Detective Lexie Garner Returns

Detective Lexie Garner wandered farther into the forest.

The darkness within seemed to envelop her. Her eyes drifted from left to right, scanning a forest of nearly identical trees. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, but she felt compelled to keep going. The chatter of the CSIs faded to white noise behind her, and she noticed the solitude, the deafening silence. Even in the dead of winter, there should be kind of wildlife. But there was no movement, not a hint of any other living thing in the forest besides herself.

A strange sensation, like an invisible wave, came over her. Something about this place wasn’t right.

“Don’t you think it’s quiet?” she whispered to Jacobs. “Shouldn’t there be some animals? Why aren’t there any here?”

That eerie, unexplainable feeling vibrated through her body. She remembered having the very same experience before. And that feeling… that visceral, gut bad feeling… it was never wrong. She didn’t want to stay in the forest any longer.

But it wasn’t the mountain or the snowfall that made her want to get out of this place. Something was in the forest, lurking within the darkness.

And she could feel it watching her.