Ethan Grant, Park Ranger

Moss flattens beneath my boot, and I pause.

Is that… humming?

I tip my head to the side, holding my breath.

That’s humming.

I start walking again.

Lonely Peak State Park is practically my home. I spend more time here than at my house, and I know every square foot of it.

So I know that out here, at the border of the park, there shouldn’t be anyone.

At least not someone who can produce a high, girly hum.

The pine and aspen trees are thick in this part of the forest, filtering the afternoon June sun and forcing me to duck under another low branch as I follow the sound.

Jack, the old man who owns the place on the other side of the park border, should’ve been back weeks ago.

He always disappears for the colder months, claiming he’s gotten too old for winters in the Colorado Rockies.

But he still spends more time here than not in the summer.

Which, for Jack, starts in May. So he should’ve been here already.

But he’s not.

I know he’s not because I’ve been checking.

The humming stops.

I stop.

Silence stretches.

The humming starts again, quieter, farther away. And I continue my stride.

A moment later, the old barbed wire fence that separates state park property from Jack’s comes into view.

I stop again.

The fence is just as shitty as it was the last time I saw it. The wooden posts have seen better days. The center strand of wire is sagging. But the top wire…

I take a step. Then another.

Is that a fucking ribbon?

I take two more steps, reach out, and touch the purple ribbon wrapped around the top strand of barbed wire.

What the fuck?

I look to my right.

The ribbon extends down the wire a dozen feet, ending in a bow around a fence post.

I look to my left, toward the humming.

The ribbon continues, bows tied around each post, disappearing from sight, into the trees.

This is park property. The fence, the land. No way did Jack put this up.

It’s the girliest vandalism I’ve ever seen. And harmless or not, it doesn’t belong.

I grip the ribbon and tug.

The surprisingly sturdy fabric snags on a barb.

I pull the switchblade out of my pocket and slice through the ribbon.

I tug on the cut piece.

It snags again.

I grit my teeth and slowly walk along the fence, unwinding the ribbon from the barbed wire.

What sort of person would spend the time required to do this?

It snags again. I cut it again.

Jack wouldn’t do this. And I’ve never known him to bring a woman out here. So whoever is here is trespassing. And defacing public property.

I continue down the fence line.

Unwind. Snag. Cut. Repeat.

My irritation grows with every step, and all the while, the humming persists.

I don’t recognize the song, but it sounds off-key.

On the other side of the fence, but still out of sight, is Jack’s gravel driveway. It’s only about thirty feet away, but the forest extends past the fence, and where the tree line finally ends, the ground slopes downhill, toward Jack’s house, so none of it is visible from here.

Which again begs the question, who would decorate a fence you can only see when you’re standing next to it?

I take another step.

Unwind another foot of fucking ribbon.

Cut it.

Carry on.

The humming continues.

Jack’s driveway is over a quarter mile long, and it makes a ninety-degree turn halfway down, so if you’re coming from the road, you can’t see the house until you’re practically on top of it.

But Jack has a multitude of no trespassing signs that start at the mailbox.

So even if somebody turned down the driveway by mistake, it’s obvious this is private property.

I slice another length of ribbon, flip my blade closed, and slide my knife into my pocket.

The rest of this purple bullshit can wait. I need to know who’s here.

Careful not to catch my clothes, I duck between the top two strands of wire, officially leaving park land.

My brain focuses on the humming.

Did someone break into Jack’s place?

Am I gonna have to kick out squatters?

A few strides later, I’m out of the trees, and Jack’s driveway comes into view.

It rained this morning. Not enough to wash away the tire tracks that I’d swear weren’t here last time. But enough to leave little murky puddles in the uneven surface.

I take another step and lift my gaze.

Jack’s front door is open.

The garage door is open.

His truck is parked half in, half out of the garage.

But it’s not Jack I see in front of the house.

Standing with their back to me is a stranger. And they’re hanging…

I narrow my eyes.

Is that a string of fucking crystals?

No, it’s definitely not Jack hanging crystals from a tree branch.

It’s a woman.

A woman with long lilac hair curling past her bare shoulders.

A woman in a pink dress so short that when she reaches up as high as she can to hang another string of crystals, I can see her underwear.

Bright white, full-coverage cotton panties.

They shouldn’t be sexy.

They’re not sexy.

But the plump ass they’re plastered to…

The soft, curvy body that’s wearing them…

The expanse of smooth bare legs below them…

I swallow.

Then I feel like a total creeper.

Dragging my eyes away from the stranger’s ass, I sweep my gaze over the property.

It doesn’t look like the front door was broken in.

There are no signs of anyone else. No vehicles except Jack’s old pickup.

But there is… stuff. Like the cardboard moving boxes visible through the open door.

What the fuck is going on?

If Jack sold the place, I’d know about it.

If he sold this place, everyone would know about it. Lonely isn’t a large town. And even though we aren’t all buddies around here, news travels fast. And a house going up for sale is considered news.

Looking at the front of the house, left to right, you see the window over the kitchen sink.

The front door with two low concrete steps leading up to it.

A trio of windows that look into the living room, with a pair of bushes under the first and third windows—the middle one died a few years back.

Next is the single bedroom with the single bathroom, but the view of that is blocked by the garage, which is attached to the front of the house. Making the structure an L shape.

The driveway comes up from behind the garage and continues all the way to the front door. There aren’t really lawns at elevation this high. The growing season is short, and grass grows in clumps. But scattered around on either side of the driveway are a handful of trees.

And each and every one of them has strings of crystals hanging from their branches.

I shake my head.

The humming stops, and my attention moves back to the woman.

She bends down, grabbing something out of the box at her feet. Simultaneously flashing her panty-covered ass at me again.

My body reacts on its own.

My stomach clenching. My chest heating.

And it pisses me off.

This nonsense ends now.

“Who are you?” My voice comes out too loud in the quiet.

The woman lets out a scream, obviously startled by my appearance.

She spins to face me and something shiny flings from her hand.

I’m too far away to do anything, so I just watch as her foot—covered in a little yellow shoe—catches on a rock.

Her pretty hair flies around her face, obscuring my first glimpse of her features. And she loses her balance.

The shiny thing lands in a muddy puddle with a splash.

And I continue to stand, helpless, as the woman in the pink party dress falls onto the rough gravel.