Book Five: Chapter 112

“So, he always comes back?” Mike asked quietly, his voice rough with exhaustion as he shifted against the pillows. His gaze lingered on Bigfoot, searching for some hint that this nightmare had an endpoint, some reassurance that Leeds could be finished for good.

Bigfoot nodded once, slowly, his massive shoulders sagging as if the weight of centuries pressed down on them. “Always,” he said, the word heavy. He rubbed a hand over his face, claws dragging through thick fur. “I’ve put him down more times than I care to remember. Burned him. Crushed him. Buried him under stone and earth. Doesn’t matter. He went missing for a while once, and I thought—fool that I am—that maybe this time was different.”

He let out a humorless huff. “Later, I discovered he had taken over the Pine Barrens. Corrupted the land from the inside out. The forest turned against me—trees, animals, even the soil itself. When th