Jun 25, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
This is one of the oldest stories I ever thought up, younger only than Lawton. But the first draft from the early 2010s was always far too rough to release, and had been outgrown by the time I began…
But, over reaction or not, I listened, and just ten minutes after the call had ended, I'd flitted west from Jackson and wound my weary way up 2016 to find my friend pale and drawn at the end of his gravel road, looking like some stark ghost painted white in the LED glare of headlights.
I slid free of the truck and joined him in the dark as the last creaking rumble of the engine died away.
Ensuring I'd left my phone safely sealed inside, he sidled me a few steps away into the shadows of the thick forest all about us and told me he needed to get rid of two bodies.
They'd come in from Ashland on the West Virginia border, he told me.
Zach thought they were from Detroit, one of a number who'd moved far down into the band of land between Ashland and Huntington over the past half decade as they were outbid and out-competed back home.
I asked what had happened, but Zack was vague.
They were just supposed to buy off him, he'd said.
That was all.
He muttered it to himself several times as we began to trace a familiar trail back down into the dark trees all around.
Zach's cabin, a little one-room prefab, worn and lived in despite the youth of the installation, was a black shape off to the left, the weed-eaten gravel ahead painted a gentle orange by the light out back.
Just past this, a beaten old Camry was parked where the shadows gathered, left by the visitors, I knew, for Zach never drove.
The trees crowded close, and the knotted limbs of old oak or elm hung still and thick above, as if their bearers were hushed, listening.
The way, one I'd walked many times, was dark even in the light of day.
Now, as the cabin light was devoured and the ground fell away with the descent into the holler, even the starlight died.
A lone whippoorwill sang somewhere far off in the lower valley, and beyond its mournful calls, ours were the sole animal bumblings in all that blackness.
For slow minutes we moved by feel and memory and vaguest outline, Zack in front and myself behind.
But, over reaction or not, I listened, and just ten minutes after the call had ended, I'd flitted west from Jackson and wound my weary way up 2016 to find my friend pale and drawn at the end of his gravel road, looking like some stark ghost painted white in the LED glare of headlights.
I slid free of the truck and joined him in the dark as the last creaking rumble of the engine died away.
Ensuring I'd left my phone safely sealed inside, he sidled me a few steps away into the shadows of the thick forest all about us and told me he needed to get rid of two bodies.
They'd come in from Ashland on the West Virginia border, he told me.
Zach thought they were from Detroit, one of a number who'd moved far down into the band of land between Ashland and Huntington over the past half decade as they were outbid and out-competed back home.
I asked what had happened, but Zack was vague.
They were just supposed to buy off him, he'd said.
That was all.
He muttered it to himself several times as we began to trace a familiar trail back down into the dark trees all around.
Zach's cabin, a little one-room prefab, worn and lived in despite the youth of the installation, was a black shape off to the left, the weed-eaten gravel ahead painted a gentle orange by the light out back.
Just past this, a beaten old Camry was parked where the shadows gathered, left by the visitors, I knew, for Zach never drove.
The trees crowded close, and the knotted limbs of old oak or elm hung still and thick above, as if their bearers were hushed, listening.
The way, one I'd walked many times, was dark even in the light of day.
Now, as the cabin light was devoured and the ground fell away with the descent into the holler, even the starlight died.
A lone whippoorwill sang somewhere far off in the lower valley, and beyond its mournful calls, ours were the sole animal bumblings in all that blackness.
For slow minutes we moved by feel and memory and vaguest outline, Zack in front and myself behind.
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