Chapter 1: A Gloomy Birthday Morning
The pale morning mist hung like translucent gauze over the corrugated metal roof of the Eastside Courier Depot. Josh rubbed his reddened fingers together, his breath forming fleeting little clouds in the chilly air. Unseasonably cold for early May, he tightened his thin uniform jacket around himself, the synthetic fabric whispering with each movement.
"Damn this weather," he muttered to the empty depot, his words echoing faintly off the metal shelving units. "Sweltering yesterday, freezing today." He stomped his work boots, trying to restore circulation, only succeeding in sending pins-and-needles shooting up from his soles.
The depot smelled of motor oil, cardboard, and the lingering chemical tang of instant noodles from last night's dinner. Josh's electric bike waited silently in the charging bay, its matte black frame jeweled with dew that caught the dim fluorescent lighting. He mechanically scanned the day's deliveries, the corrugated edges of packages leaving temporary indentations on his work-roughened fingers. Three years of delivery work had left their mark - his hands were permanently calloused, knuckles swollen like he'd been in fights, nails perpetually lined with grime no matter how hard he scrubbed.
"Josh!" Old Chen's gravelly voice cut through the quiet, accompanied by the squeak of worn sneakers and the jangling of his keyring. "You deaf or what? Called you three times already!"
Turning, Josh faced the depot manager's alcohol-flushed face. Chen, a heavyset man in his late fifties, strained the seams of his blue polo shirt with its peeling company logo. Threads of broken capillaries mapped his cheeks like roadmaps, and his eyes swam like two cloudy marbles preserved in cheap whiskey.
"Sorry, boss," Josh instinctively hunched his shoulders in that universal posture of workers everywhere facing an irritable superior. "Just running through today's route—"
"Route my ass!" Chen's breath carried the sour tang of last night's drinking as he thrust a battered parcel into Josh's hands. The brown paper wrapping bore strange yellowish stains at the edges, the kind that came from being left in damp places too long.
Josh frowned as he accepted the package. Its surface felt unnaturally cool and textured - not like cardboard at all, but more like the pebbled leather of his grandfather's old Bible. Stranger still, when his fingers brushed against it, he could have sworn he felt a faint vibration, like holding a phone on silent mode when it receives a call.
"What's this?" He turned the unmarked parcel over. "No sender info, no tracking barcode—how's this supposed to get logged into the system?"
Old Chen's eyes darted toward the frosted glass door, then back. "Quit your yapping! Just deliver the damn thing!" He lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. "Was... left at the loading dock last night. Probably one of our corporate accounts."
Josh examined the handwritten label and felt his stomach drop. "'Josh at Midnight'? What kind of recipient name is that?" He looked up to see sweat beading on Chen's thick neck despite the morning chill. "And 44 Sycamore Lane—isn't that the condemned building from last year's news? The one where—"
Chen's breathing turned ragged, dark sweat stains blooming under his arms as he cut Josh off. "Take it or leave it! Don't want the route? Plenty of other drivers who do!" He turned abruptly, his sneakers squeaking on the concrete floor as he stormed off toward his office, the keyring at his belt jangling like some demented tambourine.
Josh stared at the package in his hands. The address was written in what looked like red ink, but in the morning light it took on an unsettling, almost organic quality. He ran his thumb over the strange symbols embossed in the paper - not quite letters, not quite pictures, but something in between that made the hair on his arms stand up.
"Happy twenty-eighth birthday to me," he muttered under his breath, the words tasting bitter. "Couldn't just be flowers and a card like normal people." A sudden chill ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the morning cold. The depot seemed darker suddenly, the fluorescent lights buzzing like angry insects as the mist outside thickened into proper fog.
Josh carefully placed the parcel in his delivery bin, where it sat unnaturally apart from the other packages - a dark spot in the ordered rows of cardboard and bubble mailers. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the creeping sense of unease as he mounted his bike and pulled out into the fog-shrouded streets.
The city's familiar landmarks loomed like ghosts in the mist. Josh's headlight beams penetrated only a few feet before the fog swallowed them whole. Every turn felt alien today, every stop sign and crosswalk like something from a dream where everything looks almost right but not quite.
"Just sleep deprivation," he told himself, his voice muffled inside the helmet. "Finish the route, grab some extra coffee, and..." His thoughts trailed off as his eyes kept being drawn back to that strange package in the cargo bin.
Without warning, his bike's display panel flickered. The fully charged battery icon dropped to red in an instant. The motor gave three weak stutters before dying completely. Josh cursed, kicking the kickstand down with more force than necessary, the vibration traveling up his leg in a wave of discomfort.
"What the hell? Charged all night!" He yanked off his helmet, running a hand through his already messy brown hair. Through the shifting fog, he could just make out a street sign: Sycamore Lane.
The chill that ran through him then had nothing to do with the weather. Josh spun around, certain he'd seen a figure standing in the mist behind him - just a silhouette, really, but one that seemed to be watching. But when he blinked, there was nothing there except the swirling gray fog.
"Getting jumpy over nothing," he scolded himself, though his hands shook slightly as he began pushing the bike back toward the depot. That mysterious package in the bin seemed heavier now, like it was filled with lead instead of whatever unknown contents it held. He'd deliver the normal packages first, he decided. The strange one... he glanced back toward Sycamore Lane, his throat suddenly dry.
"Josh at midnight," he whispered, the words hanging in the damp air. Somewhere deep in his memory, something stirred - like bubbles rising from the bottom of a dark pool, carrying with them things long forgotten, things better left undisturbed.