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SUMMARY: The ninth in a 14 part serial short story- a new one every week. I wrote this to be recorded as an audio story- you can hear it at www.williamhrdina.com- but I think it holds up as a regular short story as well, and its finished so it won't disappear.

Croucher
Part IX- Subterfuge
by William Hrdina

When Logan found the strange and inhuman statue at the top of the cliff, he unknowingly set off a number of alarms in the town of Croucher. The statue was a sentinel, and it did its job. Once the alarm sounded, two scouts were sent up to a secret location where they could observe the entire face of the cliff and catch sight of anyone long before they actually found the village- which is how Joani Castro and Thomas Moore were able to spot the hikers an hour before they reached the town.
"I can't believe somebody's found us. Can you believe the timing? "Joani asked.
"How far off are they?" Thomas asked, squinting down the mountain and looking impatiently at Joani, who held the only pair of binoculars and didn't seem in a hurry to share.
"Not too far- we have maybe an hour before they're close enough to see us." Joani replied.
Thomas sighed. He hated it when people wandered into the village. In the 17 years Thomas lived in Croucher, it'd only happened twice- and both times the visitors were individual hikers who'd managed to get lost. They'd both been alone- so in both cases the problem was easy to... manage. People looked for the lost hikers, but there was no way for the searchers to trace their steps back to the village.
But this wasn't just a single hiker. This was five people, tourists from the look of them- which meant the possibilities of search parties and helicopters using infra-red and worst of all, nightly calls into some base camp with GPS coordinates. No. This situation required something a bit more subtle than the normal tactics- but it also required haste. They didn't have much time.
Thomas was thankful they'd trained for exactly this kind of situation- there was nowhere on earth where you could assume total isolation- not anymore. The idea someone was finally going to force them to move their sanctuary after nearly 3 centuries of continuous habitation- it boggled Thomas's mind.
"Okay, I'm declaring a Code One Emergency." Thomas said to Joani.
She looked at him. "You're serious?"
"Afraid so- we're going to have to go stealth." Now it was Joani's turn to sigh.
"You're the boss." She said.
Joani left the high ground of the temple at a run. It would take her ten minutes to get down to the village and at least a half an hour to get everyone ready. They were prepared to deal with visitors, but the whole thing seemed like a waste of time. Croucher had to remain a secret at all costs. If these innocent people found the village and were allowed to leave, they could come back- they could bring others. They couldn't let that happen- so the entire process of getting all dressed up and pretending to play savage wasn't worth the effort. In the end, they'd have to kill em- as ugly as that reality was.
Of course, Joani also knew such things weren't her call. They weren't Thomas's either. Contact would have to be made with the outer temple. They needed to know who they were dealing with- maybe it was a group of losers and no one would ever miss them if they were gone.