The Crossing

While following a loose thread in Dylan Holt’s case, Mags and Amy stumble into a system that was never meant to be noticed. 

As buried records surface and old names along with them, the line between past and present blurs. And just when it feels like they’ve found their footing, a call in the night pulls them toward a place no one crosses without consequence.

Transcript

Murder Girls is created, written, and produced by Eternal Teenager. Content warning. This episode contains themes that may be distressing for some listeners, including sudden death, implied suicide and staged accidents, drug use and addiction, grief and unresolved trauma, mental health struggles, including seizures and medication nonadherence. There are no graphic depictions, but the episode deals heavily with loss, institutional harm, and the emotional aftermath of violence, as well as profanity throughout. Listener discretion is advised.

Previously on Murder Girls.

Okay, so the Calhouns.

Everyone has a different story about them. Nothing lines up. What's your take? The Calhouns are our county's favorite ghost story.

They were one of the older families in the county. Quite powerful, actually, but they fell during the Great Depression. Financial ruin.

We heard about that.

Families scattered now.

Yes, though. Families don't disappear, they redistribute.

The name might be gone, but the descendants are still out there. Okay, who do we have here? Mavis Beals. Hospital Social Services Intake Coordinator, 1959-1975. Standard employment stuff. Performance reviews, payroll records.

What are you doing?

Looking at the photos I took of Mavis Beals' file. The hospital social worker? Yeah. Oh, oh, wow.

What is it?

Her medical file reference number has that extra numerical tag, that same local subsystem the weirdos clocked. Same as Danielle's, same as Anson's.

No way.

So Dylan marked the file, but she's not in the same age range as those files from the wellness initiative, right?

Right, which means, I mean, I don't know what it means.

It's definitely a whole lot of something. Oh, hey, it's the business card or phone card, phone number card or whatever it is. I'm calling it.

Now?

Yes, now.

Amy.

It's ringing.

I can hear it. Whoa, what the fuck?

Holy shit.

Is that?

A pay phone.

And Dee Dee has a camera watching it.

And it fucking turns on when someone calls the number.

Where is that? Where is that phone? What the actual fuck?

Murder Girls, episode 16, The Crossing.

Avalon Falls is full of dead things that still hum if you know where to listen. Old wires, old grudges, old phones that shouldn't ring anymore. When that monitor lit up in my aunt's basement, I realized something important. The past wasn't done with us. It was calling back.

What the actual fuck, Mags?

Yeah.

What the actual fuck?

You said that. I mean, I even said that earlier.

Yeah, well, it fucking bears repeating in this case, doesn't it? Enough.

Okay, okay, let's think.

We called a number we found on a weird not business card from Dylan's stuff.

Turns out the number works.

It really does.

And it also turns out Didi has a camera pointed at the phone.

That activates when someone uses the phone or calls it. I mean, as a story beat in some show, that's pretty rad, but experiencing it for real is...

A lot, yes, yeah.

So many questions about this.

Start with the obvious one. Location. Where is it?

Hell?

Don't think we can prove that one, friend, but let's try again.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Listen, you hear that?

Water.

Yeah, like a lot of it.

Sounds brackish.

Brackish?

Yes, brackish.

How can you tell?

It's self-evident.

Alrighty, so not river, then tidal.

Exactly. If it's in Avalon Falls, it's the docks.

That's harbor sound. I know that rhythm.

Okay, so we know the general area, but that camera angle is tight. It's framed for faces, not location.

The docks is a big area. Gonna be hard to pin it down. I don't remember ever seeing a payphone over there.

Didi's indexing system. Every camera has an ID. The IDs are grouped by location. It's intuitive once you get the logic. Hundreds of feeds, but she organized them by quadrant, then sublocation, then specific camera. Searches by location, time, date. She made it easy on purpose. Like she wanted someone to be able to use it after her. And maybe she did. Okay, this camera is HD7 Harbor District. So yes, the docks.

Whoa, shit, it turned off.

Motion activated probably, or sound activated. No call, no movement, it goes to sleep.

One way to find out.

Amy.

Come on, gotta test your theory, almost Dr. Park.

We don't know who else might be watching.

Fair point, but I think it is we who are the creepers in this creepy scenario, buddy.

So we know it's at the docks, but not the exact spot.

We could search for it. Public records, dock plans, blueprints.

I'm sensing another madcap trip to ye olde town hall.

Payphone locations aren't usually in public records, especially in 2025.

Internet search? There's got to be, like, payphone enthusiasts? People who document this stuff?

Payphone enthusiasts.

Don't look at me like that. There are train enthusiasts, bridge enthusiasts, manhole cover enthusiasts.

You're not wrong.

I'm never wrong about weird niche hobbyists. It's one of my weird niche hobbies.

Okay, okay. Why did Dylan have the number for this weird fucked up payphone in the Ninth Circle of Hell? And why was Dee Dee watching it?

I mean, surveillance was her thing.

Dylan is probably more revealing. Why did he have that number?

Who would he call there?

We could find out. If Dee Dee was recording the camera feed...

There should be archives.

Okay, HD7 archives, sorted by date.

Holy shit. There's years of footage here. Like maybe five or six years.

My eyes scan the dates. Years of timestamps. Years of Dee Dee watching, waiting, recording. And then I see it. A file dated Monday, the day Dylan was murdered. Whoa.

I see it.

The timestamp. That's within the window of Dylan's murder.

That's all up in the window, dude.

It's not far-fetched to assume, given everything that led us here, that...

That it could be the killer?

Yeah.

We have to watch it.

I know. Some doors, once you open them, you can't close, you can't unsee, you can't unknow. Amy and I learned that when we were 12.

Here we go. I can't see. The angle's wrong. They're facing away.

Wait.

Who is that?

Can you boost the audio?

Trying.

Don't tell anyone until I get back. I'll clean it up.

That voice.

I can't, wowsers. Holy, holy fucking shit.

Thomas Holt.

Thomas Holt, the family's fixer. The man who sent flowers to Walter with a message that felt like a funeral arrangement for the living. The man whose reputation runs on whispers and disappearances. Standing at a mysterious payphone at the docks. Only a few minutes after Dylan Holt collapsed and died. The audio is muddy at best, but there is definitely no visual doubt that it is Thomas.

That's him. That's Thomas Holt.

Yes.

At the docks that night.

Yes.

Which means he didn't just hear about it later.

No.

So we don't pretend this is nothing.

I'm not pretending.

Good, because this is the kind of thing that gets buried.

Or the kind of thing that gets you buried. We don't know.

We know Dylan was blowing up the Omnia deal, whether he wanted to or not. And that Thomas fixes those kinds of problems.

We don't know if he's the one who actually...

Thomas was at the docks at the same time as Dylan's murder that happened at the docks. Why else would he be there at the same time, Mags?

Obviously, this doesn't look good.

Thomas Holt doesn't just wander the docks at midnight. He goes places to end things.

Or to clean them up. In the end, we can't use it. Not right now. Not like this.

What?

Think about it. What do we do with this?

We don't take this to Carter. I know that. But this isn't just nothing. Someone would take it seriously.

Anyone who believes us can't protect us. And anyone who can protect us won't believe us.

So we leak it.

And explain why Thomas Holt now knows exactly where we got it. If we move on this now, He knows.

And if he knows, he doesn't just scare us.

He removes us.

I hate that you're right.

I hate that I am too.

So we wait.

We wait. And we learn where that phone actually is. I watch the fight drain out of her. Not because she's given up. Amy O'Connell doesn't give up. But because she's doing the math. The same ugly math I did. And she's arriving at the same answer. We're not powerless, but we're not powerful either. Not yet.

I need air. Like actual outside air, not basement surveillance layer air.

Yes, all of that, definitely.

And you know what? I should put my prescription in for my meds. Pharmacy closes at nine.

Nice, okay.

I want to re-up early, you know, get ahead of it for once instead of scrambling at the last minute like a disaster goblin.

Responsible Amy is pretty hot.

I don't know, maybe?

Okay, pharmacy run, fresh air, then what?

Then we come back and figure out how to survive Thomas Holt long enough to stop him.

Epic, solid plan.

I thought so.

The footage weighs heavy on us, not because it explains anything, but because it means the game has changed. We crossed a line we can't uncross, and whatever comes next, it's not going to stay buried.

Fresh air, that's what we said we needed. And yeah, okay, technically the air out here is the same air that's everywhere else in Avalon Falls. Damp, salty, vaguely disappointed in you. But it's not basement air. It's not, we just watched Thomas Holt maybe confess to murder on grainy surveillance footage air. So, improvement? Okay, why a payphone?

Untraceable.

Yeah, but so is a burner. Burners move, payphones don't, that's a choice.

No metadata, no cell towers logging your location.

Except Dee Dee clocked it anyway.

Thomas didn't know about the camera.

Thomas doesn't know about a lot of things. That's what makes this fun.

Right, fun.

Come on, you know what I mean.

What if it's not about hiding? What if it's habit?

A secret family phone? Gross.

It sounds crazy when you say it like that.

Everything in this town only sounds crazy if you pretend it's normal. That doesn't make it wrong. If Dee Dee has years of footage, then it's not just Thomas. Or just Dylan.

Other people use that phone regularly enough that Dee Dee thought it was worth watching. For years.

Family emergency line? Or like a dead drop, but for voices.

Something you use when you don't want a record anywhere.

Except Dee Dee made a record anyway.

Dee Dee believed in receipts.

Okay. We can look more into it when we get back.

Agreed. Pharmacy first.

Pharmacy first. Bergman's RX. Tlaquah County's very own version of a chain pharmacy. Fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look like they're recovering from something. Isles of things you didn't know you needed until you're standing in front of them at 8 p.m. on a Thursday. It's run by the Bergman's, obviously, one of the original families. Which is ironic, because this fluorescent temple of melatonin gummies is the only place in town that's ever actually helped me. Also, I exclusively use their perfume samples as my perfume. I won't apologize for that. Hey, hey, Dr. Nguyen, my favorite person who gets to decide whether my brain behaves. Dr. Lin Nguyen, 27, which means she's basically a medical prodigy, because becoming a pharmacist takes approximately 900 years.

Amy O'Connell, you're early.

Yeah, you know, I'm trying a new lifestyle choice. It's called not tempting fate.

That's my favorite one. So, are we looking for a Lamotrigine refill?

Yep, same dose as before, right? No changes?

Yes, that's right. Hmm, this refill timing tells me you haven't been taking it consistently.

She's had two seizures this week.

Okay. Any injuries?

Just my pride.

That heals faster. You know this works best when it's boring, right?

Yeah. Well, I hate boring.

I know, I know. But boring keeps you conscious and healthy, so we can all continue to enjoy your wild and unboring presence, okay?

Here's the thing about being called out gently. It still lands.

Dr. Tanaka's last notes look stable. This doesn't change the plan. It just means we stick to it.

I will. I promise.

Good. I'll have it ready tomorrow morning. Tennis.

You're a hero.

I'm a pharmacist. If anything feels off, anything, you call me. Not Reddit. Not WebMD. Me.

Okay, okay. Copy that.

And you?

We'll make sure she eats, sleeps, takes the pills.

Then I feel better already.

She's very calm.

Yeah, that's her thing.

You okay?

I feel fine. Better than fine, actually. This is what better feels like. Being responsible, making the right call, keeping things in order. The light's doing that thing it does. That Pacific Northwest thing where the sun takes forever to actually set, like it's reconsidering. The sky's all pink and orange and bruised purple at the edges. It's almost pretty enough to forget where we are. Almost. Okay, okay, okay, fearless feedback time, Mags?

Uh-oh.

So, if I hadn't followed Dylan and had a seizure and Dylan hadn't gotten murdered?

Yeah?

Would you have even called me?

I don't know.

I would have called you.

You would have shown up at loose ends.

That's what I meant. You know what we'd be doing right now, if none of this happened?

I know I want to hear what you think would happen.

Monday we panic, Tuesday we fight.

Probably a lot of yelling.

Wednesday we remember we like each other.

And Thursday?

Thursday we leave.

California.

California. It was always the plan. Since we were kids, get out of Avalon Falls. Get away from the rain and the fog and the generational trauma. Live in the sun.

You think we'd really leave?

I think by Thursday, you'd have talked yourself into it. You know, made a spreadsheet, found the most efficient route.

I would have made too many playlists.

And I would have made fun of all of them. And then secretly loved, like, every single one.

Yeah, you would have. You still want that? Do you not?

I don't know what I want.

I haven't known for a while. But...

But?

That version of Thursday doesn't sound bad.

Oh my god.

Chills, dude.

Chills.

Okay, okay. Don't make it weird.

It's weird. I like it weird. I'm making it weird forever.

You're the worst.

And yet you'd still get in the car.

I mean, I made all those playlists.

Oh my god.

The twilight's tipping in tonight, streetlights flickering on one by one, and we're just walking together. If you're lucky, you get a moment where everything almost makes sense. Where the weight lifts just enough that you can breathe. Where the person next to you feels like exactly the right person, in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time. We were walking in tonight, pretending it would let us keep it.

The pharmacy's near the boardwalk, which means we have to pass it. I remember watching this place die. Storefronts boarded up one by one. The kind of collapse that feels slow until you realize it's already over. This isn't that, this is what comes after, a reanimation dressed up as a resurrection.

Check it out, the new and improved Avalon Falls Boardwalk, brought to you by people who definitely have your best interests at heart.

Wow.

Right?

It's been gutted and rebuilt. String lights, reclaimed wood, curated charm that looks organic and costs a fortune. There's an artisanal ice cream place where the bait shop used to be, a farm-to-table restaurant with Edison bulbs, a cocktail bar called The Salty Dog that definitely hired a branding firm. When did all of this happen?

Rolled out over the last year or so. The original is pumping money in to pretty up the town for the Omnia deal.

So the future employees have somewhere nice to get overpriced tacos.

Exactly. It's not like the fishermen or what's left of them can afford to eat there unless, you know, something's gone very right or very wrong.

It's impressive in that soulless way redevelopment always is. But there's something underneath it. A sense that if the Omnia deal falls through, this whole place becomes a ghost town with really good lighting.

Huh. That's a fuckload of news vans.

Up ahead, the boardwalk opens into a small plaza, and it's crawling with press. News vans with satellite dishes, reporters checking their hair and phone cameras. A stage being assembled. Folding chairs arranged in neat rows. Flowers everywhere. What is all this?

Oh yeah, it's like memorial prep, I think, for Dylan. The town's doing some kind of public thing tomorrow.

Separate from the funeral?

Funeral's a funeral. This is performance, for the cameras, for the narrative.

The town showing the originals, they know who's in control.

Oh, hey, you know what we should do?

I know that tone.

We should 100% talk to some of these reporters. You know, get the scoop, the word, the deets, the lowdown, all that stuff, maybe more. Who knows?

Amy, we can't just walk up to reporters and start asking, oh, you're going to do it anyway, so just go, go.

I mean, obviously. Hi, sorry, Eileen Donnelly. Nay Walsh, yeah, my mom never forgave him.

Uh, hi Eileen, I'm Cheryl, KPNW.

Oh, I love your station. Very informative, good weather guy. He's doing the whole, like, jolly older dude thing.

Thanks, he's actually kind of a nightmare, but I'll pass that along.

Aren't they all Cheryl? Aren't they all?

You local?

Born and raised, well, born here, raised on the wrong side of the river, moved away, moved back during the pandemic.

Like everyone else.

Exactly like everyone else. My aunt Bridget used to work at the ferry terminal, actually, before the accident. Not the ferry accident or the terminal accident, just, like, her accident. We don't really talk about it, though. Uh, so has the family said anything yet?

Not officially. They're asking for privacy.

Right, right, no doubt, no doubt. So, like, is it private-private or, like, you know, the other kind of private, whatever that one is called?

Depends who you are.

Which means there's a statement coming. Uh, hello, I'm Margaret? Park Parker.

Why not?

Margaret Park Parker.

She hyphenated it after the divorce. Revenge renaming is all the rage these days.

Uh, so, there's definitely going to be a statement. For sure. Just not yet.

Are they doing anything before the service? Like, private gathering, family only?

There's talk of something tonight. Nothing we're invited to. Saw a motorcade go by on the way out of town earlier.

Interesting.

Yeah, well, welcome to money, I guess.

More like welcome to Avalon Falls.

Same thing.

You know, some of us have been covering this town for 15 years. It's not all just...

Generational corruption and performative grief.

I was going to say complicated.

Sure you were.

What about Amber Holt? She usually shows up when cameras do.

Yeah, that's actually the weird part.

Weird how?

No calls back, no comment, no boilerplate.

Which is unusual for her.

How so?

She's very good at cameras.

That lands. I think about the last time we saw Jake. Nervous, chain smoking behind the sloppy otter. He mentioned Amber wasn't returning his calls or texts. At the time, it seemed like relationship drama. Now it feels like something else. Sheriff Carter still saying no suspects?

Active investigation. Yeah, same script as always.

And dust off the old no threat to the community nugget.

Naturally.

That usually means they've already decided who the threat is.

That's a very specific read.

Well, you know, I am very specific.

Uh.

Uh, hey, so, is Omnia still moving forward with everything?

Seems like, yeah.

It's all still officially unofficial and vice versa?

As far as they're saying or not saying, I guess.

Even now.

Especially now.

That's the indictment. No one says it out loud. They don't have to. Dylan Holt is dead and the machine keeps turning. Grief is inconvenient. Money waits for no one.

Off the record, what are people whispering?

Off the record?

Yes.

As I declared, it's off the record.

People think this gets contained however it needs to be.

A producer nearby squints at me, then at Amy, then back at me. Hey, isn't she? Nope. Margaret Park Parker out.

Wait, are you?

Concerned locals, huge fans of journalism. Love what you're doing with the lights.

Hey, hey, wait!

Holy shit, was that?

Okay, but I nailed that.

They recognized us.

They recognized us at the end. Before that, flawless.

Where did that even come from?

Oh, what, Eileen? Come on, Mags. It should come as absolutely no surprise that I have several aliases tucked up my sleeves, just ready to go.

That wasn't an alias, that was a legend.

Thank you, I know.

No, a legend. Con artist terminology, a whole person. Backstory, emotional posture, family trauma. You didn't make it up. You unpacked it. Oh, cool.

Anyway, don't let me talk to cops.

We take the back way to loose ends, side streets, alleys. It's not quite running, but it's not leisurely either. Let's call it freestyle jogging.

So Amber Holt's gone dark.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Feels like something for sure.

Jake said she wasn't answering his calls. I thought it was just drama. Yep.

Well, she did blackmail the entire family the other day. Remember?

Right. Her going dark is starting to feel more sinister than mournful.

Maybe. Omnia is not slowing down. The family's circling wagons, and the funeral is tomorrow. It's still Thursday, dude. Holy fuck.

That producer's face stays with me. The moment recognition clicked. We've been back less than a week, and the town already remembers exactly who we are. Some stories don't need retelling. They just need you to come home.

We return to Lucens, up to the apartment for a quick regroup, and then back after it. Okay, but Eileen Donnelly-Neywalsh is going in the Hall of Fame. That's gold, good lady, gold.

Yeah.

She's quieter than she should be. I've been riding the adrenaline from the boardwalk, but Mags, Mags looks like someone pulled the plug. Hey, you okay?

Yeah, I just...

Today was insane.

Today was several days of insanity in a trench coat pretending to be a single day.

That's accurate.

I'm fried, Amy. If I don't reset, I'm going to be useless.

Oh, shit. Okay.

I just need a shower. Ten minutes, then I'll be human again.

You'll be Mags Park. That's better than human.

Okay, uh, shower time. Yeah, okay.

I get it. We've been running on fume since when? Monday, 2013. It's Thursday. That's four days of murder and conspiracy and ghosts, literal and otherwise, and exactly zero days of actually processing any of it. I should be tired too. I am tired, but there's this thing that happens when I'm running on empty. I don't slow down. I speed up. Like if I stop moving, everything I've been out running will finally catch up. The balcony. I need air. Different air than the boardwalk. Quieter air. There's a moment right after the adrenaline burns off where your body lies to you. It tells you you're steady now, that whatever almost broke you didn't. From up here, the town looks smaller, manageable. The fog thins when you're not standing inside it. For the first time all week, I feel like I'm ahead of things, not calm, just not drowning. I call that control.

You're thinking very loudly.

You always say that like it's a flaw.

It's a feature, just one that overheats.

He's just there, like he always is, when things slow down enough for me to notice I'm tired. Mags is in the shower. I figured fresh air would be almost as good. She's fried, we both are.

Yeah, that tracks.

I went to the pharmacy.

I know.

Yeah, I reupped my prescription. I'm gonna take it properly. I'm actually going to try.

Good. I'm really glad to hear that, Amethyst.

You always wanted that, I know.

I always wanted you alive. The rest was logistics.

This probably means...

Yeah, I know.

You'll be around less.

Or not at all. It doesn't mean I disappear. It just means you don't need me the same way.

That still sounds like disappearing.

It sounds like you're standing on your own two feet.

I want to believe that's the same thing.

Just don't confuse support for control.

I'm not.

I didn't say you were.

I said be careful.

Careful of what?

Of thinking that because the bone is set, the damage is gone. Of thinking structure means nothing can break again.

Yeah, you're doing the thing.

I know.

I don't need the nuance right now.

Fair.

I don't want this place to take me. I see what it does to people. The fog, the ghosts. You stay long enough, and it decides who you are.

You're not a casualty.

I don't know if that's true.

It is if someone still expects you to show up.

You do. I always have, and I don't think I'm the only one.

The sound of the shower turned off pulls me back into my body. Well, I should probably... He's gone. I knew that would happen. That doesn't make it easier. I know he'll be back, at least for a little while longer. I tell myself this is what getting better feels like. Quiet, settled. I tell myself I'm in control now. That's the story I'm choosing.

Hot water does what panic can't, it puts your body back where your brain can find it. 10 minutes ago, I was running on fumes and adrenaline and whatever weird chemical cocktail your body makes when it thinks you're about to die or have to talk to the press. Now I'm upright, breathing, capable. That feels like progress, that's always the trick. I sit on the edge of the tub and let my head catch up. The case is still there, Thomas Holt is still out there, tomorrow is still coming whether I'm ready or not. But for the first time all day, I don't feel like I'm actively failing. Dee Dee used to call this the reset.

You're pacing.

I'm not.

You are Maggie Mae.

I literally am not. I'm sitting, on a chair, at a table, in a cafe, in Seattle. Pacing not included.

I know you're physically sitting here, but you're intellectually pacing. That's so much worse than physically pacing.

Oh, fine, everything's messed up. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Good, then don't do anything yet.

That's not helpful. It's extremely helpful.

You just don't like it.

Clarity doesn't show up when you chase it.

It shows up when it's ready.

Okay, my favorite why is Wonderful Tiny Ant. What if it never shows up?

Then you stay put until it does.

What if staying put is the wrong choice?

Then it'll become obvious eventually. Wrong things always do.

Here, hold your cup.

Why?

Because it helps to have your hands full while you wait.

No pacing required.

That was her gift, making waiting feel like wisdom. I stand up, wrap the towel tighter. I feel steadier than I did before the shower. Like I could go back downstairs and be useful again. Like I don't have to decide anything tonight. I tell myself that's patience, that it's smart to wait until things make sense. I don't ask what happens if they never do. Amy's still out on the balcony, the night air drifting in, the town doing what it always does, pretending nothing's wrong. I fold the towel, turn off the light, tell myself I'll know when it's time. That's what Dee Dee would have said. Basements are for secrets, they always have been storage, confessionals, panic rooms, and if that's true, then this basement is Mount Olympus.

Okay, what are we pretending we're working on first?

Thomas Holt, the payphone, anything that makes this feel normal.

Ah yes, normal murder-adjacent activities right right.

I tell myself I'm just organizing, that I'm being responsible. That's the lie you tell right before you poke the bruise. Hey, remember Mavis Beals?

The intake coordinator with the weird number tattooed on her paperwork? Yeah. Hard to forget. But, uh, I did forget her. Like until now when you mentioned her, anyway, you were saying…

Dylan flagged her file. She's got that same ID tag structure as Danielle. As Anson. The one the weirdos found. Which means either coincidence just got very aggressive.

Or, or it's no coincidence.

Exactly.

Terrible investigative discipline check?

Absolutely. Okay, not deep web, not anything fancy. Just Tlaqua Regional Medical Center, Mavis Beals.

Raw dog in Google.

Bold. Sometimes the thing you're looking for isn't hidden. It's just boring enough that no one ever looks twice. Okay. In memoriam, Mavis Beals, 1941 to 1977. Hospital alumni PDF, scanned, crooked margins. She worked here during a period of significant institutional transition.

That phrase is doing crimes.

At-risk families. Institutional transition. That's not a sentence. That's a shrug. Let's see what they meant by transition. You learn a lot about people by the words they choose when they don't think anyone's listening. Let's try Tlaquah Regional, restructuring early 70s.

Please be haunted. Please be haunted.

Worse. Expanded social services. New long-term patient follow-up measures. In consultation with county health oversight.

That's not care. Sounds like supervision.

Depends who you're supervising.

What does long-term follow-up even mean in 1973?

It means someone finally figured out how to keep files talking to each other. Medicine loves pretending it's neutral. It never is. Continuity Identifier System, CIS.

That sounds like Skynet's younger brother. I mean, dated reference, but you get my point, right?

Okay, so CIS is about continuity, which means long-term, which means...

Sorry, quick side quest.

Amy.

I'm listening. I'm just also typing. I'm just looking up Mavis Beals. Normal person stuff.

Normal people do not look up intake coordinators from the 70s.

Normal people don't live in Avalon Falls. Okay, so yeah, this is mostly nothing.

Mostly?

Old Tilakwa County beacon listings. Someone digitized wedding announcements from 74 like it was a passion project.

That's unsettling already.

One of these is for Will Beals and Ronna Marie Hamnett. Mavis Beals listed as the groom's mother.

So she had a kid.

At least one, that's it. No bio, no photo, no fun conspiracy thread to pull.

So why are you still pulling at it?

I don't know. Just anchoring her as a person, I guess.

Okay. County Beacon, 1973. Most residents won't notice any change. CIS applies only to a small subset of legacy cases.

Legacy? Legacy of what?

People you don't want to lose track of. You don't write it like that unless you're hiding something. Like, listen to this phrasing. Legacy cases requiring continuity.

Yeah, that's a sentence that wants to be questioned.

They seem deathly allergic to specifics. You're doing it again.

Yep, Mavis Beals, again.

Amy, there is literally an entire county inventing a surveillance system in front of us. I know, I know.

This is just... She worked there forever. She's in the paperwork. She's got the number. I just wanted to see if she ever shows up.

And?

And I'm looking at that hospital alumni PDF again. Very sad fonts. Like, copper plate, tragic. She's dead, as we know, but they don't say how.

That's not unusual.

No, it's just she was 36.

Oh.

Yeah, anyway, sorry. Go on with your terrifying bureaucracy.

Here, county health oversight minutes.

Oh, good. Nothing scarier than meeting minutes.

CIS will apply to designated continuity cohorts. Cohort lists maintained as appendix C. Appendix C is not attached.

They lost it?

They didn't lose it. They didn't want it read. Okay, CIS, who qualifies? Select patients reclassified for enhanced longitudinal tracking.

Sounds like surveillance in a lab coat.

Longitudinal means lifetime and sometimes inheritance.

Uh, hey, I found something.

Please tell me it's not worse.

Mavis Beals died in 1977, car accident.

At 36, that feels shady.

Yeah, I thought that was the only reason why this felt wrong, but it's not. These are her relatives. Look at their names.

Holy shit, Calhoun. Same bloodline as Danielle, as Anson.

Same tag.

CIS. Yes. Yeah. You can explain away one coincidence. You can explain a system.

What are you doing?

I'm searching the tag.

You can do that?

Not directly, but I don't have to. We already know what CIS looks like. Five extra digits, hyphen, county format. It's not hidden. It's just boring enough that no one ever looks at it twice. I'm searching for the IDs we know have a CIS prefix. Not all county records. Just Dylan's Orbit, the ones he flagged. We don't have the files, but we have the IDs he requested.

And so, what, they're just out there, online? Aren't they confidential?

They're supposed to be, but an ID isn't a file, it's a breadcrumb.

Meaning?

Meaning once an identifier exists, it echoes. Billing systems, intake logs, old PDFs nobody scrubbed, training docs, scanned forms, redacted reports that forgot to redact the header. I'm not opening medical records. I'm just noticing who keeps showing up with the same extra five digits. They trusted the system to keep its own secrets. That was the mistake.

How many IDs?

Not many, that's the point.

Holy shit, almost all of them share a surname. Yeah, Calhoun.

And I bet the rest who aren't Calhounes are related. There's only about 12 IDs, but the percentage who are Calhounes is just too high. So if someone wanted to keep track of a family without caring what they called themselves.

This is how you do it. How long?

My guess? At least since 1972 or 1973. I think for people born before then, they probably just attached the prefix after CIS was implemented. Seems like the easiest and most boring way to do it.

That's generations. So the question isn't what is CIS?

It's why the county decided one bloodline was worth never losing track of. Systems don't grow teeth on their own. Someone feeds them. And someone decides who they're for. It's Kenzie. Oh, weird. Very weird.

Hello, Kenzie?

Amy, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I was sleeping. I don't know if I still am. This ain't something I saw. It's something I woke up already knowing.

What, what are you?

You, you need to go to the Fern River Bridge, Amy. I don't know why. I don't want to know why.

Kenzie?

You need to go, now. Before it, it looks like something else.

Kenzie, are you?

I can't, I can't stay on the phone.

We, we should go. After Kenzie's call, suddenly the room feels smaller, not dangerous, just decided. You don't get calls like that for nothing. You don't get told to go somewhere unless something wants to be seen. Whatever's waiting for us at the bridge isn't a mystery, it's a conclusion. And the worst part, whatever's waiting for us out there, it's already happened. We're not being warned. We're being summoned.

Avalon Falls looks different at night, not dangerous, not haunted, just unresolved. The streets empty out early, the fog settles in like it's been invited. Every familiar landmark softens at the edges, the way things do right before you stop asking questions about them. The Fern River Bridge has always been one of those places. A shortcut, a landmark, a thing you cross without thinking. I've crossed it a hundred times, walking, driving, running late, I don't remember a single one of them. That's the trick, I think. Places like this don't announce when they matter, they just wait.

Oh my god. That's a lot of response.

There's lights in the water.

There's a vehicle, down there, by the embankment. Yeah, it's not all the way under.

What do you mean?

Rear ends up, front's gone under the current.

Shit, look!

There's a body. Amy, you recognize the truck.

It's Jake. 

Avalon Falls has a way of making endings look like accidents. A bend in the road, a patch of fog, a bridge everyone's crossed a hundred times without thinking. Tomorrow, the town will say Jake partied too hard, or drove too fast, or just got unlucky. They will lower their voice and shake their heads and call it a tragedy, the kind that doesn't require answers. But standing there, watching the river take what it was given. I understand something I wish I didn't. Avalon Falls doesn't need motifs. It doesn't need monsters. It just needs time. And eventually, it takes what it wants.