Chapter Text
Our story starts in the Cryptonomica. Look past the exhibits, we’ll get back to those later. Follow me into the backroom, but be quiet, our unassuming hero is busy at work.
Cam (L/N) was stacking boxes in the backroom. The Cryptonomica wasn’t really busy unless it was the weekend, so he tried to find something else to do other than dust the exhibits or community college homework. It was a good job, for a nineteen year old with a high school diploma. Kirby was a good boss, he’d inherited the place from Ned Chicane, who had gotten it from Victoria, the original owner. Kirby told Cam that if he stuck around long enough, it'd be his. Cam laughed it off, he’d been working there for three months. It was nice but it wasn’t for forever.
As he lifted the box up to place it on top of the stack, the bottom managed to finally break the yellow tape holding it closed. The contents clattered onto the concrete floor, making a loud thunk noise. “Shit.” Cam was holding the empty box, looking down at the mess on the floor. “Kirby?” He tentatively called out. No answer. Cam breathed a sigh of relief as he began to gather up the contents of the box. Instead of the box being filled with old tax returns or a stuffed bigfoot, the things scattered on the floor had nothing to do with the Cryptonomica or seemingly each other. A nerf gun, fake oscar and a particularly cool but worn forest green cargo coat. The oscar’s head had snapped off after hitting the ground but Cam pushed it aside as he reached for the jacket.
Cam wasn’t a thief, he didn’t consider himself one. But you pick up certain survival skills after a while. Kepler wasn’t the first place Cam would have chosen but being in the national radio quiet zone made it pretty hard for anyone to find you. “This coat isn’t doing anyone any good stuffed in this box.” He reasoned with himself. Cam held up the coat, slipping it around his shoulders. It was big, certainly oversized. It hit midthigh and engulfed his hands. As he started to discard it, his fingers brushed past a patch sewn on the inside. On the right side a patch was sewn in, a pine tree with three stripes behind it, yellow, orange and red. Stitched below it was the words “Pine Guard.” Cam traced his fingers over the patch, feeling a shiver go up his spine.
Fingers itching, he opened up the next box. Journals upon journals filled it to the brim. The one on top was entitled “Pine Guard 1996-2001”. Cam opened it, brushing his fingers down the paper. The first page only had the names Mama, Barclay, Duck, Aubrey, Ned, and Arlo, scrawled down on it. Cam stared at it, mouthing the names. The sound of the door opening creaked through the empty Cryptonomica.
On instinct, Cam quickly wrapped it in the jacket. He emerged from the backroom, returning to the visitor’s desk as Kirby came back in, soaking wet.
“It’s pouring out there.” Kirby shook the water from his hair.
“That must be why we don’t have any customers.” Cam’s heart beat fast in his chest, the jacket shoved into a cubby in the back of the desk.
Kirby laughed. “Yeah, that’s why.” He sighed. “You can head home early if you want. I’m planning on closing up anyway. Anyone all day?”
Cam shook his head. “Maybe we need another Bigfoot video.” He offered up with a smile. It was a joke but Kirby’s shoulders visibly tightened and then relaxed as he turned back around to face Cam. Cam noticed everything about everyone. He could tell if one of the high school kids was planning on stealing by the twitch of their fingers and the shift of their eyes. Kirby was acting weird.
“Yeah. If you ever see Bigfoot in those woods, you tell me alright?”
“You got it.” Cam pulled the jacket from over the counter and tried to slip it into his bag, unnoticed. Kirby looked over. “I’m telling you, it’s cold, rainy and windy out there. You better wear that jacket. I don’t want you calling out from work tomorrow cause you didn’t.”
Cam nodded, slipping it on. Cam waved goodbye, praying Kirby didn’t recognize it. It was raining much too hard for him to look at the journal. His fingers kept grazing over the pages, tucked safely away.
Once in the apartment, Cam discarded the jacket and put some soup in the microwave. Settling down in his armchair, Cam opened the journal.
Unbelievable things filled the pages. Stories of monsters in the forest and a group of people who fought them. Mama, Barclay, Duck, Aubrey, Ned, and Arlo. Cam had always been fascinated with mysteries. Any sort of unexplained phenom was perfect. That video of Bigfoot had led him from Oregon to West Virginia and then to a job at the Cryptonomica. Not because he believed in Bigfoot, mostly ‘cause he needed somewhere to escape to. But Bigfoot didn’t hurt.
An empty bowl sat on the table next to him. The blinds were open but the sky was dark. Cam’s mind scrambled to put the pieces of information together. Each entry wasn’t more than a couple pages. It said the type of monster, what day it appeared, what day it was killed and who killed it. The names Duck, Aubrey, and Ned didn’t appear until late 1997 and Ned was replaced by Arlo in 1999. Sometimes the name “Indrid Cole” would appear. He was more commonly known as “The smiling man”, one of the lamer Virginian cryptids.
In 1999, the entries started having more time between them. January 2001, was the last entry. Technically the last entry. Scrawled on the next page was “Baby found outside of the gate. No more exit or entry. Infant was given to Barclay and Stern.” The handwriting had even changed. Cam flipped through the empty last pages. Nothing else. If this was fake, why wouldn’t there be more information? If this was some sort of joke, why was it hidden in the back of the Cryptonomica?
Cryptids were fun to think about in theory, like “if bigfoot was out there, what do you think he’s doing?” But of course, bigfoot was not out there. Cam stared at the journal. If he returned it tomorrow, that would be that. He could forget all of it or dismiss it as Kirby writing the plot outline of a fanfiction about his boss and friends. Focus on his own problems, he had plenty. Keeping the journal felt like a decision he couldn’t take back.
Cam grabbed a sticky note from his desk and wrote down the dates of when Duck, Aubrey, and Ned’s names started appearing. Kepler was a small town. Cam was sure Ned was Ned Chicane, the owner of the Cryptonomica before Kirby. That would explain the jacket too. He didn’t know about Duck or Aubrey but he intended to find out.
Cam was exhausted the next day but Kirby didn’t seem to notice. There was an exhibit of old newspapers that showed the most interesting things that happened that month throughout the years. Tourists could even buy one if they felt so inclined. That meant that there were boxes upon boxes of old newspapers. The newspapers were sorted by month and not years which made it harder.
“I’m going to get the newspapers ready for next month.” Cam told Kirby as he shrugged off his coat.
“Isn’t it a little early to do that?”
“Eh. Today feels like the perfect rainy day to do it. What else do you pay me the big bucks for?”
“Since when do I pay you the big bucks?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Cam smiled a sort of lopsided grin.
There was one entry that returned something promising. May 1998. It was the second entry that mentioned Duck, Aubrey, and Ned. A newspaper article with the headline. “H2whoa destroyed in freak accident.” It lined up with the journal entry about an abomination that possessed water. The journal mentioned something about the water being contained and then destroyed at a water park, though none was ever mentioned by name. “Calvin Owens” was mentioned as a witness and a target for the monster. He was again, in the newspaper, but not in connection to H2whoa, instead he had a separate section about qualifying for a state swim competition.
Cam clutched the newspaper to his chest, the indescribable feeling of reaching for a memory that was close but inaccessible. Having a word on the tip of his tongue but being unable to spit it out. He pulled the front page out, folding it small enough to fit in his back pocket.
“Who’s Calvin Owens?” Cam asked Kirby, trying to seem casual.
“Hm?” Kirby looked up from the papers he was working on.
“Calvin Owens. He was mentioned in some of the articles. Did you go to school with him?”
“Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. I think he was a freshman when I was a senior. Why?”
“I swam in high school,” Cam lied. “It would be cool if the community college had a team. I thought he could maybe help with that, you know if he’s still in town.”
“Oh. Well he goes to meets at the high school sometimes but I believed he moved away. He was quite a successful swimmer, not olympics, mind you but still impressive…” Kirby continued to ramble on but Cam tuned him out.
“Thanks.”
The newspapers for the other abomination dates weren’t as helpful but he still carefully folded them up and slipped them into his bag. Another article mentioned the Pizza Hut sign falling onto the general store and almost killing the three people inside. Duck Newton had been inside and managed to save the store owner, Leo Tarkesian and a woman named Janice. It had to be the same Duck. Kepler wasn’t big enough to have two people named John, much less Duck.
Spreading the newspaper out on his bedroom floor wasn’t enough. Things weren’t adding up. Cam grabbed a small tin of thumbtacks off his table and grabbed the “H2whoa destroyed in freak accident” article and pinned it in the middle of his wall. Technically, he was not allowed to do that but the safety deposit was a small price to pay. He stared at it, willing more information to appear. Even if this amounted to nothing, Cam had to know.
Sticky notes with the names of who had been involved in each attack were scattered around the article. Finally he pinned up two notes with the Cryponomica and Pine Guard written on them.
Was the Cryponomica where they met up? If it was, Kirby must have known about it, he had been working there since 1996. Who the hell were Mama, Barclay, Duck, Aubrey, and Arlo? They were all members of the Pine Guard but were there others? There must have been, considering how many other journals filled the crates. Aubrey, Ned and Duck joined in 1998 and he wrote that down on their sticky notes.
“Okay,” Cam said, taking a deep breath. “This is certainly something.”
It was late at night, which meant the stores were closed. After searching around in the apple crates that made up his nightstand, Cam found a twisted skein of sage green yarn. It wasn’t red but it would do. Painstakingly, he curled the yarn around the thumbtacks, connecting names and places together. A few more notes were added, including the high school (first known sighting of the water monster), the name Dani, Kirby’s name and “Sylvain”. Cam wasn’t sure if it was the name of a place or a person but it was mentioned, so it meant something. The school had swim meets every Thursday, which meant that was where he was going next.