The moon was a slivered, cynical smirk in a sky choked with fast-moving clouds. Midnight found Alex at the trailhead, the air so cold it felt brittle. Jenkins was already there, a silhouette more solid than the surrounding pines. He'd exchanged his work clothes for matte-grey camouflage gear. In the gloom, he looked less like an old man and more like a gnarled piece of the landscape itself, armed and waiting.
No words were exchanged. Jenkins simply nodded, shouldered his pack, and moved into the woods. Alex followed, the crossbow a familiar, chilling weight across his back. They didn't take a trail. Jenkins led them on a route known only to him, a winding path through deadfalls and thickets where the only sounds were their own muffled footfalls, the sigh of the wind, and the occasional, distant cry of a night bird that sounded too much like a stifled scream.
The "granite scree" Jenkins had mentioned was a mile-long slope of treacherous, shifting rock that clawed at their hands and threatened to turn an ankle with every step. They moved with agonizing slowness, Jenkins setting a relentless, silent pace. Alex's muscles burned, his breath pluming in the frigid air. The forest here felt different—older, denser, and watchful in a way that had nothing to do with the Covenant. The trees seemed to lean in, their branches like bony fingers.
After an hour of brutal ascent, Jenkins halted, holding up a fist. They crouched. Ahead, the trees thinned, opening onto a sharp decline. Below them lay the Weeping Hollow.
It was a bowl-shaped depression a quarter-mile across, shrouded in a low, ground-hugging mist that glowed faintly in the starlight. Dozens of small geothermal vents pocked the floor, releasing plumes of steam that swirled in the eddies of cold air, creating a spectral, dancing landscape. It was warmer here; the snow that dusted the surrounding ridges was absent, replaced by patches of sickly, pale moss and thorny brambles. The air smelled of sulfur and damp earth, undercut by that now-familiar, coppery tang of wildness.
And it was not empty.
At the far eastern entrance, where the old logging road entered the hollow, two black, windowless vans were parked, their engines off. Figures moved around them with the efficient, quiet purpose of a military operation. Alex counted six, maybe seven. They wore dark tactical gear, not uniforms, but the uniformity was telling. One was setting up a tripod-mounted device with a parabolic dish. Another scanned the mist with a handheld unit that cast a faint, pulsing green light.
"Thermal and sonic array," Jenkins breathed into Alex's ear, his voice barely a vibration. "They're mapping the hollow in real-time, looking for the heat bloom."
As if on cue, the man with the handheld unit gestured sharply. The focus shifted to the northern edge of the hollow, where a cluster of large, moss-covered boulders huddled near a steaming vent.
A new figure emerged from behind one of the vans. Even at this distance, Alex recognized the precise, economical movements: Jason Carver. He was dressed in identical tactical gear but wore it with the authority of a commander. He examined the scanner's display, then pointed toward the boulders. Two of his operatives began moving, fanning out in a practiced flanking maneuver. They carried long, rifle-like devices—tranquilizer guns.
"They've found it," Jenkins muttered. "Or him. Or her."
Alex's heart hammered against his ribs. He peered through the mist, straining to see. For a long moment, there was nothing. Then, a shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom between the boulders.
It was smaller than the Beast Alex had encountered, its form less coherent. It moved on all fours in a skittering, pained gait, its shape flickering in the mist—sometimes wolf-like, sometimes horribly human in its contortions. A low, continuous whine, like a wounded dog, drifted up to their position. It was a sound of pure misery.
Is that Lily? The thought was a knife twist. He couldn't tell. The thing was a silhouette of suffering.
"Moon-Touched," Jenkins confirmed, his voice grim. "Early to mid-stage. The volatility is high. It's confused, in pain."
Below, the Covenant operatives were closing the net. The one with the sonic array aimed the dish. A low, sub-audible thrum vibrated through the ground, so deep Alex felt it in his teeth. The creature in the mist shuddered, its whine cutting off into a choked snarl. It staggered, disoriented. The sonic suppressant was working.
"Now," Jenkins said, his voice losing all whisper, becoming flat and hard. "Or they have it."
He didn't wait for Alex's agreement. He slid a block of his homemade putty from his pack, embedded a small detonator, and lit the fuse with a silent electric igniter. He judged the wind for a half-second, then hurled it in a high, arcing lob not at the operatives, but at the cluster of geothermal vents twenty yards to their left.
The explosion was not loud. It was a deep, wet THUMP that shook the ground. But its effect was instantaneous. The vent it struck wasn't just a steam release; it was a fragile crust over a mud pot. The concussion ruptured it. A geyser of boiling water, mud, and superheated steam erupted skyward with a horrific roar, showering the area in scalding debris.
Chaos erupted below. The operatives dove for cover, their clean flanking maneuver shattered. The sonic array operator was knocked off his feet. The thrumming suppression ceased.
The Moon-Touched creature, released from the sonic pressure, let out a shriek of rage and terror. It bolted, not towards the operatives, but deeper into the maze of mist and boulders.
"Go! Go! Go!" Carver's voice, amplified by a headset, sliced through the din. "Contain it! Do not lose the subject!"
Jenkins was already moving, slinging his crossbow and scrambling down the scree slope with a reckless, goat-like agility. "Flush it towards the southern track! There's thicker cover there!"
Alex followed, half-sliding, half-falling down the unstable slope, stones clattering around him. They hit the floor of the hollow at a run, the warm, sulfurous mist closing around them like a wet blanket. The world shrank to a circle of visibility ten feet across.
A shape loomed out of the fog to their right—an operative, his face obscured by a gas mask, raising his tranquilizer rifle. Jenkins didn't break stride. He brought his crossbow up in one fluid motion and fired. There was a soft thwump, not the crack of a gunshot. The operative grunted, looking down at the glass ampoule embedded in his thigh plate. A second later, he screamed—a raw, shocking sound of agony—and collapsed, clawing at his leg as the colloidal silver seared into him.
They ran past him. Alex's blood was ice and fire. He'd just seen a man shot. We're in it now.
Ahead, they heard crashing in the undergrowth—the fleeing creature. To their left, shouts and the crackle of radio static as the Covenant team tried to regroup.
"There! The track!" Jenkins veered, Alex on his heels. They burst out of the mist onto the overgrown southern logging track. And there, trapped between them and two advancing operatives who had cut it off, was the Moon-Touched.
It was cornered. Up close, the horror was absolute. Patches of mottled fur fought with stretches of weeping, human skin. One arm ended in a malformed, clawed hand, the other was twisted, almost useless. Its face was a nightmare mask—a elongated muzzle failing to fully form over a human mouth set in a rictus of pain and fury. But the eyes… the eyes were human. Wide, brown, and swimming with a terror so profound it froze Alex in his tracks.
Lily.
It was unrecognizable, and yet it was. The florist who loved sunlight and roses was gone, but a fragment of her soul was trapped behind those eyes, screaming.
"Lily!" The name tore from Alex's throat.
The creature—Lily—flinched at the sound, a flicker of confusion cutting through the rage. The two operatives seized the moment, raising their rifles.
"NO!" Alex roared. He didn't think. He raised his crossbow, aimed at the operative on the left, and fired.
He missed. The bolt hissed past the man's shoulder and shattered against a tree. But it was enough. Both operatives spun towards this new threat.
Jenkins was faster. He fired twice in rapid succession. One bolt glanced off a Kevlar vest. The second took the second operative in the shoulder joint. The man shrieked, dropping his rifle.
The distraction was all Lily needed. With a final, heart-rending snarl that was part wolf, part sob, she turned and plunged off the track, disappearing into the impenetrable wall of brambles and mist.
"Subject fleeing west! Lost visual!" one of the operatives yelled into his mic.
From the mist behind them, Carver's voice, cold with fury, answered. "Abort the capture. Secure the area. Apprehend the interlopers. I want them alive. They have just become primary subjects."
Jenkins grabbed Alex's arm. "Time's up. Run!"
They ran back the way they came, into the blinding, choking mist. Behind them, they heard the sounds of pursuit—boots on gravel, snapping branches, curt commands.
They were no longer rescuers. They were the hunted. And the Covenant had just upgraded them from nuisance to prize. The field test had failed. But the night's work was far from over.