Chapter 3: The Muddy Print

Chapter 3: The Muddy Print

The silence in the bunker was a physical presence. It pressed in on Leo’s eardrums, a crushing weight that made the memory of the footsteps above feel like a phantom limb. No one moved. No one breathed more than was absolutely necessary. Every tiny rustle of a jacket, every shiver that wracked Chloe’s body beside him, was an explosion in the absolute stillness. They were suspended in that single, terrifying moment: the unseen thing standing directly over their heads, listening.

How long it lasted, Leo couldn't say. Seconds bled into minutes, minutes into what felt like an eternity. He was trapped in a feedback loop of fear, his mind replaying the soft, wet slap of bare feet on concrete. Then, as subtly as it had stopped, it began again.

Plap.

A single, soft sound from above. Then another, moving away from the bunker door.

Plap… plap…

The footsteps receded, slow and deliberate, back across the main hall of the station. They didn't sound like they were leaving in a hurry. They sounded like they were finished. The sound grew fainter and fainter until it was swallowed once more by the oppressive silence. And then, nothing.

Still, they waited. The fear was too deeply rooted to simply vanish with the sound. Liam, who had been a statue of coiled tension, let out a breath so slowly it was almost imperceptible.

“Is it… gone?” Sarah’s whisper was a fragile, cracked thing.

“Don’t talk,” Liam hissed back, his voice low and guttural.

And so they waited. They sat in the cold, damp dark, a huddle of terrified teenagers, and listened to the silence, which was now just as frightening as the noise had been. They were waiting for the sun, a collective, unspoken prayer for the logic and safety of daylight. Time dissolved into a miserable cycle of shivering, listening, and trying not to think about what had been standing just a few feet away.

The first hint of dawn was not a sight but a feeling. A subtle shift in the quality of the darkness, a lessening of its absolute blackness. A thin, grey line of light appeared at the edge of the heavy steel door above them. It was the most beautiful thing Leo had ever seen.

It was hours later, when that grey line had brightened to a sliver of pale gold, that Liam finally moved.

“Okay,” he said, his voice raw. “It’s morning. We’re leaving.”

“What if it’s still out there?” Chloe asked, her face pale and tear-streaked in the faint light filtering down the stairs.

“It’s not,” Liam said, with a conviction that sounded forced. “It was a squatter. A transient. Heard us, checked the place out, and moved on. We’re leaving. Now.”

He didn't wait for an argument. He and Ben put their shoulders to the bunker door and heaved. With a groan of protest, it swung open, flooding their tomb with the cool, clean light of morning. The air that rushed in smelled of rain-washed earth and wet leaves, a scent of life and normalcy that was intoxicating.

They emerged blinking, like creatures born in darkness. The station hall was a wreck, just as they’d left it, but in the daylight, it looked less like a monster’s lair and more like what it was: a pathetic, crumbling ruin. The storm had passed. Puddles of clean rainwater dotted the floor. Birds were singing somewhere outside. For a dizzying moment, Leo felt a wave of relief so powerful it made him weak. It was over. They had survived the night. They could almost believe they had imagined it all.

Almost.

They stumbled out of the station’s gaping doorway into the morning mist. The world was washed in shades of grey and green, the air sharp and cold. The ground was a mess of churned-up mud and standing water. Their own tracks from their desperate run to the station the night before were clearly visible—a chaotic jumble of deep, waffle-patterned prints from their hiking boots.

It was Maya who saw it first. She stopped dead, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh my god.”

Leo followed her gaze. There, running alongside their own frantic trail, was another set of prints.

They were perfect. Unmistakable. The prints of a single person, walking calmly, not running. And they were barefoot.

Each print was pressed deep into the muck, the arch and five toes of each foot perfectly, chillingly defined. They were smaller than a man’s prints, slender and oddly shaped. They started from the direction of the deep woods, walked directly to the station entrance, and then walked away again, disappearing back into the trees. There was no sign of a struggle, no scuffing. Just a calm, deliberate trail left by someone who had walked through the storm-ravaged park in the dead of night without any shoes.

Liam stared, his face a mask of disbelief. All his rationalizations—the squatter, the wind, their overactive imaginations—evaporated in the face of this impossible, physical proof. Ben looked like he was going to be sick.

“No,” Liam whispered, shaking his head. “No, that’s not possible.”

But it was. It was right there, etched into the mud. The sight turned their lingering fear into a cold, hard certainty that settled deep in their bones. They hadn’t been alone. And whatever had been with them was not human.

That certainty shattered their composure. The silent dread was replaced by a raw, unified panic.

“We have to go,” Chloe sobbed, grabbing Leo’s arm. “We have to get out of here right now.”

There was no argument. The retreat was a frantic, clumsy scramble. They abandoned all pretense of an orderly exit, slipping and sliding in the mud, their only thought to put the iron fence between them and this place. They crashed through wet undergrowth, branches whipping at their faces, their ragged breaths fogging in the cool air.

They reached the bent section of the fence. Liam, with a surge of adrenaline-fueled strength, wrenched the bars open wider. One by one, they squeezed through, the metal scraping against their clothes. The screech it made was no longer a warning; it was the park’s final, mocking farewell.

Once on the other side, they didn't stop. They ran all the way to their parked cars, fumbling with their keys, the sound of the engines roaring to life a blessed sound of civilization.

As they leaned against the cars, catching their breath and looking back at the wall of trees that hid the park, Leo did a quick headcount out of habit, his gaze sweeping over his friends. They were all there. All safe. But as his eyes landed on Chloe, who was bent over with her hands on her knees, her backpack facing him, he froze.

On the dark blue fabric of her pack, just below the shoulder strap, was a smudge. A dark smear of the same rich, black mud that now caked their boots. It was just a smudge, something he would have dismissed without a second thought, except for the shape. He squinted, his heart beginning to pound a new, terrible rhythm against his ribs.

It wasn't a smudge. It was a handprint.

It was small, like a child’s, but the fingers seemed too long, too slender. It was laid perfectly flat against the fabric, as if someone had placed a steadying hand on her shoulder as she’d stumbled through the dark. Or perhaps, had given her a gentle push.

“Chloe,” he started to say, his voice catching in his throat.

She straightened up and turned toward him, her face a mess of relief and exhaustion. “Let’s just go, Leo. Please. Let’s never come back here.”

As she turned, the angle of the light shifted, and the muddy print was lost in the folds of the fabric. It was gone. Did he even see it? For a moment, he thought he must have imagined it. But the image was burned into his mind.

He looked at Chloe’s terrified face, at Liam’s shattered skepticism, at the raw fear in all his friends' eyes. Telling them now would only shatter what little composure they had left. He swallowed the words, the secret a cold, heavy stone in his gut.

They had escaped Ashworth Park. But Leo was suddenly, terrifyingly sure that something from Ashworth Park had not let go of them.