January 24, 2026

The cold was the kind that scraped your lungs raw, a wind that tasted of iron and old sorrow. U.S. Marshal Ron Hayes stepped out of his government-issue Suburban and into the dying light of a northern Minnesota afternoon, snow crunching underfoot like brittle glass. In the distance, beyond a thicket of half-drowned pines, lay the bog. And somewhere inside it, a cell signal had traced its origin to nothing and nowhere—and called his private satellite line.

The number had never been published. He hadn’t given it to a soul. It existed only on the encrypted mesh of MarshalNet, the unofficial and unacknowledged backbone of what was left of American law enforcement.

Because there was no U.S. Marshals Service anymore.

That died with the Federal Infrastructure Nullification Act, better known by its campaign slogan: “MAGA DOGE.” The Act gutted federal enforcement agencies under the guise of states’ rights, all wrapped in a smile and a shrug. It was said no badge should answer to Washington, only to the will of the people. And so the federal marshals packed up their offices and disappeared like smoke in a storm.

But the chaos that followed didn’t care for slogans.

States, out of desperation, began deputizing their sheriffs as inter-jurisdictional enforcers. Borderlands between states turned into grey zones where conventional law ended. Some sheriffs banded together, formalizing pacts. Others went rogue. The word “Marshal” returned, not as a title of federal authority but as a symbol of a forgotten promise: that someone would still come when things went wrong.

Ron had been a sheriff in Pine County for nearly two decades when the change came. The Wendigo case—the one that nearly killed him—made him the first unofficial Marshal of the Northland Pact. No ceremony. Just a badge fashioned from scrap steel, dipped in old blood and new fire.

He made the drive because someone—or something—had called him. And because no one else would answer.

The bog was ancient, a wetland frozen over in layers of ice so black it reflected no light. Will-o’-the-wisps glowed along the treeline, faint blue flickers that pulsed like dying breath. An old ranger station sat nearby, long since abandoned. The door hung open, the floor rotted through. Inside, yellowed clippings curled on the corkboard: “Feds Withdraw Marshals,” “Local Law Takes Charge,” “State Pact Seeks Order.”

He stepped onto the ice. The air thickened.

His comm crackled. Not the car radio. Not the public channel. The satellite line.

“Marshal Hayes.”

He froze. The voice was a whisper, soft as frost but deeper than the bog itself. Male, maybe. Or female. Or not human at all.

“Marshal Hayes. You answered.”

“Who is this?” he asked.

“The badge does not vanish. The law does not sleep. The pact was made.”

Static surged, then silence.

He turned back toward the trees and saw movement: something tall, cloaked in fog, watching.

He drew his sidearm. The Glock looked absurd in his hands, like a relic of a world that thought it could still write rules.

The ice cracked beneath him.

A shape rose from beneath, not breaking the surface but standing within it, like a reflection that had decided to come up through the floor of reality. A man. Or a shadow wearing the shape of one. A tarnished Marshal’s badge gleamed from a coat that looked centuries old.

“You carry the writ. You called the light.”

“I didn’t call anyone.”

“You answered. That is enough.”

The figure extended a hand. In its palm was a device: a phone, screen cracked, battery half-dead. The last number dialed was his. The woman’s name was Alice Benning, missing three days. Her body was never found.

He did not take the phone. He did not run. He simply watched as the figure receded back into the ice, swallowed by the cold and the dark. The will-o’-the-wisps blinked out, one by one.

Ron stood alone on the bog, the wind biting deeper now.

There would be more calls.

He was the last to answer.

The Marshals were gone.

But the badge still breathed.

And the dead had jurisdiction too.