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Silent.

Moving ahead, she attempted to get a glimpse of what was inside the darkened windows.

“Why are you following me?” Swinging around, her flashlight illuminated the owner of the voice.

The girl appeared ghostly in the manufactured light. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, her rucksack gone, a four-inch pocket knife in her hand.

“Easy, I’m not here to hurt you.” Palm out, Vera’s eyes locked on the weapon.

The distance of the stairs sat between them but it didn’t matter. She knew if she wanted to use it, it would be a bloody mess neither of them would get out of unscathed.

“Why are you following me then?” Her knife remained pointed at Vera. The skin of her cheeks was sunken in, the bandana around her tangled dishwater-blonde hair giving her the look of someone accustomed to hard living, even for someone who appeared barely eighteen.

“Listen, I’m not here to hurt you. Let’s just take a step back, alright?”

“You a cop?” The knife lifted.

“No, not a cop. I’m a private investigator, it’s completely different.” She hoped she didn’t ask for identification for her lie, not as the knife remained steady and sure. “My name is Vera, I just wanted to ask you about the body you found in the woods.”

Her face turned dark, a curl to her lip. “What about it?”

“How’d you find it?”

She paused, looking her up and down. “What you got on you?”

Vera knew the game. She slowly unzipped her jacket pocket and pulled out a crisp twenty. The girl pointed to the railing and Vera complied, resting the money on the edge.

“I was camping, passing through.”

“What’d you notice about it? Anything unusual?”

“You mean besides the fact that some very vital parts of his body were missing? Yeah, I’d say it was fuckin’ unusual.” The knife trembled.

“Which parts?”

She wiped her mouth with her thin forearm. “His dick for sure. Eyes looked like someone had scooped them out with a fuckin’ spoon and it looked like he’d choked on his own blood. Fuckin’ psycho shit.”

All the same wounds as the other men. Vera tried to keep the tremble from her hands. “Can you tell me what else you saw?”

“It was fuckin’ creepy as hell. Like he was on the ground, with so much blood he was practically swimming in it. I never wanna see anything like that again.” Her voice went rough. Vera couldn’t blame her, it would haunt even the most seasoned investigator if they stumbled upon it.

“Anything else you can tell me about it?” Eyes wide, the girl’s lips thinned as a sheen of sweat gleamed across her dirty forehead. A twig snapped in the woods behind them and her head whipped over her shoulder to look.

Vera peered into the woodland too, trying to make out where the sound came from. The sun had fallen behind the bruised clouds, coloring the world in pewter. Thick trunks were too wide and dense and the dark leaves filled every inch between them in a perfect blanket of obscurity past the tree line.

Soft as a feather, a sensation like a finger ran down her throat, breaking her skin out in goosebumps. There was something there, someone lurking behind the foliage. The weight of their eyes was tangible. It reminded her of the stranger’s glare in the parking lot.

“Fuck this place. I’m not talking anymore. Move.” She swung the knife to the right, motioning for Vera to come down off the porch.

She didn’t want to leave her. Not when she was sure she knew more than she said and not when something was waiting just beyond eyesight.

Coming down the stairs slowly, she looked between her and their voyeur, trying to determine who was more dangerous. She kept the forest to her side, never giving it her back as she faced the young woman. “Do you have a phone?”

“Why?” They were both whispering, eyes dancing between each other and the trees.

Another snap of a twig and the rustle of a bush. The girl flinched.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. If you won’t come with me, at least take my number and call me if you need help. Alright?” Vera grabbed one of the nondescript cards she kept on her.