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The paranatural world had always fascinated Casper Darling, but during his first field mission, he came face to face with violent reality.
Opportunities for field work as a researcher were rare. The most researchers could hope for was to accompany contained Altered Items back to the Oldest House for study or provide agents with a briefing before a mission went underway. He had always hoped to one day be able to explore the overlap between the physical and the paranatural. The allure of unanswered mysteries had always mesmerized him. Sure, he knew with 96.9% certainty that vampires and werewolves weren’t real, but that was because there was a logical explanation at the heart of those legends.
So when a rare field assignment to the Pacific Northwest opened up, Darling had jumped at the chance. He was to provide real time data about an Altered Item the field agents were tracking across the Selkirk mountain range.
In this part of the country, mythic folklore ran rampant. It was no wonder with a backdrop of dense, dark forests, and misty mornings. Yet when strange occurrences and disappearances began happening among campers, the Bureau had intervened.
Darling didn’t mind the fresh air, the occasional bug, and the long hours. Yet it was all an illusion of safety, one which shattered when the radio inside the FBC field trailer crackled to life with harrowing screams.
“Westbrook’s down!”
Darling gripped his pen tightly in his sweaty palm.
“Oh my God it took off his leg!”
Cursed with an overactive imagination, Darling couldn’t help but picture the worst. He glanced at Deputy Chief Steven Maddox standing beside him. The older man had turned as white as his labcoat. Why wasn’t he doing anything? Why wasn’t he calling for the standby medical unit?
“Get back now!”
Darling immediately recognized the new voice coming over the comm-channel. His eyes widened in horror. Agent Zachariah Trench was out there with the Altered Item that had just torn someone’s leg off.
Darling prayed for the safety of his friend, the man he secretly loved, as the channel went quiet.
Minutes of agonizing silence tortured Darling. He counted the lines on his pad of paper, the number of stitches in his sleeve—anything to distract him from the horror show his mind would play if it wasn’t actively engaged.
Finally, Trench’s voice came over the radio again, relaying coordinates for the medical team.
Darling exhaled at last. The medical team didn’t wait for Maddox to confirm the order; they slipped out the trailer's door without a word following Trench’s own command.
The next bout of silence was more bearable to Darling. Trench wouldn’t have called for the medical team in a dangerous situation, which meant the Altered Item was no longer in their vicinity and Trench and the others were “relatively” safe.
Trench came over the radio again, this time filling in Marshall about what had happened.
“I think it's heading to the container north of the rest area. I’m going to try to get to it first before we lose it completely in the mountains.”
Darling looked at the tracking radar that monitored the location of each agent on the mountain. It stunned him how scattered the teams were. Shouldn’t they have regrouped by now?
“Trench you won’t have any backup if you leave now. Agent Matthews and I are an hour at best away from you.”
“I’m aware, but if we don’t engage it now, we may lose track of it. There’s a storm system coming in tomorrow, and we don’t have the manpower for a long search.”
“I hate when you’re right Zachariah.” Marshall sighed. “We’ll try to get to you as soon as we can.”
No! Zach couldn’t face an Altered Item alone. What were they thinking? How could Marshall just agree to that? Taking on the item without backup was unheard of. Only a Director could, and Northmoor was thousands of miles away on the other side of the country.
Darling grabbed the trailer’s microphone. “You can’t go by yourself!”
“I have a responsibility, Darling,” Trench answered in a tone which reminded Darling that this was a public communication line. “Let’s stay on task.”
“It’s already… You can’t...”
For all his degrees and accomplishments, he couldn’t come up with anything to convince Trench to not go after the item. Trench was stubborn, honorable, the finest agent the Bureau had. He would do his job, and if that meant paying the ultimate price…
“Get off the damn radio, Darling!” Maddox bellowed, snatching the microphone from Darling’s grip. It was as if he had finally found his voice now of all times with Darling trying to prevent further injury.
“Then do something!” Darling urged. “Go out there and help him!”
Maddox's face turned red. “T-That's… That’s not my job.”
“You’re a fucking coward!” The chair screeched backwards as Darling stood, knocking it off its legs. “If you won’t help him, I will!”
Darling grabbed his standard-issue field bag containing a first aid kit, pens and paper for field notes, and the trusty “Ash-Finder,” a paranatural Geiger counter of sorts. Finally, he picked up the portable GPS tracker and then stormed out the trailer.
Behind him, Maddox screamed orders, but he made no attempt to follow after Darling. As Darling took off into the forest, he could only hope that he could be of help in some way. Hell, at the very least Trench wouldn’t be alone when he confronted the item.
▼
It was a classic fuck-up. Under the definition in one of Darling’s fancy books, there would be a picture of the shit-show that was currently occurring. Trench had been on his fair share of missions which had gone sideways, but this one topped them all.
From the start, Deputy Chief Maddox hadn’t assigned enough agents to the case, and there certainly had not been enough FBC personnel to cover the entire Selkirk mountain range. The seven agent roster was predominantly composed of rookies, with Trench and Marshall serving as the most experienced agents on the team. To make matters worse, Maddox ordered them to split up individually to cover more ground.
In all, it was a shitty excuse for poor planning.
On the ground, Trench overwrote Maddox’s decision by pairing off the agents into teams to prevent total isolation. He sent his partner Marshall with Matthews, an agent with a modicum of tracking experience, to comb over the far side of the mountain for clues about the item’s whereabouts. Agent Fowler led the next squad, with Dawson and Westbrook, two of the greener rookies, to serve as overwatch on the mountain. Trench took the remaining agent, McDowell, under his wing to follow the last lead the team had.
Initially, Trench had directed Fowler, Dawson, and Westbrook to monitor any activity with their range gear and alert everyone should something come up. However, Maddox contradicted this order and demanded the trio follow a path that unwittingly led them straight into the item.
And that’s when all hell had broken loose.
Trench and McDowell tore through the forest trying to backtrack to the other agents, but they hadn’t made it in time. Westbrook lay mangled, Fowler was catatonic. Dawson hadn’t been able to stop screaming until forcibly subdued.
Not everyone was cut out for field work. Trench had seen his fair share of injuries, resignations, and deaths in his time at the Bureau.
When Trench finally managed to get words out of Dawson, all the rookie had been able to explain was that they had indeed found the suspected item: a large flying steel bear trap.
Theories about the item had previously ranged from a potential paracriminal in the woods to a ghost. One person had managed to strike closest to the truth: Darling had been the one to suggest, as a joke, that they were hunting down a ghost-bear—Smokey the Bear’s revenge for all the abandoned campfires left by tourists over the years.
They were dealing with something unlike any of the items Trench had helped secure in the past. The items in the Altered Item Gallery back at the Oldest House deserved their imprisonment, and while something like the Smoking Pram could be lethal, an agent could wear the proper protective equipment to nullify its lethality. Few items in the Bureau’s recorded history had ever committed the kind of physical violence this trap had. Their line of work was dangerous, but when safety measures could be implemented, they should have been.
Maddox had failed catastrophically. He had grown complacent in his position. The bastard had underestimated the situation and put everyone in danger.
With Marshall on the other side of the mountain and the bear trap uncontained, there had only been one choice for Trench: to send the remaining agents back with the medical team and for him to track down the item on his own.
The bear trap left no footprints, but Trench found a gruesome heading by following the trail of flesh and blood the item had left behind. It was heading further down the mountain towards a containment unit they had placed at a picnic area for hikers. The item was exhibiting similar behaviors to an animal: ransacking parked cars, tearing through cabins, and attacking hikers who came away with nasty, jaw-sized bites. Every victim claimed they hadn’t seen or heard an animal, even in broad daylight. With hindsight, it was apparent now the item was mimicking a bear.
After a long trek, Trench finally arrived at the picnic area. Emerging from the path he followed the sound of metal crunching and noticed the item tearing into the side of a garbage bin.
Quietly, Trench moved towards the FBC container, taking each step with care. Yet, when he reached the container, the bear trap had finished its “meal” and noticed him. For one bated breath, they stared at one another, and then the bear trap launched itself through the air, knocking him to the ground. Large metal teeth sank down, tearing through his gear and into flesh. He tried to pry the jaw open, but the bear trap struggled, fighting to overpower him.
His muscles screamed as he exerted himself. His nostrils flared as he lay there, breathing deep as the trap’s chain rattled like a snake. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t. He made a promise. A vow he swore to keep.
His life didn’t flash before his eyes. Instead, with his blood pounding in his ears, all Trench could picture was Darling seated across from him inside a break room in the Oldest House...
▼
“Darling, your soup is getting cold.”
Darling picked at his food with a frown on his face. It wasn’t hard to guess why. Darling had been acting this way since Trench returned from his field mission, injured but nothing life threatening.
Trench took an awkward bite of his sandwich with his functioning left hand.
“It’s just a dislocated shoulder Darling. It’s nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious?!” Darling’s spoon clattered into the bowl as he finally looked up to meet Trench’s gaze for the first time all lunch. “You could have died Zach! What do you mean that's nothing serious?”
Trench stopped eating. “I didn’t—”
“But you could have! And you just pretend it's all fine! That you’re fine.” Darling’s voice wavered. “If you hadn’t… If you hadn’t caught yourself, you would’ve fallen to your death.”
Close calls were nothing new to Trench. After serving in the military and then moving to security, his body had endured more than a few injuries, with plenty of scars to show for his chosen profession. Working with the Bureau on the other hand involved dealing with new threats, ones that Trench wasn’t familiar with. Mundane, lifeless objects were often their targets, the unseen threats which could kill without notice. One mistake could be fatal. With every Altered Item posing a new challenge, all they had to rely on was whatever Investigations and Research could prepare in advance. Sometimes it wasn’t anything more than a half-baked theory.
Darling understood the hazards. He worked with many in his own lab, but his friend was upset about this latest close call.
“Darling,” he started, trying to be gentle, “you know our job is—”
“Dangerous. I’m well aware.”
“I just want you to know that I’m going to be alright. My shoulder will heal. But you can’t get this upset every time I come back injured.”
“I hate seeing you hurt…” Darling sniffled. “I just wonder sometimes, what if you never…”
Darling trailed off as he pressed a hand to his face to hide the tears sliding down his cheeks. The sight twisted Trench’s insides. His chest panged with guilt. Every time he saw his confident, charismatic friend fall apart, it made Trench want to pull him close and hold him. But the middle of the lunch room was hardly the place, and with his shoulder, he wasn’t in any position to do so anyways.
“Fine,” Darling sighed in frustration when he finally collected himself. He pulled off his glasses and dried his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “If you want to make me feel better, then promise me you’ll always come back. I know you’re a man of your word.”
Trench had no way of making such a promise to Darling. Their lives were unpredictable. Yet when Darling fixed his gaze on him with those glassy eyes, Trench couldn’t hold back.
Words held special power in the Oldest House, and Trench wanted to believe in the next ones he said with every fiber of his being.
“Alright Casper. I promise…”
▼
“—Zach!”
A familiar voice brought him back to the present. He looked around to find Darling standing in the tree line. His glasses were askew and there were leaves in his tousled hair.
“Casper?! Stay back, the item—”
But the item was gone. The Bureau container beside him was shut with the digital screen displaying the word “contained.” Confused, Trench turned back to Darling as he jogged up to him.
“How did you do that?” Darling asked, dumbfounded.
“Do what?”
“What do you mean? You started to glow blue and ordered the item into the crate! And it just went inside like it was no big deal!”
Trench clutched at his side. “Darling… You’re not making any sense.”
“Okay, okay, let me explain…”
As Darling triaged his injuries, he shared what he had seen Trench do. Cowing an Altered Item with a glare and some harsh words seemed illogical. Coming from anyone but Darling, Trench wouldn’t have believed it.
“If it turns out you are a parautilitarian, that means you’d have more protection against Altered Items!” Darling helped him sit up against the container. “I’m so...”
Darling trailed off, leaving Trench to wonder what he wanted to say. A stray tear slid down his cheek, but Trench caught it. “What are you doing out here anyways, Darling? These woods are dangerous. You could have been hurt.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Darling mumbled. “I wanted to help you. You were trying to do everything alone—”
Trench pulled Darling in for a hug, despite the pain it caused. It was for his friend’s reassurance, but it was also so much more. One singular promise to live had saved his life. He would never want Darling to put himself into harm’s way, but he was glad Darling was here now.
“I’m alright, Casper,” he said, smoothing down his hair. “I promised I’d always come back to you, didn’t I?”
Darling held him tighter and smiled against his neck.
“Yeah, you did.”