The train tracks ran like a scar through the
boreal forest, abandoned since 1924. Jack Harrow,
a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer
turned guide, had been hired to clear debris
from the line—part of a provincial effort to
reclaim old infrastructure. But when he found a
derailed freight car halfburied in snow, its
cargo missing, he knew something was wrong.
The town of Moose River had little to offer
besides a general store, a hockey rink, and a
mayor with a habit of hiding behind closed doors.
Jack’s presence drew sideways glances. Locals
whispered about the rail line’s original purpose:
transporting timber from Indigenous lands
without consent. The company that built it had
gone bankrupt in the ’30s, but its records were
still locked in the town hall basement.
Jack broke in one night, using his old RCMP
lockpicking skills. Inside, he found blueprints
showing the line had once connected to a secret
mill, built on land ceded under dubious treaties.
The mill had been shut down decades ago, but the
sabotage wasn’t old. A recent hand had slashed
the power lines leading to the site, and fresh
tire tracks led away from the tracks.
He followed them to a logging camp on the edge
of the woods. There, he met Lena, a Métis woman
working as a mechanic. She’d noticed strange
activity near the mill—people coming and going
at odd hours, equipment never used. When Jack
asked why no one spoke of it, she laughed.
“Because this town doesn’t talk about the things
that haunt it.”
The next morning, Jack’s cabin was firebombed.
Smoke filled the air, and the fire department
arrived too late. He fled into the woods, guided
by Lena, who knew every shortcut. They reached
the mill just as a truck pulled up, its
headlights cutting through the fog. Jack threw a
rock, shattering the windshield. The driver—a
man in a corporate suit—spilled coffee on
himself and vanished into the dark.
Inside the mill, they found evidence of illegal
logging operations, modern and ongoing. The
sabotage had been meant to cover it up, not stop
it. Jack called the RCMP, but the call dropped.
The signal here was dead, just like the town’s
honesty.
Lena suggested they take the train tracks west,
to a town with better connections. “You’re not
the first to find this place,” she said. “But
you might be the first to leave.”
Jack hesitated, then nodded. As they walked, the
forest seemed to breathe around them, the
silence broken only by the crunch of snow. The
railway was no longer a relic—it was a path
forward, or a trap. But for now, survival was
enough.
