The Five Evolution

『"What are you trying to say?"』

Amara and Hiro stood by the logging road. Ahead was the Janestown Woods Preservation.

The Janestown Woods Preservation sign had seen better decades. The metal was rusted and someone had drawn a crude skull beneath the text that nobody had bothered to remove.

"Cheerful," Hiro said.

Amara ducked beneath the police tape. "Come on."

As they moved deeper, a strange smell assaulted her senses. It wasn’t blood, though that was there underneath everything else. This was something else.

There was also the feeling she couldn’t shake of being watched.

She paused at the tree line, eyes moving through the gaps between trunks. Light filtered down in thin columns, catching dust and spores. But that was it. There was nothing else.

"You good?" Hiro asked.

"Yeah." She kept moving.

The crime scene was forty meters in. Yellow tape marked a rough perimeter around a patch of disturbed earth where the body had been found.

The soil was dark, broken up, like something had been dragged. The claw marks on the surrounding trees started at chest height and went up, deep gouges that had stripped bark clean to the wood beneath.

Hiro crouched beside the nearest set of tracks, squinting. He pulled out his phone and took several photos. "Bipedal. Heavy. Whatever this was, it wasn’t running on all fours."

Amara walked the perimeter slowly. The tracks were clear for about fifteen feet, pressing deep into the soft ground, and then they simply stopped.

She stood where the tracks ended and looked around. There were no transitions or scuffle marks. No indication of change in direction. They just ceased.

"The tracks end here," she said.

Hiro came over. He studied the ground, then looked up at the canopy above them, then back at the ground. He said nothing for a moment.

"Not a jump," he said finally. "No impact crater. Whatever this is didn’t leap out." He straightened. "It just stopped leaving tracks."

Amara looked at the trees surrounding the spot. The roots of the nearest oak pushed up through the soil in thick cables, some of them as wide as her forearm.

She almost moved on. Then she saw the glint. "Hey, over here."

Half-buried beneath one of the exposed roots, mostly covered by soil and dead leaves. She crouched and pulled it free.

"What is it?" Hiro asked.

It was a locket with a broken chain. Old silver, tarnished dark at the edges, and the clasp barely worked.

"It’s a locket." She opened it carefully.

Inside was a small photograph that had faded with age. A man in what looked like nineteen-twenties clothing, arm around a small girl.

The girl was grinning at the camera, her hand raised, and on the back of it, clearly visible even in the small photograph, was a birthmark shaped like a star.

Amara looked at it for a moment, then closed the locket and pocketed it.

"Hiro," she called, still crouched.

"Hm?" Hiro answered, though his attention seemed to be somewhere else.

"You think it belonged to one of the victims?" she asked.

He shook his head absently, studying the ground. "No."

Amara ran her fingers through another claw mark against a tree. "What?"

"Locket is way too old." His eyes narrowed. "Looks like it’s been here a while."

She stood, and the feeling of being watched settled over her again. Stronger this time. Coming from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.

She turned slowly, scanning the tree line. But just like before, there was nothing.

"Hiro."

"Yeah?"

"Let’s get out of here."

Hiro grinned. "You read my mind."

***

By the time everyone returned to the motel, the sky above Janestown had darkened into a deep gray. Rain threatened to fall but never quite committed.

The neon sign outside continued its miserable struggle against existence, flickering red and blue through the window every few seconds.

The room somehow felt even smaller than before. Or maybe it was just the fact that it hadn’t gotten any bigger since they left.

Raj kicked the door shut behind him and immediately collapsed onto one of the beds. "Small-town investigations are a scam."

Naomi dropped into a chair. "I hated every second of that."

"I don’t know," Raj said. "It was pretty dope spending the afternoon with you, solving mysteries."

Naomi’s ears turned red and she quickly looked away. "Who the fuck still says dope..."

Sophia looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the opposite bed. "Please tell me you found something."

Raj grinned. "Maybe."

Ethan was already seated at the edge of the bed, and the small sphere was switched on again, manifesting a holographic display at the center of the room.

He leaned forward, both elbows rested on his lap. "Alright. Let’s hear it."

Raj sat up. "Everybody thinks it’s the biker gang." He grabbed his notes and read from them. "They call themselves the Howl Pact."

Andre raised an eyebrow. "The Howl Pact?"

Sophia blinked, rolling her eyes. "Real subtle."

Amara smiled. "So a biker gang of werewolves?"

"That’s not all." Naomi took over. "Multiple witnesses directed us toward an old woman named Mabel."

"I believe she said, the woods are watching," Raj said dramatically.

"The same monsters that took my daddy," Naomi added in a perfect imitation of the old woman as her voice shifed into something older, slower, and Southern.

Raj laughed and pointed at her. "Exactly that."

Ethan’s fingers tapped lightly against the table, breaking their moment. "Anything useful?"

Naomi hesitated. Then shook her head. "Nothing concrete... just stories."

"Old stories," Raj corrected.

Sophia sighed, then looked toward Amara and Hiro. "What about you two?"

Hiro immediately looked uncomfortable, which usually meant he’d found something. Except, Amara didn’t need to speculate because she was there.

"We found tracks," Hiro said, and everyone leaned forward.

"Werewolf tracks?" Andre asked.

"Probably."

"Probably?"

Hiro rubbed the back of his neck. "That’s the problem." He stood and walked over to the holographic display, then pulled up the map of the woods.

"The tracks appeared here." He pointed. "They continued for about forty feet." He paused. "Then they vanished."

Silence briefly entered the room.

Then Raj’s eyebrow climbed. "...Vanished?"

"Vanished," Hiro confirmed.

"As in disappeared?"

"Yup."

Naomi folded her arms. "Maybe it jumped, genius?"

Hiro began pacing in the limited space he had access to. "No."

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

Hiro pointed at the map again. "There’d be impact marks. But there weren’t." He traced a line on the map. "No broken branches. No signs of a landing." He crossed his arms. "The tracks just stop."

He took a deep breath. "So unless it flew and never came down? I don’t know..."

Sophia looked thoughtful. "And that bothers you."

He ran a hand through his hair. "A lot."

Amara then reached into her jacket pocket. "Oh."

Everyone looked toward her as she held up the silver locket. "We also found this." She placed it on the table.

They all gathered around the table, and Ethan carefully opened it.

The faded photograph stared back. The man. The little girl. The birthmark.

Sophia frowned. "Who’s that?"

"No idea," Amara said. "We found it near the tracks."

Hiro nodded. "And it’s old."

"Old?" Ethan’s eyebrow went up.

Hiro nodded again. "Decades."

Amara looked down at the picture. "Maybe longer."

The room fell quiet again as everyone began fitting pieces together.

Victims. Hearts. Werewolves. Tracks. The old woman. The biker gang. The full moon.

At first glance, the answer seemed obvious. Too obvious.

Ethan finally spoke. "The biker gang."

"Yep." Raj nodded immediately. "Cut and dry case if you ask me."

Naomi nodded too. "Agreed."

Andre shrugged. "It fits."

Sophia leaned back. "Werewolves show up." She pointed at the display. "People start dying with their hearts missing."

Amara looked toward Hiro. The only one person didn’t seem convinced. "What do you think?" she asked.

Hiro stared at the board. Then shook his head. "No."

Raj groaned. "Here we go."

Hiro ignored him. "Why would a random biker gang drop a decades-old necklace in the woods?" Then he looked at Ethan, Sophia, and Andre. "And you guys say the first victim was a werewolf."

"Right..." Ethan said.

"If the biker gang is responsible..." Hiro said carefully, "...then why did they kill one of their own?"

Everyone exchanged glances with one another as nobody had an answer.

Raj scratched his cheek and said finally, "cannibalism? Maybe they ate their own guy. I mean, it’s possible."

Hiro actually thought about it for a moment, then dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. "No, that’s not it."

"Why not?" Raj asked.

"Because then the rest of the evidence makes no sense." Hiro pointed toward the woods marked on the map. "Something else is out there."

The room became quiet again, and outside, rain finally began falling. It was soft at first, then heavier. The sound tapped steadily against the motel window.

"Whatever the case may be." Ethan stood up. "We’ll still have to pay a visit to this ’Howl pact’."

Amara glanced toward the dark tree line visible beyond the parking lot. Once again, she felt it. That sensation, and certainty that someone was watching.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the feeling vanished the moment she tried focusing on it. Gone. Like it had never existed.

"Something wrong?" Ethan’s voice pulled her back.

Amara blinked. Then looked away from the woods. "...No." She wasn’t sure she believed herself.

Far beyond the motel. Deep within the forest. Something watched the light shining through their window, listening.

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