Night came easy over Piedmont, soft as a prayer said half-hearted and half-believed. The last of the day’s heat sank into the hollows, leaving the trees along Terrapin Creek wrapped in silver breath and the hum of unseen things.

The water whispered, slow and steady, gliding over roots and broken bottles and the long-forgotten bones of the town’s mistakes. Every so often, a bullfrog croaked somewhere off in the reeds, and an owl answered, solemn and sure.

Sheriff Cole’s lantern swung low as he picked his way down the narrow bank. Sadie Mae followed close behind, her flashlight beam trembling on the slick stones.

“Lord, Cole,” she muttered, “it smells like somethin’ crawled outta the grave and got lost.”

He didn’t answer. The lantern caught the gleam of something pale tangled in the cattails—a scrap of cloth, thin as gauze, floating like it wanted to get free but couldn’t. Cole crouched, reached out with a stick, and pulled it in.

It was a shirt. A man’s. Torn clean down one side, buttons missing.

“Could be his,” Sadie whispered.

“Could be anyone’s,” Cole said, though the way he said it meant he didn’t believe it himself.

She shone her light across the water, and both of them saw it then: the faint impression of footprints pressed into the mud at the edge, just as he’d described at the diner. Fresh, too, the ridges sharp. They led right to the creek… and stopped.

No drag marks. No splashes. Just gone.

Cole rose slow, scanning the opposite bank. “Tommy Wayne,” he called out, voice carrying low over the water. “You hear me, son? Ain’t no trouble that can’t be mended.”

Silence.

Then, something shifted under the surface. Not far out, maybe ten feet, where the current turned dark. The water bubbled once, twice, and a ripple spread toward them, wide and smooth as breath.

Sadie stepped back. “Cole…”

He steadied the lantern, peering hard. The glow caught on something drifting toward the shore—something pale that wasn’t cloth this time. A hand, maybe. Or maybe a root, slick and twisted, too human in the way it moved with the current.

Cole reached for it with the stick. Before it touched, the thing sank fast, vanishing with barely a sound. The ripple faded, leaving the surface still and black again.

“Could’ve been nothin’,” Sadie said, voice thin.

“Or could’ve been somethin’ that don’t want found,” Cole murmured.

Behind them, lightning flashed far off beyond Duggar Mountain, turning the trees into black lace against the sky. When the thunder followed, it sounded like it came from beneath the earth instead of above.

Cole turned back toward the house on the rise. A single light burned faint in an upstairs window.

Sadie frowned. “Did you leave that on?”

“No.”

They watched it flicker once, twice—then die.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.