Travis just assumed that this place was always closed. He'd been to Victor's store countless times, and it was sitting right there in the same parking lot, always appearing so desolate. But that was never the case at all. There was life inside. 

The bar was dark and smokey. Dingy. The handful of drunks lounging and milling around the place were obviously locals. Not the upstanding ones who ran the flower shop, the post office, and places like that. The sad and tormented. The outcasts. The guilty. The lost. The aching and weeping, heartbroken. A melting pot of totally different individuals, all drinking away their own tragic, unbearable story. 

The classic, old, country-western singer on the jukebox cried along with his guitar. Interrupted occasionally by the clacking of the balls on the pool table. Sprinkled with low murmurs and the random howl of a belligerent redneck. 

Travis chose this stool at the bar, next to this long-haired patron, intentionally. He had something to ask this tattered looking man. He sat next to him for a long few minutes, stirring his drink, waiting for the right time to bring it up. He heard he didn't like to talk about it, after the ridicule he suffered the first time he told the story nearly thirty years ago. 

Fuck it. He just went for it. "James Harlow Yates?"

The man let go of a lamenting sigh and sipped his glass of whiskey on the rocks. 

Travis persisted, "Is that you?"

With a slight eye roll, "Who told you that?"

Travis gave up the name. "Deputy Trevor Yates."

"My nephew." That go-figure look on his face gave him away. "I'm Jim. Who's asking?"

"My name's Travis. I live in the cabin up on Forest Hill."

"Hmm." His grin grew crooked across one side of his face. Fuck. Even his smile was drunk. 

"I apologize. He mentioned you liked to hang out here. I know you don't like to talk about what I'm about to ask you."

"Then why you asking?"

"I was hoping you could tell me the story. When I first got into town, Tuck told me all kinds of weird shit happens up there. Nobody ever told me what kind of shit that was. And I gotta tell you," he leaned over and spoke more discreetly, attempting to convince Trevor's Uncle Jimbo that he was a confidant. "Since I've been staying at the cabin, there's definitely been something going on."

Jim looked like he wanted to share something. Travis waited patiently, letting him find it. But, it never came. He just sat there, lost in his glass. 

"Look, Jim, I'm not here to ridicule you or take advantage of you in any way. I just need some real help, and I don't know where to turn." Travis got close to his ear and whispered, "I think someone is trying to kill me."

At that point, Jim made eye contact. "They likely are." He lifted his whiskey to his lips and added before drinking, "It's not a person."

Travis was stunned. Flabbergasted. This guy really was shit-faced. Travis prodded him to elaborate. "What the hell are you talking about? An animal?"

"There's a reason nobody lives up there. That cabin and all that land, it probably came pretty cheap. Didn't it?"

Travis nodded. "There's a girl. She lives up there. Genevieve."

"Hmm. That's an old name."

"She's in walking distance. She has to be pretty close."

"Hmm."

Travis got to the part that haunted him the most. "There's a group in their early twenties. They were camping out there. They literally fucking disappeared. Tuck thinks they just up and left. I'm telling you, I don't think so. They had two weeks worth of gear, an entire campsite set up, and it was all just...gone." He grappled with the decision to reveal the next part, but he divulged. "I found a severed hand."

"Guy with a black duster, old cowboy hat. He found you yet?"

How the fuck did he know about that? "He attacked me! Jim, how do you know this guy?"

"You want me to tell you about the night it happened?"

Travis needed him to. 

Trevor's Uncle Jimbo tapped the edge of his glass. A signal for the bartender to pour him another. The barkeep brought up a cheap bottle of bourbon from the well and topped it off. Jim pulled a semi-crushed, half empty pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Soft pack. He fumbled with them momentarily. His tremoring hand finally brought one to his lips.

"Those things'll kill ya." 

"I was coon hunting," He began, shaking out the match that he just used to light up. "I used to hunt all the time." The smoke from that first drag rolled off his mustache, as he regressed. "Everyone hunted back then. It was the 70's. That property up on Forest Hill was privately owned. This guy from the city. Never around. He bought it at auction for next to nothing. No trespassing signs all over. He didn't want anyone on that land. But, he wouldn't come out here for shit. Always on the phone with the sheriff, at the time, to make sure he was patrolling the road. Making sure no one was fucking around."

Travis was hanging on every word. Everyone might've written James "Jimbo" Yates off as crazy, but Travis could easily tell that this loon understood his situation. And he was fixated on this story already. Anticipating whatever lessons, warnings, or advice might come of it. 

"Who owned the land before that," Travis asked.

"The original family lost it decades before that. They lived up there for generations. My grandfather used to tell me stories when I was a kid. About the woods up on Forest Hill being haunted by the family. Trying to keep me from going out there, I guess. But, one of the stories he would tell, was about an old, bloody hand." He cocked his head over to Travis. "Now, isn't that one hell of a coincidence?"

As if Travis wasn't hooked already. That was a hell of a coincidence. "But, you went up there?"

"That old, shitty, gravel road that runs up to the cabin, that wasn't there back then," he clarified. "The road ended where the pavement stops now. At the edge of town. I had three coon dogs with me. My light, my shotgun. And we hiked into the woods. My dogs hit on something right away. Man, they were gone, but I kept on after them. I could hear 'em, but they were a ways off. I wasn't familiar with those woods. I was becoming a little disoriented and getting turned around. First, I stumbled across the cemetery, then the cabin."  

"The Scared Heart Cemetery?" He remembered that from Sam. 

"That's what they're calling it now." He took a long drag and inhaled deeply. "The Moss Family Cemetery. That's what it really is. Generations of that family, burying their own."

"Moss? As in Victor Moss?"

"So, I went inside the cabin. It was open. No one ever there. I lit some candles that were on the table. Snooped around a little. Then, I noticed, I couldn't hear the dogs anymore. I must've gotten distracted there. Man, my fucking heart dropped when I heard that first knock on the door." 

Travis had felt that before. While it was unnerving to listen to, it was relieving to know he wasn't going crazy. 

"Who was it?"

The look Jim gave Travis spoke for itself. Travis already knew the answer, but Jim continued to tell his tale. "I opened the door, and there was nobody there. I didn't know who I was expecting, but I know what I heard. I looked around outside and screamed 'Hello'. Called for the dogs. Nothing. I went back inside and locked the door. Just had an uneasy feeling, ya know? It wasn't a few seconds later, I heard the light pecking on the glass. I went to the window and..." He paused. "It was so dark outside, and the candlelight, it made it hard to see. But, I swear to God, I thought I saw...a hand. The fingertips, almost on the glass. Somebody was out there. I ran to the door, with my shotgun, and when I opened it up..." He leaned close to Travis and said in a low breath, to conceal what he was about to say from any eavesdroppers, "There was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. Just standing there."

Travis was feeling nauseated. This was sounding much too familiar. Did someone get to Jim and tell him about Travis' situation? Trevor or Tuck? Was Jimbo fucking with him? 

He wasn't finished. "The way she was looking at me, I thought she wanted to, you know. But, before she said anything, over her shoulder, I saw him. Standing back there in the dark. I don't even know if she knew he was there. In that black coat and fucking hat. Scraggly beard. I slammed that fucking door. Closed it right in her face, man. Locked it fast. I backed right up against the wall and aimed that fucking 12-gauge." Jim took another big swallow from his glass. "She walked right through it, man." He looked Travis dead in the eye, reiterating, "She walked...right through the fucking door."

What now? He didn't know how to respond. He didn't react the way everyone else did when they first heard Jim's story all those years ago. Because he'd been there. He couldn't speak yet. But, Jim did. 

"I almost shot her, man. But, she jumped almost as bad as I did when that pounding on the door happened again. I stepped right past her and swung it open and that fucking guy was standing right there." He lightly backhanded Travis, illustrating the closeness. "From me to you. I shot that mother fucker, man. I shot him point blank in the chest, with a 12-gauge shotgun, and he fucking lunged at me. Completely unaffected. He was on top of me, fucking choking me to death, when I heard my dogs. He didn't like dogs, man. He took off. A ghost that's scared of dogs. Can you believe that?" He shook his head as if that was the part of the story that was unbelievable. "That girl got down and whispered in my ear, 'run'. So, I fucking did. I got up and ran down that hill, through those woods, as fast as I could. I wasn't sure where I was going, just down."

"What did the girl look like?" Travis asked the question, fearing the answer. Jim described Genevieve perfectly. Travis believed that this was where the story would end, but there was more.  

Jim continued, "Then, I just...woke up. I was on the ground out there in the woods. It was morning. Just starting to sprinkle. I sat up and..." He had to take a moment. "You know, after all these years, you wouldn't think it'd still hurt so bad to tell this part." Deep breath. "When I sat up, my dogs were all three lying next to me. Dead. Dead as fuck. Beaten to death. And, right there next to 'em, in the leaves, was a hand. Gnawed off, not chopped, ya know. Bunch of veins and shit hanging out."

"Did you go to the sheriff?"

"The sheriff? Wouldn't have, even if I could've."

"Why not?"

Jim studied Travis. "That's right. You're new here." He snuffed the cigarette butt out in the ashtray sitting in front of him, blowing that last drag out over the bar. "The sheriff was Vincent Moss. Victors cousin. That cabin you're in, it was built right on top of where the old one stood. That's their family's land. And that's their Granddaddy's cabin."

The realization was sinking in. Was he intruding on the Moss family? He was, assuming that Uncle Jimbo wasn't simply a rambling drunkard. The similarities between the story and the real-life things he'd witnessed were glaring. The location, the girl, the knock. The hand, the stranger, the attack.

But, the cemetery. That held a grip on Travis' curiosity from the day he met Sam. "I haven't seen a graveyard," Travis declared. "I've been all over out there. Not a single headstone."

"Well, there wouldn't be," Jim contested. "They used markers. Sticks and stones, man. It's there."

Travis didn't believe in ghosts. He finished his drink in a final gulp. He thanked the bartender with a nod and laid some cash down. He stood up. "Jim, it was a pleasure talking to you." 

Jim grabbed his wrist as he was walking away. He leered up at him from his bar stool. "Vince was the last one buried out there. Vic dug the hole himself. If you don't believe me, go ask Victor Moss if I'm lying." 

"On my way to do just that. Thanks Jim."

The convenience store was just next door. Travis walked over. He took note of the vacated spot that Sam's car used to occupy. He entered the store. There was old, Victor Moss, wasting the day away with his magazine. 

"Hey Vic."

The old man flipped the page. Today, Travis wasn't going to play these games with the crotchety, old bastard. He reached across the counter and yanked the magazine from Victor's hands and cast it to the floor. Vic reflex-grabbed for that shotgun, but Travis jerked it from his hands just as quickly, and slammed it onto the counter-top. 

"We're gonna talk and then I'm gonna go," Travis commanded. "You understand?" Victor didn't react. Just sat there. Travis interpreted that as compliance. 

"You just nod yes or no if you want to." He began the interrogation. "Does my land belong to your family?"

With an intense stare, Vic shrugged. "Depends on how you look at it."

Okay. Travis accepted that. He was getting somewhere. 

"Your family got a cemetery up there?"

There was a nod. 

"Your parents? Grandparents? Siblings?"

Another nod. "Let's not forget my Abigail."

Abigail? Victor had a wife? Travis had no idea. It was at that moment he'd realized that he'd been judging the Book of Victor by its cover. Indeed, the same way he had viewed the entire town. His cabin. But, they all had stories. Secrets. Details that were unobserved by an effortless first glance. He'd only just begun to skim through the pages of this mystery. 

"So, let me get this straight. Your family loses the land, after a century. It sits dormant for a decade or two and some rich asshole buys it. He lets it sit. Keeps everyone out, until eventually putting it up for sale. Nobody wants it, the price drops. Years pass. Price drops again. And again. And, now, here I am with the keys to your family's cabin. Is that about right so far?"

The nod. "Rich asshole paid my cousin to keep everyone out. Even me."

"Vic," Travis asked solemnly. "Did you kill, Vincent?"

Victor slowly reached out and laid his hand on the shotgun. He slid it toward him slowly and stowed it away, back underneath the counter.  "I don't want to talk anymore."

Travis was empathetic. His story was quite sad, honestly. And surely, there were still many things he hadn't mentioned. 

"That car that was parked out there. The tan, Ford Tempo. Did you happen to get a look at who took it?"

The question struck Victor as odd. He answered as though it was no secret. "Well, Bobby did."

"Bobby?"

"Sheriff had it towed."

What? Towed? The sheriff? That was an unexpected twist. Tuck had informed Travis that the car was gone, but he never let on that he knew where it had gone. That meant that Sam and her group were missing. Travis let Vic be. He was going to see the Sheriff. 

"The Moss family weren't bad people, just...poor people," Tuck explained to Travis, who was sitting across from his desk. Leg shaking. Thumbs twiddling. Jittery.

"Why did you have the car towed, Tuck?"

"Well, Travis, it was abandoned."

"Bullshit," Travis intervened angrily. "She came to you! You knew she was coming back for it! You know they're missing!" He was irate. "You are either covering something up, brushing it under the rug, or you're just a shit fucking sheriff who can't, or won't, do his fucking job!"

"Look, I can see you're upset..."

"Upset isn't the fucking word for it, Tuck! I just found out that Trevor's crazy Uncle Jimbo, isn't all that nuts. He knows what the fuck is going on up there, and so do you. For fucks sake just tell me what I'm up against. What do you know?"

Tuck stood up and put his hat on. "What do I know? I know if you don't wanna be thrown in one of those cells, you better calm down and act like you got some respect. I told the grieving Sister Wenzell that I'd be over to help her pack up her recently deceased husband's things. If you don't mind, we'll pick this up later."

And just like that, he left. He left Travis sitting there in the chair next to his desk. But not alone...

"I reckon I might know something," Trevor quietly spoke up from across the office. 

Deputy Yates was always willing to help out wherever he could. Always determined to do the right thing. Travis found a glimmer of hope in Trevor's offer.

"Tuck thinks something bad happened to those podcast people that were camping at your place. He thinks you're a suspect. He said that he knew that they weren't coming back. He had the car towed so he could examine it for clues." 

"He's not really going to help a widow pack, is he?"

The deputy shook his head. "He's been investigating you since you showed up in town. For some reason, he was real interested. Then, that group went missing. The hand print on your window. Then you got rid of it before we could have it tested."

"Whoa, wait a minute. I never got rid of it." 

"Maybe. Then, there was your gun. You said it was lost, then it wasn't. It's just...a lot of strange things. You said you'd been to their camp, but then it was empty."

Travis was becoming visibly stressed out. He accepted that it looked bad. "If that's the case, Trevor, then why help me? Why are you offering all this up?"

"Maybe I was just a kid, who didn't know any better. But, I always believed Uncle Jimbo's story. I wasn't born yet, the night it happened. But, when I was just a boy, my daddy told me about it. Often. Said it was the only time Jim was ever scared. Gave me the shivers. I couldn't sleep right until I was like fourteen." 

Damn it. He wasn't sure why, but he decided to confide in Trevor with his secret. The hand. Genevieve. Everything. 

"Trevor," Travis said. "I'm going to tell you something real fucked up. And I really, really need you not to tell Tuck."