2031
The icy breezy made her ears cold. Eh. She'd live. She was glad to be bundled up. And she was in the zone now. First they needed to clear the snow. Thankfully, the ground was frozen so that nothing would be ruined.
She went to one of the sage brushes and cut some branches. Jill followed, doing the same. Carefully, they brushed away the snow. At least it wasn't thick. They started from the center, working their way out. Despite the cold, she felt herself sweating into her thermals from the work. Not hard, but she was bundled up. The cold on her face became refreshing.
They didn't talk as they worked, though Jacinda was very much aware of her. Finally, a circle maybe twenty feet in diameter was cleared. She studied the space, letting her mind wander, feeling it out. Foot prints covered the ground, along with marks of where a stretcher had been. A slight large discoloration in the dirt indicted where the body had been.
Gradually, patterns began to form, prints of the same size or depth came together, until each of them resolved into a different person. Now she could follow them. The tracks near the stretcher led off past the cleared space to what even the snow couldn't hide as tire tracks. Ambulance. EMTs. Smaller prints had dipped into the place where the body was but then hung back near the edges.
She glanced at Jill, remembered what she said. The family that discovered her. Their feelings about death. She saw what was probably police, bigger, taller men, but even they were hesitant, near the body.
And she saw something else. Bear prints. But smaller, more refined. The depression was not deep either. It clearly had been at the body, the discoloration pattern of the blood consistent with sloppy feeding.
Then it turned, its prints leaving the cleared area. Jacinda followed, using the brush to clear a path, finding each step. Jill was next to her, pausing to look at each newly discovered step. They trekked for what seemed at least an hour. It had not been running.
And then they disappeared. Jacinda went back to the last print, frowning, and cleared a larger area. Gone. Not a bear print in sight.
Instead, there was something else. A naked human foot print.
"Fuck me..."
she whispered. She looked at Jill. The woman was staring at hard, her hand clenching the brush tightly.
A whisper. "I knew it was real....but still."
She looked at Jacinda and there was fear in her eyes. "You grow up with the stories as a kid. Ghost stories we'd tell each other at night around the fire or in our beds. Even when you knew they were exaggerated, when you knew the truth..."
Her words trailed off. Jacinda nodded. "Yeah. I get it. You still wanna do this?"
She didn't mean any insult but anger flashed in Jill's eyes. "I will not run."
Jacinda put out a hand, touched her arm. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just..."
Words left her. She decided to be honest. "I'm a little scared. But yeah, we have a job to do."
She squeezed Jill's arm slightly and then let it drop.
The anger faded from her face and she nodded. "Me too. Ok."
Jacinda knew they needed to work. Work got your mind off of things. Having something to do. "Well let's keep tracking it At least for a while. Then get the car. It'll be slower doing it that way, but I'm freezing my ass off."
Jill laughed, made a point to look. "Nah. It's still there. But I'll make sure it doesn't go anywhere."
Banter. Jokes. It always helped. The stupid emotions- the fear, the worry- all that stuff got pushed in the background. Still there, of course. Fear was useful. But you had to ride it, not let it ride you.
They continued on their way.