Kirk was happy to have Alicia's sanction, even if she needed Caitlin and Lindsey's assistance to give it. With a “Great! Looking forward to it!” and an “Er...Hope you feel better!” he left them to their decorations.

The decorating went a bit slower from there, as they were quite distracted. Something huge had happened, and discussing and analyzing Kirk's proposal seemed much more important to them than hanging streamers. But slow and steady won the race, and by the time the sun went down the gym had been thoroughly transformed. Strings of white lights highlighted orange and gold streamers, pillars of balloons hung in strategic positions, and the usual harvesty props like pumpkins and a giant wagon wheel were present and accounted for.

Unfortunately, they were missing one thing. One crucial thing, perhaps the most important part of any Harvest decoration. Which was why that night, they found themselves at a farm a few miles outside of town, Alicia's car parked on a dirt road, the four of them looking uncertainly at a barbed wire fence.

“A-are you sure this guy said it's okay if we come and take a hay bale?” worried Caitlin.

Lindsey carefully grabbed the waist-high top wire between two sharp barbs, and pushed it down, lowering it to a little above her knee. She swung one long leg over it, then the other. “Sure I'm sure. I don't see him around, and I doubt he has any cameras out here.”

“That...isn't what I asked,” Caitlin replied. Lindsey held the wire down so Alicia could get over, then Chase was next, and Caitlin was last. “Why can't those student council kids get their own stupid hay bale? We already decorated the gym and hung that banner. Do we have to do everything?”

“Now now, Caitlin. That's no way to act. We have a responsibility as cheerleaders to support Sunnycrest, through thick and thin, no matter the danger. If working together with the student council will foster school unity, if getting this hay bale will help make the dance the best it can be, then we have no other course of action but to comply,” Alicia said nobly. “I'm sure they wouldn't ask for our help unless they really needed it.”

“Or unless they wanted to take advantage of your kindness,” said Caitlin, kicking at a stump of corn stalk. The entire field had been harvested already, leaving only a few stubby remnants of the year's crops. Had they been there in the daytime, it would have been very easy to spot a hay bale, but since it was nighttime, they would have to do some sneaking around.

“What is hay bale, and why need for Harv?” asked Chase.

“You can't do harvest decorating without a hay bale; it's the centerpiece of the whole scene,” Alicia explained.

“Thought that was wag wheel,” replied Chase, confused.

“Exactly, there are two centerpieces. The wagon wheel and the hay bale. These two simple objects scream 'it's harvest season' like nothing else,” said Lindsey. “In fact, if you can get a few of each centerpiece, that's even better.”

“You can't have multiple centerpieces. That's a complete oxymoron,” replied Caitlin. “And I understand the hay bale, but what does a wagon wheel have to do with the harvest season, anyway?”

“Because in the old days, people used wagons to bring their hay to their hay dealer,” answered Lindsey.

“Then why don't people use the entire wagon when they're decorating in a harvest theme? Why just the wheel?”

“Because whole wagons go with an Oregon Trail theme,” answered Alicia. “Not a commonly used party theme but it has the 'whole wagon' on decorating lockdown.”

Chase picked up a horseshoe. “This hay bale?”

“No, but good try!” Alicia said supportively. “A hay bale is like a bunch of cut dead grass or wheat or something, tied together in the shape of a rectangular prism.”

“You'll know it when you see it,” Lindsey assured her.

This was an accurate prediction. Not only did Chase know it when she saw it, she was also the first to spot one. She called out to her friends, then dashed across the darkened field, pouncing on it and holding it tight. “Got hay bale! Quick, get net!”

“We, we don't need a net,” said Alicia, trying not to laugh. “It's not alive.”

Chase got off it, and Caitlin tried to lift one end. “Whoa! It's not that heavy!” she remarked. It was even lighter than Victoria.

Lindsey picked up the other end. “Hey, you're right! Wow, I thought this was gonna take all four of us.”

As they carried the hay bale over to the car, they had to stop before they reached the fence. Standing in front of them, blocking their path, was a cow.

“Hey, outta our way, jerk,” Lindsey told it with a smirk.

Caitlin laughed. “Don't call it a jerk, come on.”

“Does he want our hay?” asked Alicia.

“Pretty sure it's a she,” answered Caitlin, shifting her side of the hay bale from one shoulder to the other and nodding at its udder. “Do cows even eat hay?”

“Chase? You know about animals and nature and stuff,” prodded Lindsey.

But Chase could not answer, for she was frozen in fear. Where the others saw a cow, she saw a four-legged terror, a nightmare on cloven hooves. She saw a...

“G-g-g-ghost!” she screamed.

“Oh, jeez. Not this again,” said Caitlin, concerned. She and Lindsey set down the hay bale, expecting a long exchange. “Chase, that isn't a ghost, it's a— ”

Chase looked over her shoulder, then whirled around. Five or six more ghosts were sneaking up on them from behind, uttering the baleful, tormented groans of the damned. “More ghosts! Whole pack of ghosts!”

“Chase, come on, get a hold of yourself! They're not ghosts! There's no such thing!” implored Alicia.

Chase shook her head. “Are ghosts! Can tell by groans of damned!”

“...You mean that mooing?” asked Lindsey.

The mountain girl summoned whatever courage she could muster against this otherworldly threat. These ghosts could do what they wanted to her, but she would not allow them to hurt her friends. She had put her life on the line for these girls before, and she was fully prepared to do it as many times as it took. “Get to car! I hold them off!” Chase bravely volunteered.

Caitlin was touched, and almost wanted to play along so as not to waste this noble act. “Chase, we really appreciate the gesture, but that's honestly not necessar-oh, god what is she doing?!”

What Chase was doing was uppercutting one of the cows. The blow had so much force that the cow was actually thrown into the air, flipping completely over and landing on its back. Chase roundhouse kicked a second one, then picked up another one by its hind legs, whirled it around, and threw it.

“Ch-ch-chase! Knock it off!” exclaimed Alicia

“They're cows! They're just cows!” shouted Lindsey.

“They eat grass, they don't hurt anybody!” added Caitlin.

But the battle raged on, Chase deaf to everything except the war drum of her pounding heart, and her opponents' throaty battle cries.

A light came on in the distance, causing Caitlin to look up. It was a porch light for a large ranch house. “C-crap! You woke somebody up! Quit it, Chase!”

“What in TARNATION is a-goin' on here?” came a disgruntled voice, projecting cleanly across the cut field. A rifle shot fired unceremoniously into the air told them that while this was a man who asked questions first and shot later, the answers to those questions were not particularly important to him.

“Holy shit!” shouted Lindsey. “Get the hay bale and let's get outta here!”

Caitlin grabbed the other end, and together they heaved it over the fence. The farmer was approaching, the cows Chase was hassling stirring and rising to their feet as he fired another shot. Alicia called out to her. “Come on, Chase! Let's go! Let's go!”

Chase chucked a couple cows at the farmer as parting shots before turning and running. Caitlin and Lindsey were already starting the car, while Alicia was waiting at the fence so she and Chase could help each other over. With another gunshot rattling their eardrums, Chase decided to do it the fast way. She swept Alicia up into her arms in a bridal carry, and leapt clean over the fence with her. Alicia looked a bit stunned as Chase replanted her on the other side, but she managed to get behind the wheel and make their getaway.

......

Agent Stevens did not look up from his paperwork when he heard the knock on the door. “Come in.”

Lara opened the door and walked into the man's temporary office. He did not look at her, either. There was a chair facing him and his desk but Lara did not feel like sitting. She remained standing by the door, hoping that looking uncomfortable would help win his full attention. Finally, he looked up at her, meeting her concerned face with a carefully oblivious smile. “Ah. Boyd, right? Something I can help you with?”

He probably could help her, sure, if he felt like it. But Lara sort of doubted he'd be very cooperative. “Maybe,” she said stiffly. “I need you to clear something up for me.”

Agent Stevens would have had to have been deaf to both her spoken language and her body language to think this was a friendly visit, but he decided it would be best to treat it as one anyway. “Oh? Well, I'll see what I can do.” He gestured at the empty chair. “Why don't you have a seat?”

She neither took the chair nor wasted time in getting her next remark in, knowing that hesitation would make her look like she thought she did something wrong. “It's about the Melissa Chacksfield case.”

He stared at her for a moment, then sighed wearily, and looked back down at the papers. “Ah. I figured as much. You didn't try to go visit her, did you?”

“I did,” she answered brusquely. “I realize you didn't want anyone looking around there, but she's a friend of my daughter's. I thought it was importa-”

“Mmhmm,” he interrupted. It wasn't an angry sound, or a particularly forceful one at all, but it silenced Lara anyway. “I understand, I understand. You don't need to explain yourself to me. What did you want to tell me?”

Her mental cadence thrown off, Lara took a second to reorganize her thoughts. “Well, are you aware that Melissa is not at home with her parents? In fact, they haven't seen her, and don't even know she's been found.”

“I was, in fact, aware of that, Officer Boyd. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, though,” he answered. He still sounded cheery, but there was a curtness to his voice that wasn't there before. “Will that be all?”

“Well, no,” said Boyd, without fear. The man had indicated, not so subtly, that he was ready for this conversation to end, but she was determined to press on anyway. “You told us she was found and was checked out of the hospital to recuperate with her parents. That wasn't true?”

He thought about this. “No, I suppose it wasn't.”

“Has she really been found?”

“Yes, she has.”

The way he could be so calm and unflappable about this unsettled her. “Then why weren't the parents informed? Where is she now? Why did we get that bogus explanation? I don't know how they do things in Washington, but out here in Sunnycrest, this is completely unorthodox.”

Stevens leaned back in his chair, his thick fingers steepled. “I know. I know it is,” he answered. “But it's an unorthodox situation, Boyd. I realize you have plenty of questions, and there's probably many more that you haven't asked yet. However, I am not at liberty to answer them. Just trust that I'm doing everything in my power to get Melissa home to her parents as soon as possible.”

Could she do that? She wanted to trust him. She didn't want to believe that a government agent was capable of something treacherous, like...like whatever crooked thing was happening here.

“I'm, actually, no. I can't leave it at that,” she told him firmly. “As a mother, I can't just take your word on this. I need to see proof that Melissa's alright.”

The man in the black suit sized up the woman standing across from him. His steepled fingers tapped thoughtfully on each other.

Then, they were interrupted. Lara's radio crackled to life. “Officer Boyd?”

She was used to this. At this hour, in a town this small, 'all units respond' pretty much meant 'Officer Boyd respond', so dispatch tended to refer to her by name. “Yeah?” she replied, not taking her eyes off Agent Stevens.

“Disturbance at Jim Bessinger's. Sounds like he's got another chupacabra on his hands,” said the voice with a good-humored tone. “This one took one of his hay bales and he scared it off. Better go check it out.”

Though dispatch sounded amused, Lara definitely was not. Miserable timing, Bessinger, you old nutcase. “Be right there,” she heavily conceded.

Stevens laughed and stood up. “Well, sounds like you've got work to do! Wish we could chat all night, but I'd better let you go.”

He walked over to her. She had more to say, but he silenced her by putting a hand on your shoulder. “You're a good cop, Boyd. I respect that. I really do,” said Agent Stevens, gently, but insistently, showing her to the door. “You're young, but you have good instincts. Both as an officer, and as a mom. I know you're trying to do the right thing here.” He opened the door with a click, and eased her out of it. “But your concerns seem to be somewhat misguided. Your instincts as a mom should be telling you to leave this case alone, not to keep nosing around.”

Lara didn't understand. She turned around and faced him, annoyed. “Oh, they should? And why's that?”

But this aggressive attitude vanished when she saw Stevens' face. Suddenly, he no longer looked cheerful. His expression was grave. His voice was terse and severe. “I know you want the best for Caitlin. It's a hard thing, growing up without a father. But it's a lot harder growing up an orphan.”

Agent Stevens waited just long enough for the horror of this implication to show up on the young woman's face before he shut the door in it.