By the time they reached a cracked and sun-bleached set of loose planks forming a flat spot in the wild grass peeking through the snow, Jason was a wheezing mess. Huddled with his right hand pressing protectively at the throbbing stitch in his left side, sweat dripped steadily from his nose. Kyle stood impassive, merrily enjoying his friend's suffering while kicking idly at the splintery wood. Cracks formed in the thin veneer of ice, some bounced and danced with each jolt from Kyle's foot.

"You... walk too fast... Scruff." Jason said, each word expelling a thick billow of fog in the frigid air, punctuated by rough coughs as he struggled to breathe.

Kyle waited. Barely even winded by the brisk pace he set, he sat on his haunches and busily scraped shards of ice away from the moldering collection of planks. Some of his discovery was wedged tightly under a thick slab reminiscent of a railroad sleeper tie, heavy oak manually lathed into a long and heavy support-beam, toppled by age and its own ponderous bulk. Kyle shouldered into the obstacle and heaved, dislodging some snow but otherwise defeated.

"Man, that thing is heavy. Hey Manny, when yer done chuggin' away over there, could ya help me move this?"

Jason looked up, loudly gulping air but mostly refreshed from his abrupt rest, snorting gales of steam like an enraged bull. "Huh? Are you nuts? That thing probably weighs more than both of us."

Kyle wasn't listening. Again he pressed his shoulder into the unyielding beam and strained his legs, baring his teeth with an animal snarl. "Just push!" he chastised between exertions.

"You're crazy, ya know?" Jason shook his head, but shuffled over to Kyle's position all the same. He found another spot along the shaft that promised usable leverage, set his legs, and leaned, eventually wearing the same expression of strain as Kyle.

Without warning, a tearing pop pealed through the air like a gunshot. All resistance vanished as the beam first slid, then rolled roughly, tumbling from the other planks with building momentum until it crashed into the grass. There it lie, a beached whale surrounded by contrasting powder and wheaty stalks.

Kyle ignored the haphazard dismount and immediately wedged his gloved hands beneath one of the formerly pinned planks. Kyle was on a mission. Jason scratched his head, befuddled and unsure of the wisdom of interrupting Kyle as he scrabbled to unearth more of the structure. Kyle stood up and kicked the pallet again in frustration.

"Problem, kid?"

"Yeah. That's a sign." Kyle's foot thumped against the heavy wood.

"What, like a sign from God?" This could be fun.

Kyle turned toward Jason and rolled his eyes. "Doubt it. I wanna see what it says, though. But it's way heavier than that stupid support, or it's just frozen to the ground. Part of it's probably even buried." Damn! And damn again. Nothing is ever easy.

Jason, for once, didn't immediately offer a rebuttal lambasting Kyle or his lineage. Instead, he chewed his lower lip in thought, looking back and forth at the various unlucky chunks of the former sign. He nodded his head, deciding to attempt one of the few options available for uprooting the ancient sigil. He grabbed a loose piece of wood and slipped it under the spaced frame as deep as possible, arranging the center over a nearby rock. He directed a look at Kyle that said, wish me luck, and leapt atop the fraction of board jutting over his makeshift apex.

Either luck was with them that night, or the scene looked worse than the reality, but Jason's leverage lifted the sign about two feet in the air before the plank snapped noisily below. The forceful jolt sent the snapped end into the ground adjacent the deeply embedded stone, and when the sign settled, one end remained held aloft by the jammed timber.

"Yes!" Jason shouted.

Kyle shrugged and approached the newly formed gap and crouched, letting the corner of the structure sit atop his shoulder. He waved to Jason; this still wouldn't be easy.

"Man," Jason complained. "Fine, but this is the last time."

Jason joined Kyle and together, they lurched to their feet and threw their arms forward, sending the awkward assembly teetering, and finally clattering again to the ground. A thin plume of dust shook loose from the old wood, obscuring their handiwork. When the tumult again settled, Kyle looked at the uncovered words and groaned. Decades of mud, water-damage, mold, and microbes chewed away at the paint and vast amounts of wood. A mixture of grubs, earwigs, and miscellaneous beetles skittered from their newly exposed vantage, leaving behind a pitted, unreadable, soupy mass.

"Well, that was fun! I'm gonna go build a house in front of an oncoming train now," Jason said through a defeated sigh. Why not? They'd just expended excessive reserves of energy to unearth a bug-farm.

Thwarted and beaten, Kyle stared at the sign, despising its very existence with shameless intensity. He needed that sign. Jason turned around and looked again to the South, trying to pick out interesting rubble now that they'd reached Old Town. Kyle continued to stare, each second more baleful than the last. So heated was Kyle's temper, he found his head swimming and disoriented. A tight panic gripped Kyle as he staggered, eyes rolling backwards, head careening right drunkenly. He sank to his knees and pitched forward, throwing his hands ahead to halt his dangerous tumble. Sparks swam lazily as his vision faded tantalizingly close to total blackness.

Just as suddenly, his vision cleared and something drew his eyes again toward the hoary bughouse. Only, the wood was smooth. Undeniably old—frightfully ancient beyond comprehension—but smooth, bearing legible stylized scrawl. A feint sizzling sound emanated from the ground surrounding the sign, a film of smoke wove like silk from its lightly burned edges. More importantly, words and numbers crossed the face. Though the planks were widely spaced, suffused with a network of yawning cracks, the paint obviously sun-scorched, Kyle could read the sign.

Welcome to Tammond Dale, it said, Pop: 462. Each letter chiseled in faded caligraphy. The same words adorned the sign Kyle remembered ridiculing when his family first arrived, though this new—or old—version was more distinguished in style and anachronistic in materials.

"Holy shit!" Jason yelled to nobody in particular, unbelieving eyes threatening to leap from their sockets.

Several impossible coincidences battered his mind in rapid succession. Kyle found himself unable to breathe.