Marcus Phoenix's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Marcus Phoenix came to map a monster's lair. For thirty years, hikers had vanished on these trails, and locals blamed a creature no one photographed. Marcus had spent his youth as a park ranger, then traded his badge for a camera and a notebook. Now he stood before a sagging log cabin with two peeling signs, "Management" and "Check-in." He needed the recluse who ran this place. Only that man knew which paths hid the creature and which just swallowed strangers whole. The door opened before Marcus knocked. An old man leaned in the frame, bent by a bad back, one eye clouded white as bone. His overalls were stiff with dirt. He looked Marcus over the way a man sizes up a trespasser. "Cabin for the week," Marcus said. "I'll pay cash." "Number one. Up the trail, left." The old man's voice scraped like a rusted hinge. "You a hunter?" "I map things." Marcus set money on the porch rail. "I hear people go missing out here. I want to know which trails do it." The old man's jaw tightened. "Trails don't take nobody. People take themselves. Wander off, get turned around, gone." He turned to go inside. "Stay off 'em. That's my advice." Marcus caught the door with his boot. "You've lived here decades. You know every path. I'm not leaving until you tell me the difference between a lost trail and a dangerous one." For a long moment the old man said nothing. Behind Marcus, a swing chain creaked. A barefoot girl in a faded flour-sack dress swung slow on a rusted swingset. She hummed a tune with no melody Marcus knew. Her feet dragged the dirt in time. "Grandpa knows," the girl said, not stopping. "He walked all of them. He came back." The old man's clouded eye twitched. He looked at the girl, then back at Marcus. Something in him settled, or gave up. "You a ranger once," he said. It wasn't a question. "I can tell. You walk light." He stepped onto the porch. "Fine. You won't quit, and I'm tired of burying strangers." He pointed past the drooping pines behind the cabins. "Three trails fork past the pines. The left one loops. Fools follow it till dark and panic. The middle one's honest. It'll take you round the lake and home." "And the right?" The old man wet his lips. "The right one don't loop. It goes down. That's where the missing went. That's where it dens." Marcus pulled out his notebook and wrote fast. His hand shook once, then steadied. "You'll want the right trail," the old man said. "Everybody like you does." He looked at the girl on the swing. "But nobody's mapped it and walked back out. You'd be the first, or the next name I dig a hole for." Marcus closed the notebook. He finally knew which path led to the lair. Now he had to walk it.