Chapter One Highway 6 The rain had stopped hours ago. Not because the storm had ended. Because the storm had simply moved farther out to sea. The sky above: The Sunfall Coast still churned with distant lightning far beyond the dunes, illuminating the horizon in pale flashes every couple of minutes like some dying heartbeat over the ocean. Highway 6 stretched endlessly ahead. Two lanes. Cracked asphalt. Empty darkness. No civilization. No lights. Nothing except dunes, marshland, old utility poles, and whatever lived beyond the headlights. The engine of the: 1936 Spitfire growled low beneath the hood as it pushed through another lonely stretch of highway. The car looked like hell. Faded black paint. Rust chewing at the wheel wells. One headlight slightly dimmer than the other. Duct tape along part of the dashboard. And enough miles on the frame to qualify as a religious relic. Yet somehow: it kept moving. Much like the man driving it. Whisky Sixx sat slouched behind the wheel with one arm resting near the window, cigarette ember glowing softly in the darkness. The radio barely worked. Static hissed between fragments of old music and distant public broadcasts before fading back into noise. His tired eyes flicked toward the clock. 3:07 AM. Three hours from: Omara Three hours from: Coconut City Exactly halfway. The worst place to be on Highway 6. Whisky rubbed his eyes hard with two fingers before exhaling smoke through his beak. He should stop. He knew he should stop. But every instinct in his body screamed: keep driving. Don’t stop here. Not on Highway 6. Not at night. Another flash of lightning illuminated the inside of the car for half a second. And briefly— the large wooden box sitting in the back seat became visible. Covered partially beneath an old military tarp. Bolted shut. Heavy. Old. The sight of it immediately tightened something in Whisky’s chest. His eyes lingered on it longer than they should have. Then he looked back at the road. The highway rolled endlessly forward through darkness. No lights. No cars. No movement. Just asphalt disappearing into blackness. His eyelids felt heavier by the minute. The past three days had blurred together into: gas stations, roadside coffee, rainstorms, and bad sleep. He tightened his grip on the wheel. The box creaked softly behind him. Whisky’s eyes immediately snapped toward the rearview mirror. Silence. Nothing moved. A long moment passed. Then the old suspension groaned quietly as the car hit another dip in the road. “That’s all it was,” he muttered to himself. Probably. The radio crackled violently. Static burst through the speakers loud enough to make him flinch. Then: A cheerful woman’s voice suddenly filled the cabin. “GOOD EVENING TRAVELERS OF THE SUNFALL COAST— remember— fatigue-related hallucinations increase by sixty-two percent after midnight—” Static. “—the Department of Transportation reminds all drivers: if you see movement in the dunes— KEEP DRIVING.” The broadcast dissolved into violent static again. Whisky stared forward silently. “…Cute.” He reached over and shut the radio off entirely. The silence afterward somehow felt worse. The headlights carved through darkness ahead as Highway 6 stretched onward like an infinite scar through the deadlands. Every few miles: something appeared briefly in the distance. Abandoned billboards. Collapsed gas stations. Ruined tourist traps slowly being swallowed by sand. Old military signs faded beyond recognition. Ghosts of places that used to matter. Another flash of lightning. Whisky glanced at the rearview mirror again. The tarp over the box had shifted slightly. He froze. His heartbeat slowed. No. Not possible. The tarp definitely hung lower now than before. Whisky stared at it for several seconds. The inside of the car suddenly felt smaller. Hotter. He looked back to the road. Then immediately back again. The tarp remained still. “…Need sleep,” he muttered. That was all. Just exhaustion. Three hours driving through Sunfall would make anyone start seeing things. Still— his hand unconsciously drifted toward the revolver beneath his jacket. Old habit. The road continued. And continued. And continued. No matter how long he drove, the darkness ahead never seemed closer. The highway signs became stranger too. Bent. Half buried in sand. Some missing letters. Others warning about towns that no longer existed. One sign passed slowly through the headlights: NEXT SERVICE — 86 MILES Below it, someone had spray painted: KEEP MOVING. Whisky’s eyes narrowed slightly. Fresh paint. Not old. Fresh. The cigarette between his fingers had burned almost entirely down unnoticed. He rolled the window slightly and flicked it into the night. For a brief second, the ember spun through darkness beside the car— —and illuminated something standing far off among the dunes. Tall. Thin. Motionless.
