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A soft whirring sound shuts silent as it’s replaced by the snapping of twigs and the shuffling of feet through grass.
“Oh my God, the air is so fresh!” Augie turns on his heel as he steps, taking in the forest around him. Jason follows closely as he shuts the wooden shed door,

“It feels so good out here!”

“Right?! Okay-” Augie sets his watch, “We have an hour, let’s make the most of it!”

The young men make their way out of the woods and onto a street road in front of a fire department.

“Where are we? Bryson City Fire Depar- okay, Bryson City- where is that?” Augie pulls out his phone from his pocket, opening Google. It continues to roam, “My phone has never been this slo-” It finally clicks in his head, “It’s 1985…This doesn’t even exist yet, ha~” He slips it back into his pocket.

“Probably~ why it’s running slow,” Jason chuckles, “Let’s go see if we can find a newspaper or something- that’ll give us a better idea.”
They begin to head into town, walking down a couple of side streets before arriving to the main street.

The small town is bustling; school girls giggle and gossip as they walk, a couple of men smoke outside of a barber, chatting through the cigarettes in their mouths, a young woman walks her dog, a boy and his mom leave a Belk’s with a few bags of clothes, a couple walks their dog, a bird tries to fight a squirrel out of its nest. Everywhere Jason and Augie look, there is something new to take in.

“Oh, hey! There’s one,” Augie leads them to a newspaper vending machine, fishing out a quarter and pushing it into the slot before he opens the box. He pulls out a paper, quickly scanning it over, “North Carolina!” He looks to Jason with a grin, “And of course as we know, in my favorite decade~!”

“Oh, word!” Jason continues to take the town in before his gaze returns to Augie, “I-I don’t even know how to react! Being here- it’s like something you’d see out of a movie or something,”

Augie snickers with glee, “Wouldn’t it be cooler if this place was full of paranormal mystery~?”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Jason chuckles, “Let’s just keep exploring and enjoy the hour we have, okay?” Jason looks at Augie for a moment as they continue down the street, watching people go about their daily lives.

They wander for a short while and eventually make their way towards the edge of the town’s heart, and onto a bridge. They stand, watching a lackadaisical river move beneath them. Jason’s eyes trace the river towards the mountains. “It really is beautiful here…”
Before Augie gets a chance to respond, a yeowling scream breaks the peace.
“What the Hell was that-?!” Before Jason gets a moment to speak, Augie is already rushing towards the sound of the screaming, so he settles on following behind without hesitation, “Wait-!”

Augie trips over himself as he rounds a corner into an alley, “It came from here-”

Jason slides past him, skidding to a stop before joining him in the alleyway, “I don’t- see anything…”

“That doesn’t mean anything…c’mon,”
Jason sighs softly. He knows Augie is a huge mystery fan, so he mostly just…obliges in the search, though his curiosity does motivate him slightly. There’s no harm in it, I guess.
Augie sighs, “All there is is a dumpster,” he opens the lid, checking inside as Jason peers around the edge of the dumpster.

He quickly leans away, “Holy- ew, Augie, look”
“Hm?” He drops the lid, going to look at the other side, “Oh- my God?”

The body of what was presumably a cat lies mangled, its body twisted inside out, its ribs reach out to accept the sky. Damp red guts litter the pavement like confetti streamers, glittering any sunlight that was unfortunate enough to illuminate it instead of a lovely patch of grass.

Augie crouches as he reaches for a broken broom handle, poking at the cat in hopes of inspecting it closer. Blood squirts out and onto his face, “Ew! Oh gross, oh my God- ew!” He frantically wipes at his face with his sleeve.

“What the fuck happen- oh my God, Augie, why would you poke at it?”

Augie finishes wiping his face as he sets the stick aside, “Not important! Not important, what is important is figuring out what could do something like this! I mean, the cat is entirely inverted- not to mention it only took us a matter of seconds to get here so whatever did this did it fast.”

“Or~ this could have happened earlier. Someone was bringing their trash out, saw this and screamed?”

“Mh, that’s a good idea, but I didn’t see any trash in the dumpster, there’s none on the ground- and it’s still bleeding.” Augie looks around, his eyes landing on the forest beyond the other end of the alley, “Maybe whatever did this retreated into the woods.”

Jason crouches by the carcass, his head turning to the side some, “The punctures broke through some of the bones…Nothing looks eaten, so I don’t know what would do this without the reward of food. Maybe we just interrupted it…Should~ we really go after whatever did this?”

“Well, I wanted to become a paranormal investigator, and~ you promised to stay by my side…But if you don’t want to look into this, that’s fine! I won’t force you to do anything, but I can’t in good conscience ignore this. What if it goes after people too?”

“That’s what I’m saying! What if we find it and- an-” Jason sighs, “...I’ll go with you. We just need to be careful.”

Augie’s shoulders drop an inch in relief, “If it makes you feel better, we can’t be here for too long- we only have another 30 minutes or so.” He pulls Jason back to his feet, hugging onto his arm,”Once we get back home, I can investigate the past happenings with this place, so when we come back, we can have a better knowledge of what’s going on, but for now, let’s see what we can find.”

Jason smiles some and nods as he looks down at him, “Alright. Let’s get to it then.”

Augie’s grin grows. He releases Jason’s arm as he turns his attention back to the cat, “The blood. Do you see any track marks from it? Splatter- something?”

Jason helps him look. They wander towards the wooded-end of the alley, looking for any signs of red, “Up there- on the wall,” Jason points to the edge of the brick building where blood slowly settles into the crevasses of the brick, “How the Hell did it get up there?”

“Maybe whatever it is can fly…Or jump really high…Are there any monkeys in North Carolina?”

“I~ doubt it. Only catamounts and bears.”

“Maybe there’s more blood up there?” Augie’s eyes land on the fire escape, “You’re tall, handsome, and athletic- think~ you could manage that?”

Jason chuckles, “I guess? If I jump,” He cracks his knuckles as he steps up to the fire escape. With a pause to motivate himself before jumping. He manages to grab onto the lowest rung with a soft grunt, his body swinging for a moment before he stabilizes.

“Hey! Look at you~”

Jason lets out a breathy huff as he shakes his head, pulling himself up and climbing the ladder. He gets a better look around, “I don’t see any more blood on the building- so, it would have to have flown away.” He looks back down to Augie.

“I guess so.” He bites at his index finger, beginning to speak to himself, “So we’re dealing with a predatory bird of sorts, that~ inverts bodies and can puncture through bone…Interesting.” He pulls out his phone, beginning to type. He opens the camera, taking a picture of the blood on the building, “Keep looking around!” He heads back to the cat.

“Sure~” Jason climbs to the top of the building, beginning to look around, “Uh~, there’s some feathers up here and something- mushy- it looks like maybe some sort of innard?” He looks over the edge of the building down to Augie.

“Maybe whatever it was was going to eat this but we interrupted it- scared it off. Bring that stuff down with you if you can!”

“‘Kay” Jason returns to the feather, picking it up and looking it over. A flight feather roughly 14 inches long, the color is primarily a uniform dark brown, becoming darker towards the edges. “Whatever this is- it’s huge,” He looks to the chunk of intestine, pinching it towards the end as he lifts it, “Ew,”

“Should we take the cat into the woods and dump it?”

Jason begins to make his way down, trying to keep the intestine at a distance, “I mean, something will come by and eat it-” He jumps the last few rungs to the ground, landing with a huff, “Here,” he holds the feather and intestine out to Augie.

“Maybe we can just leave it then- Gross! Jay, that’s part of its intestine! Why did you pick it up?!” He slaps the back of Jason’s hand, “Drop- drop it-! It could have diseases! Oh, woah, that is a big feather.”

He drops the intestine, “Wh- Ow-?! What the fuck! You said to bring it down!” He mumbles, “Now I want to wash my hands.”

“Yeah, no way I’m touching either of those, they probably do have diseases or something,” Augie continues to examine the feather in Jason’s hand as Jason’s stare marinates on Augie.

“...”

“Be sure to hold onto that- come on,” He turns on his heel, beginning to head into the woods, “Did you see anything else while you were up there?”

“Other than a potential hospital visit to treat God-knows-what? No,”

Augie snickers, glancing to his watch, “Just be sure to wash your hands, like, really well when we get home- we have 25 minutes left let’s-”

“Make them count?” Jason wiggles the feather in Augie’s face

“Yes~” He swipes at the feather, chuckling.

They continue into the woods.

The excitement and anticipation die more and more each minute they spend wandering. After about ten minutes they come to a stop.

“Well this is getting sad,” Augie lazily kicks a pinecone, “We’ve found jack all.”

“Yeah…And I’m just carrying around a random feather for no reason.” Jason looks to the feather, waving it around like a wand.

Augie turns on his heels, resuming the walk but backwards, “Not for no reason~ we need it for-!” A branch catches his leg, causing him to land on his back with a heavy thud, “Owie-” he grips onto his head.

Jason jolts and rushes to his side, crouching beside him as he sets the feather aside, “Augie-! Are you okay?! What did you hurt?” He gently pulls Augie’s arm to help him sit up.

Augie rubs the back of his head, “Y-Yeah~...I think I need a big ol’ fat kiss to feel better,” he looks to Jason with a smile and a chuckle, “...Yeah, I’m kidding- that hurt a lot, was that a friggin rock I landed on or what?” He turns back to look at the ground where he landed. His eyes travel upwards and onwards, narrowing them as they focus on a lump in the distance.

Jason relaxes and chuckles, taking Augie’s hand to help him up, “At least you didn’t knock out your sense of humor…Was it just your head that took a hit? Can you see alright?”

Augie’s attention rests solely in the distance, “What…is that?” He takes a few hesitant steps towards the figure.

Jason follows Augie’s head to where he is looking. He quickly moves to follow beside Augie as his eyes too become transfixed.

Laying in the grass about ten yards ahead lies the body of a deer- or what is left of it. The chest looks as if a bomb went off- much more aggressive than the cat. Its ribs sit splayed apart and peeled back. It’s missing its full hind legs and chunks of its neck, along with the heart and a lung. The rest of its innards lie strewn about the forest floor, like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. The fresh red blood sparkles. Flies have already invited themselves to start drinking and partaking of the dead deer.

“Wh-...What the Hell…”

“This looks violent…very…very violent,” Augie takes out his phone once more to take photos as he looks around in the trees, continuing cautiously towards the deer.

Jason follows closely, examining the trees just the same, “It had to have been the same thing, right?”

“I don’t know what else it could have been- where’s that feather?”

“Oh, shoot-” Jason rushes back to collect the feather before returning to Augie’s side.

“This stuff looks fresh…Maybe we should….um…head back for now…”

“Ye~ah, we probably interrupted again,” Jason continues to search the trees as his hands land on Augie’s shoulder, turning him to walk the way they came from, “Maybe Terrance can help us out.” His pace picks up, and Augie’s does too.

They practically trip over themselves as they speedwalk out of the woods. The leery feeling of eyes searing into their backsides heat their anxiety. Despite this, they make it out of the woods near the alley and continue to the other side of town.

They arrive to the old derelict shed just outside of town, the same one they came through when they first arrived. Augie takes a seat by it and catches his breath as he continues to calm down. Jason sits beside him, crossing his legs, “How’s your head?”

“It hurts…but at least we aren’t gutted, that would probably…hurt a bit more.” He glances at his watch, mumbling, “A couple minutes…”

“Probably…We~ should get you to the medical bay, make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

“Mh,” He nods a little, “I’m getting tired, too, what was it- like, 12, 1AM when we came through?”

“About 12:30,” Jason stands, stretching some before helping Augie to his feet.

“Did I get all of that blood off of my face?”

“Hmm~ almost,” Jason licks his thumb and wipes at Augie’s cheek, “There!” 

“Cool! That was~ disgusting…” He gestures to Jason’s hand as he raises a brow, “Wasn’t that the hand you were holding the intestine with?..Interesting~”

Jason pauses. He looks to his hand, processing his thoughts, “Ah~....Eugh-! Oh m-” He spits off to the side, “Just-! Go- go- go- through the door- now-” He ushers Augie who can’t help but let out a laugh as he opens and heads into the shed.

A light flashes as they walk through, the door shutting tightly behind them.

The wind blows softly through the trees.

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