Crashed – Part 4
Ken stood there, watching for a moment. He was distracted—just briefly—but the urge to go back behind the house was too strong to ignore. Maybe it was nothing. Still, the feeling pulled at him.
They were obviously looking for something… but why were they shooting?
Then, suddenly, it became clear—almost like someone was inside his head. Not words, exactly. Just a silent nudge. Whatever it was, it told him: go back to the porch.
Ken gave one last glance and headed around the house.
He awakened to Patty standing over him, her face full of concern.
“Honey, are you okay?” she asked, scanning him as if checking for injuries.
“I guess so, honey. I must’ve nodded off or something,” he mumbled. “I remember going out front… the soldiers were shooting at something. Then I got this strong feeling to come back and sit on the porch. Don’t ask me why—that’s all I remember.”
“You don’t remember going into the pantry at all?” Patty asked.
“No… I don’t even think I went inside the house,” Ken replied.
“Well,” Patty said, raising her eyebrows, “then we’ve got ghosts now—because someone pulled out the first aid kit and left it sprawled all over the floor.”
Later that morning, Ken walked along the edge of the woods—just behind the old shed. Something had been bugging him.
He spotted it: the old trail cam mounted to a crooked pine, half-swallowed by vines. He hadn’t checked it in months.
On a hunch, he swapped out the SD card and brought it inside.
Most of the clips were the usual: leaves blowing, a raccoon, maybe a squirrel. He tapped through the files absently.
Then—
2:38 a.m.
The frame shook slightly. For just a second, something shimmered in the brush. Not an animal. Too tall. It moved low to the ground, but fast.
The shape was wrong. The blur… too clean. Too symmetrical. Like light bending the wrong way.
Then the feed glitched—just a second—but when it came back, the thing was gone.
“Patty?” he called out, heart climbing into his throat. “You need to see this…”
Patty leaned in, squinting at the screen. “Is that… a person?” she whispered.
Ken shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”
He tapped the keyboard, advancing the footage frame by frame. The blur took shape—taller than a person, limbs long and fluid. The shimmer faded just enough to see what lay beneath.
A face.
Smooth, unfamiliar. Eyes slightly too large. A helmet-like cowl framed the head, but the features were… unmistakably feminine.
They stared at the still frame. Neither spoke.
Then the screen glitched again—static tearing across the image—and when it cleared, the figure was gone.
Patty clutched his arm. “She was watching the camera…”
Ken didn’t answer.
Because he knew she had already been inside the house.