Page 55 of Forged in Deception

“It’s just coyotes, honey,” Lily continued, shaking her head in the direction of the now silent desert. “But boy, do they ever sound human.”

Cora smiled. “Totally creepy, but I’ve kind of started to like hearing them. They’re beautiful creatures.”

“Right,” Karlin said, forcing a little laugh as the two women fell into step beside her. She decided she may as well skip the lab and head straight over to the dining hall. Her work could wait a little while longer, and at the moment, she suddenly felt very glad not to be alone out here in the quiet of the early morning.

“So,” she said after a moment, “have either of you heard anything about the cult rumors that are going around in Amarillo?”

“Ha!” Lily said, tossing her silvery braid over one shoulder. “My brother works with the sheriff. They’ve searched high and low for this so-called cult. If there was anything to it, they’d know it by now.”

Karlin thought the same thing, and yet, something about the woman’s words gave her pause, but at the moment, she couldn’t remember what it was.

“There’s nothing to it but wild desert stories, that’s all,” Lily continued. “It’s boring up here. What else are people gonna do but talk? They’ve been at it since before I was born.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cora cut in. “Those girls really did go missing.”

“Oh, sure. But that doesn’t mean they got snatched up by some cult. More likely it was a gang. Or maybe a pimp. Something more ordinary, anyway.”

“But maybe there’s areasonthese stories keep popping up,” Cora argued. “I read about the history of this place. There used to be these people here called the Antelope Creek phase Indians, but they disappeared. To this day, no one knows what happened to them.”

Lily gave Karlin a knowing look out of the corner of her eye. “I did entire classes on the local history of this area in college, and you’re half right, I guess. No one knows exactly why those Indians died out–”

“I know I’m right!”

“Now, hold on,” Lily said firmly, stopping for a moment where she stood and gesturing toward the expanse of the desert that surrounded them. “Look at this place. It’s a harsh climate, and it has been for a very long time. There are all sorts of logical reasons that those people might have disappeared.”

“Sure,” Cora said brightly. “A portal to another dimension. Or maybe alien contact.”

Karlin resisted the urge to laugh out loud.

Portals? Aliens? It was completely insane. Once again, she found herself wondering about the rigors of Bajwa’s patient selection process.

Lily did laugh, though not unkindly. “It might be fun to speculate about the sci-fi stuff, but I can almost guarantee that it’s something mundane that brought the Antelope Creek phase to their end. Resource scarcity, a warring tribe, a mass illness–there are all kinds of rational possibilities.”

“So why don’t they know what happened?”

“Because it was over five hundred years ago and most of the evidence is gone. No conspiracy required.”

Cora considered this, finally shrugging her shoulders. “You’re no fun, Lily.”

Lily grinned at her. “I am old, Cora. I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

Karlin let the two women pull ahead of her, following them in silence as they continued to talk and joke with one another.

She couldn’t help but to look over her shoulder one last time, her eyes searching the horizon as the light continued to grow brighter. She could hear only the breeze now, interrupted by the occasional chirping of a meadowlark.

She could almost believe the sounds had never been there at all.

Almost.

ASHER

Asher awoke with a jolt, sitting up straight in bed.

It took a couple of seconds for his brain to catch up with his body and to realize that the terrible air raid siren he’d been hearing in his dream was, in fact, a ringing phone.

His bleary eyes settled on the dresser on the other side of the cabin. He was so used to reaching into his pocket for his iPhone that he’d actually forgotten he’d been given access to a corded phone for the duration of the retreat.

“Hello?” he answered as politely as he could, in case it was Ned, Bajwa, or, best of all, Karlin.

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