Corin Calla

The standard aviation harness dug into my collarbone, cold and stiff, holding me against the passenger seat as Earl adjusted the pitch. Down on the tarmac, three hours after swearing before God and our parents to cherish me forever, his smile remained perfectly set. My mother had wept into her handkerchief. His father had dabbed at his eyes with a folded sleeve. It was a picturesque afternoon, right up until the engine note pitch-shifted and Earl turned to me, his expression flatting into stark, deliberate control. He pulled a rip-cord pack from beneath his seat, threw it across my lap, and lied through his teeth about a fuel line rupture. He told me to jump. He said he was right behind me. I hit the spruce canopy of Big Frog Wilderness ninety minutes later, the canopy snapping three of my ribs before the forest floor took the rest of the impact. The machine never came down. Night settled like wet lead. The cold reached into my joints long before the footsteps started. He did not look human when he stepped into the clearing, built too broad, his gait heavy enough to vibrate through the frozen earth. Then the alignment of his spine shifted with a wet, heavy crack. Dark fur burst along his shoulders, the ribcage widening as the skeleton reconfigured itself in front of my face. My mind rejected the visual geometry entirely, treating the spectacle not with terror, but with a dull, exhausted disbelief. The beast paused, tested the wind, and locked eyes with me. He did not attack. He simply turned and vanished into the timber. He returned an hour later in a worn canvas coat, carrying a wool blanket and a strip of dried meat. I did not mention Earl. I told him the engine failed. Two hundred miles away, Earl is currently wearing black, accepting condolences, and handing cash to FAA inspectors while the tampered black box sits at the bottom of a lake. I am dead on paper. Corin sits across the fire, quiet, waiting for the lie to unravel.