Page 31

30

AUbrEY

T he cave swallows us whole, darkness absolute after the moonlit night outside. We stand motionless, letting our eyes adjust to the gloom, our breathing loud in the confined space. The air here is different—stale, yes, but also carrying a strange metallic tang that coats the back of my throat with each inhale.

“Wait,” Jensen whispers, digging into his pocket. He produces a small flashlight, turning it on. I quickly search my pockets and pull out my own, though the light is a weak orange and winking on and off.

“Stay close,” he says. “It will be easy for them to separate us.”

The narrow passage stretches before us, rough stone walls glistening with moisture, the floor uneven and treacherous. Water drips somewhere in the distance, a hollow plinking that echoes through the chambers.

“Where do we go?” I ask, trying to mask the tremor in my voice. Just keep walking into the cave, into the darkness, into passages we might never come out of? “The hungry ones wanted us here specifically,” I reason, scanning the darkness beyond the light’s reach. “That must mean something.”

“Or they just drove us into a convenient trap,” Jensen mutters, but he begins moving forward, picking his way carefully across the uneven ground.

I follow close behind, my hand resting on my gun, though I know it will do little good against the creatures pursuing us. The cave narrows briefly before opening into a larger chamber, the ceiling rising beyond the reach of our meager light.

“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a dark patch on the ground ahead.

Jensen directs the beam toward it, revealing a circle of charred stone and ash—a campfire site, long cold but unmistakable.

“Someone made camp here,” I say, kneeling to examine it despite every instinct screaming to keep moving. I touch the ash, finding it cold and damp. “Somewhat recently.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jensen says, frowning as he illuminates the area around the fire pit. “What use would they have for fire?”

“Maybe hikers? Cave explorers?” I suggest, though we both know how unlikely that is this time of year.

“No,” Jensen says slowly. “Look.”

The flashlight beam reveals other signs of habitation scattered around the chamber—a tattered backpack leaning against one wall, the remains of what might have been a sleeping bag, empty food wrappers, and water bottles.

“Someone lived here,” I say, the realization settling cold and heavy in my stomach. “Not just passing through, but…staying.”

Jensen nods grimly. “And they were organized and intelligent enough to maintain a fire, to keep supplies.” His eyes meet mine, understanding passing between us. “More than feral creatures acting on instinct.”

The implication hangs in the damp air.

Nate? Could this be where Nate is from?

And if so, is there where his parents are?

Lainey?

I move toward the backpack, drawn by a need to understand, to find any clue about what might have happened here. The material is weathered, discolored with age and damp, but still recognizable as a hiking pack from our time, something you could pick up at Target.

“Be careful,” Jensen warns, staying close as I kneel beside it.

With trembling fingers, I unfasten the main compartment, pulling it open to reveal the contents within. Papers, mostly—documents protected in plastic sleeves, their edges curling with moisture despite the protection. Beneath them, a leather-bound book, smaller than my hand.

The cover is worn, the leather darkened with time and handling. No name is embossed on the front, but as I open the first page, my heart stops.

Property of Lainey Wells.

My sister’s handwriting, so familiar it makes my chest ache. The same looping script that used to appear on birthday cards, on notes left on my refrigerator when we’d lived together, on the margin of books she’d lend me with comments like “I thought you’d like this part!” or “reminds me of Mom.”

“It’s Lainey’s,” I say, my voice barely audible. “Her journal.”

Jensen crouches beside me, his shoulder pressing against mine as he shines the light closer. “What else is in there?”

I set the journal aside momentarily, carefully extracting the plastic-protected documents. Birth certificates. Death records. Adoption papers yellowed with age. All connected to one name: Josephine McAlister.

“Those look familiar,” Jensen says. “She had those on her. Research. Proof.”

I start paging through them in disbelief. Everything she collected about the McAlisters, about Josephine. The connection to our family.

One document in particular catches my eye—a copy of an adoption record from 1847, for an infant named Josephine, her birth parents listed as Thomas and Amelia McAlister, both deceased. The adoptive family’s name is partially obscured by water damage, but enough remains visible: Wells.

“She was right,” I whisper, the truth I’ve been avoiding since Jensen first told me about my possible connection to the Donner Party now irrefutable in my hands. “We are descendants of Josephine McAlister.”

“Keep looking,” Jensen urges, his voice gentle despite the tension thrumming through both of us.

With trembling hands, I return to Lainey’s journal, opening to the first entry dated nearly four years ago.

March 15, 2021

Found something incredible today. Birth records for Josephine McAlister showing she was adopted after the Donner tragedy. The family name matches ours—Wells. Could be coincidence, but my gut says no. This is the connection I’ve been searching for, the reason the mountains have always called to me.

I flip forward through the pages, watching my sister’s journey unfold through her own words.

May 3, 2021

Mom knew. She must have. All those stories she told us about the hunger, about the thing in her blood that was passed down through generations. I always thought it was the schizophrenia talking, but what if it wasn’t? What if she was trying to warn us?

July 18, 2021

Adam thinks I’m obsessing too much. Says I need to let this go. He doesn’t understand. How could he? This isn’t his family, his blood. He hasn’t felt the mountains calling like I have, hasn’t had the dreams of snow and hunger his whole life.

My heart constricts as I recognize the pattern unfolding in these pages. Lainey’s growing obsession. Adam’s attempts to control her. The same toxic dynamic I’d witnessed in the brief times they’d been together at my apartment, but worse than I’d realized.

September 2, 2021

Adam took the car keys. Says I need a “break” from my research. As if he gets to decide what I need. As if he owns me. I may have to tell him what he wants to hear for a while. Play along. Make him think he’s won. It’s the only way I’ll get the chance to continue.

“Jesus,” I mutter, anger flaring hot in my chest. “He was isolating her, controlling her. Classic abuser tactics.”

I continue turning pages, watching my sister’s descent into obsession and Adam’s escalating attempts to stop her.

January 10, 2022

The dreams are getting worse. More vivid. I can taste blood in my mouth when I wake up. I’m starting to understand what Mom meant about the hunger. It’s not just a metaphor or a delusion. It’s real. It’s in our blood, passed down through generations, dormant until something wakes it. Something in these mountains is calling to me, Aubrey. I wish I could tell you. I wish you could understand. But I need to protect you from this. From becoming like me. Like Mom.

My name jumps off the page, sending a shock through my system. Lainey had been writing to me all along, leaving these words knowing—or hoping—I would find them someday.

March 5, 2022

Adam caught me packing. Big fight. He hit me for the first time. Said he wouldn’t let me destroy myself with this “crazy obsession.” Said if I loved him, I’d stop. I told him I’m going to the mountains with or without him. Something in him changed when I said that. He got very quiet, then said if I’m determined to go, he’s coming too. “To protect me from myself,” he said. But the look in his eyes scared me more than his anger.

April 22, 2022

Found someone who might help us. A guide named Jensen McGraw who knows the mountains better than anyone. Adam doesn’t trust him, but I do. Jensen has his own connection to these mountains—I can see it in his eyes. He understands there are things here beyond ordinary explanation. Tomorrow we head up to search the area where the McAlisters were supposed to have lived. Where Josephine was born in blood and hunger. Where it all began.

I glance at Jensen, who meets my gaze steadily despite the pain evident in his eyes. “She trusted you,” I say softly.

“And I failed her,” he replies, voice rough with emotion.

“You couldn’t have known what was waiting up here.” I turn back to the journal, to the final pages, my heart racing with dread at what I might find.

May 3, 2022 (I think. Days blur together now)

We’ve found caves. Jensen warned us not to go in too deep, but I know what I’m looking for is farther in. Adam has been acting strange since we arrived in the mountains—watching me constantly, but also seeming drawn to the caves himself. Sometimes I catch him staring into the darkness with a hunger I recognize from my own reflection.

Something is happening to me. To both of us. I can feel myself changing. The cold that starts in my bones and spreads outward. The heightened senses. The dreams more vivid than ever.

The hunger growing stronger every day.

One day I fear it might be real.

My hands shake as I turn to the final entry, dated three years ago—the last words my sister ever wrote.

May 5, 2022

Adam bit me the other day. He did it out of anger but I could tell it wasn’t him. Maybe it’s never been him. Maybe it was always something else. Someone else. I miss the man I knew.

I can feel myself changing. I’m so cold. The hunger is everything now. Adam is changing too, but differently. He’s enjoying it in the ways that I’m not.

We found others in the deeper caves. Others like us—or what we’re becoming. They recognized something in our blood. In my blood. They showed me things, taught me things. The history that doesn’t exist in books but the history I knew all along.

I hope you find these, Aubrey. I’m sorry I never told you the truth about our family, about the McAlisters, about Josephine. I thought I was protecting you. Maybe I was just afraid you’d think I was just like Mom. But whatever haunted her is what haunted me and what haunts us all. You’ll never escape it if you don’t face it.

Head on.

Bite it.

I love you, sister. I always have. Please forgive me for what I’ve become.

And if you see what used to be me—run. Don’t hesitate. Don’t look back. Just run.

I’m so hungry.

The journal ends there, the final page tear-stained, the handwriting increasingly erratic as if written by someone barely maintaining control.

I clutch the small book to my chest, tears streaming down my face. After three years of searching, of hoping, of fearing—here is the truth. My sister didn’t die. Something worse happened.

She transformed. Became one of the hungry ones.

And Adam…Adam didn’t just transform, he embraced it. Enjoyed it. Became the leader we’d seen directing the others.

In the end, Adam won.

And Lainey lost.

She’s still not free of him.

“I’m so sorry, Aubrey,” Jensen says quietly, his hand a warm weight on my shoulder.

“She knew,” I manage through tears, my throat thick. “She knew what was happening to her. She was still Lainey enough at the end to leave this for me to find.”

“She was trying to warn you,” Jensen says. “To protect you, even then.”

Even now , I think. What if she really had sent little Nathaniel?

I wipe away tears with the back of my hand, struggling to keep myself together. “Because of my connection to Josephine,” I say, the pieces finally fitting together. “Because I’m family.”

A sound echoes from deeper in the cave system—not a drip of water, not the settling of stone, but something else.

Something alive.

Moving through the darkness toward us.

“We need to keep going,” Jensen says urgently. He takes the documents and journal and puts it in inside my coat pockets. “There’s another way out,” Jensen says, grabbing my hand. “Through the back chamber. It’s our only chance.”

We move quickly toward a narrow opening in the far wall, the flashlight beam bouncing crazily across the stone. Behind us, soft footfalls echo on the cave floor—the hungry ones entering the chamber we’ve just left.

As we slip into the smaller passage, a voice calls out—not the inhuman snarls or growls I’ve come to associate with the hungry ones, but an actual voice. Distorted, yes, but recognizable. Familiar in the most horrifying way possible.

“Aubrey.” A woman’s voice, cracked and strained as if seldom used.

Lainey.

It can’t be. Not after all this time. Not after her own words confirming her transformation. I know Nate had said she was still alive, one of them, and yet?—

I hesitate, half-turning despite Jensen’s urgent pulling on my arm.

“Don’t,” he hisses. “It’s a trap. Whatever’s using her voice, it’s not Lainey anymore. She told you herself.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. But the pull of that voice—my sister’s voice—is almost stronger than my will to survive.

She’s the whole reason I’m here at all.

She’s been my whole purpose.

What happens when that’s gone?

“Aubrey, please,” Jensen pleads, his grip on my hand tightening. “She warned you. She just warned you. Don’t look back. Just run.”

Lainey’s final written words echo in my mind, breaking the spell of her voice calling from the darkness. With a shuddering breath, I turn away from the sound, following Jensen deeper into the cave system, away from what remains of my sister.

The passage narrows further, barely wide enough for our shoulders, the ceiling dropping so low we have to crouch. The sound of pursuit grows fainter behind us, though whether we’re actually outpacing them or they’re simply letting us go deeper, I can’t tell.

“Where does this lead?” I gasp, the close confines triggering a claustrophobia I didn’t know I had.

“I don’t know,” Jensen admits, his voice tight with tension. “But it’s away from them, and that’s all that matters right now.”

Except they could be herding us into a dead end, into a trap.