Chapter 7: The Unheard Voice
Chapter 7: The Unheard Voice
Alex sat on the sofa, staring at his own hands. They were just hands—pale from a winter spent mostly indoors, calloused from work he’d done on his small cabin, but undeniably his. Normal. He flexed his fingers, rotated his wrists, searching for any trace of the monstrous illusion that had seized him upon waking. There was nothing. It had to have been the fever, a waking nightmare stitched together from the fabric of his trauma. A hallucination. It had to be.
"Here we are, son. Drink this. It'll help with the fever."
Kenneth’s kind voice sliced through his spiraling thoughts. The old man padded back into the living room, a steaming mug held carefully in his weathered hands. The gentle scent of chamomile filled the air, a scent of civilization, of order, of safety. It was a world away from the coppery stench of the new bloom and the cloying damp of the forest floor.
"Thank you, Kenneth," Alex managed, his voice still a rough rasp. He took the mug, the warmth a comforting anchor in the cold sea of his fear. The deep, structural ache in his bones remained, a phantom pain from a dream-wound, but he pushed it down. He had to think.
The image of Joel’s truck, abandoned on that logging trail, flashed in his mind. He saw the torn police patch lying in the moss. He saw the glistening, wet limbs of the newest tree. Joel was dead. The officer was dead. Quincey was gone. This wasn't a nightmare he could wake up from. It was real, and he was the only one left who knew the whole truth.
He couldn't hide here in this cocoon of chamomile and kindness. He had to try again. He had to make someone listen. Brody had dismissed them, but now there were two more victims. They couldn’t ignore that. They couldn't ignore him.
"Kenneth," he said, his voice gaining a sliver of strength. "I need to use your phone. I have to call the police."
Kenneth’s kind eyes clouded with concern. "Son, after what you've been through, are you sure? Maybe you should just rest."
"I can't," Alex insisted, a frantic edge creeping into his tone. "A man is dead. My friend. I have to report it."
Seeing his determination, the old man nodded slowly and pointed to an old rotary phone on a small end table. A museum piece. Alex’s heart sank, but then he spotted his own cell phone, which Kenneth had evidently retrieved and placed beside it. He snatched it up, his thumb swiping clumsily across the screen. He found the number for the Havenwood Sheriff's Department and pressed call, taking a shaky breath to steady himself. He had to sound sane. He had to sound credible.
The line clicked, and a flat, bored voice answered. "County Sheriff, dispatch."
"My name is Alex," he began, trying to keep his voice even. "Alex Ryder. I was part of the search team yesterday for Quincey Miller. I need to report a… a fatality. My partner, Joel."
There was a pause on the other end, followed by the soft clatter of a keyboard. "Can you spell the last name for me, sir? Ryder?"
"R-Y-D-E-R," Alex stammered, the ache in his joints flaring with his anxiety.
"Okay, Mr. Ryder. And where are you calling from?" the operator asked, her tone shifting slightly, becoming more alert.
"A house on the edge of town. I don't know the address. I was found… I got lost." He was already sounding unhinged. He tried to get back on track. "Listen, it's about Joel. He was killed. We found something in the woods, and—"
"Mr. Ryder," the operator interrupted, her voice now crisp and professional. "According to our records, we have an active missing persons report filed for you."
The words hit him like a physical blow. "What? No, that's impossible. I'm right here. I'm fine."
"Sir, Joel's truck was found abandoned on an old Weyerhaeuser logging trail late last night," she continued, her voice devoid of emotion. "His family reported him missing when he didn't return. You were his assigned partner. You've been officially missing since yesterday evening."
The floor seemed to tilt beneath him. This was a mistake, a bureaucratic nightmare. "No, you don't understand," he pleaded, his voice rising in panic. "We were together. We were attacked. There was another man with us, Owen. He—"
"Sir, I'm looking at the official search and rescue roster right now," the operator said, her tone hardening with suspicion. "There was no one named 'Owen' signed out on any team yesterday."
The blood drained from Alex’s face. No Owen. The quiet, unnerving young man who had appeared from nowhere and melted into a monster… he was never officially there. A ghost. A phantom that only he and Joel had seen. The trap was more perfect, more insidious than he could have imagined.
"But he was there!" Alex shouted into the phone. "He killed Joel! He turned him into one of those… those things!"
"Mr. Ryder," the operator's voice was now cold as ice, the voice of someone talking to a dangerous lunatic. "Where did you say you were? We need to send a car. You need to come in and give a statement."
The subtext was clear. Give a statement. Come into our custody. They didn’t believe him. They thought he was a rambling, incoherent suspect. The unstable city slicker who was last seen with the respected local who was now missing. He was the loose end. He was the one who had snapped.
"You're a person of interest in Joel's disappearance, Mr. Ryder," the operator stated, confirming his deepest fear.
The phone slipped from his numb fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor. He stared blankly at the wall, the operator's words echoing in the sudden, ringing silence. Missing. Person of interest. No Owen. He was utterly alone, cut off from all hope of help. The entire rational world had not only rejected his truth, it had inverted it, twisting him into the villain of his own horror story.
He looked up at Kenneth. The old man was watching him, his kind face a mask of pity and deep concern. It was the look you give a man who has completely lost his mind. That look was the final nail in the coffin of his hope.
And then he heard it.
It wasn't a sound from the phone, or from outside. It was a dry, rustling whisper that seemed to bloom from the silence within the room itself, scraping directly against the inside of his skull.
Ssssuch... a... kind... one...
Alex’s head whipped around. The whisper was familiar. It was the voice of the Harvester. He wasn't in the woods. He was here.
His terrified gaze locked onto Kenneth. The old man still stood there, a look of profound worry on his face. But it was frozen. A tremor ran through his frail body, a violent, full-body shudder. The teacup he’d just retrieved from Alex slipped from his suddenly clumsy fingers and shattered on the floorboards, the sound sharp and profane in the tense quiet.
Kenneth’s jaw went slack, his mouth opening wider, then wider still, stretching past any human limit with a soft, wet tearing sound. A low crackle, like ice breaking underfoot, emanated from his neck as his head tilted back at an impossible angle.
His body began to change. His spine bowed backward violently, his simple flannel shirt ripping as his torso contorted. His skin, wrinkled and liver-spotted a moment before, started to pull taut, the color draining from it, bleaching to the waxy, grub-like pallor of stretched hide. His limbs trembled, spasming as the bones within them began their horrific process of snapping and reforming.
Through it all, Kenneth made no sound. His eyes, the kind eyes that had offered Alex sanctuary, were wide with a silent, uncomprehending agony as he became a prisoner in his own body, a vessel for a monstrous transformation.
The threat hadn’t followed Alex from the woods. It hadn't been drawn to the house. It had been waiting for him. The horror wasn’t just outside. It was here. It was everywhere. And it was starting all over again.
Characters

Alex

Joel

Sheriff Brody
