CRIMSON ALPHA'S TEMPTATION

The rain came down hard, turning the dirt road into a mess of mud and rocks. Lila gripped the steering wheel tighter as her ancient Honda coughed.

"Come on, come on," she whispered, pumping the gas pedal. "Don't you dare die on me now."

But the car had other plans. With one final wheeze, the engine gave out completely.

Lila coasted to the shoulder and slammed her palms against the wheel.

"Damn it!"

She sat there for a moment, listening to the rain hammer against the roof. Her phone showed no signal. Of course. Because nothing about this trip had gone right so far.

Lila grabbed her backpack from the passenger seat and checked inside. Voice recorder, notebook, pepper spray, flashlight. Everything she needed for investigating a story about missing hikers.

Everything except a working car, apparently.

She pulled her hood up and stepped out into the downpour.

The town couldn't be more than two miles away. She'd seen the lights before her car died. Bloodmoon Hollow. Population 847, according to the faded sign she'd passed an hour ago. Small enough that seven people going missing in three months should have made national news.

But it hadn't. Which is exactly why she was here.

Lila started walking, her boots squelching in the mud. At twenty-eight, she'd covered plenty of weird stories for the Tribune. But this one felt different. The locals she'd called all said the same thing: "Don't come here asking questions."

Which only made her more determined.

Twenty minutes later, she stumbled into town soaked to the bone and shivering.

The main street was empty except for one lit building. A diner called Maggie's. Thank God.

She pushed through the door, and a bell chimed overhead.

The conversation stopped immediately.

Five people sat scattered around the small space. An older man at the counter. Two women in a corner booth. A younger guy by the window. And behind the counter, a waitress who looked about sixty.

They all stared at her.

"Hi," Lila said, trying to smile. "My car broke down about two miles out. Any chance someone could call a tow truck?"

The waitress exchanged glances with the old man. "Tow company's closed till morning."

"Oh." Lila's smile faded. "Is there a motel?"

"One. Down the street. Can't miss it."

The waitress turned away, clearly done with the conversation. Lila stood there dripping on the floor, feeling the weight of their stares.

"Thanks," she said, heading back toward the door.

"Miss?"

Lila turned. The waitress was looking at her with something that might have been concerning.

"Stay out of the woods after dark. You hear me? Lock your door tonight."

"I... okay."

Outside, Lila pulled her recorder from her bag and hit record.

"Note to self," she whispered. "These people are terrified of something. Nobody wants to talk. Seven people vanished in three months, all of them hikers who went into the woods. Local police say it's just bad luck. But the way that waitress looked at me..." She paused. "There's a story here. I can feel it."

The motel was exactly as advertised.

Small, run-down, and depressing. But it had a bed and a hot shower, which was all Lila cared about right now.

She paid cash to the bored teenager at the desk and dragged herself to room seven.

After the longest, hottest shower of her life, Lila wrapped herself in a towel and stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Her dark hair hung in wet tangles around her face.

She looked exhausted.

"What are you doing, Lila?" she asked for her reflection.

Her mother had died when she was twelve. A "animal attack" in the woods near their house. They never found what killed her. Never even found most of the body.

Uncle Thorne had raised her after that.

Cold, distant Uncle Thorne who never talked about her mother. Who got weird whenever Lila asked questions.

She'd become a journalist to find answers.

To uncover truths people wanted hidden.

And now here she was, chasing another story about people dying in the woods.

Maybe she had a death wish.

Lila changed into an oversized t-shirt and climbed into bed. The sheets smelled like bleach and old cigarettes, but she was too tired to care.

She was just drifting off when she heard it.

A howl. Long and mournful, coming from somewhere in the woods outside town.

Lila sat up, her heart suddenly pounding.

It came again. Closer this time. And it didn't sound like any dog she'd ever heard.

It was too big. Too wild.

She got out of bed and went to the window, pulling back the thin curtain.

The motel parking lot was empty except for her dead Honda and a few other cars.

Beyond that, she could see the tree line.

Dark and thick and endless.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the forest for just a second.

And that's when she saw them.

Two golden eyes staring right at her from the edge of the trees.

Lila's breath caught in her throat.

The eyes didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched her with an intensity that made her skin crawl.

Another flash of lightning.

The eyes were gone.

Lila moved backward, her legs hitting the bed. She sat down hard, her whole body shaking.

"You're imagining things," she told herself.

"It's just the storm. Just shadows."

But she couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had been watching her was still out there.

Still waiting.

She grabbed her phone even though she knew there was no signal. Her finger hovered over her uncle's name in her contacts. Uncle Thorne, who'd warned her not to come here. Who'd actually sounded scared when she told him about the assignment.

"There are things in this world you don't understand, Lila," he'd said. "Things you're better off not knowing."

She'd laughed it off. Though he was being dramatic.

Now she wasn't so sure.

Lila turned off the lights and got back into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. She kept her eyes on the window, watching for any sign of movement.

The rain continued to fall. The wind howled. And somewhere in the distance, that strange, too-big animal howled back.

She didn't sleep.

And when the first light of dawn finally crept through the curtains, Lila made a decision.

She was going into those woods.

Whatever was out there, whatever had taken those seven people, she was going to find it.

Even if it killed her.

An hour later, Lila stood at the edge of the forest preserve, a hand-drawn map from the motel owner spread across her car hood. X marks showed where each hiker had last been seen.

All in the same area. Deep in the woods.

On private property.

Property owned by someone named Kai Crimson.

She folded the map and stuffed it in her backpack along with her camera and recorder.

The "No Trespassing" signs were everywhere. She ignored them.

The woods swallowed her whole within minutes. The canopy was so thick that even though it was noon, it felt like twilight.

Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

No birds. No insects. Nothing.

Just Lila's footsteps crunching on dead leaves and her own breathing, too loud in her ears.

She'd been walking for twenty minutes when she heard voices.

Male voices. Angry.

Lila crept forward, staying low behind a cluster of rocks.

Two men stood in a clearing ahead. One was huge, wearing torn clothes. The other was... changing.

Lila's hand flew to her mouth to stop the scream.

His body was twisting, bones cracking with sounds that made her stomach turn. His face stretched and reformed. Fur erupted from his skin in waves of black.

In less than thirty seconds, where a man had been standing, there was now a massive wolf.

A wolf that turned its red eyes directly toward her hiding spot.

Lila's recorder slipped from her shaking fingers and hit the ground with a loud crack.

The wolf's ears pricked up.

And then it started running straight at her.