Morning light crept through the blinds of Sheriff Samuel Reeves's office, slicing the stale air into stripes of gold and shadow. The coffee on his desk had gone cold hours ago, but he didn't care. He'd been staring at the coroner's report since dawn, eyes tracing the same impossible words over and over again.
Heart missing. No incisions. No trauma.
He rubbed his temples, exhaling a quiet curse. After twenty years of service in the sleepy town of Redpine, Samuel had seen car wrecks, suicides, bar fights gone too far—but nothing like this. The victim, Thomas Greeley, had been found lifeless on his front porch just two nights ago. No blood, no wounds, no signs of struggle. Just… gone. Like the life had been pulled out of him by something unseen.
A knock at the door broke his thoughts.
"Come in," he called.
Deputy Miller stepped in, hat in hand, looking uneasy. "Sheriff, Mrs. Greeley's waiting in the interview room."
Samuel nodded, folding the coroner's report and tucking it into his jacket pocket. "All right. Let's not keep her waiting."
The station's interview room was small, its walls faded from years of cigarette smoke and nervous tears. Mrs. Greeley sat at the table, her eyes red and swollen, fingers twisting the edge of a handkerchief. She looked older than she had three days ago—grief could do that to a person.
"Mrs. Greeley," Samuel began gently, taking the seat across from her. "I'm sorry to make you go through this, but I need to ask a few more questions about the night Thomas passed."
She nodded, voice trembling. "Anything to help, Sheriff."
"Did Thomas seem… different that day? Anything unusual?"
Her eyes darted to the table. "He'd been… quiet lately. Distant. He said he'd been hearing things—whispers, maybe. Thought it was just the wind in the pines, you know how it gets up on that hill. But that night, he woke up and went outside. I heard him talking to someone, but when I looked… there was no one there."
Samuel's pen stilled on his notepad. "No one?"
She shook her head, tears spilling now. "And then I heard him fall. By the time I got to him—he was just lying there. Eyes open, like he'd seen something that terrified him."
The room fell silent except for the faint hum of the ceiling fan. Samuel had interviewed dozens of grieving widows, but this was different. The way she described it—something about that "whispering wind"—it unsettled him.
He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Mrs. Greeley. We'll do everything we can to find out what happened."
As she stood to leave, she paused, looking back. "Sheriff… do you believe in things you can't explain?"
He hesitated. "I believe in facts, ma'am. And right now, I don't have enough of them."
Her eyes lingered on his face, searching for something—reassurance, maybe faith—but he had neither to give.
Later that afternoon, Samuel drove up to the Greeley residence himself. The house sat on the edge of town, surrounded by dense pine woods that whispered even when there was no wind. He parked near the porch where Thomas's body had been found and stepped out, boots crunching against the gravel.
The coroner's report replayed in his mind as he crouched near the steps. No forced entry. No defensive wounds. No cause of death. Just the missing heart.
The boards where Thomas had fallen were still discolored from the cleanup, a faint mark of something dark that had once been there. But what drew Samuel's attention was a small, circular patch of dirt beside the porch—too perfect, too clean. Like something had rested there for a long time and then vanished.
He bent down, brushing the dirt with his gloved hand. It was cold. Not cool, but cold, as if it hadn't felt sunlight in days.
"What the hell happened here…" he murmured.
Behind him, the wind shifted. For a moment, Samuel thought he heard a voice—soft, distant, threading through the trees. It was gone almost as soon as it came, leaving behind only the faint rustle of pine needles.
He straightened, shaking it off. "Get a grip, Sam. It's just the wind."
Still, he made a note of the sound before heading back to his cruiser.
By dusk, the station was quieter than usual. Most of the deputies had gone home, and the few who remained spoke in hushed tones, as though afraid of stirring the wrong kind of attention.
Samuel poured himself another cup of coffee, ignoring the bitter taste. The case files were spread out across his desk now—photos, reports, statements. And something was beginning to form, though he couldn't yet name it.
He picked up the coroner's report again, rereading the last line:
"Absence of the heart without external trauma. Possible congenital anomaly—though unlikely postmortem."
Unlikely, indeed.
His eyes moved to the photo beside it—Thomas lying motionless, expression frozen somewhere between terror and disbelief.
Samuel leaned back in his chair, exhaling through his nose. "You ever see something like this before, Miller?"
The young deputy glanced up from his paperwork. "No, sir. Folks are saying it's cursed—like something out of those old ghost stories my grandma used to tell."
Samuel gave a dry laugh. "Ghosts don't steal hearts, Miller. People do."
But even as he said it, a chill slid down his spine.
That night, when Samuel finally locked up and stepped outside, the town of Redpine seemed unnaturally still. The streetlamps flickered faintly in the fog, and the distant hum of crickets was drowned beneath a low, almost imperceptible drone—like something vibrating beneath the earth.
He paused beside his car, listening.
Then, from somewhere deep in the woods, a dog howled—long, broken, and frightened.
He looked toward the dark silhouette of the trees, the pines swaying against the moonlight. Something about the sound unsettled him, as though the town itself was holding its breath.
With a final glance toward the forest, Samuel climbed into his car and started the engine. The headlights cut through the mist, and for the briefest moment, he thought he saw a figure standing at the edge of the woods—tall, unmoving, watching.
But when he blinked, it was gone.
The road home stretched empty before him, and the night closed in around the town of Redpine once more.