I am not very far into the Olympic Exclusion Zone in a run of Pacific Drive when the rain picks up. A T-shaped intersection looms simply forward, and as I make a proper flip, the headlights play over the wreckage of a truck on the base of a hill, surrounded by timber. I carry the station wagon to a cease however go away it working and hop out, hustling over to the rusting hulk. Vehicles are nice finds, nearly all the time filled with junk I can use to improve my automobile or the storage that acts as my base of operations, and thus, all the time price checking.
As I am rifling by way of the menu that exhibits every little thing discovered throughout the truck, I hear it–some sort of high-pitched, siren-like sound coming from the woods behind me–and I freeze. My shoulders are tight and after just a few seconds, I begin to frantically test the world round me. Regardless of the hours I’ve spent driving round within the woods, the sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard within the Zone, or perhaps wherever. It has a distinctly mechanical, industrial tenor, one thing that sounds vaguely generated by a machine, however nothing about its oscillations or tone suggests what potential helpful operate a machine may undertake that’d generate such a noise. It feels…off. And it sounds prefer it’s coming from simply on the opposite facet of the hill. No matter is making that sound is someplace within the woods, out of sight. However it’s, distinctly, not distant.
I stand and hear, with rain falling throughout me and solely the headlights of the automobile illuminating the skinny swathe of inexperienced between me and the street, for 10 or 15 seconds. The sound dies out and does not repeat. I wait, and wait, however eventually…nothing occurs.