The beam of my flashlight cut through the darkness, a cone of visibility in the otherwise pitch black of the overcast night. I've always been a fan of the night, it had never held any terrors in my mind. The feel of silence and mystery, peaceful yet hidden at the same time was always a draw for me. Walking alone in the darkness never scared me, it felt like home.
I was working on a new construction site, doing general inspections and making sure nothing odd was happening at the main site or any of the secondary's offsite further in the woods. The main site was quite a way off in the main drag, the nearest town a couple hours away on the old road cutting its way through far older tundra.
This particular site I was coming up to had been having into issues lately. Back at the still rough monitoring station, several alarms had been going off for the last few nights. Usually we would ignore such things, we were in the wild after all and the amount of wildlife here was amazing. But this wasn't the usual animal walking past setting off a motion sensor. Just this evening the alarm board told us the site camera has been damaged, probably a racoon pulling at the wiring again, but since it was a safety feature we had to send someone out to check things over.
"Ron, copy?" I said in the handset extension of the radio I had clipped to a side pocket of my overalls.
"Yeah, go ahead 'Stell,"
Ron was the shift lead, an older guy with a belly that stretched the overalls we all wore on site. Nice enough guy and fun to work with, watching him scramble to cover the monitor at the station when I came back from a patrol was a secret pleasure I tried to take at least once every shift.
"Hey, I'm on site here. Powers out again, I'll give it a walk around and see if the line is off or something."
"Ok, give me a call back in a couple minutes. I'll get Mat to swing buy, he's over on 15 so will be a few before he clears up."
"All good," I said, "I'll call you back in a few."
I had turned off the truck and the light for a moment, leaning against the warm metal, just breathing the warm night air. It had been a super hot day, the humidity enough to make you sweat just thinking of working. I was wearing my usual sport bra and shorts under my overalls, casually unzippering the top below my chest trying to catch a hint of a breeze. I knew it would be considered a safety violation but not like the OHS guys were going to be out right now, nor would they likely complain to see actual live boobs after a couple weeks out here. I kept my hair short while on site, barely reaching the back of my neck with the sides cut closer, and while not overly tall managed to keep pretty fit with the job and gym after-hours.
"All right, lets see what's going on here."
My work boots crunched on the gravel around the site, the dirty grey rock absorbing the light when I turned the flashlight back on. I dropped my other hand to my side where I kept the can of bear spray, just in case there was something bigger than a raccoon running around. The area was oddly quiet, nothing but the sound of my voice disturbing the air. I always kept a running monologue when doing night inspections, more to scare off any critters than any nervousness on my part.
"Here little buggers," I said as I walked away from the truck, "Time to stop messing with the gear and dragging me out in the middle of the night."
A sound over by one of the utility sheds had me flash the light in that direction like a laser, my hand dropping on the bear spray again. My heart felt like it skipped a beat in surprise, making me laugh at my skittishness.
"Get on out of there," I said walking in a wide circle to bring the side into view, the light panning slowly over the area. There were a few barrels on the side and the metallic sound came from that area. I noticed an odd smell, not bear or wolf, but an earthy out-of-place fragrance as I rounded the corner but caught nothing in the light.
The woodline was a few meters from the shed, but it refused to share its secrets as I cast the light its way hoping to see whatever it was running off. I kept walking along the back, switching between the trees and under the sheds in case some critter was feeling bold. I heard more noise further ahead and shook my head with a sigh.