Axel treaded carefully along the washed-out trail—the October rains had been a real bitch this year—his breath puffing into small white clouds before him. Despite his layers of warm clothes, his hands felt like they'd been plunged into an ice bath. Shivering, he jammed them into his pockets.

Leo had once again dragged the group out here thanks to some "totally legit sources" he found on some ancient local forum. Seriously, who the hell still used forums in this day and age? Boomers over fifty? According to a bunch of other nutjobs obsessed with blurry UFO pics and Jesus-shaped cereal flakes, there'd been a sighting of the actual Bigfoot in their forest. The grainy screenshot attached to the post looked more like a strung-out homeless guy mid-crack binge who'd misplaced his left shoe. But Leo? Oh no. He was dead set. He could "feel it." This was it.

Axel sighed. Rylan was in rare form, his usual bile turned up to eleven because his phone had died. Evan trailed behind, looking more like a silent Dementor than a person, pushing his long black hair out of his face every few steps. Calliope was more interested in sniffing the damp, rotting leaves than being a "Bigfoot-hunting hound." Smart girl.

They'd been hiking for hours, getting deeper and deeper into the woods. The mood was sinking faster than a lead balloon, except for Leo, of course. That energy vampire was practically glowing like a disco ball.

"This is it, guys!" he chirped, adjusting his backpack covered in shitty drawings. "Today's the day we find something weird! Maybe it'll be Bigfoot, or maybe the ghost of a murdered witch..."

"More likely we'll find a deer, if we're lucky. Or a raccoon. Or a really fucking picturesque tree." Axel pulled out his vape for a quick hit.

"You're such a skeptic, Axel."

"I'm a realist, not a skeptic. I believe in real shit, like the fact that we're freezing our asses off for nothing."

The whole club fell silent. Even if their little escapade felt more like escapism than a real hunt, but it was better than sitting in their shitty broken homes with their even shittier broken families.

"Maybe we'll run into Rose's killer. He's real enough," Evan finally broke the silence.

Axel frowned. "That's actually more likely than a junkie Bigfoot."

Rose Hicks. Nobody from their college would ever forget the day they found her body. Naked, hanging upside down like some fucked-up Hanged Man tarot card from the top of one of the campus lampposts. Still beautiful, even in death. Not a single drop of blood left in her body, just neat little cuts all over. The whole town was still reeling. Of all people, someone had to kill Rose, and like that?

The mystery of her death ate at them. Murder was shit on its own, but with this occult bullshit thrown in? What the fuck was really going on?