Speaker 1: Most people think search and rescue is all adrenaline and helicopters.
Truth is, ninety percent of the job is boredom, checking radios,
re stocking gear, driving home. Because the missing hikers showed
up at a gas station before we even laced our boots.
I signed up as a volunteer after moving back home.
I figured it was a good way to give back
and maybe feel useful again. Our SAAR unit covers a
massive stretch of mountain forest crags, all trails, floodplains, abandoned
logging roads. Beautiful if you're just hiking it, deadly if
he gets stuck overnight. We're based out of a small
depot near the ranger station. It's mostly paid staff. The
volunteers like me are floaters filling gaps. When numbers get
low or terrain's too rough to cover fast, they pair
us up. There's always one experienced with one volunteer. My
guess is that we don't cause another rescue while out
in tricky conditions. Regard an alert. At four seventeen p m.
A heavy winter storm was rolling in fast, soon to
slam the region with snow, wind and zero visibility. Multiple
hikers had reported seeing a little girl in a red
coat near the ridge trail, wondering alone, no adult in sight,
No one knew where she came from. No reports of
a missing child matched the description. The Sheriff's office kicked
at the essay r immediately when I checked in. I
prayed to be pared with any one except Riker, the
oldest guy there by at least two decades. He looked
like someone who had carved a man out of rawhide
and bad memories, talked less than any one, and was
apparently a nightmare to work with. And my timing must
have been divinely unlucky, because he was the only senior
left for me to partner with. We gathered gear from
the supply trailer radios, thermals, maps flares. As I clipped
on my head lamp, Braiker handed me something I hadn't
seen anyone else use, a brass whistle, worn smooth from
years of handling. Only use it if you get turned around,
he said, very slow, and only head toward the returning whistle,
he added, brandishing his own whistle that he had tied
around his wrist. I stir did it? What else would
there be to head towards? I asked? He paused, looked
up at me for the first time. If you hear
another whistle, he said, just follow the sound, never the voice.
He never elaborated and walked off, adjusting his pack. That
stuck with me more than it should have. The storm
hadn't broken yet, but the air was dense with it,
like something holding its breath. The light was already going gray,
bleeding out behind the thickening clouds. As our team leader
handed out the search grids. Most units were assigned to
the western trailheads, where hikers might have had a better
chance of surviving a cold night. But when my name
was called and I saw I was with Riker, he
spoke up before I could even step forward. We'll take
Grid E. That wasn't where the girl was last seen.
It wasn't even near the usual trails, But no one argued.
Riker had seniority, a lot of respect, even if he
never talked much. We geared up with thermal layers, waterproof jacket, radios, headlamps,
and GPS. I carried a PLB in case of signal failure,
a map and a digital compass with storm calibration. Ryker
didn't bring a map, he never did. They loaded us
into snow appeals and trucks then split us into grid
pairs along the ridge's perimeter. By the time Ryker and
I got to our drop point, Grid three E, the
sun had already dipped and the tree line looked like
a black mouth yawning open. Ryker said nothing, just clicked
on his light and stepped into the woods. I followed
behind us. The last trace of daylight vanished ahead the
trees and frost, and somewhere out there a little girl
who wasn't supposed to be here. As we entered the
tree line, the wind shifted hard, snapping across the branches
like warning cracks. The dirt trail dissolved quickly into rock
and dead fall. I marked opposition with orange flagging tape
every thirty meters. Visibility dropped. Fog didn't roll in so
much as rise from the earth, like steam, curling around
her ankles and thighs. This grit's a mess, I said,
trying to sound casual. You really think she came this
way not recently? Raker muttered, but she always circles east. Eventually,
that stuck with me. I almost asked what he meant,
but he was already moving again. The forest was loud
in a strange way. Rayker seemed more distracted with every
step he stopped, sometimes turned his head slightly and just listen,
like the woods might say something if you were patient enough.
I called it in a location pace visibility. I kept
lugging time stamps on our GPS to make sure we
could double back, But something about the terrain felt slippery,
like we're always veering a few degrees off course. After
half an hour, Riker finally spoke again. What would you do?
He said? If you found her and she asked for help?
What do you mean if she was scared, bleeding, looked
you in the eyes and asked you to take her hand,
would you I thought he was joking. Yeah, I said,
that's literally why we're out here. But he didn't laugh
it off, just kept moving. I started watching him a
little closer, keeping mental track of how he walked too quietly,
how he didn't react to the windchill like I did,
how his boots never left deep prints, even in the
soft moss. I was about to ask how long we'd
stay out before heading back. When we both stopped. There
was a voice farther in Hello. No crunch of movement,
just that one word, drifting out from deeper in the woods.
We scanned the direction, our headlamps flickering across tree trunks
slick with mist. Then Riker pointed at eye level, snagged
on a broken limb of pine sapling, was a mitten, red, small,
and woolen. It was too bright and clean. The storm
had already dusted the tree with frost and debris, but
the mitten was untouched, fresh, as if some one had
just placed it there. Riker silently stepped forward, ducking under
the limb. I followed, but the unease I'd felt earlier
had crawled up into my throat. Now it wasn't the
storm that scared me. It was the idea that maybe
Riker wasn't looking for the girl at all. We kept moving.
The ground beneath us began to angle upward into a
slow but constant incline that turned our boots into dead weights.
My thighs burned, breath fogging in tight bursts. The wind
had picked up, pushing sideways, now sharp enough to sting
the skin. Snow had begun falling in dry, whispering flakes,
collecting in the folds of my hood and glove seams.
The radio crackled uselessly every few minutes, too much interference.
We hadn't heard from Bay since the first mile. Visibility
dropped to maybe thirty feet. Trees loomed closer together, the
bark slick with wet. My map showed we were near
the ridge line, but nothing about the place felt right.
I kept one hand on the compass, watching it twitch
like a dying insect. Then Raiker stopped. He raised her
hand silently. There, just beyond a thicket of bare brush
and frost laced undergrowth, a small figure stood between two trees,
red coat hood up. She was facing us, watching. Even
in the snow dimmed light, I could see how bright
the coat was, clean and untouched, like it had never
brushed a single branch or patch of mud. She didn't
even look hurt or scared. I lifted the radio, but
Riker grabbed my wrist gently before I get pressed the
call button. Don't he whispered, what, don't engage? Let her go?
I stared at him, trying to read his face, but
he was as blank as the tree line. That's what
we're out here for, I said, stepping forward. She's not alone,
he said. You follow her, you'll find out what she's with.
I hesitated. I told myself he was just being paranoid,
that maybe all these years in the woods had made
him see ghosts, whether or none. He was just a
scared girl, maybe in shock. That's why she wasn't crying,
why she didn't move. I stepped past the thicket, docking
through brittle branches. My boots crunched loudly, and the sound
made her head tilt slightly. And then she moved. She
turned and walked. She weaved between trees, red coat flickering
between trunks like a thread being pulled. I followed, and
just before she slipped behind a thicker cluster of pines,
she turned her head and smiled, like she knew something
I didn't. I kept pushing forward, but she kept slipping away.
Every time I thought I'd close the gap, she'd dart
behind another tree or vanished behind a cluster of brush.
She never ran, just moved fast enough to stay out
of reach. I contemplated why she was moving away from me,
Geared with the familiar colors of search and rescue in
the beginnings of a heavy storm. The only reasonable explanation
would be that she was leading me to someone who
she came with her parent or guardian stuck somewhere nearby.
This only added urgency to the situation. The snow fell
harder now. My boots punched through crust and sank into
the earth beneath. Wind howled through the pines, giving the
illusion of voices cries that almost resolved into words, then
vanished again. My radio was hissing with static. I filmed
the call button anyway, Braiker, I'm tracking her. She's moving
east northeast. I'm going to try, and the signal cracked
and then dropped entirely dead. I stopped for a moment,
fighting the urged to panic. I wasn't trained for solo tracking,
and if something went wrong now, there'd be no one
to triangulate my location. But I'd just seen her clear
as day. If she were injured, confused, or worse, I
couldn't just turn around, And I didn't want to come
back and admit I left a child to die alone
in the cold. So I pressed on the trees, closed
in tighter. Visibility dipped again. My breath came in hitches.
Now then she was gone. I turned in a slow circle,
scanning for movement. Nothing. I checked the ground, but there
were no prints. The air went still, no wind or sound.
I reached for the whistle Wriker had given me and
raised it to my lips. One sharp blast. The sound
bounced through the woods and varnished. I waited. Then an answer,
same pitch, same duration. I exhaled in relief. Riker must
have heard me. He'd be coming now. But then before
I could call again, her voice followed the whistle. It
wasn't Riker's. A soft, lifting voice, clear as day, floated
through the trees. Hello, it was her. I froze. My
brain scrambled to rationalize it. What if I hadn't lost her,
but she lost me, guiding me to somewhere that needed
my attention. I thought about the direction of each sound.
The returning whistle came from behind, where I could only
assume Riker was, but the voice was from her head,
roughly the way I was being led. If she answered,
she was close. I had to reach her, And if
Riker had heard me, he'd be heading my way anyway,
he'd know the grid pattern, he'd catch up. So I
turned toward a voice and moved carefully but quickly. My
compass needle spun once, then stuck, But I pushed forward.
The slope changed under foot, the snow deepened, the trees
grew denser, limbs gnarled and reaching, some wrapped to the vines.
I swore hadn't been there. Minutes ago. I passed under
a natural arch of branches and realized I no longer
recognized the landscape, completely lost. And then I saw her.
A break in the trees revealed a shallow clearing. The
girl in the red coat stood in the middle, hands
set aside, waiting, but she wasn't alone. Behind her, something
tall and gray loomed still as a statue. At first
I thought it was the shade of a tree, but
then it blinked. Its face was wrong, not shaped for eyes,
not made for locking, but it had seen me, and
the girl smiled again. For a heartbeat. None of us moved.
The girl and the red coat stood perfectly still in
the clearing, her boots planted neatly together, her chins slightly lifted,
waiting almost politely with the thing behind her. That's what
froze my breath in my throat. It was hunched low
to the ground, long limbed, like a starving animal, its
joints bent at angles that shouldn't exist. Its skin was smooth,
sickly gray, stretched too thin, like wet paper. Over Stick's
head tilted in my direction as though it was sizing
me up. It didn't move, not an inch, but the
girl did. She turned a little toward me, and then
she spoke, help me, it's so cold. Her voice was soft, warm,
and disturbingly calm, but her mouth didn't open, not even
a twitch. The words just slipped into the air between us,
as though the space itself had spoken them. The thing
behind her shifted, only a tremor, like something contracting unseen muscles.
Looks like you'll be the next one, she said, although
I couldn't make sense of it. My stomach dropped so
hard my knees almost went with it. Then it started
slinking toward me. That was when I realized the girl
wasn't separate, she wasn't herself. They were both sides of
the same coin. She was a luwer, a mask, something
the creature used to draw people in, and the creature,
the real creature, was the thing behind her, the horrifying
mass watching me, breathing without lungs, speaking without a voice.
My heart thundered against my ribs. I stumbled backward, boots
slipping in the snow. My throat tightened, but I couldn't scream.
Panic rose so sharp it felt like electricity. All I
could think was get out. I turned and ran. Branches
slapped my arms, My breath tore out of me in
sharp bursts. The trees blurred and twisted around me as
I sprinted, not caring where I was going, just away
away from that thing, away from its voice inside my head,
away from the smile on her face that shouldn't exist.
But the forest didn't cooperate. Every direction looped back in
on itself. No matter which angle I turned, I hit
the same gnarled birch, the same rot and stump, the
same fork in the path. It was like the woods
were squeezing me inward, nudging me back toward the clearing.
Every shadow felt too close. Every creak of a branch
sounded like a step, and then a wet, scraping sound
behind me, fast getting closer. I stumbled, hitting my knee
hard on a route. I twisted around. The girl stood
five feet away, head tilted behind her. The creature unfolded itself,
rising taller, too tall, its limbs uncoiling like ropes soaked
in oil. It reached toward me, and, if you could
call it that, stretched out fingers like brittle twigs. I
froze in absolute terror as it neared inches away from me.
Then something slammed into me from the side, an arm
hogged around my chest, a hand clamped over my mouth.
I didn't even have time to react. My body was
hauled backward into the brush as the creature's reached slice
through the space where my face had been. My head
hit earth, breath knocked out of me. I thrashed instinctively
until I heard a voice in my ear, quiet riiker.
He dragged me behind a fallen log, keeping one hand
over my mouth and the other gripping something, maybe a knife,
maybe at all. I didn't know. My vision blurred with panic.
I couldn't speak, breathe right, or think. Everything was shaking.
The creature moved into the clearing, searching a shape shifting
in the dark. Its blank head tilted listening. I barely
unders what happened next. I heard a crack of something
metal hitting wood, riker pushing dirt a distraction throne. It
was a scuffle too fast and quiet for my panic
mind to track, but it worked. The creature moved away,
its long limbs folding into the trees, melting into the
darkness without sound. Riker didn't let me move until a
full minute of silence passed. Only then did he whisper,
voice shaky in a way I'd never heard from him.
Don't ever let it near you again. We tumbled down
an embankment, sliding through frost hardened leaves and loose mud
until we crashed through a curtain of pine bows and
into a hollowed out shelter. It wasn't natural canvas, splendid
with dirt, old brush stacked to hide it outline inside,
he was just tall enough to crouch a rusted lantern,
burned low supplies lined the corners, flares, cans of food,
torn mats with years of notes edged in redd ink.
Ryker shoved the flap closed and pressed a hand to
my chest to keep me still. I could feel his
heart beat pounding through his gloves. You okay, he finally asked.
I couldn't speak. I just nodded. He looked me over,
then let out a breath that shock more than it
should of. He sat, leaned back and wiped a hand
down his face in the flickering lantern light. He looked
older than I realized, worn out from a hard life.
You saw it, he said the girl. I nodded again.
He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. She gets better at
pretending every year. I swallowed. What what is it? He
didn't answer right away. Instead, he opened a thermos and
poured two small cups of black coffee. I took mine
with shaking hands. It waits, he said, finally, out there
in that tree line. I've never found any information on it.
I don't know what the hell to call it, but
it takes the shape of something innocent, I said. He
looked at me. She's not innocent, though anything, but she's bait.
It lures with hope, the kind of hope only a
good person would follow. He tapped his chest. You chaste
because you thought she was real, Because you cared. He
leaned forward. Now, eyes wet, voice tight. That's why I
joined Search and Rescue. That's why we all do it,
because we want to help, and it knows that it
waits for people like us. I remembered her smile, the
way it hadn't reached the eyes, and the things standing
behind her. How it didn't speak, but I heard it.
I heard a voice in my head. I whispered, but
it wasn't her talking. Riiker nodded slowly. She's not real.
A rubber worm on the end of a fish huck,
showing whatever it is you need to see so it
can hook you in. I thought about this. If there
are reports of an injured animal or something menial, it'd
be pushed off until after the storm. But the reports
were perfect to get a whole team sent out, a
plethora of victims to choose from. But this also raised
more questions. What does it want? What happens if it
catches you? I asked. Raiker paused, thinking of the best
way to word his response. It wasn't always a girl
when I first saw it, who was a nice old man.
We're on a family trip. I was showing my family
the world. All it took was one touch. It marks you,
curses you. Once you're tagged, you belonged to it. There
was something hollow in his voice. He was cryptic, but
I started piecing it together. Having calmed down somewhat, I
looked around the bar anchor again, the maps, the supplies.
This wasn't a rescue cash, this was a hunting blind,
A war room. You've been tracking it, I said, for years,
he said, before you were ever brought in. He laughed again,
but not humor darker. I've seen others go missing. I've
tried marking its movements, testing how it chooses. I even
tried baiting it once. He didn't elaborate. I didn't ask.
He stared into the corner like it held answers he
hadn't found. I'm slowing down, he admitted. I don't move
like I used to. Visions worse handshake sometimes. You know
how many years I've prepped this place, how many storms
I've waited, hoping i'd find a weakness. He looked at me,
then really looked at me, you know, he said, staring
at the dirt floor. I once heard her say something
to me. I looked up what he swallowed, I forgive you.
The words lingered in the stale air, like a breath
and cold glass. I've been trying to figure out what
I'm being forgiven for ever since, he said. I don't
think she meant it, but god, it almost sounded sincere
I watched him. I'm sure if I should respond. He
seemed lost in the memory, haunted by something. Only he'd witnessed.
Then he straightened up and reached under a tarp in
the corner. He pulled out a weapon, a compact rifle,
lovingly maintained its barrel wrapped in cloth to keep the
cold from seizing the metal. My chest tightened. What are
you doing, Raiker lifted the gun, checked the chamber, and
nodded to himself. This is the best chance I've had
in years, he said. Storm's covering movement. It hunts better
in clear air. You're not going out there, I said,
you can barely. He rolled up his sleeve, and my
words died. His forearm was pale as candlewax, mottled with
deep blue patches. Streaks of white frostbites spied it beneath
the skin, but worse at the center of it, with
the clear impressions of fingers curved inward like hooks, a
perfect handprint. I'm already gone, Reiker said, marked it touched me.
When I hauled you out of the clearing. My stomach dropped. Reriiker,
you didn't feel it. That's good, he breathed out a
shaky but relieved sound. Maybe you'll last longer than I did.
I'm not letting you go alone, I said, rising to
my feet. We can raid you in. Help call the state. Call.
There's no one left a call. He actually smiled at that,
a real smile, the first I'd seen from him, A
small sad thing. You think I haven't tried, he said.
I've done this longer than you've been shaving. I've chased
her for years, hoping i'd find the loophole, a weakness,
a pattern. His hand tightened on the rifle. I never did.
But if I'm going to die anyway, he shrugged, might
as well go out swinging. It's the best excuse I've
ever had. Breaker. Please. My throat was tight, and not
of guilt, helplessness, and something like grief twisted inside me.
This man had saved my life, and it had cost
him his, and now he was walking into the dark
to pay the rest of the price. Alone. He put
a hand on my shoulder. Stay here, no matter what
you hear. When the storm breaks, wait for the team,
walk out when the sun's up. Don't run, don't follow her.
He pulled the flap open. The cold wind slapped my face,
and then he stepped out into the black. I scrambled
toward the exit riker with a flap drop shot. For
a moment, there was only the roar of the storm,
then a gunshot, sharp echoing another, then a scream, raw
torn from someone who had no hope of surviving what
they were facing, and then silence. The storm swallowed everything.
To honor Riika, I did as I was told. I
stayed in the shelter. Hours passed, the lantern dimmed, my
breath fogg in the cold, but I had time to
look around see what he'd really been doing. There were
notes everywhere, wrapped in protective film to stop the elements
at eating the pages. Notes on locations hot and cold,
areas of sightings, unexplained disappearances. It was a clinical detail,
and assimile of the way he presented himself. However, like
I had witnessed something no one else in the Essaar
team had seen besides me, I found his heart, something
so dear that I could almost feel it beating in
my hand. A small square that told a biblical size story,
A worn out polaroid of a happy family with a
snowy backdrop. Riiker, young and full of energy, surrounded by love,
and between him and his partner, a joyous little girl
in a red coat. It must have been taken. Not
long before she was taken, absorbed by the thing that
became his obsession, an incident that turned his story from
growth to loss. Riker never came back. When the blizzard
eased at dawn, I crawled out of the bunker, half
expecting to see him slumped outside, But there was nothing.
Only one thing sat in the mud, untouched by snow,
his old brass whistle. They found me in the early morning,
slumped against a pine stump, with my radio dead and
my coat soaked through. I don't remember what I said,
just that I was called disoriented and alone. Search and
Rescue huddled around, full of panicked questions and relief. I
told them Riker and I got separated in the storm.
I tried to keep to the trail. I must have tripped,
lost my bearings, fell down a slope. I don't remember.
I don't remember. I don't remember. They didn't press further.
Riker's absence said enough. I took a break from essay
r after that, said I needed time. They didn't argue
for a while. I tried to live normal, sleep, work, pretend,
but every creek outside made my breath hitch. I started
watching the tree line through my window, started keeping a
flashlight next my bed started waking up with a sense
that some one had just left the room. A month
passed then too, but I couldn't stay away. It felt
like a compulsion. I signed back up. Some of the
same faces were still around, Carl, Dana, the Captain, but
a lot of new ones too, college kids, drifters, hopefuls.
I kept to myself, did the refresher's course past the
new field drills. I didn't talk about Ryker. Then one evening,
during gear check, the call came in a hiker and
reported seeing someone limping near Deer Hollow Trail mail mid forties,
walking with a pronounced drag like an injury. Every time
they got close, he slipped out of view. The report
said he kept looking back but never called out. Bad
weather was coming in overnight, too cold for someone to
be wandering alone injured. We were mobilized. They split us
into search grids. I was assigned west, just like before,
but talked them into letting me go east, just like before.
They were confused by this, but still unsure of how
to handle me, so let me do my own thing.
My partner this time was Lucy new Girl nervous energy,
but capable. Didn't talk much, which suited me fine. We
hiked through thick frost and bramble, radio's crackling as the
wind picked up. Snow was coming fast, the air already
sharp enough to bite. Then, just like before, a voice
cut through the woods. Hey, it's someone there. My feet
frozen place. It was Riyker's voice. Hey, I am hurt,
need a hand over here. Lucy perked up. That must
be him, But the tone was wrong, the urgency too measured,
too performative compared to the reserved way Riker always presented himself.
I turned slowly between the trees, maybe thirty feet out.
I saw him or the thing wearing him, just the
edge of a figure half hidden behind a birch head
down coat torn at the shoulder, like he wanted me
to come closer, like he didn't think I'd learned. Lucy
started forward. I grabbed her arm hard, don't She looked
at me. But he's he's not not anymore, Lucy shook
me off. What the hell are you talking about? Answer?
My hand instinctively went to my coat pocket, felt the
weight there the whistle. A minute passed, then another, the
vigor stayed still too still, seem the fishmen didn't want
to scare the fish away by tugging the string too much.
I turned back to Lucy, come on, we're heading back.
She started to protest again, but I spoke before she could.
Storms coming in fast. Anyone in that condition wouldn't have
made it this far without shelter. If he's real, he's
already dead. I don't know if she bought it doesn't matter.
She followed. We regrouped with the team. I made my report,
referred to the snow, the wind, the lack of tracks.
I said it didn't match up. I said, we need
better weather, infrared and maybe a drone sweep in the morning.
They logged it, called off the search until the storm passed.
Back at base, I stowed my gear. Then I went
to the locker room. There in my personal bag, beneath
a medical pouch and my backup radio, was the thing
I hadn't dared carry until now, a firearm. Riker's old
side arm. I'd found it hidden in the bunker after
the storm passed, along with his journal, his maps, his mission.
I signed back up for search and rescue because it
was what I knew, But I stayed because it was
what I had to do. I don't know if the
creature can be killed, but I can try. I know
Ryker tried. No, it's my turn.