I couldn’t believe we’d actually found him. I supposed he was the most recent person to disappear, but still. What were the odds?
“Joey,” Lyra said, more firmly now. She was trying to connect with him. “We’re here to help.”
The man gave a soft sob. “I haven't been called that in… years… My name is Joseph.”
Lyra's eyes softened with sympathy. "I found your knife." She dug it out of her pocket and gently offered it to the man. He hobbled forward, and now I saw where all the blood had come from. A newly cauterized stump of a left arm swung into view. Lyra let out a low sound of surprise, but Joey seemed not to notice it. His eyes were on his knife. He gently took it from Lyra, making me relax even if he continued to mumble under his breath. His eyes were haunted. What had happened to Joseph?
“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely. He glanced at the others. “Do you… any water? Haven't had any.” He rubbed his eyes with his dirty hand. “I still… can't believe you're here…” His head fell limply forward.
Lyra took out her canteen, and Joseph took a swig from it, still clutching the knife alongside the canteen in his hand. He passed it back to her. A tiny bit of clarity broke through his distant gaze, but now he looked back and forth between all our group members.
“Joseph, how did you get here?” I asked calmly. I didn’t want to frighten him with my appearance, but I doubted he was registering things coherently. Lyra and I probably looked equally strange to the man. If he was Bureau, we’d be able to explain the vampire working relationship, but he didn’t even look stable enough to hold a conversation.
“Bureau research. I’m a physicist. I was at the Black Rock office looking at readings from Moab,” he said, sinking to the ground. Sweat coated his brow.
“You have a fever,” Lyra said worriedly and stooped down to give him a onceover. Cam came to her side, approaching cautiously to help. He had a small medical kit with him that he’d managed to save from the crash. He could at least give Joseph a pain reliever to take. Lyra had to insist Joseph take it, as he seemed confused about our presence here.
“Hallucinations," Joseph mumbled. “I don't… you can't…” Cam got him to take the pill into his mouth, and Joseph swallowed the rest of the canteen down with his medicine. Now that I was up close, I could feel that he was radiating heat. He had a fever, but I was surprised we had found him this well off. I can’t believe he’s alive with that arm.
“The kids helped…” Joseph went on hoarsely. “My arm was mostly off… I was bleeding so badly. They finished the amputation… sealed the wound. They tried to… I was studying the creature, and it attacked me.” He brought his knees up to his chest and gently rested his head on them. “So tired. I tried to run. Wasn’t strong enough.”
"The creature found you and brought you here," Lyra prodded. Joseph gave a wicked cough and nodded weakly. He wiped his sweat on his dirty pants, which were partially ripped at the knees. The scent of the monster was on him faintly, but it wasn’t recent. Interesting. So, it brought him back here and then left him alone? I wanted to know why.
“You said kids,” I pressed. “What kids?” If there were children, we needed to find them too.
“The kids… were strange,” Joseph muttered weakly and glanced around, as if expecting to see children around him. Perhaps he'd hallucinated them, but if so, the question remained: Who had helped him? “I'm tired.” He sank back against the entrance to his makeshift home and rested his eyes. We pulled away for a moment.
“The medicine is probably hitting him fast, if he hasn't had anything to eat or drink in a while,” Cam told us, and darted a look back. There was no need to be sneaky, since Joseph was in and out of consciousness now. “I don't understand. That cauterization is pretty well done. There's no way actual kids could've done it.”
Lyra frowned as she thought. “They might not have been mortal kids, and Joey—
Joseph—is older. He might be saying kids but mean teenagers or young adults. Either way, we'll probably have to get him medical attention before we can really get a good answer out of him.”
“He was studying the Ghost while being the sole survivor of the Black Rock office,” Cam said in awe. “I bet he’s the one who owned the laptop. Imagine what he could tell us.” Lyra flinched at the words “sole survivor” but kept a straight face. We didn’t know if her parents were among the group that was with Joseph.
Bryce rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So, the beast attacks him and brings him here. Why not eat him? Why does the creature target certain people? He was out there for a month before he got attacked.” He looked more recovered without Arlonne nearby, and I wondered if that was one of the reasons why she had gone with Chandry.
“Joseph was the only one in the Leftovers on the Mortal Plane side,” Lyra mused. “Maybe the creature thought he smelled different, or something. It didn't seem to want to eat any of us, really. It only attacked a few people. It went for Joseph, eventually, and targeted our group except for Sike and Chandry.”
Sike looked to Lyra. “There was that incident when we camped in the woods.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot, after everything that happened,” Lyra said, and shuddered. “Sike and I heard children's voices in the woods. There was a mention of Joseph's
