grizzlymane415: WHERE DID YOU GO?

grizzlymane415: SORRY IF I WAS A DICK. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHIT?!?!?!?

What followed was a link to an article detailing a string of three murders which had taken place across the Southwest over the past couple of weeks – one in West Texas, one in New Mexico, one outside of Las Vegas. All three had the calling cards of The Phantom, including taking place in a two-week cluster. Worse yet, they occurred in the order which suggested The Phantom was moving in a Northwest pattern, right towards Northern California.

grizzlymane: HE’S BACK………….

I typed up: Where do you live?

Was about to hit Enter…

“Hey,” Tyler’s voice shot up from behind me in the living room.

I jumped up out of my seat, scrambled to close my browser.

“You looking at porn?” Tyler quipped from behind me.

“No.”

Tyler let out a deep exhale.

“I found something weird in the mailbox.”

Tyler pushed a bullet into my face. I don’t think I had ever actually seen one in-person so it would have been a jarring vision even if he hadn’t explained it was resting in our mailbox.

“It was just sitting in there. There weren’t letters or anything else.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“What?”

“This just has me totally freaked out.”

“Well let’s go down and talk to the cops.”

Tyler had a good idea for the first time in a really long time.

“I gotta take my motorcycle down to Devin’s shop anyways.”

He followed it up with a really bad one.

“Just take my car with me. We should go together.”

“Devin just texted me. If I don’t get it down there in like twenty minutes, I won’t be able to get it looked at till Monday and I might need it this weekend. I’ll just meet you at the station.”

I didn’t even want to know why Tyler might need his motorcycle for the weekend.

“Fine.”

“Alright,” Tyler grabbed his motorcycle helmet before he had even finished the word.

“Wait,” I pleaded.

Tyler was already out the door.

“Motherfucker.”

I could still see the dust lingering from the tires of Tyler’s motorcyle when I walked out into our dirt driveway. I fought the urge to call him. He wouldn’t answer anyway.
The morning glow which made the start of the day so glorious was long gone. A hazy sky of moist gray hung above, threatening rain and a cold wind whipped around the side of the house.

I jumped into my battered Ford Focus. Shook my head to myself about Tyler’s ridiculous selfishness, wondered if I should just say fuck it and drive straight to my parents’ house in Marin, but I couldn’t do it. It was only about a 10 minute drive down the highway to the station and I was pretty sure the cops would be able to at least bring me some soul relief for a little while.

The road from our house to the main highway was probably the last road I wanted to be on at the moment. It was a glorified gravel road, lined with trees and tree-surrounded little shacks and shanties next to the river. Once upon the road, my eyes lingered on something sticking out of the tall grass next to the road – Tyler’s motorcycle, propped up halfway between the road and the woods.

I took my foot off the gas, slowly pushed on the brake, felt the world outside my car window come back into regular speed.

Then I felt something hit my bumper.

What the?