Shade replaced open skies and sunlight as they moved into the trees. Swallowing them like the mouth of some green giant, the forest encased them in the cool and quiet, trees that had grown too closely together jutting out at all angles just like bones. There were no trails here to make the underbrush less treacherous to navigate, and what sunlight filtered down from the canopy was diluted by the density of the trees, leaving the forest in dappled, dimly-lit repose.

It would be a beautiful old forest to hike, if not for the circumstances in which they were here. As it was, being the chosen body-dumping ground for a bunch of unknown assailants added a threatening undertone to every blind angle and distant rustling in the bushes. Jess had walked the outskirts of the town dozens of times, but he didn't think that ever-present discomfort in the back of his mind would fade. He didn't want it to.

"Trees like this?" Jess snagged the branch of an alder tree in passing and thumbed the broad, green leaves.

A little deduction work could narrow down a climate zone, or even an area of the country beyond just a hilly place near a mountain--assuming Mount Weather was actually a mountain and not just a place with a misleading name.