He looked at the encrypted PDF. It asked for a password. He tried his sisters' birthdays, their mother’s maiden name, the name of the family dog. Incorrect. Incorrect. Incorrect.
Julian looked down at the floor. Beneath his swivel chair, one of the planks was slightly askew. The Choice Download File Allison Fiona.zip
"Did you like the files, Jules?" the voice on the other end was deep, distorted by a modulator. "The zip file is a mirror. Everything you just downloaded—the audio, the coordinates, the report—it’s not a record of the past. It’s a schedule." He looked at the encrypted PDF
Julian opened the audio file first. Static hissed through his speakers, followed by the sound of wind over water. Then, a voice—thin, breathless, and unmistakably Fiona’s—whispered: "He’s looking for the third one, Jules. He thinks we still have it." Incorrect
Julian plugged the GPS log into a mapping tool. The coordinates didn't lead to the lake house. They led to a remote stretch of the Blackwood Ridge—a place the locals called "The Dead Drop" because of how often hikers vanished there.
"Where are they?" Julian shouted, his hand trembling on the mouse.
In the summer of 2016, the three of them had found three strange, obsidian-like coins in the woods. They’d called them their "lucky charms." Allison took one. Fiona took one. Julian had thrown his into the lake in a fit of superstitious fear. He typed: Obsidian3