the quiet that scared him off. There's something wrong with these woods. It feels like the trees are watching me.'"