of annoyance, Shacora took the keys out of the ignition and pocketed them—another memorable lesson she had once learned about leaving the truck running with trespassers around—and grabbed her flashlight before climbing out to the ground.
She shone the light into the trees, narrowing her eyes as she strained to see. The trees were all straight lines and shadows, a confusing mass that was difficult to interpret in the harsh beam of the flashlight. She swung it back and forth where she thought she’d seen the movement, searching.
She was about to give up when an unusual shape caught her eye—human shaped, not tree shaped. After a closer squint she realized what she was looking at: a person with their back to her, a coat over a hooded jacket, the hood up over their hair.
“Excuse me?” she shouted out. “Sir? Or ma’am?”
There was no response. Frowning, Shacora stepped closer, into the trees. Maybe whoever it was thought that she wouldn’t be able to see them if they stood still and stayed silent. But she saw them, all right. Getting closer, she came around at an angle to see the face beneath the hood: a man, his lips moving, murmuring something.
“Sir, did you hear me?” she said, her voice lower now that she was in close proximity. “I called out to you.”
The man muttered something in return. What was he saying? Impatiently, Shacora stepped right to his side. “Sir, do you hear me? You can’t be here. You need to leave the park.”
“The rings,” the man said, not turning to look at her. His attention was fixed on something in front of him. “The rings, they’re near-perfect. Perfect circles. Near perfect rings.”
Shacora swung the beam of the flashlight down. He was staring at the stump of a tree that had recently been cut down, something they did whenever the trees were struck by lightning. It was often dangerous to leave them up, the way the lightning would crack them, and they were dead anyway. This one bore no scorch marks or obvious splits; the damage must have been further up the trunk.
“Yeah, that’s a real nice tree stump,” Shacora said, trying to play along with him. He was most likely either drunk or high. “Now, we’d better get going.”
The man chuckled. There was something eerie about him, the way he stood over the stump staring at it. How much had he even been able to see in the dark? Definitely high, Shacora decided. He was acting way too creepy to just be drunk.
“That’s part of the mystery, you know,” he said. His eyes still hadn’t moved from where they were fixed, but it felt like he was talking directly to her now. “They’re always perfect. Even when they’re not perfect. Isn’t that something?”
“It’s something, all right,” Shacora muttered. She lifted her voice again, keeping it light and friendly, like how you would talk to a child. He wasn’t going to listen to warnings, she could sense that. She needed to coax him out. “Sir, why don’t you come back with me to the ranger station? Okay?”
The man didn’t say anything, but he did finally move. His head swung slowly around until he was looking right at her, slow and still, his expression blank. But even as she watched, she felt something coming over his face. Not something that she could identify. Not one clear emotion. But even so, it made a shiver go through her. This guy, whatever he was on, it was something serious. She wondered if she was out of her depth.
“That’s right,” she said, encouragingly, thinking that maybe she was finally getting through to him in some way. “Come along with me. We’ll get you back to the station now. Let’s go.”
She thought he was going to turn to come with her. His body tensed like he was going to move the way he had before, slowly around, coming with her. Maybe it would take a while, but she thought she could get him in the car and drop him off outside the gates and maybe call the police to come deal with him. As long as she could make him someone else’s problem as soon as possible, she could get back to her easy, boring job. Had she called it boring? She shouldn’t have complained. This was what you got. The crazies.
But he wasn’t turning to follow her. Shacora blinked and he was turning, all right, but rapidly, quicker than she had thought he could, like he released all