The break room at Grisham Lumber smelled like wet sawdust, burnt coffee, and the ghost of lunches past. The hum of the vending machine filled the silence between the clatter of rain outside and the muted roar of the mill beyond the steel door.
An old box TV sat crooked in the corner, showing a static-choked local channel. The weather lady's voice bled through the static, promising another week of "steady drizzle and low temperatures."
In Washington, that was the same as saying the sky was still up.
"A chance of rain, my ass," Jarry muttered, his head leaned back against the chipped drywall. His thermos sat untouched beside him, the coffee already cold.
Across the room, Mr. Peterson sat with a newspaper spread over his knees. The man was a relic of the old days, late sixties, eyes still sharp despite the years, and his body wrapped in a thick flannel shirt and work vest. Gray patches crept out from under his knit cap. He looked like he'd been born in sawdust.
"What was that, Jarry?" Peterson asked without looking up.
"Nothing. Just talking to myself."
Peterson licked his pencil tip and frowned down at the crossword. "Seven-letter word for 'purse.'"
"Handbag."
"Prophecy?"
"Omen."
A pause. The scratch of a pencil.
"What about—"
"Just hand me the damn puzzle," Jarry said with a grin, one eye open.
Peterson chuckled. "You're too damn sharp for your own good."
Jarry shrugged. "My old man used to make me do these. Crosswords, word searches, spelling drills. Said it kept the brain from rotting."
"You win any?"
"A few," Jarry muttered. "Back when I still tried."
Peterson peered over the paper. "You got kids, right?"
Jarry stiffened slightly. "Yeah. Two boys. Kal and Bruce. Twins."
"They live with you?"
A moment of silence. The hum of the vending machine grew louder.
"No," Jarry said flatly. "She won't let me see 'em."
Peterson's eyes softened. "Didn't mean nothin' by it."
"I know," Jarry murmured. His voice cracked slightly. "They're good kids. Kal's into animals. Bruce, he wants to play baseball. I used to take 'em fishing." He smiled faintly, then it died just as fast. "Feels like a lifetime ago."
The break room door groaned open.
"GEILMAN! PETERSON!"
Clark's voice hit like a hammer.
A mountain of a man filled the doorway, stomach first, face flushed, polo shirt dark with sweat. He was technically a "floor supervisor," but everyone knew that just meant he shouted at people for doing their jobs slower than he could. Which was everyone.
Jarry muttered, "Speak of the damn devil…"
"What the hell are you two doin' sittin' around?" Clark barked, chest puffed.
"Taking our break," Peterson said calmly, never looking up.
"Break? You jokin'? We got a double truck of cedar logs comin' in from Enumclaw and I got half the damn floor empty! You think this place runs on its own?"
Jarry chuckled, a low sound that rolled up into a laugh.
Clark blinked. "What's funny?"
"Watchin' your gut wobble like a Jell-O mold," Jarry said, deadpan.
Peterson tried, and failed, to hide a wheeze of laughter behind his hand.
Jarry leaned forward, eyes sharp. "You're not my boss, Clark. We got the same job title. That badge you wear doesn't make you anything but louder. And we're on a fifteen-minute break. Company policy. If you wanna shave that off, I'll expect back pay for every minute you've stolen."
Clark's mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again.
He sputtered something under his breath and turned on his heel, storming out.
"Just… clock in and get back to work!" he threw over his shoulder.
The door slammed behind him.
Jarry exhaled, still riding the adrenaline buzz. "Hell of a way to start the morning."
Peterson folded his crossword neatly. "He'll run outta breath before he runs outta anger."
The clock on the wall ticked past 8:30. Their shift had started at five.
The mill floor was alive when they returned. The heavy rhythm of the conveyor belts thudded underfoot. Forklifts beeped in reverse, their yellow hazard lights spinning slow circles in the dim. The air was thick with sawdust, steam, and the sour tang of pine sap. Giant bandsaws screamed as they tore through timber, their blades biting clean through logs thicker than a man's chest. Every surface was dusted in beige, powder fine as snow, except it burned the lungs when you breathed it in.
Jarry clocked in and pulled his gloves tight.
His job was simple, in theory: inspect, sort, and stack. Keep the lumber moving. Don't lose a finger.
He passed the sorting bay where new guys were running the green chain, sweating, yelling, trying to keep the flow of planks steady as they rattled down the conveyor.
"Yo, Jarry!" a kid shouted, barely twenty. "You hear about the guy up in Kitsap? Got pulled into the chipper?"
Jarry raised a brow. "You're full of shit."
"No, man, it's on the news! Whole mill shut down. They only found—"
Peterson smacked the kid's shoulder as he passed. "Enough horror stories before lunch, huh?"
The kid snickered. "Guess I'll save it for break."
"Save it for never," Jarry said, walking past.
The mill floor was a chorus of clatter and metallic shrieks. Chains dragged logs from the loader pit into the debarked, where stripped wood rolled like corpses through steel jaws. The scent of sap was overwhelming, sweet and raw, mixed with oil and rust.
Jarry worked in rhythm, grab, check, stamp, stack, a trance of motion.
By noon, his back ached, his throat was raw, and his brain was somewhere else entirely.
The twins.
He imagined Kal's face when he'd caught that first trout, the grin with the missing tooth. He imagined Bruce asleep in the truck after a day at the river, clutching that same fishing rod. Then the memory soured. His wife's face, the arguments, the door slamming. Court orders. Restraining distance.
He'd lost more than custody. He'd lost… shape. Purpose.
Now, all he had was the hum of machines and the sting of pine in his nose.
By 2 PM, rain lashed the tin roof. Most guys didn't notice, they were used to it. But the noise changed the rhythm of the floor. You could feel it, that strange beat of thunder blending with the thrum of saws. A few of the veterans, Peterson included, said you could tell when something bad was coming by how the mill sounded in the rain.
The storm muted everything.
By 3:40, it was dark enough that the floodlights flicked on, their glare cutting through the haze of sawdust like fog lamps.
Jarry took another rotation near the log deck, the air damp and cold, his breath visible in bursts. He was moving slow, exhausted, running on muscle memory.
Then — it happened.
Subtle at first.
The rhythmic thump of the conveyors stuttered. A brief hiccup, like a skipped heartbeat.
Then again.
And again.
Then… nothing.
The belts froze.
The roar of the saws fell into silence.
Even the forklifts stopped.
The mill had never been silent in the middle of the day.
Not once.
Every worker froze. Jarry looked toward Peterson, who stood motionless under the catwalk.
"What the hell—" someone shouted, but their voice was swallowed by the stillness.
No hum. No engine. No wind through the vents.
Just the dripping of rain seeping through a cracked window.
The fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, then held.
"Breaker trip?" Peterson called out.
"Can't be," Jarry said. "Backup gen would've kicked on."
He started walking down the main maintenance corridor toward the panel room. The hallway was lined with pipes, steel grating underfoot, the smell of oil and ozone heavy in the air.
Halfway down, the world felt… wrong.
His ears rang faintly, like static buried under his heartbeat. He could hear his own breathing too clearly. The air pressed close, thick.
Then, a sound.
Clunk.
Behind him.
Jarry spun. His flashlight cut across the floor, slicing through dust motes.
Something lay near the edge of the platform.
Pale.
A hand.
He froze.
At first, he thought it was a glove, discarded by some careless worker.
Then the fingers flexed.
Not random. Deliberate.
A twitch, like it was testing its own muscles.
His stomach dropped. His mouth went dry.
He stepped backward slowly, eyes fixed.
Then came a low scraping sound, something dragging against metal, too soft to be machinery, too wet to be tools.
From the shadows beneath the sorting table, something shifted.
"Peterson?" Jarry called, voice hoarse.
No answer.
The fingers curled again, and then another shape slid into the light. An arm. Torn at the elbow. Not severed clean, but frayed, as though something had chewed through it.
The hand twitched once more.
And stopped.
Jarry felt the pulse in his throat thundering. Every survival instinct screamed run.
He did.
Boots slammed metal grating as he tore back toward the main floor, lungs heaving.
He didn't look back, but he didn't have to.
The silence behind him was watching.