1.2

Antlers is quiet, even at this time of the morning, when most people are hustling to their jobs. The shops are just opening for the day, drawing back their blinds to show meticulously designed window displays. They’re all locally owned places: a candy store here, a used bookshop there. Austin catches sight of a neon sign for a magic shop out of the corner of his eye, and smiles a little to himself. 

Antlers doesn’t seem like the kind of town that sees many tourists - it’s small and out of the way, tucked into the corner of one of Colorado’s smallest counties. Austin gets the feeling that no one in Antlers really noses into anyone else’s business, and that’s the way people like it. Even Otter has said that he doesn’t know the names of his neighbors in the apartment complex, or what they do for a living, but they still greet each other when they’re out to get the mail at the same time. And Austin doesn’t mind that sort of atmosphere, really. It just makes it all the more odd to see a crowd of people standing around at the end of the main road, just beyond Town Hall, all murmuring to each other. There’s a line of cars on the road too, at least five or six idling in place, waiting for something.

Austin squares his jaw and walks straight towards the fray, ignoring the knot in his stomach that tells him it’s time to leave. He doesn’t get far. Only once he shoves his way to the front of the crowd does he see the caution tape roping off the rest of the road, the same road he came in on only a few days back. There’s no visible explanation as to why; construction, maybe, but there aren’t any big orange signs or trucks around.

Austin turns to the person to his left who’s been jostling him a little in their efforts to see the road beyond the caution tape. It’s a woman, short and dark-skinned, dressed in a long wool skirt and an oversized sweater with sleeves too big for her hands. Her hair is cropped short, neatly framing her round, worried face.

“What’s going on here?”

“No idea,” the woman shrugs. Her big, thick-rimmed glasses slide down to the very tip of her nose as she keeps trying to peer around the road, and her owlish expression reminds Austin too much of Richard. “They closed it down without telling anyone. I was supposed to go out of town for a book signing.”

She sighs wistfully. Austin tries to put on his best understanding face - but here’s something interesting. There are two women approaching the crowd from the other side of the road. One is tall, with dark skin and kinky blond hair pulled back in a sensible ponytail, while the other is of average height, and very skinny, with glasses and short, coppery hair. Both are dressed in the bland brown and tan that denotes local law enforcement, and sure enough, Austin can pick out a sheriff’s badge pinned to the taller one’s chest as she gets closer.

The crowd’s dissonant murmuring swells to a crescendo as the sheriff and who Austin assumes is her deputy come right up to the caution tape barrier. No one is shouting yet, but they could be soon. Austin feels as though he’s standing inside of a thundering stormcloud. But then - nothing. The sheriff looks over the crowd cooly, her expression unbroken and neutral, and the people quiet. It’s like a teacher staring down a class full of unruly schoolchildren; but, Austin thinks, somehow much more effective.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” the sheriff begins evenly, “my name is Sheriff Montana Maxwell. This is Deputy Abrams.”

She gestures towards the smaller woman next to her, who grins and half-waves.

“There’s been an accident just outside of town,” the sheriff continues. “We don’t know what caused it yet, so we’ve closed down a stretch of the road so that we can investigate and clear the debris. It should be open again sometime this afternoon, this evening at the latest. Until then, you’ll have to make other arrangements for leaving town.”

The crowd seems to sigh. It begins to break apart, people grumbling to themselves about inconveniences as they disperse and disappear into buildings and side streets. The woman next to Austin lingers for a minute, clutching the tote bag in her hands and looking around worriedly.

“I hope no one died,” she says under her breath. Pushing her glasses up her nose with the back of one hand, she scurries away.

Austin is about to do the same but, well, there’s a thought. The sheriff never mentioned any of the people involved in the accident, or what kind of accident it was in the first place - though judging by the word debris, there was probably a car involved, maybe several. The sheriff is gone now, farther up the road, but the deputy is still lingering at the barrier, probably to make sure that no one tries to duck under it and go snooping around. Austin makes his way over to her, combing his hair back out of his face and trying his hardest to look like a genuinely concerned citizen.

“Excuse me, uh, deputy?”

“Oh!” Deputy Abrams jumps, eyes widening in surprise. “I mean, yes! That’s me. You can call me Mackenzie, or just Mac, if you want. Can I help you with something?”

“I was just wondering if the people involved in the car accident were okay,” Austin says as quietly as he can manage, just in case anyone else has decided to be nosy. Maybe the deputy won’t notice that he slipped the word car in there - and she doesn’t seem to, her face growing serious as she starts to respond to him.

“Well, actually...no,” she says. “I’m not sure how much I can say, but the two people inside the car, they were, uh, attacked. Pretty badly, actually.”

Attacked! Austin’s heart starts to hammer in his chest, Otter’s stories of mysterious animal attacks still fresh in his mind. Maybe he’s making connections where there are none, but whatever’s happening here seems out of the ordinary. And in a way, he almost expects it to be. Out of the ordinary things tend to happen wherever he goes, no matter how far across the country he is or how fast he tries to outrun them. Maybe this is nothing, but...there’s probably no harm in investigating it, just to make sure.

“Do you know what happened to them?” he asks, trying not to sound anything more than curious. God forbid he gets mistaken for a serial killer.

Mac opens her mouth to answer, but before she can get anything out, the sheriff’s voice comes from farther down the road.

“Deputy Abrams! Now is not the time to shoot the breeze!”

“Oh...right,” Mac says quietly, mostly to herself, then seems to perk up a little. “I mean, of course! I’ll be right there!” She turns back to Austin. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Austin insists. He draws his letterman jacket tighter around himself. A chill seems to be rolling into town from the forest around the main road. He wonders if anyone else can feel it.

Mac eyes him, her expression softening. “Were the people in the car friends of yours?”

“No,” Austin says. “No, I never knew them. It just sucks that happened, is all.”

Mac makes a sort of noncommittal noise obviously meant to sound sympathetic. The two stand there in silence, on opposite sides of the caution tape, for another minute. Then, Mac starts off towards the crime scene, occasionally glancing back over her shoulder at Austin, probably to make sure he isn’t trying to sneak in. Austin starts to walk back in the direction he came from, but stops outside of town hall and slips out of sight behind a column. He watches Mac until she’s only a speck in the distance, and the sheriff is nowhere to be seen, and then approaches the caution tape barrier again.

No one else is around, as far as he can tell. Austin ducks under the tape and quickly darts into the forest that lines the left side of the road, being careful not to step too noisily with his boots as he walks. He closes his eyes briefly, letting instinct pull him towards the scene of the accident, towards the source of the chill that only he can feel radiating outwards from the area.