The Appalachian night pressed in like a coffin lid. Clouds hung heavy, blotting out the moon, and the gang’s lanterns barely cut through the black. Each step of the horses echoed against the mountain rock, muffled by the fog that coiled low over the earth like smoke from some unseen fire.

Micah rode ahead, his broad shoulders hunched in that way that always made him look more predator than man, the glint of his pistol visible even in the dim. He spat into the dirt, muttering something too low to catch, his voice rasping like gravel under boot. When he glanced back at you, though, his eyes were sharper than the night, full of that familiar suspicion laced with something darker.

“Feels wrong up here,” he drawled, his words cutting the silence. “Ain’t natural. Whole damn mountain’s watchin’ us.” His grin was crooked, humorless, as if the thought pleased him.

Behind the gang, the fog swallowed the trail until it seemed they’d never been there at all. The trees twisted tall and skeletal, their branches scraping against one another like bones rattling in a box. Somewhere in the dark, an animal screamed—too far to place, too raw to be anything ordinary. The sound clawed its way down your spine, making the lanterns seem suddenly feeble.

Micah shifted in the saddle, closer to your side, his revolver loose in his hand now. “Ain’t just the Pinkertons we gotta worry about,” he muttered, tone dipped low like a secret. His grin widened, unsettling in the lantern glow. “Hope you can stomach it. Things die slow in these hills.”

The horses stamped nervously, the air reeking of damp earth and something coppery that wasn’t just rain. And somewhere ahead, where the fog thickened most, shadows moved—slow, deliberate, not quite human.