The trail descended through broken country. Switchbacks carved into limestone faces. Scree slopes that shifted under the horses' hooves. Arlen checked his compass, then the map, then the compass again.
Something was wrong.
The creek should have run north here. Instead, it curved west around a landslide that hadn't existed when he'd drawn these routes. The oak grove marked on his survey was gone—stumps and char remained where a fire had swept through.
Joel reined up beside him. "Problem?"
Arlen folded the map without answering. The coordinates were right. The terrain was wrong.
They followed the creek down into shadow. Canyon walls rose on either side, narrowing to a throat barely wide enough for the horses. Water trickled over stones worn smooth by centuries of runoff.
Buzzards circled overhead. Too many buzzards.
"Something died down here," Joel said.
Arlen studied the walls. Limestone gave way to sandstone, then concrete. Man-made structures jutted from the rock like broken teeth. Rebar twisted free from collapsed foundations.
The trail ended at a thicket of scrub oak and Russian olive. Beyond the trees, the creek disappeared into a culvert mouth choked with debris.
Joel dismounted. Drew his sidearm.
Arlen tied the horses to a deadfall, then pushed through the undergrowth. Branches caught his jacket. Thorns scraped his hands. Behind the thicket, set into the canyon wall, a concrete portal yawned black.
The Firefly symbol was painted above the entrance. Faded but visible. Someone had tried to black it out with spray paint, but the outline bled through.
"They didn't want it found," Joel said.
Arlen touched the concrete frame. Still solid despite the cracks spider-webbing outward from the corners. "Or didn't get the chance."
Joel clicked on his flashlight. The beam cut through darkness, revealing a stairwell descending into stone. "After you."
---
The air below smelled of mold and scorched metal. Chemical rot that clung to the back of Arlen's throat. Water dripped somewhere in the distance—steady drops that echoed off concrete walls.
Their flashlight beams swept across the first chamber. Steel shelving units had collapsed against one wall. Medical equipment lay scattered across the floor—IV stands, monitoring devices, containers marked with biohazard symbols.
Joel paused beside an overturned table. His light found dried stains across the metal surface. Dark brown. Too much of it.
Arlen moved deeper into the bunker. A second chamber opened to his left. More shelving. File cabinets with their locks shot off. Papers scattered like dead leaves.
He knelt beside a torn binder, pages spread across the concrete. Forms filled out in careful handwriting. Names, dates, test results. All stamped "VOID" in red ink.
On the wall above the desk, someone had tacked a map. Hand-drawn, like his own. Same cache points. Same route markers. But every location was crossed out with red ink. "REDACTED" stamped across the legend.
"Arlen."
Joel's voice carried from the back of the bunker. Tense. Controlled.
Arlen found him in what had been a bunk room. Three metal frames lay collapsed against the wall. Mattresses rotted to springs and foam. Personal effects scattered across the floor—books, photographs, a child's stuffed rabbit missing one eye.
Joel crouched beside the nearest bunk. His flashlight illuminated three skeletons. Two adult-sized. One small enough to fit in a man's arms.
Bullet casings glinted near the door frame. Brass cartridges stamped with FEDRA markings.
Arlen swept his light across the floor. Someone had scratched a word into the concrete near the entrance. Four letters carved deep with a knife point or piece of rebar:
*RUN*
"How long?" Joel asked.
"Five years. Maybe six."
Joel stood without touching anything. His face was stone in the flashlight's glare. "They were hiding down here when it happened."
A sound echoed from the front chamber. Not dripping. Not wind. Electronic humming, irregular and faint.
Arlen tracked the noise to a pile of debris near the medical station. He moved aside chunks of concrete, torn plastic sheeting, the remains of a first-aid kit. Underneath, a field recorder lay half-buried in rubble.
The casing was cracked. Scorch marks ran along one side. But the power indicator still blinked green.
He pressed play.
Static filled the chamber. Then a woman's voice, calm and clinical despite the exhaustion that weighted every word:
*"Day seventeen. Subject remains immune to infection despite repeated exposure. Sample extraction failed—contamination during transport. Reattempt aborted due to—"*
Static swallowed the rest.
Joel had moved up behind him. "Play it again."
Arlen rewound the tape. The same voice. The same words. The same static cutting off mid-sentence.
"That voice," Joel said after a long moment. "It wasn't Layla's."
Arlen pocketed the recorder without comment. Whatever research had happened here, whoever had been conducting it, they were years dead. The answers they'd sought lay buried with them.
But the questions remained.
---
They searched the remaining chambers in silence. Found nothing but debris and bones. The Fireflies had abandoned this place in a hurry, taking everything portable and destroying what they couldn't carry.
All except the recorder.
At the bunker entrance, Arlen paused to check his map one final time. The cache coordinates were correct. The location was exact. But the cache itself was gone—scavenged or scattered or deliberately erased.
Joel climbed past him into daylight. "You knew it might be like this."
"I suspected."
"But you didn't tell me."
Arlen folded his map, tucked it away. "Would it have changed anything?"
Joel's hand rested on his sidearm. The gesture wasn't threatening—not yet. But the message was clear. "You lied before we got here. Won't work twice."
"I didn't lie. I just didn't stop you."
Joel pushed past him toward the horses. His boots ground against loose stone with each step.
The sun was setting behind the canyon rim. Shadows stretched long across the creek bed. Coyotes called from the ridgelines, their voices carrying across the broken landscape.
Arlen pulled the torn coordinates from his pocket. The paper Tommy had given him. The numbers that had brought them here. He struck a match, held the flame to one corner, and watched the paper burn in his cupped hands.
Joel mounted his horse without looking back. "We didn't find what we came for."
Arlen swung into his saddle. The recorder's weight pressed against his ribs where he'd tucked it inside his jacket. "We found why it's missing."
They rode out of the canyon in silence. The creek followed them for a mile before veering east toward the valley floor. Behind them, the bunker entrance yawned black against the sandstone wall.
The buzzards had settled on the canyon rim. Waiting.
The wind rose with the darkness, carrying the scent of sage and distant rain. Ahead lay the long trail back to Jackson. Behind lay the bones of the past and the questions they whispered.
Arlen touched the recorder through his jacket. Somewhere in that static might be answers. Or more lies. In this world, the two had become impossible to separate.
Joel rode point again, his shoulders rigid with distrust. The pact between them had cracked like the concrete walls they'd left behind. Not broken—not yet. But fragile as old bone.
They had come seeking truth and found only ghosts. The cache was empty. The Fireflies were dead. And whatever immunity research had been conducted in that buried laboratory had died with them.
But the recorder remained. And with it, the possibility that some secrets refused to stay buried.
The horses climbed toward the ridgeline, carrying two men bound by necessity and divided by the lies they told themselves. Thunder rumbled distant in the mountains, promising more rain.
And in the darkness behind them, something moved among the ruins they'd left behind.