The cabin smelled intensely of wood smoke, old leather, and strong, dark roast coffee.
It wasn't abandoned. It wasn't a trap house. It was a home.
A heavy canvas jacket hung on a peg beside the stone fireplace. A ceramic mug, still radiating faint steam, sat on a scarred wooden dining table. A small, battery-operated shortwave radio rested near the window, a green light blinking silently.
Ray's eyes swept across the room, ensuring it was clear, before they locked onto the far wall.
He stopped breathing entirely.
Photographs. Dozens of them, pinned to a massive corkboard covering the wall above a small writing desk.
Some showed the surrounding mountain peaks. Some showed Ranger as a clumsy, oversized puppy.
But several were old, faded Army photographs.
Ray stepped closer, drawn like a magnet.
His own younger face stared back at him.
There he was at twenty-three, his face smeared with black grease, holding a wrench and grinning beside a heavily modified transport truck.
Another photo showed Ray and Thomas standing shoulder to shoulder in full gear, both looking exhausted but invincible, squinting into the desert sun.
Another had been taken at a cheap roadside diner during their last stateside leave, a blurry shot of them toasting with cheap beers.
Ray reached out, his trembling fingers brushing the edge of the wooden frame.
Marcus stepped into the room behind him, the floorboards groaning under his weight. His voice was hushed, reverent, and deeply unsettled.
“Someone's been keeping a shrine, Ray.”
But Ray wasn't looking at the old photos anymore. He noticed the dates written in neat black marker on the white borders beneath the newer photographs pinned around the edges of the board.
*August, five years ago.*
*October, three years ago.*
*April, eight months ago.*
They weren't photographs of Thomas.
They were photographs of Ray.
Ray riding his custom Harley down a stretch of highway in Nevada.
Ray standing outside the motorcycle repair shop he owned in Denver.
Ray sitting alone at a table during a crowded veterans' charity ride.
Ray standing in the rain at a roadside memorial, his head bowed.
His stomach tightened into a painful, frozen knot.
“This isn't possible,” Ray whispered, his voice cracking.
Someone had been watching him. Following him. Photographing him.
For years.
Ray stepped backward, bumping into the wooden table. The profound excitement and hope he had felt outside on the porch abruptly curdled into something colder, something deeply unsettling. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Marcus looked at the surveillance photos, his eyes narrowing. He moved toward the front door, his hand tight on his knife.
“Ray, we need to leave. Right now. This is wrong. This is incredibly wrong.”
Then Ranger barked.
A single, sharp, warning bark.
Both men spun around.