Chapter 2: A Ticket for a Monster

Leo's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone white. The Honda's headlights carved a narrow tunnel through the darkness ahead, but every shadow beyond their reach seemed to writhe with malevolent possibility. His breath came in short, panicked gasps, and sweat dripped down his face despite the cool night air flowing through his cracked window.

Keep driving. Don't look back. Don't think about what you saw.

But thinking about anything else was impossible. The image of that thing—its impossible limbs, its tattered shrouds, its predatory stillness as it watched him flee—played on repeat behind his eyes like a broken film reel.

Leo fumbled for his phone with one hand while keeping his eyes fixed on the road. He needed to call someone. Anyone. But who would believe him? Who could he tell about the creature that moved like liquid shadow through the trees?

The phone's screen lit up, showing missed calls from his mother and a text from his ex-girlfriend Sarah: Heard about the job. Sorry. Hope you're okay.

He wasn't okay. He was so far from okay that the word had lost all meaning.

Red and blue lights suddenly flashed in his rearview mirror, accompanied by the short whoop of a police siren. Leo's heart, which had finally begun to settle into something resembling a normal rhythm, immediately kicked back into overdrive.

No. Not now. Not tonight.

But the lights persisted, and Leo realized he had no choice. He pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway, his hands still trembling as he fumbled for his wallet and registration.

The police cruiser's headlights flooded his car with harsh white light, making him squint in the rearview mirror. A tall figure approached his window, flashlight in hand.

"Evening," the officer said, his voice carrying the bored authority of someone who'd done this a thousand times. "License and registration."

Leo handed over the documents, trying to keep his breathing steady. "Was I speeding, officer?"

"Eighty-seven in a fifty-five zone," the cop replied, studying Leo's license with his flashlight. "Leo Vance. You been drinking tonight, Mr. Vance?"

"No, sir. I don't drink." The lie came automatically. Leo had polished off half a bottle of cheap whiskey the night before, trying to numb the sting of his impending unemployment, but tonight he was stone-cold sober.

"Step out of the vehicle, please."

"Officer, I really need to—"

"Step out of the vehicle." The command was sharper now, brooking no argument.

Leo climbed out of the Honda on unsteady legs. The officer—his nameplate read MARTINEZ—was younger than Leo had expected, maybe early thirties, with the kind of mustache that screamed "trying too hard." His flashlight beam swept over Leo's face, lingering on his wide, panicked eyes.

"You seem agitated, Mr. Vance. Pupils are dilated. You sure you haven't been using anything tonight?"

"I'm not on drugs," Leo said, his voice cracking. "Something happened. Back at the old bridge. There was this... this thing—"

"Thing?" Martinez's eyebrows rose. "What kind of thing?"

Leo opened his mouth, then closed it. How could he possibly explain what he'd seen? How could he describe the creature without sounding completely insane?

"It was... I don't know what it was. Some kind of animal, maybe? But it moved wrong. All wrong. And the silence—everything just stopped making noise, like someone had muted the whole world."

Martinez studied him for a long moment, then let out a short laugh. "The old rail bridge behind the power station? That where you're talking about?"

"You know it?"

"Oh, I know it. Popular spot for kids to get high and screw around. Usually find beer cans and needles out there." Martinez stepped closer, his expression shifting from bored to suspicious. "That where you went to get wasted tonight, Leo? That your little party spot?"

"No, I told you, I wasn't drinking. I was just sitting there, trying to think, and then everything went quiet and I saw—"

"You saw a monster." Martinez's tone was flat, mocking. "Right. And this monster, did it have big teeth? Glowing eyes? Maybe it spoke to you in ancient languages?"

Leo felt his face flush with humiliation and rage. "I know how it sounds, but I'm telling you the truth. There's something out there, something dangerous—"

"The only thing dangerous out here is you, buddy." Martinez began walking around the Honda, shining his flashlight through the windows. "Driving nearly ninety miles an hour on a public road, clearly under the influence of something. Maybe not alcohol, but definitely something."

The officer completed his circuit of the car and returned to where Leo stood shivering on the shoulder. Cars whizzed past them, their headlights creating brief moments of harsh illumination before plunging them back into the red and blue strobing darkness.

"Tell you what, Leo," Martinez said, pulling out his ticket book. "I'm going to write you up for reckless driving and let you go home. But I strongly suggest you lay off whatever you've been taking. Hallucinations about monsters are usually a sign that it's time to get clean."

"I'm not hallucinating—"

"Sure you're not." Martinez began writing, his pen scratching loudly in the night air. "Listen, I've been working this beat for six years. You know how many people have told me they've seen weird stuff out by that bridge? Must be a dozen by now. Know what they all had in common?"

Leo waited, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Every single one of them was high as a kite on something. Bath salts, meth, K2, you name it. Makes people see all kinds of crazy shit." Martinez tore off the ticket and handed it to Leo. "Two hundred and fifty dollars. Pay it online or show up to court. Your choice."

Leo stared at the piece of paper in his hands. The fine might as well have been a million dollars. He was unemployed, behind on rent, and now he owed the state money he didn't have for trying to escape something no one would believe existed.

"Drive carefully, Mr. Vance," Martinez said, already walking back to his cruiser. "And maybe find a new hobby. Something that doesn't involve chemical substances."

Leo stood on the shoulder for another moment, watching the patrol car disappear into the night. Then he climbed back into his Honda and continued the drive home, the ticket crumpled in his fist.

His apartment was a studio in a converted house on the wrong side of town—four hundred square feet of water-stained walls and secondhand furniture that smelled like the cigarettes of previous tenants. It had never felt like home, exactly, but it had always felt safe.

Tonight, safety seemed like a foreign concept.

Leo locked the door behind him and immediately went to the windows, checking that they were all securely latched. He pulled the blinds closed, then checked them again. The overhead light flickered when he turned it on—another thing the landlord refused to fix—casting unstable shadows across the room.

He collapsed onto his secondhand couch and buried his face in his hands. The ticket lay on the coffee table in front of him, a tangible reminder that the outside world had already dismissed his experience as the ravings of a drug addict.

But he knew what he'd seen. The creature had been real—as real as the concrete bridge, as real as the unnatural silence that preceded its appearance. The memory of its labored breathing seemed to echo in the quiet of his apartment, making him flinch at every small sound.

Leo tried to watch television, but couldn't focus on the screen. He tried to read, but the words swam together. Finally, exhaustion overtook him, and he fell asleep on the couch, still fully dressed.

The dreams came immediately.

He was back at the bridge, but this time he couldn't move. His feet were rooted to the concrete as the silence descended around him like a suffocating blanket. The creature emerged from the trees, moving with that same fluid, impossible grace, but now it was closer. Close enough for Leo to see details he'd missed before.

Its face was mostly hidden by the tattered shrouds, but he could make out pale skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones. And its breathing—that heavy, rhythmic panting that seemed to fill the entire world.

In the dream, the creature spoke, though its voice was nothing more than an extension of that labored breathing. It said only one word, repeated like a mantra:

"Found."

Leo jerked awake, his heart pounding and his shirt soaked with sweat. The apartment was dark except for the green glow of his alarm clock: 3:47 AM.

But something was wrong. The apartment was too quiet. Even at this hour, there should have been the sounds of other tenants, traffic from the street, the hum of the refrigerator.

Instead, there was only silence.

And from somewhere outside his window, barely audible but unmistakably familiar, came the sound of heavy breathing.