Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

4

Alex felt grateful when the woods closed around her, isolating her from the fuss around the Forest Station. Boulder Creek's milky water flowed down from Mount Baker on her left as she headed northeast, following a narrow trail that ran between the stream and the steep walls of the ravine on her right.

Twenty minutes later she reached the fork where the White flowed into the Boulder and she jumped from rock to rock to cross the White. Jacobi's squad had already taken the kids' belongings way, so she only found traces of the camping site at the edge of a small clearing, five steps away from the water. Alex dropped her backpack under a tree, her eyes scanning the clearing.

An unnatural silence filled the place, since all the people roaming around had scared birds and animals away. She crouched down before the stones circling the ashes of the campfire. There was still a neat pile of firewood by them, and some whitened twigs caught her attention: they were sprayed with blood. She grabbed the radio from her pocket and took it to her face.

"Jeff..." she called, her eyes moving, looking for more blood drops on the soil between her and the White. There was none.

"You okay, Al?" asked Jeff.

"Yeah. I'm at the White clearing, where they camped."

"Anything unusual?"

"Did the wolves hurt those kids?"

"No, as far as I know. Why?"

There! The trace led to the old trail? It didn't make sense. Or did it come down the trail to stop by the campfire? Who'd been bleeding there? Maybe one of the wolves was hurt? She scattered the firewood apart.

"Just curious. Can you check it?"

"They must be already at the hospital. Give me a minute to call."

"Okay. Call me back."

Something pricked her finger and she took it to her mouth, grunting. She searched a little further into the firewood.

"Holly..." she muttered when sunlight sparkled on the point of an arrow. She pulled it out of the firewood, grabbing the radio again. "Jeff?"

It was a long arrow, meant for a heavy, long classic bow like the one Old Bootter used to have.

"A real bow," Bootter would say. "Not one of those ugly sticks full of cogs and strings for fancy city faggots."

Yeah, that was Grandpa Bootter teaching a twelve-year-old girl.

"I'm on the phone with Doctor Lorrigan, Al," Jeff said. "What is it?"

Alex spoke as she walked to the north end of the clearing. "Tell'im to ask the kids if they say anyone else here last night. If they were cornered by the wolves, how come the pack didn't chase them down to your door when they fled?"

"Did you find anything that makes you think that?"

"Nah, I'm just smarter than you."

"Pity I don't date smart chicks."

"Your loss."

"Call you back."

Under the first fir trees where the trail exited the clearing, on the ground covered with needles and leaves, Alex found more blood. But not just a few drops. Whoever had gone that way was bleeding their guts out. She hurried back across the clearing to pick up her backpack, the arrow still in her hand.