Ghost Archipelago

"Isn't it funny that you have all this power and, I guess, glory, and most of you live out in the woods like coydogs," the man says. "Me, I got a house. And a Visa card, so I don't carry cash like I used to. Sorry."

"How many more of us are there around here?" you ask.

"You all died, kid," the man says. "Killed yourselves. You been up to Broad Brook?"

You raise an eyebrow. Broad Brook?

"That's where it happened," he says. "But it's not over. You saw something in the woods out near Jasper's old farm, didn't you? He used to work for them. So we…some people had to get rid of him, because he was working for them. Do you understand?"

You try to think of a question, because you really don't understand—but he just talks faster and faster.

"That's when things really started getting out of control," he says. "And it's still happening. You've smelled the corpse smell, haven't you? Carried by the wind. You've heard the drone of flies. You have to cut 'em just the right way to get the flies to come. Shit, I should've killed him all the way when I had the chance."

You remember the rancid meat Clay ate, and the flies that attended the Bane you killed.

Hobland's eyes narrow when he spots the sheriff's deputy circling around the apartment. He fades away into the freezing mist.

"Don't get caught, kid," he says. "You don't want to spend a night in jail here."

A dreadful feeling of being watched as you trudge through the muck of the abandoned baseball field next to the municipal building.

A student wanders out of the church with her phone held aloft, then back inside, trying to get reception. The shuttle is parked nearby, but you don't see the driver. As you circle between the municipal building and the abandoned baseball field, trying to keep warm, the air grows suddenly still.

You turn, but not quickly enough, and something slams you into the chain-link fence with enough force that the entire fence comes down, with you tangled in it. Your fingers and ankles snap, and though the pain and mud blind you, you can imagine the sight of white-yellow bone poking through your bloody flesh. Your Rage rises, instinctively transforming you into—

—my ferocious glabro near-human form.

—the dreadful crinos war-form, mad with Rage and all but unstoppable.

—the titan-wolf form of the hispo.

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