Page 75 of Silent Bones

“He OD’d,” Noah said. “Well, that’s what they’ll write it up as. But we’re not convinced.”

The line stayed silent, but Noah could hear Ed breathing.

“Drugs?” Ed finally muttered. “But he was clean. You know that, right? He hated drugs. Lectured me about my sweetener packets last week. Said aspartame was a chemical conspiracy.’”

Noah almost smiled, but it didn’t hold.

“Did he say anything to you?” Noah asked. “After that night in the woods. After I found him.”

Another pause. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“What’d he say?”

“He told me he went back there. He said he’d stumbled onto something. Said it scared the hell out of him. Made him second-guess going into the forest. I tried to press, but he shut down. Just kept repeating, ‘It wasn’t what I thought it was.’ That’s all he gave me.”

Noah leaned his head against the cold glass.

“You think he knew someone was watching him?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know. But he was different the last few days. Not paranoid. Focused. Like something had finally clicked and he didn’t know what to do with it. I told him to speak to you.”

Noah closed his eyes. “You okay?” he asked.

On the other end of the line, Ed let out a tired breath. “You know me…”

But his voice trailed off. Not its usual light tone. Something softer. Frailer.

Noah said, “I’ll check in later.”

He ended the call.

Outside, the rain tapped harder, beading on the glass like Morse code.

Inside the cab, the silence was complete, no monsters to chase, no conspiracies to solve, just the slow realization that one more voice had gone quiet. Not because of a legend. But because of what it had almost revealed.

Noah stared through the windshield, past the water and the lights and the blur of his own reflection.

He wasn’t thinking about myths anymore.

18

DEC’s regional headquarters smelled like a mix of damp carpet, reheated coffee, and copier toner. Noah signed in at the front desk without a word and followed McKenzie through the maze of beige hallways. He could already feel the ache coming on behind his eyes, the kind that liked to bloom around bureaucracy.

A clerk led them through a side hallway that smelled like dry wood and vinegar cleaner. Past the staff offices, down two half-lit corridors, then through a door that buzzed like a dying fly when swiped. The archival records room sat in a separate wing, colder and dimmer than the rest of the building. Boxes stacked shoulder-high lined the shelves in uneven rows, the air filled with the papery stillness of things meant to be forgotten.

“Not everything got digitized,” the clerk muttered as she fumbled with a ring of keys. “Especially after the fire in 2015. Some of the older paper stuff is just… incomplete. Misfiled. Misindexed.” She unlocked the door, stepped back, and waved them in. “If you need copies, there’s a self-feed scanner. If you need me, I’m not here.”

McKenzie snorted. “Charming.”

McKenzie headed into the archive door with his shoulder. “You know, I noticed, they still have the same office furniture since Y2K.”

Shelves lined the walls in sagging rows, filled with binders, manila folders, and curling printouts. Noah moved with purpose, scanning labels: Enforcement Logs, Permit History, Field Incident Reports. He grabbed three and dropped them flat. Dust scattered.

McKenzie plopped into the rolling chair opposite him and spun in a lazy half-circle. “Remind me why we’re looking through citations for permit violations again?”

“We know the kids were cited a year ago over at Voss’ campground,” Noah said. “But there’s nothing in the main file. That suggests either it wasn’t properly logged, or someone scrubbed it.”

“Or it never happened and Voss lied.”