The Call Before The Storm

Kelsey’s POV

The little coffee shop on Maple Street was called Luna’s which Kelsey had always found pretentious for a town that had exactly one moon and no particular mythology attached to it. But it was two blocks from the Gazette, it had a working Wi-Fi, and the barista, a Romanian teenager named Luca, knew her order by heart.

"Americano, double shot, no room for milk," Luca said as she approached the counter. "You look like you fought a bear and lost."

"I fought a desk job and lost," Kelsey said, digging for her wallet. "Same thing, basically."

Luca laughed and proceeded to get her order.

Her phone rang. Mom.

She almost let it go to voicemail, but guilt won.

“Hi, Mom.”

"Kelsey! Finally. I was starting to think you'd fallen off the face of the earth."

"Just busy, Mom. Working on a story."

"Working, working, always working." Her mother's voice had that particular quality of affection wrapped in disappointment, like a gift in ugly wrapping paper. "You know, Becca called yesterday. She and Mark are looking at houses in the suburbs. Can you believe it? A four-bedroom with a yard for the baby. Mark's promotion came through, and they're just thriving, Kelsey. Thriving."

"That's great for them," Kelsey said, keeping her voice neutral.

"Isn't it? And you know what Becca said? She said, 'Mom, I just want Kelsey to be happy too.' She worries about you, sweetheart. We all do. Living in that little town, working at that little paper..."

"It's a real paper, Mom. I do real journalism."

"Journalism that pays what? Forty thousand a year? Before taxes? Becca made that in her first year of nursing, and that was before Mark's salary."

Kelsey took a long sip of her coffee that Luca had given to her It was bitter, burnt, perfect. "I'm building something, Mom. It takes time."

"Time you don't have, Kelsey. You're twenty-six. Becca had her baby at twenty-six. Mark had already made junior partner. And what do you have? A studio apartment and a job that might not exist next year."

The words hit harder than they should have. Maybe because Crane had just said something similar. Maybe because she was tired, and the dream was still clinging to her like cobwebs, and the wolf in the frame above her seemed to be watching with those pale blue eyes.

"Mom, I really have to…"

"Your father and I were talking. We think you should come home. Take the LSAT. Becca's friend from college is a paralegal in Chicago, and she says the firm is always looking for—"

"I'm not coming home, Mom."

"Why not? What's keeping you there? Some big story that's never going to happen?"

Kelsey closed her eyes. She saw the woman in her dreams, same messy hair and determined look and thought about the name she heard the woman call out ‘Silas’

"I have to go," she said. "I'll call you later."

"Kelsey—"

She ended the call.

The coffee shop was quiet around her. Luca was wiping down the counter, not looking in her direction. The wolf in the frame seemed to have shifted, its head tilted now, as if listening.

She was imagining things. She was tired, stressed, and her mother had a supernatural ability to find the exact pressure point that would make her doubt everything.

You're not a failure yet. She said in her heart.

She opened her eyes, reached for her coffee, and her phone buzzed.

Not a call. A text message. From an unknown number.

Her first thought was spam. Her second was Derek, playing some prank. But Derek didn't have her personal number, she'd made sure of that.

She opened the message.

The dead crypt in the northern woods. Midnight disappearances. Ancient secrets the authorities don’t want you to find. Go before the blood moon. This is the story that will change everything.

Kelsey’s pulse quickened. She opened the attachment — coordinates, a grainy photo of an overgrown stone entrance hidden among trees, and a warning: They’re watching.

She typed a reply: Who is this?

The response came in seconds, as if the sender had been waiting.

Someone who knows what hunts in your dreams.

Kelsey's breath caught. The coffee shop seemed to tilt, the wolf in the frame suddenly very close, very real. She looked around, Luca was still wiping the counter, an old man was reading a newspaper by the window, a woman typed on a laptop in the corner. No one was watching her.

The dream. The woman with the messy hair. The name Silas that she'd never heard before this morning.

This was a setup. It had to be. Derek had somehow found out about her dream—maybe she'd talked in her sleep, maybe Marisol had overheard her mention it at the office. This was a prank, a trap, a way to humiliate her when she showed up at some ruined crypt and found nothing but raccoons and rotting pews.

But Crane’s voice echoed in her head: Mystery. Danger. The supernatural, if you can verify it.

And beneath that, older and deeper: What if it's real?

She looked at the text again. Go before the blood moon. This is the story that will change everything.

Kelsey stood, packed her bag, and walked to the counter. Luca looked up, surprised.

"Everything okay?"

"Luca," she said, "do you know anything about the old crypt on Shadow-ridge road?"

Luca's face changed. It was subtle, a tightening around the eyes, a stillness in his hands but Kelsey had spent three years learning to read faces, and she caught it.

"The old crypt? No. Nobody ever goes there. It's dangerous. Stones falling in, and the forest... the forest's not safe that deep."

"Has anyone ever found anything there? A person, maybe?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." But he wouldn't meet her eyes. "Kelsey, whatever that message was, if someone sent you there—don't go. People who go into those woods don't always come back. Or they come back... wrong."

"Wrong how?"

Luca shook his head, suddenly busy with the espresso machine. "Just don't go. Please."

Kelsey looked at him for a long moment. Then she dropped a tip on the counter and walked out into the morning.

The mountains loomed in the distance, mist curling around their peaks like fingers. The forest was a dark line at the edge of town, and somewhere in that darkness, an old crypt was waiting.

She had until Friday. She had a lead that smelled like smoke and secrets. And she had a dream that wouldn't let her go.

Kelsey Jones got in her car, started the engine, and drove toward Shadow-ridge Road.