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Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. I kicked the rotten porch door open,

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and a cassette recorder on the splintered table was already running.

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The red tally light blinked over hisz and a muffled

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scream threaded the static. My voice flattened, and soft fear

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pushed me forward. My hand went to the tape like

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it could stop what it had already said. Josh was

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on the porch behind me, pushing the cigarette butt into

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the step with his boot. You owe me forty bucks

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if you bail, he said. You promised. The problem was immediate.

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The recorder was playing a thing that had not yet happened,

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and it used my voice. That was the central problem

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in the room, and it did not wait for argument.

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I reached for the recorder, and the hiss cut of fraction,

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as if the machine had noticed my fingers. I am

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twenty seven, lean with a denim jacket. I have once

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in summers at this camp. I keep a cracked pristortch

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on my left wrist. My clothes smell of damp, sitter

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and leg mist. I do not introduce myself I act

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I had come to Cabin seven because a dare from

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Darth sounded like the kind of thing I could laugh off.

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Now that tape made that dare into a demand pause,

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I said to Josh. My voice came up tight. It

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was the first choice, leave it running and listen, or

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stop it and risk losing evidence. Fear tightened my jaw.

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Doubt slid in behind that fear. Did I want proof

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or did I want to run? Josh slapped the table

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and grinned, we keep it, we take it back. Proved

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worth more than your conscience. The recorder hummed on the table.

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I reached out and pressed stop. The hiss snapped into

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hollow silence. The room felt small, as if I had

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shut something inside a box. I found the laminated camperoal

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cord nailed beside the stove because I looked for rules

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when things threatened me. It read in block letters, did

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not enter cabin dotty seven, and someone had thumbtacked it there,

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so the nail bent. The card smelled of smoke in years.

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I thumbed its corner with my thumb, and the paper

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scrape black old skin. Mayes, this was locked for a reason,

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I said, may cancelor May, Josh snorted, May's running the

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graft tables. She doesn't even check the docks at all.

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On I picked up the radio on the shelf and

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clicked it to the camp frequency. The speaker crackled. For

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a moment, I heard nothing but shallow static. Then council

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In May's voice came through, exact syllables, too close to

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what the tip had said. Don't go to seven, don't.

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I froze with my hand on the dial. The voice

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and the radio repeated a phrase from the tape and

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then dropped into static. Fears sharpened into alarm. I tried

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sleeping through the notion that the recorder was a prank.

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My hands refused that self comfort meh, May, this is

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cabin sat in. You laughed it out, you would The

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radio repeated a warp decho. Josh pressed his forehead to

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the screen of the sliding door and pointed lights at

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the tree line. I walked to the window. The duck

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between the pines had two pale pimprikes that moved like

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someone with a flashlight. The pinpricks drifted, then vanished. The

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recorder on the table ticked. Once the problem went from

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abstrews to immediate danger. Someone or something was using familiar

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voices to move us. I unlatched a cupboard under the

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sink because the list and the wall had to be

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matched with evident Inside, I found missing camper flyers. They

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were pinned in a neat row. Photos lined the cork,

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smiling faces, age ranges, hair that caught the flash wrong.

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One photo had been scrubbed with a razor where a

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fis should be. There was white paper and ralph edge

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scrap under the film of dust. A damp SMI glinted

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along the photo labeled Ruth. A hair line crack in

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a photo's lamination match to patten on my thumb when

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I had pressed a real card. I put the scap

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to my nose and smelled the same glue as the tape.

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The scream on the recorder match Drew's photo in timing

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and tone. That changed the tape for a prank into

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a warning. Ruth went missing two summers ago. I told

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Josh they marked her by seven. Josh didn't answer for

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a beat. Then he said, we get the tape, we go,

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we tell May in the morning. We argued for two

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minutes and short lines Josh we leave it, we take it.

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If we take it, what if it follows us if

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we leave it? What if it lear some one else?

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The exchange tightened like a rope. In the end, Josh

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shoved the tape into his jacket. He proof with untea

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leaf proof. His grin was a shield. I stood with

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my hands on the stove and thought of choices as

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physical things. The radio of the laminated card, the recorder

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of the tape folded in Josh's pocket. Suspicion pushed at me.

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That suspicion turned into a second shift of a motion.

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When the cabin door banged shut. The door slammed, as

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if August had hit it. I turned fast. The lock

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had not been turned. My breath hitch. Voices started on

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the other side of the wood. A female voice, the

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cadence of counselor May, calling into the night. Ye kids,

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come back. The voice was wrong and timing it mashed

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phrases from the tape. Josh beat at the door and swore.

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He ran to the back window and pushed the sash upward.

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He leaned out, and his flashlight scanned the marsh. Footprints

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led away from the cabin into the red line and

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stopped at the edge of black water. None returned Josh.

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I shouted, Josh, where are you? He looked at me

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and his eyes were wide. There, Prince, they go in,

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they don't come back. Panik moved through me. Panic made

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my fingers camp on the window frame until the wood groaned.

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I grabbed the cupped handle and wrenched it up and again.

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In the back, under a jar of nails, another recorder lay, smaller, older,

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the label taped to it with the date that read

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to Morrow's date in a hand I recognized for its

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quick slash my own name. My mouth went dry. I

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read the hand, dritting outlaw because I needed sound that

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much sense. It says my name tomorrow. I felt a

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new emotion, then dread, turning to a cold, methodical urgency.

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I had to act. That was a change from doubt

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to her need for control. I moved to the recorder.

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I could look for wires, for speakers, for some mechanical trick. Instead,

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I heard Josh Green from outside, and the sound was

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swallowed almost immediately by static from the larger machine on

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the table. The recorder clicked to a new track and

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played the last two seconds of Josh Green in exact cadence.

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I ran to the porch. The marsh was churned in dark.

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My footprints overlapped joshes in places and then stopped where

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it did. There was no sign of him beyond the

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reef line. My watch read one hundred seven. The sky

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was low and pale with cloud. I called his name,

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no answer. I took the older recorder from my jacket

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pocket and tried to rewind it. The tape stuck like

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a muff cot between words. The label with my name

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had a smear across pot of the letters, like some

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one had tried to erase the word and failed. I

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tried the radio again. Mus's voice came back, clearer in

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my name, and then static. Don t ticket leave it

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may This is couten seven. Josh is missing. He shouldn't he,

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half the speaker said, and then the full sentence that

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matched the tape played, he vanishes at one point seven.

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You leave a recorder on the dock at dawn. My

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hands tightened on the radio. I felt the room tilt

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between two choices, full ow instruction and survive, or fight

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the loop and risk losing more. That was the second

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major emotional shift, control seeking to resign calculation, I chose action.

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I ran toward the dock because the tape's voice had

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given a directive, and because decisions paralyzed less than an action.

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I stuffed the recorder that had my name into my jacket,

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tucked the smaller one in my back pocket, and shoved

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my hands into the and to warn them. The duck

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bolls creaped under my weight. Miss sat on the water

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like a low sheet, the lake reflecting a pale smear

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of the moon. I left a tape in the dark.

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I did not write a neat note. I pushed a

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scrap of paper under the recorder with a hurried scroll.

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Take this, tell some one. Then I walked away. The

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motion felt wrong. It felt like obeying the voice that

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had sent Joshuay My legs move because people move at DNN.

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The air pinch cold. I walked back to the cabin

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the long way around the reed bed, because someone might

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still be out there. I searched a marsh with a flashlight.

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Huntel arms ached. I called me and left a message

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because her number was the one that had been used.

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I said, mate, Josh is gone. He was lost. At seven.

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The answering machine swallowed the words and returned a snippet

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of the tape, my own voice saying a phrase I

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had not yet spoken aloud that folded my belief into

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a new knot. I had to make more choices. When

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I returned to the cabin, the recorder on the table

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was not where I had left it. The larger unit

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had been moved to the window, sill ankleed to the

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marshes if it had been played to listen. The laminated

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wool card had be knocked to the floor. My watch

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face was wet around the glass. I found on the

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bulletin board a stack of flies I had not seen before.

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They were copies of the tape's notes, typed and photocopied.

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Some one had scold lined in the margins, do not

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bring it home, do not play alone, leave it doc.

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I read one line and hitched a laugh that had

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no humor. The margin hand ready matched the slant of

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my own writing that was settled in the tape did

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more than record, It issued instructions. It used no invoices

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to kept people to obey those instructions, and the instructions

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directed movement toward the dock and away from escape. I

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argued with myself, maybe we can burn it. I said aloud,

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burn it. Josh's voice came from the back stoop in

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my memory, and then from emptiness. What if burning it

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makes it louder? I moved through the cabin, checking the rooms.

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Each time I found an ordinary object to stare, and

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empty coffee cups slid to the table, a chair pulled

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back as if some one had stood. And each time

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I found a small, precise detail that told a story.

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A smear of mud and the hem of a curtain,

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a loop of twine knotted and cut. I thumperned in

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the recorder's casing. These were not metaphors. They were evidence

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that some one had passed through the cabin in a

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pattern that matched the Tippis tracks. I called May again,

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with my hand shaking, I stole quickly, using names and times. May,

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this is urgent. Josh is missing. I found a tape

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that names me for tomorrow, please come. The radio answer

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came a minute later, with May's voice tired, exact, tell

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me everything, start with the tape, I did. I told

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her about the laminated rolle, the scrubbed photo of Ruth,

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the second recorder with my name, Josh's disappearance. The footprints

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had ended at the marsh. As I spoke, I moved

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round the cabin, pointing my flashlight at the cork, at

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the stove, at the chair where the recorder had sat.

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I used concrete gestures because that made the tarrort into work.

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I could do mishort clipped questions. Her interrogation felt like

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a rope I could hold. When did you press stop,

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she asked? When I first heard the screen, did Josh

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touch the small recorder, Yes, he put it in his jacket. Danty,

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go back out to night day where you are. Lock

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the door. I will call base. Her voice snapped off.

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The call ended with a promise that felt paper thin.

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I switched a radio back on and found static. The

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larger recorder and the soul started up again without my touch.

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It played two words, clear as to glass leave it.

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I put my palm on the window and swallowed. I

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had to make choices that night that I had never

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imagined making. Those choices were practical. Lock her, open, move her, stay,

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call a silence. Each choice altered the ship of the next.

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At some point before dawn, I fell asleep, sitting on

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the couch with the recorder in my lap. When I woke,

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light had bled through the curtains and the dock tape

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was gone. My jacket pockets were lighter. The air of

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the cabin had new prints, small like nail's pressing. I

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found a note tucked in the dinim of my jacket,

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where my elbow wristed. It read one sentence in a

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hand I did not know and did not fully trust.

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You leave a recorder on the dock at dawn, you

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do not follow. I tossed a note on the table.

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I could fill the shift inside me from fear to

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a brief, brittle clarity. I would not follow the command

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of following men losing more. I would not become another

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name on the board. That was the third emotional turn,

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fear into rais a need to choose differently. I walked

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the path to the dock with the other recorder in

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my hand. I opened it and recorded a single message

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in my own voice. If you find the snow, I

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tried to stop it. I left a note I can tease,

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ay Moore, do not play it alone. The tape took

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my words and swallowed them in a hiss. I closed

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the flap and left the recorder on the planks, And

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00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:33,799
this time I did not push a scrap under it.

237
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I pressed my thumb to the recorder until the plastic

238
00:11:36,519 --> 00:11:39,600
left a mark. I walked away fast. My feet slapped

239
00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:41,960
the boars. The dock thrown the lake did not respond

240
00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:44,720
back at the trail. Josh's cigarette but was still in

241
00:11:44,759 --> 00:11:47,279
a dirt where he had dropped it. The marshet swallowed

242
00:11:47,279 --> 00:11:50,080
his footprints. I sat on a stump and briet air

243
00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:52,720
that tasted like iron and tape clue. I tried to

244
00:11:52,759 --> 00:11:56,000
imagine an explanation that fit all the details. A prank,

245
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,960
a cruel experiment, a tethered deck over, a missing girl's panic.

246
00:11:59,519 --> 00:12:01,840
Each dear we failed to fit at least one observable fact.

247
00:12:02,559 --> 00:12:05,360
May arrived mid morning with two councilors in a sheriff's deputy.

248
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:08,159
She brought a box of official forms and a cruelty

249
00:12:08,159 --> 00:12:10,919
in her jaw that said she had seen worse. She

250
00:12:11,039 --> 00:12:14,039
for my statement and wrote down everything I said. She

251
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:15,879
looked at the small recorder and the smear on the

252
00:12:15,879 --> 00:12:19,320
forhto encircle dates. When she said we filed for Ruth

253
00:12:19,399 --> 00:12:22,159
is ongoing, it felt like a paper door closing. Ruth

254
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:23,960
became an item in a file and not a voice

255
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,080
on a tape. Did you see anyone else. May no,

256
00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:31,919
I said, did you touch the recorders? Yes? I turned

257
00:12:31,919 --> 00:12:33,720
one off and then the other was in my jacket.

258
00:12:34,159 --> 00:12:35,960
May did not lift her eyes when the forum. Then

259
00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:38,600
we will lock that, we will call the camp director.

260
00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:41,919
We will tape the cabin and the dock. Her tone

261
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:46,440
was business like. Her actions changed things. That was another twist.

262
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:50,279
May's administrative response moved the narrative from a private, impossible

263
00:12:50,279 --> 00:12:53,159
event to an official record. Our choice to document meant

264
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:55,519
more people would know, that could protect, or it could

265
00:12:55,519 --> 00:12:58,519
spread the thing that used voices to instruct. We waited

266
00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:01,480
for the sheriff to come the marsh. I answered questions

267
00:13:01,519 --> 00:13:04,200
until my voice warthin. I let them take the larger

268
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:07,159
recorder as evidence. I watched it go into an evidence

269
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:10,080
bag with a label written in block letters. I watched

270
00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:13,159
the seal go across the back. A comfort rose when

271
00:13:13,159 --> 00:13:16,480
the recorder entered the official custody. The comfort felt tact

272
00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,240
hall and small. At mid day, the deputy came back

273
00:13:19,279 --> 00:13:21,879
with the my crooksette and said nothing. At first, he

274
00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:24,440
handed it to me. She held it and turned the

275
00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:27,279
label toward the light. It had my name into Moro's date.

276
00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:30,759
Her face empted. She we cannot play this if its evidence,

277
00:13:30,759 --> 00:13:32,519
we log chain of custody and we bring it for

278
00:13:32,519 --> 00:13:36,440
forensic analysis. The deputy's hand hovered near the bag. He

279
00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:39,720
looked nervous and then resolvedly clinical. I listened as they

280
00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:42,919
placed the items and sealed evidence boxes. Each cheel was

281
00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:45,240
another small action that moved the problem into people who

282
00:13:45,279 --> 00:13:48,240
made rules for danger. I felt relief and a different

283
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:50,679
hunger to know how the recorder predicted or shaped events.

284
00:13:51,360 --> 00:13:54,159
The deputy left for the last evidence back mat took

285
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:56,039
me aside and said, you will not go near the

286
00:13:56,039 --> 00:13:59,120
dock to night. You will stay in my cabin. I'll

287
00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:01,840
sign a councilor to watch you. I did not want

288
00:14:01,879 --> 00:14:04,240
to sleep in a room filled with other people. I

289
00:14:04,279 --> 00:14:06,679
wanted to be alone and worked the problem. But the

290
00:14:06,720 --> 00:14:09,559
counselor assigned a woman named Lillah had a steady voice

291
00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:12,159
in the flasklight that cut the dark into manageable beams.

292
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:14,200
She sat with me and we shared a thermos of

293
00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:16,120
When she asked what I wanted, I said, I want

294
00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:18,840
the tape analyzed. I want to know why it says

295
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:21,919
my name. Lela nodded. Even with witnesses and paper and

296
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,559
official seals, the thing was not solved. That felt like

297
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:27,440
a slow, ongoing wound. At dusk, I walked back to

298
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:29,600
the dock with Lillah because my hands needed to touch

299
00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:32,039
the place where a tape had been left. We found

300
00:14:32,039 --> 00:14:34,080
Prince and the mud that were unfamiliar and headed away

301
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,759
from the dark, not toward the water. They led to

302
00:14:36,799 --> 00:14:39,639
the tree line and then stopped. Leelah crutched and pressed

303
00:14:39,639 --> 00:14:42,360
a gloved finger to the soil. No return Prince. It

304
00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:44,919
matched Josh, I said he left footprints that stopped in

305
00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:48,679
the reeds. She did not say his name again. Instead,

306
00:14:48,799 --> 00:14:50,559
she put a hand on my shoulder and said, we

307
00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,120
see the area. We call for more help. At night,

308
00:14:53,159 --> 00:14:55,960
they moved the remaining campers into the lodge, may assigned shifts.

309
00:14:56,600 --> 00:14:58,480
I slept with my watch on and my phone silent.

310
00:14:59,159 --> 00:15:00,960
The tape that had my name was locked in evidence

311
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:03,600
with a chain of seals. I wrote down every detail

312
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:07,000
I could recall, and kiss memory became counterfeit. Before I

313
00:15:07,039 --> 00:15:09,200
finally lay down, I put my hand into my jacket

314
00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:11,440
and felt the smooth, hollow place where something had been.

315
00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,759
The jacket was lighter. My pulse worked in my throat.

316
00:15:15,399 --> 00:15:17,159
At dawn, I walked to the dock one last time.

317
00:15:17,759 --> 00:15:20,320
The recorder I had left had been taken. In its

318
00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:23,120
place lay a new slip of paper, folded once. I

319
00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:25,159
picked it up and folded it with fingers that trembled

320
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,200
on a single line in my handwriting my slandered quick

321
00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:31,159
scripped read If you play, you hear what you become.

322
00:15:31,679 --> 00:15:33,320
I did not play it. I put the slip back

323
00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,000
and walked away. I turned and left the dock with

324
00:15:36,039 --> 00:15:37,960
the knowledge that the recorder had known my voice before

325
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:41,399
I spoke. I had left a message. I had left

326
00:15:41,399 --> 00:15:44,600
a warning I had failed to save Josh. I had

327
00:15:44,639 --> 00:15:47,559
sealed the recorder in evidence. I had given the sheriff

328
00:15:47,559 --> 00:15:50,600
a bag and may report and Leelah Flashley. The fear

329
00:15:50,679 --> 00:15:53,440
that began the night settled into an exhausted, brittle resignation

330
00:15:53,519 --> 00:15:56,960
that guided my steps. I had moved through doubt, an urgency,

331
00:15:57,000 --> 00:15:59,639
and a moment of action. Chapter closed with me and

332
00:15:59,639 --> 00:16:02,440
the path away from the dock, my breath visible, my

333
00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:04,559
hands in my pockets, and the feeling that something on

334
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,480
the tape had not finished using names. I stepped off

335
00:16:07,519 --> 00:16:09,519
the dock and did not look back. The dock boards

336
00:16:09,519 --> 00:16:12,559
creaked once under my weight. I walked into the gray morning,

337
00:16:12,559 --> 00:16:15,440
and the recorder static remained sealed behind plastic and paper.

338
00:16:15,519 --> 00:16:18,440
It's red light invisible now. My decision to leave the

339
00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:20,559
recorder and the note was the last concrete action of

340
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,440
that night. I left a recorder at dawn and walked away.

341
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:25,919
I pressed the plastic plate button with my thumb and

342
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:28,039
heard my own voice scream. Before I had time to think.

343
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:30,960
Suspicion tightened my hands around the recorder as the hiss

344
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:33,639
of tape filled the cabin. Scream named the time and

345
00:16:33,639 --> 00:16:36,279
said it plainly, Cabin seven. I had kept the rotten

346
00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:38,720
porch door open moments before and seen the recorder already

347
00:16:38,799 --> 00:16:41,360
running on the splinter table. Now the tape a moment

348
00:16:41,399 --> 00:16:43,279
that had not yet happened, and used my voice to

349
00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:45,759
do it. The suspicion that something in his place was

350
00:16:45,759 --> 00:16:48,480
watching chores push me toward the recorder, and I leaned closer.

351
00:16:48,519 --> 00:16:51,679
Despite every warning in my chest, I pulled the recorder

352
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:53,399
toward me and zat my elbow and the warp wood.

353
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,000
I checked the device with the impatience of someone who

354
00:16:56,039 --> 00:16:59,519
still believed machines were simple. He yellowed plastic two spools,

355
00:16:59,559 --> 00:17:01,759
turning a faint red light that wavered with the hiss,

356
00:17:02,279 --> 00:17:04,440
the voice on the tape broke into words between static,

357
00:17:04,519 --> 00:17:07,759
It's a midnight Cavin's evan dawn tea. The tape clipped,

358
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:10,039
then the scream came again, exacting raw, as if someone

359
00:17:10,039 --> 00:17:12,720
in the room were choking on breath. I flinched and

360
00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:16,279
knocked my neonal loose floorboard. My name belonged to the recorder.

361
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:18,720
My hands remembered the scar at my eyebrow when I

362
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:21,640
wiped it sweat. I said aloud, because silence made the

363
00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:25,240
cabin feel like a measure trap. Who recorded this? There

364
00:17:25,279 --> 00:17:28,240
was no answer in the room. The recorder kept whispering names,

365
00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:31,480
as if flitting inventory. The first external clew arrived two

366
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:34,839
footeps later. A heavy boot printed wet mud on the porch,

367
00:17:35,119 --> 00:17:37,240
half on the threshold and half gone into the dark.

368
00:17:37,839 --> 00:17:39,720
I crouched and pressed my palm into the depression to

369
00:17:39,799 --> 00:17:42,759
check moisture. It was fresh and soft under my fingers.

370
00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:46,279
I stood and walked back to the table. The tip shifted,

371
00:17:46,359 --> 00:17:50,000
and a second voice said slow through static, deryck, Maggie.

372
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:53,640
The tape announced time's alongside names. The times match missing

373
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:55,880
camper reports I'd seen pinned to the range of post

374
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,400
in town my throat tightened, few moved under suspicion. I

375
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:01,720
could not ignore, oh, the way the recorder cataloged people

376
00:18:01,839 --> 00:18:04,640
like dates on a ledger. I slapped the stop button,

377
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:06,880
then turned it on again, because stopping felt like stepping

378
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,079
away from a crime scene that might keep erasing itself.

379
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:12,480
The tape kept listing names and times. Derek at two

380
00:18:12,519 --> 00:18:15,880
point nine, a m. Maggie at three point twenty. A

381
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:18,839
third name rasped, and the tape hummed. Each name made

382
00:18:18,839 --> 00:18:21,799
the room smaller. I shoved my hands into my jacket

383
00:18:21,799 --> 00:18:24,279
pockets and tried to force a plan. My head lamps

384
00:18:24,279 --> 00:18:26,240
sat on the chair back, strapped them from where I

385
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:28,720
had just slung it on. I picked it up, clicked it,

386
00:18:28,759 --> 00:18:30,519
and an narrow cone of light cut across the cracked

387
00:18:30,559 --> 00:18:32,400
ceiling and landed on the mess of handrid and notes

388
00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:35,079
topped under the recorder. I took the notes ink, blow

389
00:18:35,079 --> 00:18:37,640
it where moisture had hit the paper. The lis matched

390
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,279
the date, names and times scrolled in the same hand,

391
00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:43,599
the same irregular slant beneath Derrek's name. Some one had

392
00:18:43,599 --> 00:18:48,160
circled his time twice. The handwriting wasn't t mine, I said, Derrick.

393
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:50,920
The voice at the door, we answered, before he stepped

394
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,640
fully into the porch light. You answering the dier or what.

395
00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,559
Derrek's voice was flat, the edge of annoying, sharpened by nerves.

396
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:00,160
He kept his jacket sip to his chain, and his

397
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,440
breath came in short claws that fogged the porch light.

398
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:05,920
I didn't say i'd a come back, I said. I

399
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:08,079
set the notepad on the table and slid the recorder

400
00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:10,839
toward him so it caught the porch light. The recorder

401
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:14,079
recorded the scrape of my sleeve like proof. Derek moved

402
00:19:14,079 --> 00:19:17,119
to the table and leaned over the device. You hit play,

403
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:21,200
he asked, I did I heard myself. I kept my

404
00:19:21,279 --> 00:19:24,960
voice level, the tape hiss beneath us. My hands found

405
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,279
the recorder's corners, as if holding it might anchor reality. Derek,

406
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:31,119
this place is messed up. We never should be dared

407
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,599
each other. You doubt me, Dereck. You drive out people

408
00:19:34,599 --> 00:19:37,000
here for stupid points and beer. He were the one

409
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:38,599
who said we'd make it a story. At a pause

410
00:19:38,640 --> 00:19:41,920
filled with the tap esque soft noise, Derek's draw tightened,

411
00:19:42,599 --> 00:19:45,200
I said, I go back and get Maggie. That's all.

412
00:19:45,839 --> 00:19:50,799
I only came to check on her, Maddie, I started, yes, Mammy,

413
00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:55,160
she took my flufflet earlier. I was going to Derek

414
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:58,759
stopped and looked at the recorder. He you sure that thing?

415
00:19:58,799 --> 00:20:01,559
Isn't he messing with us? He wrapped his fingers around

416
00:20:01,559 --> 00:20:04,480
the record as plastic, and his hand shirk. His voice

417
00:20:04,519 --> 00:20:06,920
dropped a half step. I heard a pick up an

418
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:08,799
old gild. You and me both know I shouldn't he

419
00:20:08,839 --> 00:20:11,559
have dead? That night, the second external event hit like

420
00:20:11,599 --> 00:20:14,000
a cold slap when my phone vibrated against the table.

421
00:20:14,599 --> 00:20:17,839
Ranger Hanks's name flashed on the crack screen. I answered,

422
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:19,640
with the phone pressed to my eberigus to talking in

423
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:21,359
front of DERC. Felt like we were both part of

424
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:25,079
whatever we'd awaken, Hank, I said. Ranger Hank's voice came

425
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:29,240
through thin and heard. We found another recorder on the dock, empty,

426
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:31,559
had shell but running. Some one left it near the

427
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:33,960
rotted plank by the ladder. He paused, and then added,

428
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,200
The last voice on that tape is yours. It says,

429
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:39,240
I swear to God to help me. It's happening now.

430
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:41,839
The time stumped, and the note was thirty five minutes

431
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:45,119
from now. Who's a cabin seven? I told him I

432
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:47,519
was inside. I told him Deryck was there. My mouth

433
00:20:47,559 --> 00:20:50,759
felt dried. Hank's fo stay clipped, duntee move stapo. I'll

434
00:20:50,759 --> 00:20:53,160
bring a couple of searches. Keep that recorder on. If

435
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:55,000
it nams, some one write it down. Dun'tee hand it

436
00:20:55,039 --> 00:20:57,799
to any one else. I looked at Deryck. He Hank called,

437
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:00,400
that's bad. He sounded like he saw the dog. He

438
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:02,559
my voices on the tape, I said. Derek's eyes widened.

439
00:21:02,599 --> 00:21:04,440
He dropped his hand to the table. Then we shouldn't

440
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:07,240
be illumined. He looked at the doorway, and then at me.

441
00:21:07,319 --> 00:21:10,079
We should get out now. I started to agree, and

442
00:21:10,079 --> 00:21:13,319
then the tape excelerrated on its own. The spow spun faster.

443
00:21:13,519 --> 00:21:16,039
The room filled with small sounds exactly as they were happening.

444
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:18,759
The chair creak when Derek stood, the scrape of shoes

445
00:21:18,799 --> 00:21:21,799
on wood, the wind shift that threaded the porch. Every

446
00:21:21,799 --> 00:21:23,920
tiny noise from our bodies was being echoed in the

447
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:27,240
recorder with an extra thinner layer of static. I felt

448
00:21:27,279 --> 00:21:29,720
it like a second skin. The tape began to play

449
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:31,920
a sound that I recognized because it matched the present.

450
00:21:32,559 --> 00:21:34,440
The sharp intake of breath I had made when the

451
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:37,359
recorder sped up. Then the tape played a scream not

452
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,720
recorded earlier, but time to erupt in the next second,

453
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:42,400
the scream that the tape had already produced and the

454
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:46,039
room was about to produce simultaneously. Derek's face went white.

455
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,079
He turned it off, Turn it off. Now. His words

456
00:21:49,079 --> 00:21:51,599
were short, no more than three. I slammed my thumb

457
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,880
down and the stop and the tape clicked, but the

458
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,720
echoed scream still rode the tail of the static. We

459
00:21:56,799 --> 00:21:59,799
both froze as something moved across the threshold. It wasn't

460
00:21:59,799 --> 00:22:02,720
a shit. I saw low, slow shift, like the curtain

461
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:05,359
of a damp blanket being called aside. The center of

462
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:06,920
the door we filled with a presence that made the

463
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,839
haze along my forearms lift. I had no time to

464
00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:12,480
name the feeling beyond move a push past deryck and

465
00:22:12,519 --> 00:22:15,920
shoved the door wide. We ran. The fog swallowed our boots,

466
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,559
and the board creaked under us like a warning. Derek

467
00:22:18,599 --> 00:22:20,839
stumbled on a loose blank dropped, and I growed for

468
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,279
his arm. He slipped from my grip and went down

469
00:22:23,279 --> 00:22:25,119
into the brush, where the fog drank the sound of

470
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:28,000
him hitting the leaves. I shouted his name until my

471
00:22:28,079 --> 00:22:30,720
voice was hoarse, and the trees gave nothing back. A

472
00:22:30,839 --> 00:22:33,000
cross threw the saplings toward the dock because the lake

473
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:35,720
was the only flat line I could imagine. Following. My

474
00:22:35,759 --> 00:22:38,759
hands found the railing slick with dew. The recorder was

475
00:22:38,799 --> 00:22:41,359
not in my hands. The red light pulls on a

476
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,240
recorder lying on the edge of the dock. Recorder I

477
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,599
had left inside the cabin seconds before, I had left

478
00:22:47,599 --> 00:22:50,079
it on the table. Now it blinked like a heartbeat

479
00:22:50,079 --> 00:22:52,519
and played a broken loop of our flight. The tape

480
00:22:52,559 --> 00:22:54,519
on the dock recorded the exact scream we'd heard in

481
00:22:54,559 --> 00:22:56,359
the cabin, and the new sounds of my breath and

482
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,079
my shoes on wood. The recorder had been moved or

483
00:22:59,079 --> 00:23:02,480
copied at its event. Ranger Hanks ell lecal came over

484
00:23:02,519 --> 00:23:04,440
my phone again, this time with him out of breath.

485
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,599
We found a record a tuck between the planks, and

486
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:09,640
the last voice is he saying I can tea Then

487
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:14,359
as Green, Who else is there? Derrick? I said he tripped,

488
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,680
he fell into the trees. I lost him. There was

489
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:19,680
a silence on the line. Hanks stay on the dock,

490
00:23:19,799 --> 00:23:22,279
Dante go after him. We'll get a team here. Nobody

491
00:23:22,279 --> 00:23:25,200
touched the recorder. If you can move away from the

492
00:23:25,279 --> 00:23:27,839
edge and keep your light on, I pressed my forehead

493
00:23:27,839 --> 00:23:30,119
into the cold wood and tried to force rational steps.

494
00:23:30,759 --> 00:23:33,200
My pulse hammered under my jaw. Fear shifted into a tight,

495
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,599
focused urgency that made my hands clutter. Check the recorder,

496
00:23:36,759 --> 00:23:39,519
Check the label, Check for any marks. I picked up

497
00:23:39,519 --> 00:23:42,359
the recorder's case a new stick. Your label clung to

498
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:44,799
it where none had been before. On the label, was

499
00:23:44,799 --> 00:23:47,759
it time stamped? And heard black ink? The time read

500
00:23:47,799 --> 00:23:50,480
three hours from now. I slaved my thumb over the ink,

501
00:23:50,519 --> 00:23:53,240
as if I could smudge it away. The label was dry.

502
00:23:53,799 --> 00:23:55,880
I felt a weave grow from my knees to my shoulders.

503
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:58,839
The urgency that had moved my hands hardened into a cold,

504
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:03,079
practical logic. If the tape predicted events, it was cataloging futures.

505
00:24:03,799 --> 00:24:06,559
If a cataloged features, then as times might be schedules.

506
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,920
I forced myself to name the options out loud. We

507
00:24:10,039 --> 00:24:13,079
either stopped this, or we run and hide, we get help,

508
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,079
or we try to find Deryck. The sentence sounded like

509
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:19,319
bargaining with a machine ranger. Hanks team arrived with lights

510
00:24:19,319 --> 00:24:24,000
bobbing like low satellites. They called our names. Deryck's jacket

511
00:24:24,039 --> 00:24:26,440
was found snacked on a low branch, torn on the hem.

512
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,519
The searchos looked around the forest floor and found footmarks

513
00:24:29,519 --> 00:24:31,720
that led away from the cabin and then disappeared near

514
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,359
the water line. An took the recorder from me without

515
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:36,799
gloves and set it in the dock. He didn't he

516
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,240
play it right away. We need evidence, he said, We

517
00:24:39,319 --> 00:24:43,160
need to know what's recorded. One of the searches, Rosa Nelson,

518
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:45,000
pointed at the damp paper I had pulled from under

519
00:24:45,039 --> 00:24:47,640
the recorder. These are and tea notes for pranks. She said,

520
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:50,319
this is dates and times, This is planning. Rose's voice

521
00:24:50,319 --> 00:24:53,640
had a blunt, utilitarian calm. Her hands worked without hesitation. Derrick,

522
00:24:53,799 --> 00:24:55,839
she asked, he fell into the brush and didn't come

523
00:24:55,839 --> 00:24:58,519
back up. I said, I called for him. He vanished.

524
00:24:59,279 --> 00:25:03,799
Rosa met my own eyes. Did you see anyone? She asked, No.

525
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,240
I said the word, and then told them about the tips,

526
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,839
screaming my name. Hank's face did tea change. He was

527
00:25:09,839 --> 00:25:11,680
a man who had dealt with missing campus for a

528
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,880
long time. He ran his thumb along the recorder's edge.

529
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,319
If the tape is predicting, then the label could be

530
00:25:17,319 --> 00:25:19,839
a schedule. We catalog what we find and we try

531
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,359
to preempt it. We write down every name, and every

532
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,799
time we stay in a group, no one goes alone.

533
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,200
Hank used orders to stitch a plan. He assigned two

534
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,079
searchers to groid the tree line. Roses stayed in the

535
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,640
dock with me. Two others took about to circle the

536
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,240
near shore. We were a small cage of human sound

537
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,839
in a lake of fog and potential. The tape's prediction

538
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,599
hung over us like an instruction. We wrote names on

539
00:25:42,599 --> 00:25:45,680
scrap paper. I added Maggie and Derek in a handful

540
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:49,000
of other campers whose names the tip had spat out earlier.

541
00:25:49,599 --> 00:25:52,000
We wrote times beside each name and folded the papers

542
00:25:52,039 --> 00:25:53,559
so the ink wouldn't a smear in the dam. Bear

543
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,880
night stretched. The searchers called back minimal reports. Empty footprints

544
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,079
are Torn's leave a faint smell, like wet cloth hung

545
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:03,720
on the wind. Each report was an external event that

546
00:26:03,759 --> 00:26:06,559
forced action. Each note of discovery tightened the news of

547
00:26:06,599 --> 00:26:09,200
our choices. I soarted to think of the tape as

548
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:13,319
an operating manual of threats. It colored our movement suspicions

549
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,880
layered into dread and then into a brittle insistence to act.

550
00:26:16,559 --> 00:26:19,599
I could not sit and watch a schedule unfold. Ato

551
00:26:19,599 --> 00:26:21,559
in the morning rose it and I sat with thermoses

552
00:26:21,559 --> 00:26:24,400
of coffee and the recorder between us. I kept my

553
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,559
hands in the device. The metal felt cold through the plastic. Shee,

554
00:26:28,759 --> 00:26:31,680
why do you come back? The question was small, simple,

555
00:26:31,839 --> 00:26:34,000
and it landed like a stone, because I thought answers

556
00:26:34,039 --> 00:26:36,079
lived in the place that scared us. Before I said,

557
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,799
my voice was flat. I tried to avoid giving a long,

558
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,559
tidy reason. I knew the truth. I had been trying

559
00:26:42,559 --> 00:26:45,400
to prove to myself that nothing supernatural could use my voice.

560
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,880
That was a bad, stubborn pry rosaline back. You and Deryck,

561
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:52,880
you both have that same stupid streak, he me. Once

562
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,880
he started all the dares, he blamed you for not stopping.

563
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,279
He didn't. He weighed me. Then I said, he blamed himself.

564
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,079
My mouth tasted like Alton. The memory of that night

565
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,759
when we had first burst into Cabin seven with flashlights

566
00:27:03,759 --> 00:27:07,599
and beers rose with precise, concrete images. The way derec

567
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,279
lt a cigarette on the porch, the sound of Maggie laughing,

568
00:27:10,279 --> 00:27:12,200
too loud in the bunk room, the smell of spilled

569
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,319
cola on the counter. Those moments were real and anchored.

570
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,480
The recorder had turned them into clues on a time line.

571
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,599
We argued quietly about Joyce, as you think this is punishment, Rosa.

572
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,839
I don't think it's moral, I said, I think it's mechanical.

573
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,920
It records and then it sets times. It's counting down

574
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,039
to events it already knows. Rosa. Then stop being the

575
00:27:32,079 --> 00:27:34,799
only ones who can be scheduled, Danty, be the ones

576
00:27:34,839 --> 00:27:38,160
who go to the predicted places high Dante followed the tape.

577
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,240
She bit off the words like someone shopping a rope.

578
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,599
But if some one's out there, if some one is it,

579
00:27:43,279 --> 00:27:46,640
then we tapped the user. We set bait. Our plan

580
00:27:46,759 --> 00:27:49,359
was quick and sharp. Leave a dummy recorder on the

581
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,160
dock with no label, and wait. If the recorder moved

582
00:27:52,279 --> 00:27:55,359
or a label appeared, we'd have evidence of operation. We

583
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,359
drove a nail into the dock planks and wrapped the

584
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,240
device cord so we could pull it in the dark.

585
00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:03,640
Hank agreed. He set his radio to monitor. I felt

586
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,839
the shift from private panic to organized pressure. The urgency

587
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,920
had turned into tense focus. A little after three in

588
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,559
the morning, the bait screamed. It played a half second

589
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,160
of static, and then a voice, low, wet and coughing, said,

590
00:28:15,279 --> 00:28:17,720
don't tea, go to the water. The voice wasn't t mine,

591
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:22,960
It wasn't he dear x. Roses wore hankers softly. The

592
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:24,799
tape then played the sound of heavy boots and a

593
00:28:24,839 --> 00:28:27,440
west slap on wood. The board and the dock groaned

594
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,759
under weight. Someone or something walked along far side of

595
00:28:30,759 --> 00:28:33,279
the pier, and the noise moved away. We sprang to

596
00:28:33,319 --> 00:28:35,960
our feet and trained light on the tree line. Figures

597
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,960
slid between trunks like animals. The radio crackled with hanks orders.

598
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:42,680
We moved as a unit, fee beading a path through

599
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,480
mad We found prints in the soft death that circled

600
00:28:45,519 --> 00:28:47,599
away from the dock and stopped at the old boathhouse.

601
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,720
The boathouse door hung half open, the hinges rusted inside.

602
00:28:51,759 --> 00:28:54,799
The dark smelled like gasoline and iron. Rosa pushed the

603
00:28:54,839 --> 00:28:57,480
door with her shoulder. The beam of her light found

604
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,759
an overturned tackle box in a single bootprint that led

605
00:28:59,759 --> 00:29:03,359
to a ladder. Neither Derek nor Maggie was there. On

606
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,559
the ladder, rung. Someone had left a scrap of paper

607
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,799
an aim at a time. The name was Deryck. The

608
00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:10,960
time matched the tyn stamp we'd seen earlier, and the

609
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,480
label now glued to the recorder of the dock. The

610
00:29:13,519 --> 00:29:16,599
twist hit like a thrown stone. The paper's handwriting matched

611
00:29:16,599 --> 00:29:19,319
the list from the cabin. The person who had cataloged

612
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,279
names had also left instructions. Someone had been creating a timetable.

613
00:29:23,839 --> 00:29:26,799
That someone had moved the events outward, from the cabin

614
00:29:26,839 --> 00:29:29,000
to the dock to the both house. The way the

615
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,200
evidence writy together changed how I understood the cabin's first tape.

616
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,039
It was not just predicting, it was broadcasting events outward,

617
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,279
making them real long a trail. We argued in quick lines,

618
00:29:39,359 --> 00:29:42,000
He's alive somewhere Rosa. We either find iac or we

619
00:29:42,079 --> 00:29:45,279
stop the recorders from making more labels. Hank, we can't

620
00:29:45,359 --> 00:29:49,000
keep reacting. What if it's not a person, someone asked

621
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,079
from the edge of the boathouse. Then we treat it

622
00:29:51,119 --> 00:29:54,440
like a pattern and break the pattern, Hank answered. He

623
00:29:54,519 --> 00:29:57,680
set his draw and began issuing orders. We split into

624
00:29:57,680 --> 00:29:59,720
teams and moved with a practice coldness that came from

625
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,839
people trained to separate fear from action. When we returned

626
00:30:02,839 --> 00:30:05,079
to the dock after sweeping the both house, the original

627
00:30:05,119 --> 00:30:07,119
recorder's red light had begun to blink with the speed

628
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,519
that felt impatient. I picked it up. The new label

629
00:30:10,559 --> 00:30:12,960
was their time, scrolled two eyes away. The tape inside

630
00:30:13,039 --> 00:30:15,480
was warm under my palm, I felt a tightness. It

631
00:30:15,519 --> 00:30:18,440
wasn't asleep. It was one of those dissolving edges were

632
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,799
hoped in into something like acceptance. I lifted the microphone

633
00:30:21,799 --> 00:30:23,720
on my phone and spoke into it with clipped words,

634
00:30:23,759 --> 00:30:26,240
recording a brief warming to leave the place alone, unclear

635
00:30:26,279 --> 00:30:29,079
notice who had stayed behind. I left the recorder on

636
00:30:29,119 --> 00:30:31,000
the dock and stepped back fast enough that my shoes

637
00:30:31,039 --> 00:30:33,960
slipped on wet planks. I watched the red light blink.

638
00:30:34,599 --> 00:30:36,759
I watched Tank tape the label into his note book.

639
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,599
The searchers shouted distant findings into radios. The event had

640
00:30:40,599 --> 00:30:43,359
worn down but not ended the schedule, and the label

641
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,960
sat there like a clock waiting to be started. Dawn

642
00:30:46,039 --> 00:30:48,640
arrived as a gray wedge. The fog thinned and horizontal

643
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,400
strips and the legs showed as flat dark. I walked

644
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,119
away from the dock with the thermos in my hand

645
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,240
and my phone recording the sky in case the tape

646
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,400
tried to make noise of the light. I had made

647
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,880
a choice to leave evidence and to leave the recorder behind,

648
00:31:00,039 --> 00:31:02,240
because taking it with me felt like carrying the instrument.

649
00:31:02,319 --> 00:31:04,960
At set the times, the light over the dock tone

650
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,799
pale and then brighter. My shoes left clear wet in

651
00:31:07,839 --> 00:31:10,359
the path back. When I reached the road, I turned

652
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,720
and looked back once the recorder's red light still pulsed,

653
00:31:14,359 --> 00:31:16,160
but the new label, the one with the future time

654
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,079
at a second smaller line written under it, a name

655
00:31:19,119 --> 00:31:21,119
I did not recognize in a time a few minutes

656
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,720
after the one stamp for me. They swallowed and kept walking.

657
00:31:24,319 --> 00:31:27,519
The three men from Hank's team called my name. I answered.

658
00:31:28,119 --> 00:31:30,279
I walked toward the truck and felt something settle, like

659
00:31:30,319 --> 00:31:33,599
a decision mate. Because action was necessary, I drove away,

660
00:31:33,599 --> 00:31:36,119
with Rosa beside me, hand wrapped around her thermos. As

661
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,960
fixing the road, I said, we left the recorder on

662
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,480
the dark, we left notes, We hank everything. I kept

663
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,960
my voice, even Rosa pressed her lips together and said good.

664
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:50,720
Now we wait and see which of those two schedules

665
00:31:50,759 --> 00:31:53,680
fires first. Then we move. She touched my arm in

666
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,400
a quick, practical way that meant will keep moving. I

667
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,079
did not sleep that day. I sat in the passenger

668
00:31:59,079 --> 00:32:01,240
seat and watched the lake, and when my frond burst,

669
00:32:01,279 --> 00:32:03,880
I answered with my fingers trembling. It was a message

670
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,640
from an unknown number with a single line a time

671
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,599
that matched the one on the recorder's label. Mytham hovered

672
00:32:09,599 --> 00:32:13,319
over the keyboard. I did not respond. The chapter ends

673
00:32:13,319 --> 00:32:14,839
with me standing at the edge of the dock again

674
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,359
at dawn, watching a red light blink and slipping my

675
00:32:17,359 --> 00:32:19,759
foot into my jacket pocket while I walked back toward

676
00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:22,480
the truck. With a single concrete action, I turned and

677
00:32:22,519 --> 00:32:24,440
placed my palm on the recorder, left in the planks,

678
00:32:24,559 --> 00:32:27,039
felt its warm plastic under my hand, and then stepped

679
00:32:27,039 --> 00:32:28,960
away and walked until the dock was small behind me.

680
00:32:29,519 --> 00:32:31,839
The cassette and the dock was already running when marshev

681
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,000
the board aside and shouted my name. Suspicion tightened my

682
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,240
hands around the recorder before I even reached for it.

683
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,680
The player hissed a voice spoke three names in a

684
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:45,160
time that concrete sound. Derrick morra Me made the conflict immediate.

685
00:32:45,839 --> 00:32:47,759
We had a running tape that near us, and we

686
00:32:47,799 --> 00:32:50,079
had to decide whether to chase an explanation or run.

687
00:32:50,599 --> 00:32:52,400
I pushed off the dock and stepped into the reeds

688
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:54,480
to cut the distance between the recorder and whatever had

689
00:32:54,559 --> 00:32:56,720
left it. I had been the one to kick open

690
00:32:56,759 --> 00:32:59,799
Cabin seven's rotten portch earlier that night. I had found

691
00:32:59,799 --> 00:33:02,319
a corrider on his splinter table and saw it already playing.

692
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:04,519
That is the fact I held like a wet cloth

693
00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:07,240
against my foot. The recorder on the dock was the

694
00:33:07,279 --> 00:33:10,240
same model, the same yellow plastic, the same faintsmea where

695
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,599
a handred in the label had been torn away. I

696
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,559
was twenty seven, at work summers as a counselor, and

697
00:33:15,559 --> 00:33:18,480
I knew how campranks ran. But the recorder said my name.

698
00:33:19,079 --> 00:33:21,240
Saying my name changed the problem from prank to threat.

699
00:33:21,319 --> 00:33:23,839
Turned it off. Derek. He came up the path, breathing fast,

700
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,920
handshoved into his jacket pockets. He my name when he

701
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,160
reached me, Alex Dante. His voice cut across the hisslick

702
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,359
a line through a map. It named you too. Mara answered,

703
00:33:33,359 --> 00:33:36,480
without looking at Derek. She crouched at the recorder, fingers

704
00:33:36,559 --> 00:33:39,599
hovering over the plastic play button. Mara's jaw was set

705
00:33:39,599 --> 00:33:41,680
the way it gets when she decides not to be scared.

706
00:33:42,319 --> 00:33:44,359
Derek's shoulders were hunched, the way he does when he

707
00:33:44,359 --> 00:33:47,400
blamed first and thinks later. Those are the small repeatable

708
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,359
facts I rely on. When I tried to explain what

709
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:51,799
follow I thumbed the tape s edge and heard a

710
00:33:51,839 --> 00:33:55,759
second bull click. The voice shifted. It didn't he speak

711
00:33:55,759 --> 00:33:58,880
in sentences. First it ran through a list of pictures,

712
00:33:59,519 --> 00:34:01,920
a porch, a half melted candle, a boat print near

713
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:06,400
the water. Then the voice said, Derek, midnight, marraw shoreline,

714
00:34:06,799 --> 00:34:10,280
Alex Dunte, turn your back. The record was built in

715
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,480
red light blink. Once Derek grabbed the recorder from me,

716
00:34:14,039 --> 00:34:18,159
Who the hell left this? He asked. His voice was short,

717
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:20,880
His anger was a tool he used to push away fear.

718
00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:24,239
He scanned the shoreline with his flashlight beam, darting over

719
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,119
the lap in black water and the slick planks of

720
00:34:26,119 --> 00:34:30,039
the dock. We didn't leave it here, ah ah, We

721
00:34:30,079 --> 00:34:32,719
came straight from the path. We only dared each other

722
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:35,199
to knock on cabin seven. Her breath showed in the

723
00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:38,559
flashlight's beam. You kicked the door in a lex you

724
00:34:38,599 --> 00:34:41,639
want to prove, I said nothing. My palm had gone

725
00:34:41,679 --> 00:34:44,559
damp where I'd held the recorder. I remembered the porch

726
00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:47,119
door I've kicked open, the splinters that sprayed my knuckles,

727
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,599
the recorder on the table, already playing a backward shriek.

728
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,639
That memory was a physical thing, a wooden grain under

729
00:34:52,679 --> 00:34:54,960
my finger nails, the taste of lake rot in my mouth.

730
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,199
I did not invent it. Now, it had already happened.

731
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:02,079
So it's a set up direct. Somebody's messing with us,

732
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,320
some kid playing a prank. Right, mar looked at him

733
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:09,159
and then at me. If it's a prank, it's two precise.

734
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,639
Whoever did this new our names. They know the dare.

735
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,000
They knew you've kicked the porch Alex, they knew her

736
00:35:17,079 --> 00:35:19,159
sentence stopped when the tape clicked into a fresh bowl,

737
00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:22,079
and a human scream split the night. The scream was mine,

738
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:25,960
not a memory of my scream, not a scare actor imitation.

739
00:35:26,639 --> 00:35:28,360
It was my vocal pattern, the same hitch at the

740
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,800
end when I lose birth. It rose and cut off

741
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,360
at a single syllable. I shoved past them both and

742
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,360
ran toward the cabin path. Record a clutch to my chest.

743
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,559
My suspicion hardened into urgency. I was not running because

744
00:35:40,559 --> 00:35:43,360
I believed the vorse. I was running because the tape

745
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,079
had moved. First. If the tape made future noise, we

746
00:35:46,159 --> 00:35:48,559
had to see where it came from that sentence. We

747
00:35:48,639 --> 00:35:51,360
had to see bekin the engine for everything I did. Next,

748
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,800
we reached the cabin without talking. Derec glimpsed lightly from

749
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,000
an old Nebrew's Ma kept glancing back at the dock.

750
00:35:58,679 --> 00:36:01,559
I get the recorder lowless name. The poch light over

751
00:36:01,599 --> 00:36:04,280
cabin seven was dead. The hinges still moaned. When I

752
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,119
pushed the broken door to rest of the way open.

753
00:36:06,679 --> 00:36:09,360
Inside the living room, damp would smell sharp and clean.

754
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,719
The notebook lay in the crate by the stove of

755
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,119
its pages, water slick at the corners. I had found

756
00:36:15,119 --> 00:36:16,960
the same notebo cur laer and thumbed through it, without

757
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,119
understanding that earlier reading was a concrete action. I saw

758
00:36:21,159 --> 00:36:23,599
theates written in the same scroll, names listed under them,

759
00:36:23,679 --> 00:36:26,239
like inventory. To night. The notebook was open to a

760
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:30,519
new page. Freshenk blood into the fibers. Watch this morror,

761
00:36:31,119 --> 00:36:33,320
she pointed with the beam of her head lamp. Two

762
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,440
names had been circled in heavy black. Her last name

763
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:39,360
in Deryck's first. My own name was under line twice

764
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,639
below them. What are the dates, Deryck, murrid aloud slow

765
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,599
jan fourteenth June, seventeenth July second. They end with times.

766
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,079
These are when people didn't he come back. The radio

767
00:36:51,079 --> 00:36:54,400
in the corner crackled. Inger Harlow's voice came through cors

768
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,239
and flat. Do not stay at the sight, he said,

769
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,480
Static tunnelt his words and stole syllables. Get to the road,

770
00:36:59,519 --> 00:37:02,639
A line cut clean. Derek's slumed, his fist against the crate.

771
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,159
That's it, We leave now. Mara's eyes flicked to the window.

772
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,960
We can leave, Derek, not like this. Her hand went

773
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,599
to the back of a note because off to shield it.

774
00:37:11,159 --> 00:37:13,480
They argued in short bursts, three lines at a time,

775
00:37:13,559 --> 00:37:17,159
harsh and fast. Derek, you heard hollow. We need to go.

776
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:19,679
Marr the name like a defense. We can tea. Just

777
00:37:19,679 --> 00:37:22,559
take our stuff and run, Derek shut back. Someone's been hit,

778
00:37:22,639 --> 00:37:24,920
someone's been writing names. Who's to say they want? He

779
00:37:25,039 --> 00:37:27,400
follow us? Then call Hallow, Marr, call him and wait

780
00:37:27,559 --> 00:37:31,000
pohe instead no service. Are you sure, MARRR? Yes, I'm sure.

781
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,559
The argument pushed the moment forward. It was not introspection,

782
00:37:33,639 --> 00:37:36,360
but force choices. Derek decided they would leave. Mara decided

783
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,039
to insist on looking for more evidence. I felt the

784
00:37:39,039 --> 00:37:41,719
pull between them and pulled toward the middle. My hands

785
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,800
tightened on the recorder. My roll shifted from reluctant leader

786
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,199
to someone who might be useful. We moved through the

787
00:37:47,199 --> 00:37:51,800
cabin of quick practical motions. Mara checked the crates. Derek

788
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,840
pried opened the old cupboard for cairns. I kept watching

789
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,280
the windows and the radio, listening for any new hiss

790
00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:58,880
of voice that might name a place for a step.

791
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:03,079
Every three or four paragraphs of our movement, something external happened,

792
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:05,880
a flashlight being found, the footprint, the pie went out

793
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,639
to cassette clicked a great gave way. That pace kept

794
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,440
us on the edge. A blackout swallowed the cabin like

795
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,159
a thumb over a lamp. The sudden absence of light

796
00:38:14,199 --> 00:38:16,960
made our breathing audible. Marra stepped onto the porch to

797
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,960
fine matches. The potchboard sighed under her weight. She froze

798
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:24,199
and whispered footprints fresh leading away from the shore toward

799
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,599
the trees. The recorder on the table began to play

800
00:38:26,599 --> 00:38:30,119
on its own. A voice said proximity three meters, a countdown,

801
00:38:30,679 --> 00:38:34,000
nine minutes. A mechanical wine underlaid the voice. Derek swore,

802
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,760
we need to smash it, Dereck. He grabbed the recorder

803
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,400
and brought his palm down over the top. The plastic

804
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,039
cracked against the heel of his hand. Stop my voice

805
00:38:43,159 --> 00:38:46,320
was short, command, dundee. Derec looked at me as if

806
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:48,920
I had broken a rule. He swung again and struck

807
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:52,760
the recorder. The bottom popped off, the cassette inside spun

808
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,400
loose and skittered across the floor. The sound stopped for

809
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,360
a single long bath. The cabin held silence. Then a

810
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,199
box at the back of the cause It slid forward,

811
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,639
triggered by the shifted weight in the room. The box

812
00:39:03,639 --> 00:39:06,840
stumped against the wall and skittered open. There were more players,

813
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:08,559
a cred of them. He triggued to start. When the

814
00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:11,719
first failed, one flipped on, and a fresh tape threaded

815
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,679
itself through the player. The new label had three initials

816
00:39:14,679 --> 00:39:19,159
scrolled across it. Dereck swallowed, who the hell. Morrow's hand

817
00:39:19,199 --> 00:39:22,239
went to her mouth. Alex, your initials are on that one.

818
00:39:22,599 --> 00:39:25,679
I pulled the tape free with two fingers. It fell damp.

819
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,920
A map fell out and unfolded in my lap, a

820
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,880
rough sketch of the campsite, with a rough marked in

821
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,360
chocoal to the shore line and one looped arrow pointing

822
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,599
to the dock. Someone had circled cabin seven and written

823
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:38,920
in the same hurried hand, bring them close to the loop.

824
00:39:39,559 --> 00:39:42,320
A fight burst between Derek and Murray. Then it went

825
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,840
rapid fire. Six short exchanges were blame roksheted back and forth.

826
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,719
It was a dare Derek's bat You want to proof more,

827
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,840
answered Alex opened the porch. Derek jawed at me with

828
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,159
the fact we all came here. I said, we all

829
00:39:54,199 --> 00:39:57,039
chose to knock. My words were plain. I refused to

830
00:39:57,119 --> 00:39:58,960
let the argument become a list of who was guilty.

831
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,440
They kept shouting. Each line landed like a stone. The

832
00:40:01,519 --> 00:40:04,920
anger was a lover that shifted our options. Derek insisted

833
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,559
on leaving. Mar insisted we needed to see the shoreline.

834
00:40:07,599 --> 00:40:09,400
I could have sided with either and made the patrial.

835
00:40:09,559 --> 00:40:11,880
I chose neither. I chose to what the map. Instead,

836
00:40:12,559 --> 00:40:15,000
we moved toward the waterhead with the recorder in my jacket.

837
00:40:15,039 --> 00:40:17,679
The map folded in my pond. The night pressed against

838
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:20,960
our backs. The shore smelled of algi and old rope.

839
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:23,679
The tide pushed at the dock in small, patient fingers.

840
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,519
At the shore line, the recorder played a new track.

841
00:40:27,159 --> 00:40:29,119
It spoke the exact pattern of my breathing when I

842
00:40:29,119 --> 00:40:32,119
am frightened. It alex run, and then it played a

843
00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:34,599
screen that I recognized as my own, longer and raggular

844
00:40:34,639 --> 00:40:37,079
than before. The sound did not come from the sky

845
00:40:37,199 --> 00:40:39,519
or a speaker. It came from a point behind us

846
00:40:39,519 --> 00:40:42,159
in the mud flats. Derek laughed, but it was the

847
00:40:42,159 --> 00:40:46,480
wrong laugh and nervous noise. This is getting staged, some kids,

848
00:40:46,559 --> 00:40:49,840
some set up. We trapped them. We call Harlow. In

849
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,480
the morning, Mars stepped closer to the water and found

850
00:40:52,519 --> 00:40:55,400
oppressions in the mud, boot shreads that started at the

851
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,119
dock and stopped a shallow groove in the reeds. She

852
00:40:58,199 --> 00:41:01,239
crouched and traced one with her glove finger. They stopped here,

853
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,119
she said. Then nothing as shape hive up from the

854
00:41:04,119 --> 00:41:07,239
water's edge, like something pushing free. It moved too smuly

855
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,880
for person at first, a slow integrating slide. Dirrec grouted

856
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,639
it and his hand closed on wet fabric. The thing

857
00:41:13,679 --> 00:41:15,840
did not look like a man. It did not look

858
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,760
like dear fur or a fallen lock. For the first second,

859
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,760
I thought it was a body half swallowed by the reed.

860
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,320
But then it shoved in Dirk's arm. Once lack, he

861
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,119
was being pulled toward the water. The force came from

862
00:41:26,119 --> 00:41:28,079
his ankle, tugging him in with a pressure that felt

863
00:41:28,159 --> 00:41:30,960
like a rope tightening a round bone. He kicked and cursed.

864
00:41:31,559 --> 00:41:35,519
Marra lunged Derrec. She screamed and grabbed the back of

865
00:41:35,519 --> 00:41:40,599
his jacket. I growed her other sleeve. Let go. Dereck snarled.

866
00:41:40,639 --> 00:41:44,440
Then his voice broke it pulls arm. I grabbed Derc's

867
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,719
forearm where the sleeve had torn, where the fabric clung

868
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,440
to the mud. My finger slid on alg. The recorder

869
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,280
in my jacket thuded against my ribs. The tape from

870
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,320
early vibrated like an insect. On three, I said, my

871
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,440
voice was flat. I did not believe counting would matter,

872
00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:04,239
but counting made usack together. One morrow, two, Derec choked.

873
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,159
On three, I hold with both hands. Derec came forward

874
00:42:08,159 --> 00:42:11,119
a foot, then free. Something called brushed my shins, and

875
00:42:11,159 --> 00:42:13,719
the mud ripped at my boots. I heard a sound

876
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,519
like a mouse pulling from wet leather, a dragging sound

877
00:42:16,519 --> 00:42:19,239
that left marks in the sand. Derec collapsed on to

878
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,280
the dock and calwled away from the water with hysterical

879
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,039
gulping breaths. He looked like some one who had been

880
00:42:24,079 --> 00:42:26,800
under water too long. His hair clung to his forehead,

881
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,239
and his lips, where blue was cold. We sat there

882
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,880
for a beat, the three of us panting. The recorder

883
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:34,239
kept hissing, as if embarrassed that it had been interrupted.

884
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,159
But then it click and a new voice lay appealed through,

885
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:39,880
not the recorded voice, but a whisper under the tape,

886
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:41,760
a delayed echo of missinging a line. I knew I'd

887
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,559
never said. You can end it, the whisper said, in

888
00:42:44,599 --> 00:42:48,199
my tone, close the loop, record it, say the warning,

889
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,920
say the name, finish the tape. Marris stood up so

890
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,880
fast she swayed what Derek pushed himself to his feet.

891
00:42:54,639 --> 00:42:58,039
We burned the things, Throw them in the fire. There's

892
00:42:58,079 --> 00:43:01,119
no fire left, I said. The shack had no fuel,

893
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,519
no light. I held up the damp map. The loop

894
00:43:04,599 --> 00:43:06,199
arrow in a map seemed to burn on its own.

895
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:09,679
The recorder at my chest clicked again. A small red

896
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,679
light blinked. The whisper layered over the hiss changed into

897
00:43:12,679 --> 00:43:16,960
a simple instruction, record your vorice, save them by warning,

898
00:43:17,599 --> 00:43:20,400
close the loop. A cold, logical panic flooded through me.

899
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,639
If the tape could play feature screams, then perhaps recording

900
00:43:23,639 --> 00:43:25,880
my own voice, an act designed to stop the thane,

901
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,679
would not stop it at all. Perhaps it required me

902
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,559
to complete a ritual. That thought shifted my fear into

903
00:43:31,559 --> 00:43:36,320
a new feel. Obligation. Suspicion had started me panick made

904
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,880
me run. Obligation, a quieter, heavier state made me consider

905
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,039
doing the thing the tape demanded. Mara grabbed the recorder

906
00:43:43,039 --> 00:43:46,039
from my jacket without asking. Her fingers were firm. You

907
00:43:46,119 --> 00:43:48,679
want to do it, Alex, she said. It was little

908
00:43:48,679 --> 00:43:51,119
more than a statement, but it was a decision. She

909
00:43:51,199 --> 00:43:53,119
set the device on the dock and put the microphone

910
00:43:53,119 --> 00:43:55,719
close to her mouth. If it's a loop, then I'm

911
00:43:55,719 --> 00:44:00,000
not letting it usee you. Derec's hands trembled, mardunte, don't

912
00:44:00,039 --> 00:44:02,559
he talking to it? She flipped the small switch and

913
00:44:02,599 --> 00:44:05,440
the machine word. Her voice came out, thin and steady.

914
00:44:06,039 --> 00:44:08,960
This is Mara Haines. If you find this tape, do

915
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,440
you not go alone? To cabin seven. Do not answer

916
00:44:11,519 --> 00:44:14,760
coals that start with static. Leave the recorder where it lies.

917
00:44:15,559 --> 00:44:17,760
She spat the words as if they were a shield.

918
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:20,519
The recorder paused. Then a new scratch of ayer of

919
00:44:20,559 --> 00:44:23,440
sound folded into the track. A second later, a voice

920
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:27,039
that sounded like ranger hollow, not enough, it wants closure.

921
00:44:27,679 --> 00:44:29,800
Dereh hit the recorder with the heel of his hand.

922
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,599
The player stuttered and died. For a moment, we all laughed,

923
00:44:33,639 --> 00:44:36,159
because the laugh felt like reclaiming the night. Then a

924
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:37,920
light flared at the far side of the shore, and

925
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,639
a shape pushed out of the trees. It didn't lock.

926
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,639
It stood in step with a gathering release. It matched

927
00:44:43,639 --> 00:44:46,280
the rhythm of a tape's beats. It moved toward the

928
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,039
dock with an even pace. When it reached the water line,

929
00:44:49,079 --> 00:44:51,039
it turned its head slowly and looked directly at me.

930
00:44:51,119 --> 00:44:53,960
I saw the face then, not human in proportion. The

931
00:44:54,039 --> 00:44:56,199
features were too long, the mouth of thin seam, but

932
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,400
the face of my eyes, as were my hazel irises

933
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,639
reflected in mud the sun. I hit me like a

934
00:45:00,679 --> 00:45:03,440
physical blow. Alex, the creature said, in my voice, close

935
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:05,800
the loop, finish it. I had two choices, and both

936
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,360
of them were action. One was to run and never

937
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,239
speak into any recorder again. The other was to speak

938
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:13,159
into the recorder and hope that my words could alter

939
00:45:13,199 --> 00:45:16,679
the sequence. I had watched Derec almost drown. I had

940
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:19,679
seen Marr deside to act. Her choice had pulled him

941
00:45:19,679 --> 00:45:23,199
away from the water. That action had changed the immediate danger.

942
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:25,920
If I spoke, my voice could change the sequence too.

943
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,119
The obligation that had nudged me earlier shifted into resolve.

944
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:31,960
I moved forward with the tape recorder in my hand.

945
00:45:32,639 --> 00:45:35,599
The creature watched without blinking. The dog felt narrower with

946
00:45:35,679 --> 00:45:38,480
every step. My chest hut where my jacket rubbed the

947
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,559
recorder's case. I set the recorder on the walk board

948
00:45:41,599 --> 00:45:44,119
and held the microphone close to my mouth. This is

949
00:45:44,159 --> 00:45:47,679
Alex Carter, I said, keeping my sentence ashore. If you

950
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:50,039
find this, do not come to Cabin seven at midnight,

951
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,679
Do not follow the shoreline, leave the tapeway you find it,

952
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,440
and do not play it alone. Call the renger. My

953
00:45:56,519 --> 00:45:58,599
voice shook in the last two words, but I forced

954
00:45:58,599 --> 00:46:01,119
it flat. Each line and I recorded felt like a

955
00:46:01,159 --> 00:46:04,159
pastor across a wound. The creature did not move its

956
00:46:04,199 --> 00:46:06,320
head tilted as if hearing something only it could hear.

957
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,599
The recorder clicked as it rw wand my hands were

958
00:46:09,599 --> 00:46:12,000
steady enough to fasten the cap back and the microphone.

959
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,880
Then it spoke again in my voice, thank you close

960
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,760
the loop, give them warning. Direct grabbed my shoulder and

961
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:22,320
pulled me backwards, so hot my feet left the boards.

962
00:46:22,639 --> 00:46:25,559
He yanked me and more toward the panther. He hissed, Hollow,

963
00:46:25,639 --> 00:46:29,000
get to the road. We ran without looking back. I

964
00:46:29,079 --> 00:46:32,280
kept their recorder under my jacket like contraband the mat

965
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,559
slop burned behind my eyes. My emotion shifted again. Suspicion

966
00:46:36,559 --> 00:46:39,199
had become panic, then obligation that a brittle resolve, and

967
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,320
finally numpished to survival. Dawn found me coughing in a

968
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,159
muddy ditch half a mile from the campsite. My jacket

969
00:46:45,199 --> 00:46:48,320
was plastered to my chest. The recorder was in my pocket,

970
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:51,119
its red light dead. There was no sign of Derrick.

971
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:53,800
My legs trembled. When I climbed to the road. A

972
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,880
truck was idling at the turn round Ranger Hollow leaned

973
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,360
against it with a Thermas in his hand. He looked

974
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:01,320
older than I. Remain rembered hair gray at the temple's

975
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:03,880
eyes that had the halted, steady look of someone who

976
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,639
had seen a dozen things people called supernatural and then

977
00:47:06,679 --> 00:47:10,039
had to clean up the rest. You are right, hallow.

978
00:47:10,159 --> 00:47:12,760
He didn't wait for an answer. He opened his door

979
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,480
and offered me to warmth of the cab. Inside the truck,

980
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:18,280
the radio hissed. We sat for a long five breaths

981
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:20,960
without speaking. Then I pulled the recorder from my pocket

982
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,239
and played the tip one last time. A voice that

983
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:25,280
was mine said, if you find this tip, do not

984
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,039
go alone to cabin seven at mine. Do not answer.

985
00:47:28,119 --> 00:47:31,440
Course that start was static. Leave the recorder where it lies.

986
00:47:31,519 --> 00:47:33,760
Call the ranger. Beneath my voice. A whisper smiled in

987
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:37,559
my cadence. Close the lip. Heap them safe by warning them.

988
00:47:37,599 --> 00:47:40,719
Hollow's jaw worked. He reached across and put his palm

989
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:42,239
over the recorder on my lap, as if to make

990
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,760
it small, inert. He did what you could, he said.

991
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,360
He did not say it loud. He did not need to.

992
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,679
I wanted to tell him about Derreck. I wanted to

993
00:47:51,679 --> 00:47:53,320
say the name allowed, so that it would become a

994
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,000
fact instead of a rumor. The thing about names in

995
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:57,639
the noebucun and the tapes is that they make a

996
00:47:57,639 --> 00:48:00,840
person reel. Saying Deryck's name would make him concrete to

997
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:03,480
the ranger. But I had no proof where Dierk was.

998
00:48:04,119 --> 00:48:05,760
I had only the loop in my chest wood, a tape.

999
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:09,000
Whisperhead sat. Harlow climbed out of the truck and locked

1000
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,599
the doors. We searched the shorel in a first light.

1001
00:48:11,679 --> 00:48:15,400
He said, we bring doaks, we follow footprints. We do

1002
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,599
what we can. He the practical words of someone used

1003
00:48:17,599 --> 00:48:20,119
to chasing missing people. He did not ask how many

1004
00:48:20,159 --> 00:48:22,719
voices were on the tape. He did not ask whether

1005
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,599
I had recorded mine. He simply reached into the glove

1006
00:48:25,639 --> 00:48:29,159
compartment and took have small paper bag. Inside was a damp,

1007
00:48:29,199 --> 00:48:32,159
folded map and a pen. He circled cabin seven and

1008
00:48:32,199 --> 00:48:35,519
wrote down a number the ranger station's emergency line. Keep

1009
00:48:35,519 --> 00:48:37,880
it with you, he said, his voice was low, and

1010
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,400
keep the recorder with care. I'll call you if we

1011
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:42,960
find Derec. He didn't. He promised to bring Derek back.

1012
00:48:43,599 --> 00:48:46,639
Harlo never promised things he couldn't he control. I sat

1013
00:48:46,679 --> 00:48:48,880
with the recorder between my knees and thought about the loop.

1014
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:51,840
The tape had asked me to record a warning. I

1015
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,880
had done it. That action felt like giving myself to

1016
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,119
a machine that demanded human words. It felt like placing

1017
00:48:58,119 --> 00:49:00,400
a bandage over a living thing and helping the bandage

1018
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,440
would halt. Harlow started the truck and we drove toward

1019
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,239
the town. As we hit the paper at the radio popped,

1020
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:08,880
Static filled the cap for a long second, and then

1021
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:12,039
returned to silence. I held the recorder in my hand.

1022
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,800
The little red light was dead, but a faint warmth

1023
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:18,239
lingered when my pompressed the plastic a stop sign. Harlow

1024
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:20,079
turned and looked at me. You're not going to put

1025
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:22,800
this out where anyone will find it, are you. His

1026
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:24,960
face was practical, but his eyes held the weight of

1027
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:28,360
someone who had swallowed two many odd nights. No, I said,

1028
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:30,679
the word was short. I had a different kind of

1029
00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:33,039
obligation now, to keep a warning from becoming a lure.

1030
00:49:33,079 --> 00:49:35,440
We keep it with the station, We log it. We

1031
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,760
don't play it for prank hunters. He nodded and hunched

1032
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,559
over the wheel. The recorder clicked under my fingers like

1033
00:49:40,559 --> 00:49:43,280
a heart. Two days later, the search teams found a

1034
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:45,840
boot print trail that ended a flooded hollow, and then nothing.

1035
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,880
They found drug marks in a torn jacket half buried

1036
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:52,440
in reeds. They did not find Derrek's body. They found

1037
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:54,920
and set another recorder beard under moss planks as tape

1038
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:58,039
eaten by water. The notebook from Cabin seven was recovered

1039
00:49:58,039 --> 00:50:01,960
in pieces. The circled names we remained legible. Someone took

1040
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,920
the notebook and sealed it in an evidence bag. Ranger's

1041
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,840
log dates Hallow wrote a short report. At night, I

1042
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:10,760
played the recording once more in the Range of Stations

1043
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,559
evidence room with the lights off. I wanted to hear

1044
00:50:13,559 --> 00:50:15,360
my voice and the whisper together to test whether my

1045
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:18,039
words had changed the pattern. The tape piste and folded.

1046
00:50:18,079 --> 00:50:20,599
Then my own voice came through cleanly. Did not go

1047
00:50:20,639 --> 00:50:23,679
alone to Cabin seven at midnight. Do not answer calls

1048
00:50:23,679 --> 00:50:26,679
that start with static. Leave the recorder where it lies,

1049
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:29,880
call the ranger under it so faint I almost missed it.

1050
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:32,840
A layer of sound repeated my phrase, and then added,

1051
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,320
I warn them That extra line shifted me in a

1052
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,079
way nothing else did. It wasn't he just an instruction

1053
00:50:38,119 --> 00:50:41,480
to others? It reframed my action into an admission. The

1054
00:50:41,519 --> 00:50:44,039
whisper's content implied that the tape wanted not only words,

1055
00:50:44,039 --> 00:50:47,599
but acknowledgment. In the days that followed, suspicion changed into

1056
00:50:47,639 --> 00:50:51,159
a weary responsibility. I found myself writing down names and

1057
00:50:51,199 --> 00:50:53,360
times for memory and adding them to a private list.

1058
00:50:54,079 --> 00:50:56,159
I began to check cabins in case someone had left

1059
00:50:56,159 --> 00:50:57,960
another recorder out of spite or out of a need

1060
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,400
to warn. I learned two hard things. First, the tape

1061
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:03,280
can imitate you enough that your voice ends up on

1062
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,320
a track, and your voice can mean two things at once,

1063
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,599
a warning and a demand. Second, doing what the tape

1064
00:51:08,599 --> 00:51:11,760
wanted did not stop the pattern from continuing. It altered

1065
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:14,320
the immediate action. It did not end the machine that

1066
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:17,440
set the sequence into motion. Weeks later, a park volunteer

1067
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:20,199
brought me a photograph. It was a grainy shot taken

1068
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:21,960
at the edge of the lake, the dock in a distance.

1069
00:51:22,679 --> 00:51:25,280
In the photo, three shadowed figures stood in the shore line,

1070
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,840
Mara Derrick and another person I could not name. A

1071
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:30,639
small square of light in the dock looked like a

1072
00:51:30,679 --> 00:51:34,159
recorder's red lamb. Someone had circled one of the shadows

1073
00:51:34,159 --> 00:51:37,119
and pen and written a name, not Deryck's, not mine.

1074
00:51:37,639 --> 00:51:40,039
A volunteer in the arko've said the person had never

1075
00:51:40,039 --> 00:51:42,599
been reported as missing. I keep the recorder in a

1076
00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:45,599
padded envelope. Now holler put it in evidence with a

1077
00:51:45,679 --> 00:51:49,559
note tape, a covered onor a none. Do not play

1078
00:51:49,599 --> 00:51:52,719
without an audiotype present. They mounted the envelope on a

1079
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:56,119
shelfink he did under a case number. Sometimes, late at night,

1080
00:51:56,159 --> 00:51:57,840
I take it from the envelope and put the cap

1081
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,679
back on the microphone. I press my to the speaker

1082
00:52:00,679 --> 00:52:03,320
and listen for anything new. Most times there was holy

1083
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,559
silence in the faint clack of my wristworch. Once very faint,

1084
00:52:06,599 --> 00:52:08,199
there was a line under my voice I had not

1085
00:52:08,199 --> 00:52:11,960
noticed before, a deliberate, slightly amusedticer that said keep them

1086
00:52:12,039 --> 00:52:14,440
safe by warning them. That sentence change how I looked

1087
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,280
at what I'd done. It made the choice real. I

1088
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:19,360
had recorded a warning and endurance, So I had joined

1089
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,280
a chain. Whether that chain save DIRC, I cannot say.

1090
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:24,840
I have written his name into reports and into my

1091
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,159
own note book, and I say it loud sometimes so

1092
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:29,920
it does he slip into rumor. Saying his name is

1093
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:31,960
a physical action. I moved my lips and hear the

1094
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:35,000
syllables land. When the station closes for the night. I

1095
00:52:35,039 --> 00:52:37,039
walk out to the road and look back toward the lake.

1096
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:40,400
The dock is a dark thumb against pale water. I

1097
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:42,800
think about the map sloop, about the dotted trail we followed,

1098
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:44,920
about the recorder on the table that was already playing

1099
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:47,360
when I kicked the porch door open. I think about

1100
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:50,000
Mara's voice on the tape, about Hollow's practical hands, about

1101
00:52:50,039 --> 00:52:51,960
Deryck's laugh when he still believed the world was a

1102
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:54,639
place for jokes. The final fact of that night is

1103
00:52:54,639 --> 00:52:57,840
small and concrete. One morning, a handriton note appeared on

1104
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:00,039
the back of the evidence form at the ranger office.

1105
00:53:00,599 --> 00:53:02,679
It read, if you find this tape, keep it secure

1106
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:06,119
and warn others do not play alone. It was written

1107
00:53:06,159 --> 00:53:08,840
in a hand I did not recognize. Some one had

1108
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:10,840
added it in pen and left it folded under the

1109
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,960
evidence bag. I folded my own handwriting into the record

1110
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,159
that day and added beneath it three names. Derec Cole, Marahines,

1111
00:53:18,199 --> 00:53:21,679
Alex Carter. I wrote to date. I stapled a note

1112
00:53:21,679 --> 00:53:25,039
to the file. I did not promise rescue. I made

1113
00:53:25,039 --> 00:53:28,079
a choice. I would keep the record a safe I

1114
00:53:28,079 --> 00:53:30,119
would post the evidence forward, and I would say the

1115
00:53:30,159 --> 00:53:32,559
names allow, so they could not be raised by silence.

1116
00:53:33,159 --> 00:53:35,480
When I left the station that night, Hollow called me back.

1117
00:53:36,199 --> 00:53:38,719
He handed me as mole sealed cassette in a paper bag.

1118
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:41,400
We found this at the Lost shoal End search. He

1119
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:43,800
said it was half buried. We think some one else

1120
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,800
left it. I put it in my pocket. The tape

1121
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,840
felt warmer than the others. The label had three initials

1122
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,440
written in a rush. I read them under the truck's

1123
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,360
stone light and saw my own initials included. Again. I

1124
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:57,440
done to know if any word I spoke ever changed

1125
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:00,280
what the tape wanted. I know only this A chose

1126
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:02,159
to warn and to record the warning, and that action

1127
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,079
put my voice into a chain I could not unlink.

1128
00:54:04,679 --> 00:54:06,679
The last thing on the cassette that night was a tiny,

1129
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,239
dry sound, the click of a receding spool, and then

1130
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:12,239
a line that sounded suspiciously like me saying, Dante go alone.

1131
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,760
The recorder in evidence sits in a label box ranger's log.

1132
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:19,000
Visitors who request to see defiles. When some one asks,

1133
00:54:19,039 --> 00:54:21,679
I tell them what I can. Where we found the devices,

1134
00:54:21,679 --> 00:54:23,920
which names circle, who left and who didn't tea. I

1135
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,239
do not play the tapes for them. My hands are

1136
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,039
stead are now. When I lift the envelope, my suspicion

1137
00:54:29,079 --> 00:54:31,320
has not left, but a share space with the responsibility

1138
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:34,559
that presses my shoulders forward. The tape demanded closure. I

1139
00:54:34,599 --> 00:54:36,519
gave it words. That is the action I can halt.

1140
00:54:37,159 --> 00:54:39,280
The rest, the missing, the shapes and the reeds. The

1141
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,880
voice that borrows my Kiden's remain in concrete details, footprints

1142
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:44,760
in the mud, a torn jacket nailed to search a

1143
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:46,920
photograph for a shadow circled and a name I haven't

1144
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,920
been able to place. Uncertain nights, when the wind comes

1145
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:51,719
in and from the lake and the pine's creek, I

1146
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:53,239
hear a noise that might be a tip's hiss or

1147
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,320
might be a truck radio, A thin static chime that

1148
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:57,400
resolves for a second into my own voice, saying, if

1149
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,920
you find this tape, keep it safe. I stand up

1150
00:54:59,920 --> 00:55:01,800
for from wherever I am, and I check my pockets

1151
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:05,360
for the recorder. The action is habit new. I fold

1152
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,320
my fingers around plastic that remembers my palm at dawn.

1153
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,360
I still go to the shore line, sometimes alone, and

1154
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,280
match bootprints against the ones in the report. I trace

1155
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,039
a finger along the map where the loop ends at

1156
00:55:15,039 --> 00:55:17,760
the dock. I do not go to the dock after midnight.

1157
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,119
I do not answer calls. They start with static. I

1158
00:55:21,199 --> 00:55:24,000
keep the recorder sealed. The final beat of that night,

1159
00:55:24,079 --> 00:55:27,679
the one that anchors everything, is simple and physical. Harlow

1160
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:29,760
hands me a folded cassette in a paper back and

1161
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,320
tells me they found new evidence at the shoreline. I

1162
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,320
put the bag into my jacket and severe it tight.

1163
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,039
The file is complete for the moment, but the recorder

1164
00:55:37,079 --> 00:55:39,679
on the shelf still waits. It waits in a box

1165
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,559
with three named staple tourts. Outside. I can flip the

1166
00:55:42,599 --> 00:55:45,480
tape over and listen again, and sometimes I do. But

1167
00:55:45,519 --> 00:55:47,679
the last concrete thing in this chapter is my hand

1168
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:49,840
closing over the paper back and walking away with it

1169
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:54,320
toward the station. And that is the end. Thank you

1170
00:55:54,360 --> 00:56:08,760
for listening, and I will see you in the next one.