Norfolk, Virginia — November 6, 2025
I don't love phone calls to start with. They interrupt your flow. Whatever train of thought you're riding derails the second you have to answer. And these days, the odds of it being something worthwhile? Slim. Telemarketers or scammers make sure of that.
However, I really don't like a phone call in the middle of the night. Nothing good ever comes at 2 a.m. It's almost always bad news.
And anyone calling me, Judah Sands, at 2 a.m. should know better, because at that hour, you're either bringing something I don't want to hear, or inviting me into a problem I sure as hell don't want to be part of.
So, when my eyes snapped open in the darkness of my austere studio apartment on the Norfolk waterfront, dragged from sleep by the tinny chiptune of my cellphone's 8-bit ringtone, I groaned loudly. I sat up, pushing myself off the mattress, and fumbled for the phone. The screen's glare stung my eyes as I squinted at the caller ID.
It was Ryan. This was really not looking promising.
"Hello?" I said into the speaker, my voice harsh, cracked, and husky from sleep.
"Hey bud, sorry to bother you, but it's important."
Tension crackled in Ryan Thompson's voice, more than the usual kind of stress. Something had him really on edge.
"You good?" I asked, concern shaking off the last fog of sleep.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said, but the words sounded hollow. "There's been... well, something out here on the trail."
"How delightfully unspecific." I winced. I wasn't trying to be an asshole to one of my few friends, especially my oldest friend, but in my defense, he did wake me up for this. Based on the lack of a specific name for the trail, my mind defaulted to the most well-known one in the region: the seaboard-spanning Appalachian Trail, which ran from Georgia to Maine and happened to go through the town where both Ryan and I grew up. He was now an officer for the Deep Springs Police Department, a job I was offered before I blew town right out of high school, joining the Navy and getting out of that isolated prison valley.
"Well, if I could be more specific, I would be." His voice tightened again, into a well of tension. Whatever he was looking at was well beyond the pale of the normal.
"It's... a real mess up here, Judah. I'm right near the Rich Mountain Tower, and we've got something like thirteen people dead, some military-ish contractor types with serious hardware, several who look like some kind of documentarians, I guess? Cameras, drones, microphones? Then there's some academic types, if I'm reading this situation right."
Oh no. Researchers. Don't say-
"We haven't found your dad at all, but we know he was with them. His gear is at the encampment, or what's left of it, but no Isaac."
I groaned again. My father had been doing these little excursions up and down the Appalachian Trail as a side thing, which he didn't need, for a while now, showing researchers and tourists the sights, smells and, as he called it, the potential habitats of the deep Smoky Mountains. He'd usually walk them around the trail for a week, maybe wander deeper into the woods, scare them with some convoluted stories and bear scat as "evidence," and then bring them back to town, chattering about seeing a cryptid, or how stimulating the ideas of the great Dr. Sands were. The researcher who had one foot in the alternative narratives of the kooks and one foot in genuine research.
"So-" I started, but Ryan cut me off, his voice quick and staccato, another sign of the stress the scene was putting him under.
"No, Temperance wasn't up here with 'em. Tyler got strep a few weeks ago, and she stayed behind to tend to him. So, it was just your dad and the researchers, and whoever these other guys were."
I blinked. I hadn't been about to ask about Temperance, my sister-in-law and my father's research assistant. She hadn't been mentioned, so I'd assumed she was fine. I cleared my throat and restarted my sentence.
"So, these other guys, the military contractor-ish people, what makes you put them in that camp?"
This was moving into talking cop shop, which I could do, having been a Master-at-Arms, and talking shop required caffeine. So I stood up and walked to the kitchen island, loading a small plastic container into the coffee maker and setting my favorite mug on the base, its flared, enameled mouth open like a hungry maw for the brewed caffeinated bean water.
"Well, the first clue was the tactical gear," Ryan said. The question had put a problem in front of him, and he'd returned to a calmer pace and tone of voice. He thrived in puzzles and problem solving, like I do. "The second was the quality of ordnance they brought with them. I've got submachine guns, carbines, pistols everywhere. By one shell count, there's an estimate going around of maybe 100 or better rounds being fired before whatever happened here was said and done? Not that it seems to have helped much."
The coffee began to pour into the cup as I set the phone down on the counter and leaned on my palms against it.
"And you said thirteen dead? How many researchers were with this group?"
Ryan grunted, and I could hear paper flipping, indicating that he was checking his notebook.
"Well, going by what everyone wore to the dance," he paused like he was surveying the scene, "three armed security. Can tell by who has plate carriers, is holding a gun, or has one of their appendages near a gun."
One of their appendages near a gun?
"Then there's the camera equipment. Microphones, drones, slightly more touristy clothes. It's a whole encampment up here Judah. I'm guessing some kind of documentary team. That with the security comes out to nine. And the slightly more quirky researcher kind of vibe, that's four on site, and I know Isaac was with them, so fourteen total involved."
Jesus, Dad, what have you gotten yourself into? Why did it need that much security? I lifted the mug to my lips and drank deeply of the scalding bitter liquid, allowing it to burn and clarify my thoughts as I felt the heat pour down my throat into my chest.
"So what do you need from me, Ryan? This seems like it's already a little more than kicking around a hunch."
It was Ryan's turn to clear his throat. He hated being called Johnny-on-the-spot. I picked up the phone and moved across my spartan apartment, opening the door to the patio and sitting down, indulging the salt-scented spray on the brisk night breeze, and allowing the light slapping of the waves of the Elizabeth River to add to my thinking ambient noise.
"The Chief isn't doing great, not that he'll admit it."
That seemed the truest of truths. My grandfather, David Beech, had been the chief of police in Deep Springs since both Ryan and I were in diapers. He was pushing well into his 80s and was still on the job, from what Ryan told me.
"And you can imagine how the Forestry Service feels about having this mess on the trail, and the Sheriff is also interested in it going away."
Ryan had mentioned that the sheriff of Stratton County had been eyeing a run at their state senate seat that was coming up. It'd be a substantial boost to his political portfolio, and having this case sitting out might not look great for such a law-and-order strategist.
"I could use your help, Judah. Plus, I mean, you've got Ol' Abe-" my grandfather, who wasn't doing well either, according to my father's last email. "And you know how Levi can get. This sort of stressful situation isn't his best forte. Neither is dealing with Temperance, and this has both."
And my brother and sister-in-law. Levi's response to stress, the last I heard, was to go on drug benders, and Temperance, well, "Temper" Sands the last decade or so qualified as a significant source of stress for her husband.
After a beat, I almost choked on my coffee. I saw where this was going. He wanted me to come down there.
"Ryan-" I said warningly.
"Judah." He added an extra layer of dulcet to his tone, trying to up the charm.
"Ryan." I said it flatly. I wasn't interested in picking up that paterfamilias torch.
Ryan's voice dropped nearly a full octave and picked up a dangerous edge to it.
"Isaac Judah Sands Jr., if you don't get your ass down here for what I can only describe as the crisis of family crises, I will, for one, disown you, and for another, publish that fine copy of slash fiction that we both know the author of."
That son of a-
"Fine. But I want the originals and all the copies deleted."
I hung up the phone, looking sullenly out across the river at the twinkling lights of the city. This was not how I wanted to start my retirement.
"Aafo," I complained to the breeze.
That small shard of vocabulary from the Gulf of Aden had stayed with me, as much as the bullet lodged deep in my shoulder that caused the surrounding muscle to ache when the pressure started to change as a herald for easterly passing storms.
I looked to my phone and began to make the needed purchases to make my way toward home. A plane ticket, taking me to Atlanta and then from there to Crowsburg, where after a few texts, it was established that I'd meet Ryan and we'd ride back to Deep Springs together. He'd catch me up on the case where they'd left off today.
I stood and rubbed a coarse palm against my face. I guess I was up for the day, and began to get ready, loading up a duffel with clothes, my laptop, and a hard case packed with a Sig P320, ready for the TSA.