The Interstitial

The rain had stopped, leaving the air thick and heavy with the smell of wet earth and rust. I stood in the middle of that field, the shotgun a familiar weight in my hands, but for the first time in years, my finger itched on the trigger guard. The man was gone—vanished into the treeline like he’d never been there at all. I was starting to understand why the other officers never lasted long at this post. It wasn’t the isolation or the boredom; it was the feeling that the place itself was watching, waiting for you to make a mistake.

I’d come here to look for the missing boy. The call had been vague—a mother’s frantic voice, a description of a child who’d wandered into the woods behind the old paper mill. But now I had a man in a long coat, a boy who appeared and disappeared, and a set of tracks that didn’t make sense. I headed back to my jeep, the tires squelching in the mud as I drove slowly around the perimeter of the abandoned buildings. The rain started up again, a fine drizzle that beaded on the windshield, distorting the world outside.

I stopped the jeep near the spot where the boy had first appeared, between two crumbling warehouses. The ground was soft, and I could see the tracks—small, barefoot prints, leading from the concrete walkway toward the field. But that was the problem. The walkway was dry, and the mud didn’t begin until a good ten feet from it. The tracks just started there, as if the boy had been dropped from the sky. I got out, leaving the engine running, and crouched beside them. The prints were deep, too deep for a child of that size, and the edges were sharp, like they’d been pressed into the mud with a stamp.

I followed the tracks back toward the walkway, and that’s when I noticed something else. There was a second set of prints, larger, heavier, coming from the opposite direction—from the forest behind the warehouses. They overlapped the boy’s in places, as if the man had walked over them, but not to cover them up. It was more like he was tracing the boy’s route, step for step. The rain was beginning to fill the prints, washing them away, and I knew I had to make a decision. I could go back to the jeep, call for backup, wait it out. Or I could follow them now, before they disappeared.

I’ve never been superstitious. I’ve seen too much death to believe in ghosts or haints. But something about this site made my skin crawl. The way the buildings leaned, like they were tired of standing, and the way the light seemed to dim in patches, as if the air itself was thicker in places. I decided to follow the tracks into the forest, my shotgun held low, my boots squishing in the mud. The trees were close together, branches reaching out like fingers, and the rain clung to the leaves, making a soft hiss that drowned out all other sounds.

I walked for what felt like an hour, but it might have been minutes. The tracks led me to a clearing, and there I saw the boy. He was standing at the edge of a dead pond, his back to me, his clothes plastered to his thin frame. I called out to him, but he didn’t move. I approached slowly, my finger on the trigger, and when I got within ten feet, he turned. His face was pale and blank, his eyes dark, and for a moment, I thought I saw something move behind them, like a shadow shifting under glass. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, he raised his hand and pointed at the water.

I looked at the pond. The surface was still, but in the center, there was a ripple, as if something had broken the surface a moment ago. And then I saw it—the man from earlier, standing on the opposite bank. He was just standing there, his coat dripping, his face hidden under the brim of his hat. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. I raised my shotgun, aiming at his chest, but he didn’t flinch. He just raised his hand and pointed at the boy, then at the pond, then back at me.

I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach. I lowered my gun and looked at the boy, but he was gone. In his place, the mud showed only my own footprints. I spun around, looking for the man, but he too had vanished. The clearing was empty. The rain had stopped, and the only sound was the wind in the trees, carrying a low, humming sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

I backed away, keeping my eyes on the pond, and when I reached the treeline, I turned and ran. I didn’t stop until I was back in the jeep, the engine roaring, the tires spinning as I sped away. I didn’t look back. I drove for miles, the road winding through the woods, and when I finally reached the highway, I pulled over and vomited in the ditch. I radioed in, told them I found nothing, but I knew they didn’t believe me. The next day, I put in for a transfer. I couldn’t stay at that post anymore. But even now, months later, I still see the boy’s face, the man’s pointing hand, and I wonder: what were they trying to show me? What was in that pond that I was too afraid to see? I never found out, and sometimes I think that’s the worst part. Not knowing if the boy is still out there, or if he ever was. But I know one thing: the tracks in that mud—they’re still there. I’ve seen the satellite images. They haven’t faded. And every time it rains, they get deeper.