Chapter 55 The longest night

Chapter 55 The longest night
The watch schedule was the same as always.

Chen and Marcus took first shift, eight to eleven. Brooks and Lisa would take second, eleven to one. Eli and Mara would handle the longest stretch, one AM until dawn.

But tonight felt different. Everyone was too weak, too defeated to maintain proper vigilance. People moved through the motions without purpose—checking windows they'd checked a hundred times, gripping weapons that wouldn't work against what hunted them, staring into darkness that stared back.

The cabin had become a tomb they still breathed in.

First Shift - Chen and Marcus (8 PM - 11 PM)

Chen positioned herself at the front window, Marcus at the side. The scratching outside was minimal tonight, just occasional sounds, like fingernails on wood, patient and unhurried.

The dead bodies stood in their circle, perfectly still again. Sixteen of them, watching with white eyes that never blinked.

For the first hour, neither Chen nor Marcus spoke. What was there to say? They'd exhausted every plan, every strategy, and every hope. Now they just existed, waiting for whatever came next.

Around nine PM, Chen's shoulders sagged. "I don't know what to do anymore."

Marcus glanced at her. "Captain?"

"I don't know what to do," Chen repeated, her voice cracking. "I'm a captain. I'm supposed to have answers. I'm supposed to lead, to protect, to solve problems. But I have nothing. No answers. No solutions. Just... nothing."

Marcus was quiet for a moment. "None of us have answers. We're all just... waiting."

"For what? To die?" Chen turned to look at him. "That's what we're doing, isn't it? Just waiting to die. Pretending we're fighting when really we're just prolonging the inevitable."

"Maybe."

"You're supposed to tell me I'm wrong," Chen said bitterly. "You're supposed to say we still have a chance."

"Do we?" Marcus asked simply.

Chen turned back to the window, unable to answer.

They fell into silence again. Outside, the temperature continued to drop. Frost formed on the windows in patterns that looked almost like writing, symbols neither of them could read.

Around nine-thirty, Chen spoke again. "I have a daughter, Emma. She's seven. Her favorite color is purple and she's obsessed with dinosaurs." Chen's voice was distant, as she was remembering. "She asked me not to go on this rescue mission. She said she had a bad feeling. I told her mommy had to help people. That it was my job."

"You couldn't have known," Marcus said.

"Couldn't I?" Chen looked at him. "The distress call was wrong from the start. The coordinates were off. The timeline didn't make sense. I knew something was strange, but I came anyway because that's what you do. You respond. You help." She paused. "Now Emma's going to grow up without a mother."

Marcus didn't tell her she was wrong. They both knew the truth that they weren't getting out of here. Emma would grow up without her mother. Just like Marcus's parents would never see him again. Just like everyone they'd left behind would grieve and wonder what had happened.

"I have a brother," Marcus said quietly. "Had a brother. Michael. He died in Iraq because I ran. Because I was a coward." He stared out at the darkness. "I became an EMT to make up for that. To save enough people that maybe the scales would balance. But they never do, do they? You can't bring back the dead by saving the living."

"No," Chen agreed. "You can't."

They talked about their families then. About lives they'd never get back to. Chen's daughter's school plays and birthday parties. Marcus's parents' disappointment when he'd left medical school. Small, ordinary things that seemed precious now that they were lost forever.

Around ten PM, Chen stopped mid-sentence. "Do you hear that?"

Marcus tilted his head, listening. At first, nothing but the usual sounds, scratching, wind, and the cabin's settling groans. Then he heard a song. It came faint and distant, like a child's lullaby. High-pitched, sweet, and completely wrong in this place.

"What is that?" Marcus whispered.

"I don't know." Chen's hand tightened on her rifle. "Should we..."

"No." Marcus's voice was firm. "We don't investigate. We stay here. We stay safe."

The singing continued, drifting through the forest. No words they could make out, just a melody that made Chen's heart tighten. It sounded innocent, like the kind of song a mother might sing to help a child sleep. But here, in this place, it was horrifying.

The singing got slightly closer. Not approaching the cabin directly, but circling it. Moving through the trees where the dead bodies stood.

Neither Chen nor Marcus went to investigate. They just listened, tracking the sound as it moved around the perimeter. After twenty minutes, it faded again, disappearing into the depths of the forest.

"Should we tell the others?" Marcus asked.

Chen shook her head. "What good would it do? Just give them one more thing to be terrified of."

They finished their shift in tense silence, both listening for the singing to return. It didn't.

But Chen couldn't stop hearing it in her head—that sweet, innocent melody that promised nightmares.

Second Shift - Brooks and Lisa (11 PM - 1 AM)

Brooks took Chen's position at the front window. Lisa took Marcus's at the side. They switched off with minimal words, just nods of acknowledgment.

The cabin was colder now. Their breath misted thickly. Ice had formed on the inside of some windows, despite the fire burning in the hearth.

Brooks stared out at the forest, at the dead bodies standing in their circle. He could see David clearly—his partner, and his friend, just standing there motionlessly, dead but not dead. Transformed into something else.

"I keep thinking he's going to come to the door," Brooks said suddenly. "That he'll knock and ask to be let in again. That I'll hear his voice saying he's cold, asking for help."

"You can't think like that," Lisa said from her window. "You'll drive yourself crazy."

"Maybe crazy is better than this." Brooks's voice was hollow. "At least crazy people don't know how hopeless everything is. At least they can live in delusion."

"We're not crazy. We're trapped. There's a difference."

"Is there?" Brooks turned to look at her. "Because I'm starting to think sanity is the real prison. If I could just break, just lose it completely, maybe I wouldn't feel this... this constant dread."

Lisa didn't respond. She didn't have words to comfort him, because she understood. She felt it too—that desire to just stop understanding, stop feeling, stop being aware of how doomed they all were.