Every last dish had been dried and put away, the floor swept clean, and the table wiped off. Niabi sat in her pajamas on the couch, and they were finishing up Tim Burton's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.

Atsa chuckled as she said, "they'd have to kick me out of that place. I'd come out of there with more than a stomachache and candy, I'd also have type-two diabetes." The movie finished and Niabi, though reluctantly, rushed off to bed. Atsa kissed her goodnight and bid farewell to her son, and daughter-in-law.

With the door at her back, Atsa glanced around one last time, and started her car with the key fob. The headlights flashed on, and she peered at the daunting mountain range glaring back at her. Her skin began to crawl as she stepped out of the home, and once the door shut, she felt naked in the cool desert air.

The sound of laughter and television were replaced by gales of wind carried from the west. Her jacket flapped open as her hair was pushed around. Left idling, the Forester doors clicked as they unlocked. Atsa walked out from the porch and toward her car. For reasons she couldn't explain, her heart began to race, and she felt as though tunnel vision was circling in on her.

Atsa glanced over her shoulder, only to see tumble weeds passing across the desert. As she grabbed the handle of the Forester door, she looked into the back of her car. Nothing. Nothing was there. A sigh escaped her lungs as she opened the door and sat down. She was wrong. Something was there, and she had yet to discover it.

Dohasan and Sarah finally had a moment to relax. Though they had only one child, that one child was still a handful. A few hours have passed since Atsa left, and Dohasan thought nothing of it. He stood in the bathroom, in front of a large vanity mirror, brushing his teeth. Work begins tomorrow at five in the morning, and knowing that it's already eleven at night, he has accepted that tomorrow is going to be a groggy and painful day.

Sarah stood in front of the bedroom window, staring at two blaring red lights in the distance. For a moment she thought she could hear a horn but wasn't too sure. She turned around and called for her husband.

She said, "honey, come here. Do you hear a car horn?" Dohasan left the bathroom and crossed to the other side of their bedroom toward Sarah. He stopped brushing, and for a moment he heard it.

He said, "are those lights, is that a car?" While searching for his phone, he spat out the toothpaste into the sink and rinsed his mouth with water. He called his mother, but she did not answer.

Sarah hurried out of the bedroom, only to return a moment later with a pair of binoculars. Dohasan dialed again to no avail. In the few brief moments he spent trying to call his mother, Sarah studied the two red lights. Her stomach sank once she understood what she was looking at. She passed the binoculars to her husband. He looked through and shouted, "that's a Forester, mom's car!"

The Skinwalker had already picked her bones clean. All that remained was Atsa's dried out skin. It studied the trail it left behind in the desert. A shallow pool and speckles of crimson were near the Forester, leaving behind a trail to its new den. It knew that it would need to cover that trail.

As the Skinwalker sat, he transformed back into his human form. The skin of the walker was milky white, and he had very long black hair. Eyes, deep and brown, scanned the desert as he felt the brush of dust pass between his fingers. This man, a hunter, a shaman, a murderer, has forgotten who he was.

His name? He doesn't know. Family? Forgotten. Heritage? Erased. Does he know that he is no longer a man, but a beast in disguise? Does he know that he hunts his descendants, and that he has taken the life of his distant granddaughter? He does not and could not. The only thing this Skinwalker knows is hunger. A hunger that can never be satisfied. A fitting punishment for the crime he committed many lifetimes ago.

Though he is unaware of his past, he is alert to the present. He crawled deep into the wet cave and removed the skin of a bear. Slipping its skull over his head, the Skinwalker covered himself with the bear's skin. Patches of fur were missing, and the edges of the dried-out skin were frayed. Once the bear's skin touched his own, his bones began to shift.

Fur grew from the pores of his skin as his bones rearranged. Muscles expanded while he hunched over and emitted guttural groans. His hands swelled as his nails became black claws and heavy. The Skinwalker moaned in agony, at first resembling a man and then a bear. His transformation was complete. He left his cold and damp cave to erase his trail.

Dohasan slipped on his work boots, and a thin jacket. He stood in the doorway, glaring at the Forester—a quarter mile down the road. The horn blared much louder now that he had opened the door, and the night air felt cool against his skin. Carrying his phone, flashlight, and a crowbar, he marched toward the Forester.

Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed Sarah standing in the doorway, leaning to one side, arms folded—waiting. His phone buzzed in his hand; a new text message had been received. It read, not going anywhere, don't worry. Dohasan nodded and slipped his phone into his pocket.

As the distance between him and the Forester closed, he aimed the flashlight toward the vehicle and clicked it on. A yellow beam of light illuminated the vast desert, revealing small rocks, bramble bushes, dead trees, and cacti—none of which gave any clues to Atsa's whereabouts. He pointed the flashlight at the Forester, slowing his pace as he cautiously flanked to the right of it. The flashlight revealed little and told no secrets about Atsa's disappearance.

As he surveyed the front of the vehicle, he realized that the front bumper was in good condition, suggesting that perhaps the Forester had rolled into the boulder. While studying the interior of the Forester, he saw a stick wedged into the seat and pushing into the horn. Though he felt relief knowing his mother's vehicle wasn't involved in a crash, he felt this sour feeling in his stomach. 

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