4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Someone Else Knows
Joel Gibbons lies dead in a delivery truck outside Luke's Berriedale home. Gladys and Beatrix Cramer are covered in blood, clutching a manifest and unravelling explanations. Then a man appears in the driveway—someone who knows Luke's name without introduction, who examines the body with unsettling calm, who says he's been "waiting." Four people stand around Joel's corpse. Someone knows what happened. Someone knows too much. Someone isn't telling the truth.
Joel Gibbons is dead. His throat has been slit, his body cooling in the back of his own delivery truck parked in Luke Smith's driveway. Gladys Cramer stands nearby with blood on her shoes she claims is wine. Her sister Beatrix is covered in red. Luke hovers over the corpse, piecing together a story—tents delivered, dogs running through an impossible Portal, Joel seeing what he shouldn't have seen.
Then someone else arrives.
A man who calls Gladys by name. Who knows Luke without introduction. Who climbs into the truck and examines Joel's wound like he's done this before. Who says, cryptically, "We've been waiting for you." His presence transforms panic into calculation—suddenly there are plans, deliveries to complete, a manifest to recover from Joel's pocket, a body to dispose of through dimensions.
But questions multiply faster than answers. Who is this man? How does he know so much? What did Joel actually see? And as four people standing around a corpse begin to move in careful coordination, one truth becomes inescapable: someone knows what really happened. The question is—who? And what else do they know?
