The First Disappearance

The night air was thick and still, heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay. Chris sat on a crate near the entrance of the old warehouse, his back against a rusted beam, his eyes fixed on the dark shapes of the trees beyond the fence. The moon was a sliver, barely casting enough light to see his own hands. Beside him, the watch roster sat crumpled in his pocket, a piece of paper they had scribbled on after dinner. Trey had drawn the third shift—the one from two to four in the morning, the darkest hours when the dead seemed most restless.

Around midnight, Chris had woken from a shallow sleep to check on the kids. Monte and Marie lay curled together under a ratty blanket in the corner, their breathing even and soft. Yasmine was awake too, sitting cross-legged on a mattress, her eyes on the door. She didn’t say anything, just gave him a look that said: *I can’t sleep either.* He’d nodded, then gone back to his post.

Now, as the first gray fingers of dawn began to creep across the sky, Chris felt a prickle of unease. He hadn’t heard Trey’s voice in over an hour. The man was scheduled to relieve Mike at two, and Mike had come inside grumbling about the cold, but Chris had assumed Trey was simply quiet. He was a quiet man anyway, always in the background, always watching. But the silence felt deeper now, like something had been swallowed whole.