“After we met in a serial killer chat room,” Star Pfisher says, and then laughs, because what else do you do with that sentence. She is seventeen, from Portland, and was supposed to be passing through Dread on her way to Walla Walla, Washington, where she starts her forensic psychology program in two weeks. That was the plan, anyway.

The plan changed when people started disappearing.

Landon Greeves, 18, is the son of Mayor Claire Greeves and a member of the Savage County Youth Police Detective Program. He touches his fingertips together, one by one, while he thinks — index to index, middle to middle, working through the sequence without seeming to notice he’s doing it. He has been doing this a lot lately.

“It’s like a scene ripped straight from a horror movie,” he says. “I hate to say it, but part of me fears I could be next.”

Between them they have one criminology background, one psychology background, one garage wall covered in notes, and zero authority to do any of this. None of that has slowed them down.

Star has been filling a sketchbook since she arrived — drawings she can’t entirely explain. Elongated figures. A flower she keeps coming back to. A face that shows up on pages she doesn’t remember starting. “I don’t know what I’m drawing,” she wrote on one page. “I just know it’s already here.”

In the tight-knit community, rumors are circulating about a figure locals have dubbed “Creepy Alien Face.” The sheriff’s office has declined to confirm or deny the nickname. Landon and Star are not waiting for confirmation.

As for what they are to each other — that question gets a longer pause than any of the ones about the case.

“We’re figuring it out,” Star says finally. Landon touches his fingertips together and says nothing, which is, Star notes, basically the same answer.

Mayor Claire Greeves stood at the podium outside City Hall Tuesday morning and did what mayors do. She smiled for the cameras. Said resilient four times. Reminded everyone that the Giddy Up Rodeo — the third-largest in the world, expected to pull fifty thousand visitors into a town of fifteen thousand — opens in five days.

She said Dread is ready.

She did not mention the string of events stacking up behind her. Ethan Saunders, dead in a trailer fire. Chloe Hermitage, nearly killed in a scorpion attack no one can quite explain. Antonio Duran, missing.

“Our hearts go out to the Saunders family,” the mayor said. “And to the young woman recovering from last week’s incident. Dread is a community that takes care of its own.”

Giddy Up brings in an estimated twelve million dollars in a single week. For Dread, it isn’t a festival. It’s the year.

The mayor knows this.

And she needs it to go on.

If Dread had a type, it would be Kian Grace. Thirty-one. Cobalt blue eyes. Jaw like a decision. The kind of man who holds a door open and somehow makes it feel meaningful.

Last month, Grace became the first Savage County officer ever named Oregon Officer of the Year — a statewide honor that had the department buying cake and the mayor personally calling to congratulate him. He accepted graciously. Deflected the credit. Looked, frankly, incredible doing it.

Word around town is that a certain reality television program has come calling. We cannot confirm whether Officer Grace has been approached about appearing on The Bachelor. We also cannot confirm that he hasn’t.

What we can confirm: he is single. He is private about it. He relocated from somewhere on the east coast — he remains charmingly tight-lipped on the specifics — and he has since become the department’s most decorated active officer.

He is also the driving force behind the Savage County Youth Detective Program, which counts Mayor Greeves’s own son Landon among its current members. Colleagues say Grace takes his mentorship obligations with an intensity that surprises people.

“He takes those kids seriously,” said one colleague who asked not to be named. “Like, genuinely seriously. It matters to him.”

His background check, we are told, was spotless.

He must be a keeper.

Mia Deering was nineteen years old when she opened Dread Green, Savage County’s first licensed cannabis dispensary. She was not yet old enough to drink. She was, by her own account, absolutely certain it was going to work.

“People kept waiting for me to fail,” she says, settling baby Z on her hip without breaking eye contact. “I think that’s actually what motivated me. I’m a little competitive.”

She finished her business administration degree entirely online while running the shop. She hired three full-time employees before she turned twenty-one. Dread Green is now the most reviewed business in Savage County on three separate platforms.

She is, in short, someone Dread should probably be paying more attention to.

We asked her how she unwinds. She laughed like it was a trick question. Then she told us about the trip.

A long weekend in Southern California wine country, her first real vacation since Z was born. On the way back, she took a detour. No particular reason. Just a feeling.

She ended up at a park she’d never heard of. No signs. No parking lot. Just a dirt pullout and a quarter-mile walk through high grass.

She showed us the photos on her phone. We didn’t ask many more questions after that.

Mia Deering is back in Dread now, behind the counter at Dread Green, Z in the back room with the baby monitor on the shelf above the register. She has a loyalty program launching next month. She is thinking about a second location.

She is twenty-two years old.

Keep up.

Chloe Hermitage is nineteen years old, has eleven thousand followers on her channel, and was nearly killed on February 19th when she got into her car after a party and discovered a container of live scorpions on the seat. She is severely allergic. A stranger passing by with an EpiPen is the reason she is alive.

She is also, for the record, currently posting from her hospital bed with a ring light, tarot cards, and a full skincare routine arranged on the bedside table next to her IV drip. The scorpion sticker on the hospital equipment is hers. She put it there herself.

“Lip gloss is like the perfume for your face,” she told her followers from the hospital. “You might be in crisis but your lips don’t have to know that.”

Police have confirmed that the scorpions — approximately ten in total — had been administered a stimulant prior to being placed in the vehicle. The investigation is ongoing.

She has a fundraiser running. It has already exceeded its goal. She is, she says, not shutting up.

“Someone in this town did this to me. The police are investigating. I am cooperating. And I am not shutting up. If you’re reading this and you put those scorpions in my car — hi. I’m still here. Lip gloss and everything.”

Nicholas “Nick” Henderson is seventeen years old, the son of one of Savage County’s most prominent businessmen, and by most accounts the kind of kid who would give you the shirt off his back. He is also, as of early Saturday morning, facing his second DUI charge in fourteen months.

Deputies stopped him on Route 9 at approximately 2:15 AM. He was cooperative. He did not resist. People who know Nick Henderson say that’s the thing about him — he’s never the problem. He just keeps finding himself in the middle of one.

“He’s a sweetheart,” said one classmate who asked not to be named. “Whatever’s going on with him, it’s not who he is. It’s what’s around him.”

What’s around him, increasingly, is his father.

Greg “Running Bear” Henderson, CEO of the Iron Horse Casino, is the subject of a federal investigation into the management of tribal gaming revenue. Sources with knowledge of the probe suggest irregularities totaling over $2.3 million in misdirected funds. The Henderson family has not responded to requests for comment.

Nick Henderson’s case has been referred to Savage County juvenile court. Iron Horse Casino remains open.

This year’s Giddy-Up Rodeo isn’t easing into anything.

The fireworks will open the week. They’ll close it. And they’ll cut through the nights in between.

Organizers confirmed the display will use over 4,500 pounds of pyrotechnics across the event. Not just one finale. A full week of ignition.

That’s more than most towns see in a year.

“It’s a lot of power,” one planner said.

How much? Enough, on paper, to level a place the size of Dread.

Of course, that’s not how it works. These shows are controlled, timed, and handled by professionals. Spread out across multiple nights, the display becomes something else entirely — not force, but spectacle.

Still. Four thousand five hundred pounds is hard to ignore.

To manage costs, city planners confirmed the fireworks will be stored in the old tunnel system beneath town, where they can be secured and monitored until each scheduled launch.

The first launch is set for opening night. If you’re anywhere near the arena, you won’t miss it.

Gerry McAuliffe doesn’t want this mistaken for an apology tour. “I’ve already said what needs to be said,” he tells a small group gathered inside a local supply store just off the highway. “Or I haven’t. Depends who you are.”

At 52, McAuliffe is promoting his memoir following his release from prison after nearly two decades. He was incarcerated in 2007 for an arson fire that killed one man. He doesn’t linger on the details. “I did it,” he says. “That part’s not complicated.”

McAuliffe frames the tour as something other than forgiveness or healing. “Young men right now,” he says, “they’re getting fed garbage. Loud voices, no substance.” He doesn’t name anyone directly. Instead, he gestures vaguely, almost dismissively. “Unmitigated disasters of testosterone and hair gel,” he says. “All bounce, no weight.”

When asked about the book and film based on his crime — A Light and Tragic Love Story — he shakes his head. “Never read it. Never saw it. That’s not mine,” he says. “That’s someone else’s version.”

He declines to speak about his ex-wife. He acknowledges he is now on speaking terms with his daughter, but leaves it there. “Some things aren’t for public use.”

“I’m a changed man,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m a different one.”

McAuliffe signs copies of his book for a modest line of readers. No crowd. No spectacle. Just a man with a past that doesn’t move, trying to explain what comes after.