(It's) Always There
Copyright© 2026 by Daniel Tors
Chapter 5
The fox resituated himself while quickly scanning their surroundings once more, left eye closing soon after as its counterpart went back to peering through the sniper’s scope.
Navy shifted her position as well, switching the leg on which she kneeled to keep the rock under her knee from digging in any more pain, the regular, fierce strikes of lightning across the sky and to usually-distant ground causing her to tense – if less for every crack – and grind further to the tree that was her cover.
Hane and Case appeared in the rural building-cluster’s center area, if only for a moment as they entered the barn ... Navy was still bewildered that Red found a spot where the men could be seen so clearly even from that far up on their wooded hill, and even to her, who didn’t have enhanced sights let-alone ones that went up to times-thirty ... or whatever it was. Not that she could see well, though: the men were little more than dots surrounded by halfway-vague splotches of log structures.
... Briefly, because she really ought to pay attention and play her (superfluous) role, Navy considered if she needed glasses; there were no obvious signs, or at least none obvious enough to bring this up prior, and her mother hadn’t suggested she’d benefit from them, but she also didn’t know if her quality of vision was truly on par. Squinting under a covered sky for the last ten-ish minutes didn’t feel great, though the question came up more as passing thought than an observation something felt off. They were a good while away, she could see them exiting the building fine, details were visible enough for the gap between ... Not like she could get a prescription anyway.
They stood in the open for a moment, slight motion recognized but entirely unreadable. As Hane and Case went to the barn’s side for some reason, Navy tried to look closer, to see what they were doing.
Stiffening his neck in a certain way so it cracked, Red, crouched at eye-level yet keeping his gaze completely forward, instructed her, “Go down and tell Hane I’m staying another thirty.”
Assuming it must be clear, Navy got up to leave while making a temporary imprint of the message she was to give.
“And Navy?” he said, stopping her.
... There was a pause, like he’d started the sentence without fully planning it first. The tone wasn’t unusual for him, nor did he seem to be in deep thought ... It could just be that he spotted movement and had to stop himself a moment while focusing.
Eventually, he continued in a voice she thought identical, though his words were severe regardless of it. Red told her, “ ... Don’t mistake us for the sort that care about you.”
The cadence was that of advice; it wasn’t an order, but a statement of fact Navy ought to consider deeply ... when, exactly? What had she even done to warrant saying something like that? Barely anything at all had happened in the last month, her not getting a word from him since last time they checked somewhere, and that’s the first thing this goddamn fox deigned to tell her? How insufferably up their own ass does someone have to be to...
... Navy gritted her teeth. She didn’t acknowledge to his face what was said, just walked off down the slope.
For a while, her thoughts were mostly indiscernible fuming, verbalized under her breath in fragmented sentences taken straight from the flow of consciousness, their underlying ideas moved past by the time they got out. “Why would ... H-how could you ... It’s not my fault that...”
Letting out a deep, annoyed breath, Navy simmered ... It wasn’t ... The problem wasn’t that he was wrong: she couldn’t prove that – or the opposite, for that fact. The problem, was that Red felt able to lecture Navy on the matter, and had said way more about himself than them in the process. However difficult she found them to read, it had long been made clear what Red’s opinion of her was, to the point she wondered why he said “us” as though she had any delusions of being liked by him. They hadn’t ever told Navy, to her face, that they hated her guts, nor had they ever choked her up to nearly passing out. And – and – she distinctly remembers Red calling her “dead fucking weight” while she still couldn’t even stand right.
He was a prick, and Navy was going to ignore him. Either way, the rustic set of log buildings were nearly arrived at, so she ought to ignore Red.
Entering at what seemed the place’s front, its foremost building a wide and roofless one she didn’t understand the purpose of, Navy found the six structures even more cramped together than they appeared from a distance. Past that first building were two watchtowers, the right was obviously unfinished with little more than stilts and a base, but the left one’s legs actually had wood planks concealing its central ladder, and the platform where watching was done had been roofed and ringed with waist-high sandbags for cover. On either side of the camp stood two weirdly built cabins, half-hexagonal in shape, one door with a hole around eye-level on each of the three sides facing inwards, though the hole was covered from inside – like an optional slot to peek out. The two lodges had been pushed so close that there couldn’t have been more than ... five yards – five-and-a-half-ish at most – of width between them at the narrowest, their innermost third leading to the last structure like a hallway, trucks on deflated wheels covering the small gap available from cabin to barn.
On top front of the hosting-site for animals, which was two floors unlike all the others, was a metal rod, some kind of wire running from it to behind one of the trucks ... reminding Navy that she’d rather go inside – it had double-doors almost spanning the frontside’s lower story like expected, though she went through the man-sized entrance constructed in one of them.
In the barn was dark: all the windows were locked shut, and stairs at the back led to a second floor, the ... floor, of which, was no more than a foot above her, so skylights wouldn’t do much anyway. The thunderstorm continued to rage outside.
Navy passed multiple open, empty livestock pens on both sides of her, a familiar pungent smell of mold and rotting wood stuffing her nose.
Right by the back door, she ascended upstairs, and ... nobody was there. Statue-like at the realization, Navy looked around the attic trying to figure out what had happened, only crates and more closed windows greeting her when Hane and Case should have.
... They’d left, she recalled after some mental searching – Navy had seen them do it, it just wasn’t registered. With a fair deal of chagrin, she turned right back around, and left while chiding herself repeatedly for the misstep.
“Christ ... Moron...”
Entering the correct building this time, the cabin on her left, Navy walked into a sort of workshop for carpentry; she wasn’t versed in the matter, and there were some other things stored in the section, but it mostly seemed to be for that. Hearing their calm intonations one room over, Navy couldn’t help but look around.
In no small part, the long room was packed with generally successful attempts at handmade furniture, spare pen doors, chairs, and the parts to make other some-such strewn about in an orderly manner, the workshop overall readily walkable if a bit tight on space. Flanking a door – locked uncharacteristically with a conventional metal handle – on the back wall (“back” as in facing the barn’s direction) were shelves holding numerous tools of varying size and specialty like saws, hammers, nails, chisels, and sandpaper, along with much more in sturdy plastic containers.
What really caught her eye, though, and what she soon moved to, was a workbench directly opposite where she entered; on it, solely and with nothing around them, were what looked to be plaques, one set apart from the rest. Coming a bit closer to the table (above it a wooden window that seemed – oddly enough – to open upwards and inwards and had a similar peephole design to the doors), Navy found the set of woodwork was masterfully designed – to her untrained eye, at least. On the left were neat stacks totaling around a few dozen, each plaque very congruent in size, about an inch thick, slightly different in the flow of their marks and complexion by nature, polished to fine smoothness, carved with intricate borders, and engraved with simply-styled but deep and highly consistent lettering. On them, or the couple she looked over for a moment, the carpenter had written verses from the Bible, label and all.
“For we live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7”
And another read, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Proverbs 3:3-4”
The one set apart to the right of them was inevitably what most interested her. Picking it up, and feeling its weight, she read, “To my dearest: I take solace in knowing you’ll be given the life you both deserve. To the unknown man: I ask not for apologies, nor do I believe our Lord will. None deserve what was done to you.”
Navy felt more writing on the back, so turned it over. It was done with all the care of what came before. “To my Creator: I don’t know when you’ve designed me to leave. All I ask is that, when I do, you let me say goodbye. To myself: When the time comes, I know His judgment will be quick. When the time comes, may the agony of hell be unrelenting.”
... She flipped the plaque over again, set it down, and adjusted its placement as close to how she found it as possible. Navy ... cleared her throat, and looked around the room again. There was something she ought to do, so the tiger went off to do it.
... Around the corner, the thirds of the cabin only divided by such as opposed to walls, Navy met up with Hane and Case. The commander glanced away from the wall they were inspecting for some reason and in her direction, then asked, “Where’s Red?”
“ ... Oh, uh ... He’ll be staying on watch for another thirty minutes.”
Hane shifted and resettled his jaw, thinking.
He spoke again. “I’m going to sign something to you, and I expect you’ll be able to repeat it. Once you can, go outside, look where you and Red were, show the signs high in the air twice, then check the front building for anything we can eat. When you’re done, find us in the barn. Clear?”
Possibly for longer than acceptable, Navy memorized what she had to do, then nodded. Deliberately placing one hand out front to show he was about to start, Hane signed multiple things somewhat slower than usual while she watched intently. In sequence, he showed three spread fingers, a fist with the thumb beside, a fist with the thumb between the index and middle, a C shape, two digits pointing to the side, a repetition of that sign, his fingers and thumb curled up into a sort of claw, and two fingers crossed.
After a couple seconds, he said, “Repeat.”
Not as smoothly as him, and making quick adjustments more than once, Navy haphazardly pulled each gesture from memory.
His decision took a painfully long time to be made ... but, satisfied enough, he waved her off. Whatever the message was, she left to be messenger – it was probably just an acknowledgment, though Navy did kind of want to know.
Outside, the storm picked up but not by much, lightning and steadily quickening winds as a promise of rain that held just past realization. Navy doubted she’d get the chance to soak in it, for numerous reasons; sounded pleasant though, if not for making her even more conductive.
As Navy turned to figure out where Red was while standing right past the unfinished watchtower, she stopped, seeing something by the foremost building. On its right side were three graves marked by a well-made cross above each, two of them designated with a name while the third had none, their distance too far off to read. Against a wall near them was a rotting skeleton facing away from her, with a rusted shotgun propped on their chest, and no head at all.
She looked away from them. It was ... clear, what had happened; she just didn’t want to see it.
... The only thing necessary was facing his general direction, so it didn’t matter, really, but she spotted around where Red probably was anyway then raised her arm all the way up. The message was given, then again after a few moments ... And Hane hadn’t given her any way to know if he got it, so ... the tiger assumed he did.
As told, she went into the front structure with the hopes of finding something to eat. What exactly searching the place meant wasn’t made clear, and evidently she’d already assumed wrong. It was a farm plot, the walls about eight feet tall or so, high enough to occlude a lot of the hill stretching from her left to front but not enough to do the same for its higher ground, the garden’s width, depth, and lack of a roof as suggestions that failed to clue her in on its purpose earlier. Its bed was sporadically laid out but covered from end to end, minus right next to the walls where rain and sun would have trouble hitting, and had crops of several different kinds in various states of growth – didn’t seem big enough a piece of land to solely live off, however, even if it was all effectively utilized through tending.
Having been ordered to search, Navy took eagerly to her task and preferred it far more so over what she’d guessed, it becoming clear as she did so that fast-growing, hardy greens had taken up most of the space in the garden; some fruits and vegetables were straggling about it different parts, their place in the soil appearing hard-won amongst short, leafy plants she couldn’t dodge stepping on at least a little.
She kneeled down by a spot of more notable occupation and got to examining, her goal being to identify what the plant was and if it could be eaten; lots of edible greens, even vegetables that did have a distinct flowering stage, could appear as nothing more than common shrubbery or weeds to those unaware. Thankfully, Navy had seen (pictures of) them before, so knew what she was doing.
What she identified first – because it was growing everywhere around her and not because she knelt just for it – was arugula, its spear-like shape letting her spot it almost immediately; even without destroying the plants a lot could be harvested then and would grow right back. What she did go to inspect, though, was the set of long, stalky greens lofting above the arugula. Not quite obvious to her what kind of rooted vegetable these would be, a bit of digging through the soft dirt revealed they were parsnips, some grown fully to seeding again while others only just began. In Kentucky’s weather, they could grow just about any time, even in winter, so leaving them untended had, naturally, resulted in them just flowering and planting themselves around about whenever they felt like in the year as the oddities of plant growth became ever more uncontrolled. Within the couple patches of them, Navy could tell some were edible, the vegetable’s two-year lifespan and flowering not necessarily an issue even though they were typically grown and harvested in the same year.
As Navy had a look around – not picking anything without approval as she wasn’t exactly an expert – she found the varieties of plants were numerous. Granted, she couldn’t tell what all of them were due to their different stages, yet it was varied, nevertheless. Exotic, spoon-looking, mustardy tatsoi as well as stiff and toothed parsley were all over, the thick-stalked and distinctive leaves of underground-growing brussels sprouts which probably started earlier in the spring also being found just barely holding their ground in a couple spots; some hanging fruits and whatnot were there too, but she cared less for them as they were easy to identify. From her observations, there was potential for a balanced set – and diet, mostly – of crops, it simply needed a deal of reorganization and care.
In the back corner, her elbows and knees in places they wouldn’t hurt anything, Navy zeroed in on one plant. Because it and its compatriots were so close to the wall, there weren’t as many, meaning she could get a decent view of just it. Still, though, she couldn’t quite figure out if it was mache or spinach – there was a difference, visually, the facts merely escaped her at the time. Careful not to disturb the ... whatever-it-was’s place in the dirt too much, she dug around it to see the roots and hopefully better surmise its identity.
Pretty soon – less than half a foot – her fingers scraped against wood. There was no cut or splinter, only a mild scratch from unknowingly digging straight into it a bit too aggressively. The edge of a crate was revealed with some more excavation, goes at lifting it foiled by the remaining earth on it and her poor leverage; so, enough to get a grip of the lid, plants and their soil were moved aside with the promise of returning them. Clicking in her head that the pile of dirt in the corner probably wasn’t ... extra, or something, Navy got to her knees to take hold of what she’d discovered, the wooden container being about two yards across and probably used for storing garden supplies at one point, and opened it.
Overcast lighting kept her from getting a good look at the innards for a moment, but ... her heart ground to a stop at the smell of iron; others mixed with it, like the scent of earth, copious sweat, and a bathroom right after it was used, though the metallic odor struck her first. What the tiger found panged in her soul, which spoke to her head ... then the shade could conceal no longer what unspeakable thing she knelt over. Everything else faded.
Five men had been stacked without care in the wooden box. Some faced down, to the pool of thick, dark red which had risen to a mark of several inches, gallons of blood soaking their fur, while others faced up with their lifeless eyes, and dead expressions. The man on top had a green bandana stained darker by the open knife wound on his neck, the blood dried but only just so, remaining wetness of spatters across their bodies and clothes glimmering faintly in the light. Through holes in their skulls, Navy could see their brains. On the underside of a decapitated head, his neck blown apart, she could see the tendons and spine that used to hold him together.
Navy couldn’t move, she could only keep looking. Bile fought its way up her throat, beating of the heart picked up and threatened to keep rising until her organs burst, and she couldn’t stop shaking as her hands gradually lost their ability to grip.
These were people. They had been murdered, and buried together. They were still bleeding.
... In one momentous effort, Navy dropped the lid, got to her feet, and burst out the garden’s front door.
“CASE!” she yelled, to the furthest her lungs could provide and louder than she ever had, legs bolting across the grass, nearly tripping through their imperfect, instinctual coordination, that same innate force ripping out of her memory that they were in the barn and not where she’d seen them last. Thunder and lightning impacted in tandem, engulfing her second call for help as the tiger ran straight to the furthest building’s entrance without halt or flinch. Unslowed, Navy hit side-first into the door to stop, hands fumbling with adrenaline to actually work the stubborn handle for agonizing moment after moment.
It gave, she entered, and shut it hard behind her.
Briefly seeing Case rush down the stairs, she turned to lock the door, shivers everywhere in body and thought only worsening that she didn’t immediately comprehend how to do that. In a venomous, hushed tone, he asked from the room’s back while swiftly approaching, “What?”
“I-I-I ... Th-there-the, uh...”
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