State your name, age, and occupation for the record.

Hector Forrest, thirty five. I’m a forest ranger.

Where were you when the sirens started?

I was at the ranger station on the east side of town.

Can you explain the events of your day leading up to that point? Was it any different from any day before?

It was kind of quiet, I guess. That woman had come out of the forest just yesterday, and it kind of spooked people. McCloud is a small place, you know, so small things are big news. Nobody would have cared if it had happened in somewhere like LA.

Tell me about the woman.

Sure. In the evening of the day before, we heard a commotion from the north side of town. McCloud is only 500 yards from one side to the other, so nobody really needed to call. I ran over with Jim and we found out that a woman had come from the direction of the old train station. She was pretty beaten up.

How so?

Oh, it just looked like she’d tried to go on a hike without proper equipment and gotten lost. It happened sometimes. This was pretty bad, though. She was dehydrated and delirious, all cut up from going over rough terrain. The fire department took care of it.

How was she doing the next day?

She seemed to be fine. It was just that she apparently kept talking about sirens, even after she wasn’t hallucinating, and the firefighters talked about it. Naturally it spread, and we kept getting people who came in all worked up about hearing sirens in the forest near where the woman had arrived. From the north. I thought it was just hysteria, but then we got a call from Christian’s wife Marilee.

Why did she call you? Doesn’t the town have a police station?

No, it’s too small. The fire department handles it. Marilee had heard the sirens start for a few seconds, then they stopped, so she went over to check out what had happened. She was scared because it sounded like there was a fight going on inside.

How did you try to address the situation?

When I got there, I could hear shouting from inside. I went in through the front and found Pastor Chuck already there, but the door to the garage was locked. We could still see through the window, though. There’d been a fight, looked like. The trucks were still idling, and I could see two people on the floor. I got worried then that it was carbon monoxide, so I ran upstairs to grab an oxygen mask and then broke the door open. I opened the big garage doors, but it wasn’t carbon monoxide, thank God.

What had happened?

The two people on the floor were Jasmine and Christian. The lost woman was still there and on her feet. Jasmine seemed a little fuzzy and couldn’t remember much, but Christian got back up pretty quick. He told me she’d turned the sirens on, apparently on request from the lost woman. The lost woman told me he’d come in swinging with a fire axe. I wasn’t real eager to believe the woman who might have still been unstable, but Christian wouldn’t let me see the axe. I got a bad feeling. The sirens had been smashed to hell, and Jasmine had a bad gash on her arm. Me and Chuck decided to keep an eye on Christian.

Did you have a hospital?

No, and the firefighters were our paramedics. They were on their feet, but we figured it would be a good idea to put a call in to Mount Shasta for help just in case. They said they’d already sent out most of what they had to deal with some kind of disaster an hour away up in Klamath Falls. I couldn’t believe it. Klamath Falls had an airport and a city college. Even if they were overwhelmed by a disaster, they should’ve gone to Medford for help first.

Did you hear the warning?

Not until it was almost too late.

[end of interview 1]

State your name, age, and occupation.

Christian Dale. I’m twenty years old. I work at the McCloud fire station as a firefighter with EMT certification.

Where were you when the sirens started?

I was at the church.

Can you explain the events of your day leading up to that point? We’ve heard about the woman who came from the forest.

Okay. We’d taken her in the night before. Me and Jasmine dressed her wounds and set her up with an IV, then took turns watching her. The weird thing was that she kept talking about the sirens, even when she was in better shape. I mean, it was more coherent and less frantic… more matter-of-fact. But she was still saying insane things, just in a less crazy voice.

What kinds of things was she saying?

She kept talking about the ‘spirit of below.’ She said she’d barely escaped it and that we needed to run before the sirens came. She kept trying to escape. It wasn’t like she was confused and wandering away— it was calculated. Rational. We couldn’t get her to calm down, and we didn’t want to have to restrain her, so we asked for Pastor Chuck to come in and try to talk to her.

Why did you think a pastor would be able to calm her down?

Well, pastors don’t just preach. They’re the rock on which a whole community is built. You talk to them for advice, for comfort. They guide people through their entire lives. They’re kind of like counselors, in a way. If anyone was going to be able to help her, it was Chuck.

Did it work?

I’m not sure. I think it at least kept her from trying to escape, but I was up in the office when I heard Chuck come back out. He was telling Jasmine to keep her contained in the room and wait for him to come back. I followed him out and asked what he was going to do. He told me he was going to pray for guidance.

Why?

You know how some pastors are full of fire. They phrase everything as a constant struggle of sinful mortals to turn away from evil and embrace goodness and truth. Chuck wasn’t like that. He was grounded, very practical. But Chuck was spooked. He said she knew things she shouldn’t have. She knew exactly how to get to him, and he’d never seen her before in his life.

Where did you go after that?

I followed him to pray for a while, but I could hear the sirens in my head and I couldn’t focus. Then I heard them get even louder. Loha had gotten out. I ran back to the station.

Why did you go without the pastor?

He couldn’t help us. She’d gotten to him already.

[End of interview 2]

Please state your name, age, and occupation for the record.

Jasmine Vander, twenty-eight. I work at the McCloud fire station as a firefighter.

Where were you when the sirens started?

I was in the temporary infirmary of the fire station.

Can you explain the events of your day leading up to that point? I know you spoke with the woman. Tell me more about her.

She was beautiful, even delirious and dirty. Her eyes were large and deep golden brown, shaped like creamcup petals. Her hair was black like a crow’s feathers. Her skin had the dark richness and warmth of sequoia heartwood. It was smooth and soft when I touched it. She was beautiful, but fragile. She’d been through a lot already. I wanted to protect her.

What did she say to you?

I tried to calm her down by asking her about herself. She told me her name was Loha, and that she had been on vacation at Mount Mazama with her father. She was there to take pictures, right at the summit, 12,000 feet up. She asked me if I could bring her the camera, but before I could get it, Pastor Chuck arrived to talk to her. I waited outside for a while until he came back out. Loha had upset him somehow. He told me he would be back, and to not let her out.

Christian said that Loha got out. How did that happen?

Well, I didn’t like Chuck. The fact that basically everyone else in the town was a Presbyterian and knew that I wasn’t was… isolating. They weren’t cold, but they all shared something that I didn’t, and their belief that there was nothing a human could do that would affect salvation didn’t sit right with me. I did as Chuck told me at first, but after a few minutes, Loha asked if she could have her camera. I went and got it for her. I went to leave, but she took my wrist and told me she wanted to show me her pictures. I didn’t see why not, so I sat down with her.

What did she show you?

Pictures of… what I guess was Mazama, except instead of a mountaintop, it had turned into this huge crater… There was something inside the smoke. It was hard to tell what it was, but she said it was the Spirit of Below. She begged me to help her escape because it was still coming for her.

What was coming for her?

Whatever had come out of the mountain. I was holding her, trying to tell her it was all right, when I heard a siren in the distance. I tried to stand up and see what was going on, but she stopped me and said it was the Spirit. Normally it would be silent, but she had somehow tricked it into wearing the siren. She begged me to help her run, but I knew she wasn’t thinking straight. Then she asked if I could turn the sirens on to warn everyone else, and that sounded more reasonable.

You turned the sirens on?

Yes. Then Christian came running in and shouted for us to stop. I was going to do what he said, but he grabbed an axe from the truck and smashed the siren before I could even turn it back off. Loha screamed to be careful, and he swung at me. I ran with her, but he grabbed her.

Why?

To shut her up. I tried to get Christian off of her, but I don’t remember what happened after that. I woke up later in the fire station. I could hear the sirens outside. Hector was there… he had his gun. He said he called Shasta, but all he could hear were sirens. He’d tried to organize an evacuation, but the town was falling apart… people trying to destroy anything that could play a siren.

[End of interview 3]

Explain how Loha convinced you to believe her.

We were all barricaded in the fire station. Me, her, the firefighters, and Chuck. I had my gun for an emergency, but I didn’t want to kill anyone. I tried to talk the crowd down, but they weren’t listening. Then I heard Jasmine shouting. She was trying to stop Loha from unblocking a door and going out. Loha wanted to go out to the Spirit of Below to save us, but Jasmine wouldn’t let her. I still thought they were crazy, but I wasn’t gonna let anyone hurt them.

Loha did not convince you?

No, it was Chuck. He came over and told us that she was right, but that she shouldn’t go out alone. He said we should confront it. He showed me the photos from her camera, and I don’t know… I guess with all the other crazy shit and knowing Chuck wasn’t one to lose his head, it convinced me. Christian must have heard me come around, because he jumped on me from behind.

Why did he fail?

Because I had a gun and he didn’t. After that… we went out.

[End of interview 4]

Who are you?

I am Charles Newman, but most people call me Pastor Chuck. I am sixty eight years old.

Where were you when the sirens started? I know what happened before that from Christian.

I was in the church, praying. That girl, Loha… she knew more than she should have. She questioned my faith, and told me that a devil was approaching with the sound of trumpets. Nothing I said seemed to dissuade her, and she seemed perfectly serious, so I decided to ask God for guidance.

And what did your god say?

Nothing, as usual. He just guided me to the right path. Loha was telling the truth. Maybe she did not understand it completely, but she knew a threat was approaching my flock.

Why did you trust her?

Maybe it seems odd, but I know what a person looks like when they’re being hunted. She had been hunted for a long time. She had chosen to run a long way, but God told me that the time had come to fight. He had guided her to us, and it was our duty to protect her from evil, whatever form it might have taken. I had come to this conclusion when the sirens began. When Hector and I arrived, Loha told us that Christian had destroyed the siren and tried to kill Jasmine, but she had knocked him down.

Why did you trust her?

Because there is a time for reason and a time for faith, and that was a time for faith. I told her that I believed her, and that I was going to consult with the church elders. We never reached consensus, but when the sky turned black and filled with sirens, I was ready.

How did you win?

“Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

[End of interview 5]

Jasmine, how did Loha escape?

She escaped because we believed her.

Why did you help her?

Because she didn’t want to come with you.

Everyone would have won.

Is that what you think? You tried to bribe her with immortality, then extort her with the lives of innocents. What does it take to get it through to you that she didn’t want to be with you?

She would have been happy with me.

Who are you to know that? This happened because you refused to acknowledge that her opinion might be worth considering. You destroyed two cities and left a hundred and fifty miles of land in shambles and you have the audacity to whine that you were cheated? That we didn’t understand? You deserve to stay in that lake forever, in the darkness and cold.

I will never give up on her. I know she loves me.

Then listen to the sirens alone on your rocky throne, Spirit of Below. Do they sound like a love song?

[End of tape]