I hear a faint creaking.

Something white and bulbous-looking emerges from behind one of the trees. My eyes have adjusted well enough to the night that I can make it out despite the dim lighting.

It’s built the way humans are. Arms and legs. A dark head resembling a rat’s nest, frozen against the air. But there is no face, just a stark whiteness that gleams, and with a strange depression at its center, a slight concaved twist to its lack of features. There are no hands, just a mimicry of the branches it hides against, long and gnarled and curled. I do not think that it has feet. It looks like a bleached white tree, but with long, moving, human hair.

I remember Goatee’s fear, the way his eyes started when he saw the figure among the trees. The solemn girl who had stared back at him had looked like a different creature entirely, but she had tilted her head in the same way this being does, shuffles like it did.

It stops moving, content to stand and watch us.

Askal doesn’t bark. He simply plants himself a few feet in front of us like he could shield Chase and me from this thing.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say. Chase’s too busy looking down at the corpse tree to realize there is something else nearby. I reach out and give his sleeve a light tug. He starts at that, reddens, and then steps away in silent agreement.

When we are far enough away from the circle of lanterns, I risk a look back. This time there is nothing among the trees. Askal lets out a low, satisfied bark.

Chase doesn’t say much as he follows me back to the cabin he now shares with his father, and neither do I. The place is ablaze with light from within, the complete opposite of the cabins beside it. I pause by the door, waiting as he fumbles with the key, accidentally dropping his phone in his haste. Askal reacts to the phone worse than he responded to the tree-like creature, growling and barking as if warning it away before he hunts it down. His shaggy body blocks Chase’s path and his attempts to reach for it.

I bend down to pick it up for him. The screen is aglow. He’s posted a picture of himself online—bare-chested and grinning, looking smug. The waves behind him and the setting sun tell me he took this sometime after the sinkhole but before dinner.

At one of the most secluded and most exclusive beaches in the world with a new love and new opportunities, his caption reads. Don’t know what the future will bring. In the meantime—take a look at that view.

He must be popular, because the number of likes and replies are still rising as I look on. One of the latter caught my eye—answer my call!!! by someone named RileySmiley—and the growing comments gathered underneath it, some supportive and others mocking, indicate a debate has been going on for some time now.