Chapter 7 – The Things Bill Knew

Dexter didn't sleep the rest of the night.He sat on his couch, every light in the apartment blazing, watching the window where the symbol had been scratched. He'd taken photos of it from every angle, texted them to the group chat with a message that read simply: Found this on my window. 3rd floor. Will explain tomorrow.The responses had come immediately, despite the hour:Martin (2:47 AM): WHATJesse (2:48 AM): how is that possibleIsabel (2:49 AM): Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?That last message had made something warm flutter in Dexter's chest, even through the fear. But he'd declined. No point in both of them losing sleep. Besides, whatever had left the mark was gone now. Probably.He hoped.By 7 AM, Dexter had consumed enough coffee to kill a small horse and was watching the sunrise through his now-thoroughly-documented window. The symbol remained, accusatory and impossible.His phone rang. Bill Kowalski."You still coming?" the old man asked without preamble."Yes. Had an... incident last night. Need to talk to you about it."A long pause. "What kind of incident?""The kind that involves claw marks on my third-floor window."Another pause, longer this time. "Come now. Forget 8 AM. Come right now. And Dexter?""Yeah?""Bring those photos you took. All of them."Bill hung up.Bill Kowalski lived on the outskirts of town in a small house that backed up to the forest. The property was well-maintained but isolated—the nearest neighbor was at least a quarter mile away. As Dexter pulled into the gravel driveway, he noticed details he might have missed during the day: motion-sensor lights every twenty feet, a heavy-duty fence around the backyard, and what looked like trail cameras mounted on several trees.Bill was waiting on the porch, pipe already lit. He looked like he'd slept about as well as Dexter had, which is to say, not at all."Coffee?" Bill offered as Dexter climbed the steps."I've had about a gallon already, but sure."Inside, the house was exactly what Dexter expected—comfortable but sparse, with the lived-in quality of a man who'd been alone for a long time. Photos on the mantle showed a younger Bill with a woman who must have been his wife, Margaret. More photos showed Bill in various outdoor settings—hunting trips, fishing expeditions, always in the woods.But what caught Dexter's attention were the walls.They were covered in maps. Not just of Millbrook Park, but of the entire surrounding forest system, going back decades. Hand-drawn routes, marked locations, dates and times noted in Bill's careful handwriting. And scattered among them—symbols. The same symbol that had appeared on Dexter's window, along with others Dexter didn't recognize."You've been tracking it for a long time," Dexter said quietly."Fifty-three years." Bill handed him a mug of coffee strong enough to strip paint. "Sit down, son. There's a lot I need to tell you, and not much time to tell it."They sat at a worn wooden table. Bill pulled out a leather journal, its pages yellowed and dog-eared with use."My father gave me this the day before he died. Same day he told me about the Shadow. I was sixteen." Bill opened the journal carefully. "He made me promise two things: first, that I'd keep watching. Make sure it stayed in the deep woods, away from people. And second, that I'd never tell anyone what I knew unless they'd already seen it for themselves.""Why the secrecy?""Because the last time someone went public about the Shadow, people came with guns. That was 1947. Whole hunting party, twenty men strong, determined to kill whatever was in the woods." Bill turned the journal pages. "They found it, too. Or it found them. Only three men came back. And those three were never right again. Spent the rest of their lives in institutions, talking about shadows that walked like men and eyes that looked into your soul."Dexter felt cold despite the coffee. "What happened to the others?""Never found. Not a trace. No bodies, no blood, no gear. Just... gone." Bill looked up at him. "My father was one of the survivors. He spent thirty years watching the woods after that, trying to understand what they'd encountered. And eventually, he did. Sort of."Bill pulled out a photograph—black and white, faded with age. It showed a clearing in the woods with a circle of stones. In the center of the circle stood a man, his back to the camera. And next to the man, perfectly still, was the Shadow.The creature was different from what Dexter had seen yesterday. Smaller. Its posture less aggressive, more... curious. And the way it stood next to the man suggested not confrontation, but conversation."That's my father," Bill said. "1955. Took him eight years to get to that point. To where the Shadow would approach him willingly.""He communicated with it?""In a fashion. Not with words—it doesn't speak, not in any way we'd recognize. But with gestures. Symbols. Patterns." Bill pulled out more photographs, showing various arrangements of stones and carved symbols. "It has its own language, or something close to it. My father spent years learning to interpret it.""What did it tell him?"Bill was quiet for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "It told him that it's been here longer than the town. Longer than the white settlers. Longer than the Lenape who were here before them. It's part of the woods the same way trees and rivers are part of the woods. And it's... territorial. Not aggressive, usually, but very protective of its space.""Then why does it come close to town every few decades?""That's the question, isn't it?" Bill pulled out another page from his journal—a hand-drawn calendar marked with dates and annotations. "My father tracked the pattern. Every twenty-five to thirty years, regular as clockwork. At first, he thought it was a mating cycle. Then he thought maybe it was migration. But the more he watched, the more he realized—the Shadow comes out when something threatens the balance.""What kind of balance?""The woods. The ecosystem. When humans push too far, take too much, disrupt too deeply—that's when it appears." Bill pointed to the timeline. "1920s—massive logging operation clear-cut fifty acres. The Shadow appeared. 1952—dam construction flooded part of its territory. It appeared. 1978—housing development planned for the eastern forest. It appeared, and suddenly the developers pulled out. Wouldn't say why.""And now?" Dexter asked. "We haven't done any major development recently.""No. But look at this." Bill pulled out a recent topographical survey. "Three months ago, the county approved preliminary drilling for natural gas exploration. Just surveys for now, but the company plans to start hydraulic fracturing next spring. Right in the heart of the old forest."Dexter stared at the map. "You think the Shadow knows?""I think it knows the same way animals know when an earthquake's coming. It senses disruption. And it's responding." Bill closed his journal. "But here's what my father learned that scared him most: the Shadow doesn't just protect its territory. It protects the entire forest. And if it decides humans are too much of a threat..."He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to."Show me your window photos," Bill said.Dexter pulled out his phone and showed him the images of the symbol.Bill went very still. "Where exactly is your apartment?""Corner of Fifth and Maple. Third floor, facing west.""That's two miles from the park. Two miles." Bill set down his coffee cup carefully, as if afraid his hands might shake. "Dexter, in fifty-three years of watching, I have never known the Shadow to leave the forest. Not once. It doesn't venture into town. It doesn't approach buildings. That's an absolute rule.""Then what marked my window?""I don't know. But I know what the symbol means." Bill pulled out a page from his father's journal showing the same circular mark with three radiating lines. "My father called it 'the choosing mark.' It means the Shadow has identified someone as... significant. Someone who needs to be watched. Or warned. Or—""Or what?"Bill met his eyes. "Or claimed."The room felt suddenly colder."What does that mean, claimed?" Dexter asked."My father wasn't entirely sure. But he documented three other instances where people received the mark. Two of them left town immediately and never came back. The third..." Bill hesitated. "The third was Thomas Whitmore. The ranger who found Raymond Cross's arranged body. He got the mark two weeks before he found that clearing. After that, he became obsessed. Spent every night in the woods, trying to find the Shadow again. Said it was calling to him.""And then he retired and moved to Florida.""No. He tried to. Packed his bags, bought a plane ticket, drove to the airport. But he couldn't get on the plane. Physically couldn't make himself leave. Said every time he tried, he'd hear that howl in his head. Feel those eyes watching him." Bill pulled out a letter, yellowed with age. "He wrote to my father six months before he died. Said the Shadow had shown him things. Truths about the forest, about the connection between all living things. Said once you're marked, once you're chosen, you can never really leave. Part of you stays in those woods forever."Dexter's hand unconsciously moved to his chest, as if he could feel the mark burning there even though it was on his window, not his skin."Why me?" he asked quietly."Maybe because you're looking for it. Maybe because you saw it clearly when those hunters couldn't. Maybe because..." Bill pulled out one more photograph from his journal. It showed a young man, maybe twenty-five, standing at the edge of a clearing. The Shadow was visible in the background, watching. "Maybe because this isn't the first time you've encountered it."Dexter looked at the photo more closely. The young man had a familiar face, though Dexter couldn't place why. "Who is that?""My father. 1953." Bill turned the photo over. On the back, in faded ink: "The second time. It remembers me.""Your father had multiple encounters?""Over forty years' worth. And each time, the Shadow recognized him. Responded to him differently than it did to other people. My father believed that once the Shadow marks you, you're connected to it somehow. Bonded." Bill looked out the window at the tree line. "I've been marked too. Happened when I was twenty-five, after my first clear sighting. Woke up to find the symbol carved into my truck door. Been watching the woods ever since.""Does it go away? The connection?""I don't know. My father died with it. I'm seventy-three and I still feel it sometimes—the sense that something's watching from the trees."