Page 20 of Obscurity (Pros and Cons Mysteries #5)
M aya—of course it was Maya again—paused on the path and pointed to something off the trail. “Look at that!”
Olive pushed herself to the front of the line so she could see.
Her breath caught.
There was a rocky outcropping there. And in the center of one of the biggest boulders was blood. What appeared to be fresh blood.
All her instincts went on alert.
Max pushed his way to the front of the crowd also, and his eyes narrowed when he saw the red on the rock.
“It’s nothing to be alarmed about,” he announced. “Probably just a hunter processing his prize.”
“There are hunters out here?” someone else asked.
“Yes, of course there are hunters,” Max responded. “We’re a big enough group that they should be aware of us. But I’m sure that’s just what that blood is about.”
Olive would bet it wasn’t.
From across the crowd, she and Jason exchanged a look.
“Now, come on,” Max said. “Let’s keep going.”
He tried to continue herding people toward the festival site. But Olive remained near the blood another moment, her gaze sweeping over everything.
That was when her eyes stopped on what looked like a bracelet that had fallen off in between the rocks.
Using her phone, she pretended like she was taking a picture of the blood. But really, it was the bracelet. She needed to make sure that Chloe hadn’t worn one like that.
Jason joined her again. They had so much to talk about.
They just needed some privacy first.
As the path descended more steeply, Olive thought she saw a clearing in the distance.
Grayfall? Part of her couldn’t wait to get there so she could dig more deeply into Chloe’s disappearance.
Not to mention her legs were getting tired and she was hungry after eating that sad excuse for a sandwich.
She could imagine everyone else felt the same.
“Hey.” Jason pointed above them as a chopping sound filled the air. “Look at that.”
Olive followed his gaze. A helicopter flew overhead.
“I wonder if one of the bands is inside?” Olive questioned.
“Possibly. Looks like a nice copter. Expensive.”
“I imagine the budget for this event had to be pretty big.” She paused. “Not that you would guess that based on the lunch they packed for us.”
“I know, right? I could eat better in prison.”
They came to one of the downed trees blocking the road. It was large, but it wouldn’t have been that difficult for someone to make a path through.
How interesting that festival organizers hadn’t done that. It would have made things so much easier if they could ride in something.
As Jason helped Olive over, she lowered her voice and asked, “Did Max say anything interesting?”
“He did, as a matter of fact.” Jason released her hand as she stood on flat ground again. “He said he’s been working for festival organizers for two months now, and he hasn’t been paid for his work here yet.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Really? I’m surprised he’s still doing his job then.”
“I heard they’re being promised their backpay plus a big bonus when this is done.”
“Sounds like a trainwreck.”
“Tell me about it.”
The pieces of the puzzle were starting to form a picture, and Olive didn’t like what she was seeing.
The warning from the Grayfall Guardian suddenly felt less like superstition and more like a lifeline they’d just chosen to ignore.
Because something was wrong with this whole setup.
The trail opened into a clearing that looked nothing like the promotional videos Olive had studied before arriving.
Where the glossy brochure had promised a “transformed historic mining town hosting an immersive musical experience,” the reality was a ghost town that time and weather had been slowly devouring for decades.
Grayfall spread before them like a movie set for a post-apocalyptic film. The main street—if the cracked strip of asphalt could still be called that—was flanked by the hollow shells of what had once been a thriving community.
A two-story building sagged under the weight of a partially collapsed roof, its broken windows staring out like dead eyes. Faded paint on the brick facade still spelled out “Grayfall Mercantile” in letters that were more ghost than substance.
Next to it, the skeletal remains of what appeared to be a drugstore stood with its front door hanging askew on rusted hinges.
The pharmacy sign had fallen and shattered across the front steps, scattered among decades of accumulated leaves and debris.
Across the street, a diner’s neon sign dangled from a single wire, its cheerful promise of “Home-Cooked Meals” rendered grotesque by the vines that had grown through its broken letters.
Other buildings lined the street in various stages of decay—a post office with its roof caved in, a small church whose steeple listed dangerously to one side, houses whose front porches had collapsed into piles of rotting timber.
Rusted cars from the seventies and eighties sat where they’d been abandoned, their windows smashed, and their bodies slowly being reclaimed by kudzu and Virginia creeper.
But it was the backdrop that made the scene truly ominous.
Rising behind the town like the mouth of some ancient beast was the entrance to the old coal mine. It yawned black and forbidding in the mountainside.
Twisted metal support beams framed the opening, and a faded warning sign that was too distant to read hung at an angle. Railway tracks, rusted orange with age, emerged from the mine entrance and disappeared into the undergrowth.
The promotional videos had somehow made this look magical and atmospheric.
In person, it felt like stepping into a place where hope had come to die.