The officer stared at Dante for a moment. After a second, he seemed to regain his composure.

  “My advice, son,” he said quietly, “is to get out of this town. If you’re not from here, you’ll be run out sooner or ter. It’s not worth it.”

  Dante looked at the man, about to say something in response, but before he could, the officer’s radio crackled to life.

  A voice on the other end called him away to assist in the rger town nearby. Not much happened during the day in this pce—nothing the police needed to worry about, anyway.

  The officer stood up quickly and hurried out of the library.

  Dante watched him leave. Then he picked up his phone and stopped the recording.

  The library had gone quiet again.

  He looked around at the shelves. Most of the books appeared untouched, their spines coated with a thin yer of dust, as if no one had opened them in years.

  Dante packed his iPad into his bag. It was ter in the evening now—more time had passed than he had realized.

  As he walked past the front desk, the older woman sitting there gnced up at him. Her hair was gray, and her face wasn’t stern exactly, but it carried the look of someone who expected to be listened to.

  “A word of advice, stranger,” she said.

  Dante paused.

  “Don’t walk the streets at night,” she continued. “And definitely not the woods.”

  With that, she turned back to her computer as if the conversation were already over.

  Dante stood there for a moment, the warning hanging in the quiet air of the library.

  Dante stepped out of the library.

  The sun hadn’t fully set yet, but it was sinking lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the quiet town. The evening air carried a strange stillness as he began walking down the street.

  He passed the small school first, its empty pyground silent and unmoving. Then came the main street diner, the smell of grease and fried food faintly drifting out through the door. A few locals sat inside, but none of them looked up as he passed.

  After a while, Dante finally reached the small, family-run motel.

  He had called ahead earlier to reserve a room.

  By the time he arrived, the sun had finally slipped below the horizon. Only a couple of semis and a few trailers were parked in the gravel lot. Across the road sat a truck stop. It was small, but its lot was brightly lit—much brighter than Dante thought it needed to be.

  The thought reminded him of the librarian’s warning.

  Don’t walk the streets at night. And definitely not the woods.

  Maybe this town really was as strange—and as dangerous—as everyone he’d met seemed to believe.

  Dante pushed open the motel door.

  Inside, a middle-aged woman stood behind the counter. Her brown hair was tied back, and her calm, gentle expression immediately put him at ease.

  Just moments before walking in, he had the unsettling feeling that someone—or something—had been watching him.

  But inside the building, everything felt calmer. Safer.

  He gnced toward the front window and noticed it had been bared up, shut tight.

  Dante frowned slightly.

  “Is there a lot of robberies around here?” he asked.

  A man sitting behind the woman—who Dante assumed was her husband—looked up from a small television.

  “No,” the man said casually. “That’s for our safety. You never know what might peek its head up and try to break the window.”

  He said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  The woman simply smiled.

  “You’re Dante Helsong, I assume,” she said. “Your room is number three. Down the hallway, to the right. Please enjoy your stay.”

  Dante nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said before heading down the hall.

  As he walked, something suddenly struck him.

  All the houses he had passed earlier looked nice enough.

  But every single one had bars on the windows.

  And the curtains had been drawn tight—even in the middle of the day even the library had bars on the windows.

  Dante stepped into his room and shut the door behind him.

  The room was simple—just a bed, a small dresser, and a mp beside the nightstand. The air smelled faintly of old carpet and cleaning supplies.

  He walked over to the window.

  The gss was thick, reinforced, and like the lobby window, metal bars had been bolted across it.

  Dante frowned slightly and pulled the curtain aside.

  Outside, the parking lot sat under a dim yellow streetlight.

  And standing there—

  Was a woman.

  She stood in the middle of the lot, completely still, staring directly at his window.

  She wore what looked like a long bck dress. Her hair hung down over her face in tangled strands, hiding most of her features. Even from this distance, Dante could see something dark running down her arm.

  Blood.

  The woman looked like she was crying.

  Dante stared at her, confused.

  For a moment, she almost looked like El.

  But that didn’t make any sense. Why would El be standing in the motel parking lot wearing a bck dress?

  A chill ran down Dante’s spine.

  He quickly closed the curtain.

  After a moment of hesitation, he left his room and walked back down the hallway to the lobby.

  The man from earlier was sitting behind the desk, looking at something on the computer.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Dante said. “There’s a woman outside. She looks like she’s bleeding… and crying.”

  The man slowly looked up.

  “Bck dress?” he asked calmly. “Looks like a woman you know… or maybe someone you’ve seen in your dreams?”

  Dante blinked in surprise.

  “She looks like a woman I met earlier,” he said.

  The man leaned back slightly, looking relieved.

  “That’s good,” he said. “Because if she looked like a woman from your dreams…”

  He paused.

  “I’d probably be scraping your carcass off the floor or the bed by morning.”

  Dante just stared at him.

  His expression must have shown his confusion.

  “Um… okay,” Dante said slowly. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  The man chuckled quietly.

  “That’s one of the abnormals,” he said. “That’s what I like to call them.”

  He shrugged like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

  “It’s also the reason people around here don’t walk around at night unless they have to.”

  Dante continued staring at him.

  The man waved a hand toward the hallway.

  “Just go back to your room, son,” he said. “She won’t hurt you.”

  Then he added quietly,

  “Just don’t stare into her yellow eyes.”

  Dante walked back down the hallway to his room.

  When he reached the door, he stepped inside and immediately locked it behind him.

  For a moment he just stood there, listening.

  The room was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  He walked back over to the window and slowly pulled the curtain aside again.

  The moment the curtain moved—

  She was right there.

  The woman stood only a few feet from the gss.

  Dante jumped back instinctively.

  Now he could hear her clearly.

  The sound wasn’t just crying—it was wailing. A low, hollow sound that seemed to vibrate through the gss.

  Her head hung low, long hair covering her face as her shoulders trembled.

  Dante quickly slid the curtain closed again without looking too closely.

  I’m in a fucking crazy pce, he thought.

  Jesus Christ.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his AirPods, slipping them into his ears. A moment ter, hip-hop music filled his head, drowning out most of the wailing outside.

  The sound was still faintly there, though.

  Like something scratching at the edge of his hearing.

  Dante walked over to his bag and unzipped it.

  Inside was a hard case.

  He opened it and took out a handgun, setting it carefully on the bed before moving it to the bedside table.

  Then he pulled out his holster and clipped it onto the belt loop of his jeans.

  He picked up the gun again and pulled the slide back, checking the chamber.

  A round was already loaded.

  He let the slide snap forward and set the weapon down on the table beside the bed.

  Dante exhaled slowly.

  He felt a little better now.

  After a moment he pulled one AirPod out of his ear.

  The screaming was still there.

  Still wailing.

  Still crying.

  He put the AirPod back in.

  Dante leaned back against the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  This was going to be a long investigation.

  Dante y on the bed with his eyes finally closed.

  The wailing outside his window had faded at some point during the night. He wasn’t sure when it had stopped, only that exhaustion had eventually pulled him into sleep.

  The bed was more comfortable than he expected for a small roadside motel.

  In his dream, he saw El.

  They were sitting in a quiet café. Morning light poured through the windows as people moved softly around them. El sat across from him in a booth, smiling as she stirred something in her coffee.

  She talked about her life.

  Dante listened, occasionally ughing as she described small annoyances and strange customers she had dealt with. In return, he told her about some of the cases he had investigated—odd things he had seen in strange towns like this one.

  For a moment, everything felt normal.

  Safe.

  They finished their meal and shared a small dessert between them.

  Just as Dante set his fork down, the door to the café opened.

  A figure stepped inside.

  It was humanoid—but something about it was wrong.

  Its entire body was wrapped in yellow fabric, the material stretched tightly across its limbs and face. The cloth clung to the shape of its head, but there were no visible features beneath it.

  No mouth.

  No nose.

  Only the impression of a face staring directly at Dante.

  El turned to look.

  The moment she saw it, her eyes widened in pure terror.

  Her mouth opened as she screamed—

  Dante shot awake.

  His hand instantly reached for the handgun on the bedside table. In one smooth motion, he grabbed it and aimed toward the door.

  His heart pounded as he held the weapon steady.

  The room was dim. Only a thin line of light pushed through the motel curtains from outside.

  For a moment he just sat there, breathing hard.

  Slowly, Dante realized he wasn’t dreaming anymore.

  The room was quiet.

  He carefully lowered the gun.

  Then—

  Knock. Knock.

  Dante immediately raised the weapon again.

  A familiar voice came from the other side of the door.

  “Young man,” the man from the front desk called out. “Breakfast is done and ready.”

  There was a pause.

  “Come out whenever you’re ready… if you’re awake.”

  Dante kept the gun raised for another few seconds before slowly lowering it again.

  Morning had come.

  Dante Helsong's sketch of the wailing woman