Sasha Volkov

I knelt and studied the scratches with my light. They weren't random. Someone had carved an arrow into the steel, pointing down and to the left, away …

We ducked behind a boulder and waited. A figure in a soaked rain jacket stumbled past, mud-streaked and shaking. It was a kid, maybe our age, eyes wil…

The room was empty except for muddy bootprints leading to the far wall. Whoever came before us hadn't left through this door. "They went somewhere," P…

I jammed my boot in the gap just before the door slammed. "Grab the box and go!" Marco scooped up the journal and coins. We squeezed out and the heavy…

Vesna looked at the rifle, then at Doru, and made her choice. "You point a gun at me on my mountain," she said, "you'd better know it as well as I do.…

Vesna led them on a chase up the pass she knew by heart, then doubled back below them in the storm. By dawn the three were lost and frostbitten on the…

Vesna pulled the lids off the rest. Four children, smuggled toward the border away from something worse than the cold. She tucked the blankets tighter…

Vesna packed the straw back over the vials, lashed the broken crate shut, and decided she didn't need to know. She hauled the sled the last cold mile …

Vesna chose the short route. She had to clear the slope before the snow loaded any heavier. Halfway across, a low crack rolled down from above, the ex…

At dawn Vesna staggered down to the drop point, frostbitten but alive, every crate still sealed on the sled. Doru's partner paid her in full and stare…

The followers were border officers, and the vials inside were stolen vaccines bound for sick villages on the other side. Doru wasn't a smuggler. He wa…

Vesna stepped out and offered the four a deal: half her pay to guide them safely back down before the storm closed the pass. They were freezing and lo…

Mirren ran. She had buried enough of these to know a waking field when she saw one, and she would not be standing on it when the rest came up. She mad…

The humming rose into a sound like a hundred people groaning at once. Mirren saw the truth: the rowan only quieted one grave at a time, and the field …

Mirren had heard enough ghost-talk to be careful. "Why should I trust you?" she asked. The man wheezed out a laugh. "Because I was the warden before y…

The watchtower stairs were slick with the same dark sap. At the top, a girl in a soldier's coat was hauling on the bell rope, crying, ringing it over …

I obeyed and called the crew up. We counted heads on the lakebed: six went down, seven climbed out. The extra one stood at the back, dripping, wearing…

I refused to go inside. I turned and kicked for the surface, but the lake had gone thick and heavy, like wet cement around my legs. Each kick pulled m…

I climbed past the photos, telling myself faces don't move. At the landing I found a wet trail of small footprints leading into one room. I followed a…

I chose the bare door instead. It opened onto a flooded nursery, toys floating in slow circles. On the far wall, names were scratched deep into the pl…

I squeezed the small hand back, because I'm not a cruel man, and a child shouldn't be alone in the dark. The grip tightened, then more hands found me:…

We backed out the way we came. But the kitchen had changed. The table was gone, and in its place stood the family of four, perfectly still, facing the…

I grabbed Reyes and pulled with everything I had. The gray hand let go, but it had left its mark: five long scratches that wouldn't stop bleeding. We …

I read their message twice, then I ran out of air. As my vision narrowed, the family helped me up gently and walked me to the table. They pulled out t…

Edda steps over the warm threshold and into the burned house. The fire crew waves her back, but she pushes upstairs to room 9. The door is locked. She…

Edda kneels in front of the crying woman. 'You're not in trouble,' she says softly. The woman whispers, 'We promised. We all promised never to say her…

Mr. Halloran suddenly snatches the ledger back. 'There were only ever eight,' he says, too fast. 'I miscounted the keys one year, that's all.' But his…

Edda says the name out loud to the survivors: 'Dahlia.' Every head snaps up. The crying woman gasps. An old man mutters, 'You shouldn't have found tha…

At 2:15, nothing kills her. Calder, rattled by her stillness, moves first and fires his device. But because Vesna stayed perfectly still and never loc…

Vesna walks to Calder and shows him the crack. "We can't both win. But maybe we can both close it." They aim their devices not at each other but at th…