Chapter Two – Among Wolves and Whispers

The sheriff’s office looked even smaller in daylight than it had in her memory of yesterday’s visit. Evelyn stood at the threshold with her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, the morning air still sharp enough to sting her lungs. The building was a squat, single-story rectangle of stone with paint peeling around the window frames. A flag outside sagged limp in the still air.

Inside, the place smelled faintly of old paper and burnt coffee, a combination that made her nostalgic for university libraries and morgue break rooms all at once. Sheriff Daniel Calhoun was behind his desk, head bent over a sheaf of paperwork, his reading glasses slipping down his nose.

He didn’t look up immediately when she entered, and Evelyn took the moment to study him. He carried himself like a man who had spent decades shouldering the burdens of others. His shoulders were still broad, but his hair was thinning, his face lined deep around the eyes and mouth.

When he finally noticed her, he set the papers aside and gestured for her to sit.

“Morning, Doctor,” he said, his voice carrying the gravelly weight of too many cigarettes and late nights. “You’ve seen the body. What do you think?”

Evelyn slid into the wooden chair opposite him. “I think,” she said, “that it wasn’t a wolf.”

His jaw tightened, though he tried to hide it behind a sip of his coffee. “That’s not what folks here need to hear.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Truth is a slippery thing, Dr. Hart. Sometimes it does more harm than good.”

Evelyn felt irritation prickle at her. She had dealt with law enforcement before, some of them brilliant, some obstructive. Calhoun was clearly not an idiot, but he wore the air of a man who preferred the simplest narrative, no matter how false.

“With respect,” she said, leaning forward, “if you keep calling this a wolf attack when it isn’t, more people could die. Wolves don’t crush bones the way his were crushed. Wolves don’t climb trees and drag prey into the canopy. Whoever—or whatever—did this, it’s not something your people are prepared for.”

His gaze sharpened. “Prepared how?”

“Prepared scientifically,” Evelyn replied. “Forensics. Biology. Tracking patterns.”

Calhoun gave a short, humorless laugh. “City logic. Always neat, always tidy. But out here, things don’t fit into neat boxes. Out here, people need stories they can live with.”

“So you’d rather feed them lies?”

“I’d rather keep them calm,” he shot back, his voice low but edged. “This town’s older than both of us put together. You think fear won’t eat through it quicker than any animal out there? You let people believe it’s wolves, they keep their rifles close, their children closer. They can sleep at night. You tell ’em otherwise…” He spread his hands in a gesture that said everything and nothing at once.

Evelyn opened her mouth, then shut it again. She understood what he was doing, even respected it in a way—but it went against every fiber of her being. She wasn’t here to comfort. She was here to find answers.

Calhoun leaned back in his chair, the old wood creaking. “Look, Doctor. You do your job. Cut, measure, record, all that. Write it up how you like. But when it comes time to tell the people, let me handle it. That’s how we keep order.”

For a moment, she considered pressing the issue. Instead, she stood. “Fine. But don’t mistake my silence for agreement.”

He gave her a look that was almost weary. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She left the sheriff’s office more unsettled than when she had entered. Outside, the town bustled in its own muted way. A pair of men loaded lumber into the back of a truck, their conversation clipped. Children darted between storefronts, though their laughter had a restrained edge—as though even play was quieter here.

Evelyn pulled her coat tighter and headed down the street, the crunch of gravel underfoot steady against the silence of the surrounding forest.

That was when she noticed him.

A man leaning against the porch rail of the general store, rifle slung casually over his shoulder. His gaze followed her as she walked, sharp and measuring. He looked like he belonged to the woods rather than the town—tall, wiry, with unkempt hair and a beard that looked days past trimming. His amber eyes caught the weak sunlight and glowed faintly, almost animal-like.

“Doctor.” His voice stopped her. Rough, low, like gravel under boots.

She turned. “Yes?”

“You’re the one they sent for the bodies.”

“Dr. Evelyn Hart,” she said evenly. “Forensic pathologist.”

He nodded once, stepping down from the porch. “Jonah Blackwood.”

The name tugged at her memory. Someone had mentioned it at the diner—maybe the waitress last night? A hunter. A man who knew the forest better than anyone.

“Sheriff says you think it’s not wolves,” Jonah continued.

“Because it isn’t.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Good. At least you’ve got eyes.”

Evelyn tilted her head. “You don’t believe it’s wolves either.”

Jonah’s expression darkened. “Wolves don’t attack people in Black Hollow. Never have. Not once.”

“And yet something is.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Something worse. Something this town’s been lying to itself about for generations.”

Evelyn bristled. “I don’t deal in folklore. I deal in evidence.”

Jonah gave a humorless half-smile. “That’s what the last outsider said. He didn’t last long.”

She frowned. “What happened to him?”

Jonah’s eyes flicked toward the tree line at the edge of town. “Ask the forest.”

Before she could press him further, he adjusted his rifle strap and walked away, his boots crunching against the gravel. Evelyn watched him go, a cold thread of unease winding through her chest.

That night, back at the inn, Evelyn sat at the small desk by the window, reviewing her notes. The lamplight flickered slightly, the bulb humming as though straining against old wiring. Her recorder lay beside the notepad, filled with clinical observations she trusted far more than Jonah Blackwood’s cryptic warnings.

Still, her mind wouldn’t settle. The claw marks. The crushed bones. Jonah’s words: wolves don’t attack people in Black Hollow.

She rubbed her temples, fatigue heavy in her bones. Outside, the night pressed close against the glass. The curtains stirred faintly in the draft she still hadn’t located.

Then she heard it.

A howl. Long, low, rising from the forest beyond town. It was the kind of sound that prickled every hair on the back of her neck, the kind that seemed too deep, too resonant to belong to any wolf she had ever studied.

Evelyn froze, listening. Another joined it, then another, until the night seemed stitched with mournful voices. She tried to steady her breathing. Wolves, coyotes, just sound carrying strangely in the mountains, she told herself.

Then came the scratching.

Soft at first, like branches brushing the glass. Then louder. Claws—or nails—dragging slowly down the side of the building, right beside her window.

Her heart lurched. She stood abruptly, nearly knocking over the chair, and crossed to the window. Fingers trembling, she yanked the curtains aside.

Nothing. Just her own pale reflection staring back at her in the dark glass.

The scratching stopped. The silence was worse.

Evelyn’s breath misted faintly against the glass. She pressed her hand to the window, feeling only the cold seeping through. No tracks. No movement. Nothing but the weight of the forest beyond.

She let the curtain fall back into place and stepped away, chest still heaving.

You’re tired. Imagination plays tricks. The wind. Tree branches.

But no matter how she reasoned with herself, she couldn’t shake the image of Jonah Blackwood’s eyes, glowing faintly in the sunlight.

And she couldn’t shake the certainty that something had been watching her.

She lay awake for hours, listening to the silence stretch long and brittle around her. Every creak of the building, every rustle of curtain, every faint whisper of the wind became something else in her mind.

When she finally slept, her dreams were filled with eyes—amber, glowing, unblinking in the dark.