Page 11 of The Mountain Man's Curvy Trick-or-Treat

“Wait! So, you don’t find the concept of alien and human mixing an abomination?”

“God help me,” I whisper under my breath. “Thank you for the cider, the snacks, and the … conversation. But I should probably go.”

“Don’t, please,” he says, raw-voiced. “I can prove everything I’m telling you is real.”

And just like that, he glows. Truly, completely. Not a flicker here or there, but like a giant, human, neon sign.

Tough to blame that on a Halloween costume.

My jaw drops, my heart stops, and my temperature rises. My eyes dart past him and then my body as I sprint for the door.

Big boots hammer the wood floor behind me. Outside, he puts himself between my car and me. Doesn’t matter anyway; my purse and keys are still inside the cabin.

I eye him for a heartbeat, pulse fluttering, then bolt straight into the woods.

Behind me, strange words—like a curse in an unknown language—echo through the nightscape.

He doesn’t pursue as I slip deeper into the dark, tangled forest, breath racing and heart near bursting. I’m afraid of the dark, sure, but nothing compares to the supernatural sight ofhim.

The air is heavy with ozone and petrichor; the ground, muddy and slick from the downpour.

The deeper I go, the darker it becomes until I can barely see my own hands. The same hum that filled his cabin follows me out here, buried under the rain like tinnitus from another world.

Of all nights for a new moon. There isn’t a single trace of light anywhere.

I grope forward, skin crawling. All I know is I can’t go back. Not after that reveal.

Even if I wanted to, I’m not sure I could find the cabin again. I’m already hopelessly, interminably turned around.

Worse, my phone is in my purse, so I don’t have a flashlight. I bury my face in my hands, still buzzed and foggy—like I’m trapped in a fever dream. I pinch myself. Nothing.

Then, ahead in the darkness, a warm radiance blooms. Maybe it’s a ranger’s light, a cabin, anything sane—but then the orbs drift closer, and sanity packs up and leaves.

Peaceful, serene. There’s no other way to describe them. Tiny orbs of light flickering against the ebony night like fireflies.

But do they even have fireflies in the Sierra Nevada?

They drift toward a massive, glowing redwood, so broad I could never get my arms around it.

My heart aches at the sight—the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—until Everett steps out, a body of fire and light amid the communion, flannel and jeans the only reminder of a man beneath the blaze.

“You followed me,” I accuse, panting for breath.

He looks half-born from the storm itself—too human to be lightning, too wild to be a man.

“Yes. And I will always follow you, because you’re mine now.”

“Yours? Weren’t you the guy lecturing me on alien-human abominations and killer robots?”

I pace, not waiting for his answer.

“You put something in the Star-honey, didn’t you? LSD or DMT? Because this—” I gesture to the tree, to him. “This cannot be happening.”

A hum threads the air again, coming from the man and yet vibrating through me.

“This has to be a bad dream. I need to wake up.”

“No.” Everett’s frown glows. “It’s not a dream. It’s meant to be.”