Page 45 of Forget Me Not

My pulse picks up speed as my feet carry me forward, closing the final few feet in less than a minute. Then I lift my light higher, my phone illuminating this strange thing before me.

Yet another relic from Marcia’s memories, the most concrete proof I currently have.

It’s a car, unmistakably, and I take a few seconds to study the long aluminum body; the four deflated wheels and burnt-brown stripe.

It’s almost completely obscured by vines and leaves, creepers crawling across the surface like the forest is a snake that unhinged its jaw and swallowed it whole, but I can still tell it’s the camper Marcia described in her journal.

The same camper from that picture in the article about Katherine.

There’s not a single doubt in my mind.

I walk in a wide radius around it, the windows tinged green with pollen and mold. Then I turn off my light and start snapping pictures, the flash from my phone illuminating the woods for one, single, sickly second before my world is plunged back into black.

I blink a few times, the bright white orbs dotting my eyes making it even harder to see.

Then I turn the flashlight on again and make my way toward the back of the car before sweeping the beam across the bumper.

There’s a license plate there, caked in green, and I reach my hand out, buffing away the years of grime to uncover the collection of numbers printed beneath.

It’s from California, a golden sun rising at the top of the plate, and I take some more pictures, disbelief flooding my chest when I realize I actually got what I came for.

I can leave now, slide into my car and drive away fast. Never to see this place again.

I walk around to the front, fingers running along the rough side as I imagine barging back into the station, dropping my phone with these pictures onto Chief DiNello’s desk.

Then I’ll show him the article about Katherine’s disappearance, the BOLO issued for this exact car.

I’ll make him read all the entries in Marcia’s diary, bring him onto the property myself before forcing him to talk to her directly.

Leading him straight to that bag buried deep in the floor.

I exhale, a strange sense of delirium taking over until my hand brushes against the camper’s handle.

I stop, my fingers curling around the lever.

I know I already got what I came for, I don’t actually need to go inside, but now my curiosity is suddenly too big to contain as I imagine Marcia and Mitchell as they lay in the dark.

I’ve read so much about this camper, that diary like a projector casting movies in my mind.

I’ve envisioned it trundling down all those old roads, Marcia’s dainty ankles propped up on the dash before they eased to a stop beneath the limbs of that tree.

I look down at my phone again, now at 8 percent, deciding I can take a quick look.

I grip the handle harder, giving it a yank.

I have to pull a few times, years of disuse lodging it stuck, but when the rusty hinges eventually fly open a slap of must hits me like a solid wall.

I climb the steps carefully, one at a time.

Flashlight lifting as I eye the old steering wheel, the radio and knobs.

Then I shine the light to the left, illuminating the living space of the car.

It’s exactly the way Marcia described it, down to the yellow plaid couch and brown shag carpet; the small dining table off to the right and the queen-sized mattress still stuck in the back.

It’s like the interior is a time capsule and I snap some more pictures once I’m fully inside, the flash from my camera feeling like a strobe light.

I look down at the waterlogged floor, dark like tar. The brown fabric ripping across the ceiling and the cobwebs collecting in every last corner, a single spider dangling just a few feet ahead.

I glance again at my phone—6 percent—and pick up my pace as I move along the inside, my eyes brushing across every surface I can find.

I enter the kitchen and open the fridge, taking in a few cloudy bottles of beer.

There’s a chipped dish in the sink like someone was just in here, washing away the remnants of a late-night meal, and I make my way to the back next, sweeping my flashlight across the old mattress until the beam catches on something reflective, a quick flash of the light bouncing right back.

I freeze, wondering what it could be. A shard of glass, maybe.

A piece of a mirror. Then I walk closer, forcing myself to crawl on top of the bed.

Years of damp soaking into the knees of my jeans and the slippery sensation of mold on my palm.

At last, I lean forward, as far as my body will go, and I reach out to grab it, my fingers curling around some kind of cold string…

but then I realize it isn’t a string, my skin recognizing the faint ripples of chain.

It’s a necklace. I’m holding a necklace—but then the needles of fear start to prick at my neck as I eye the little gem attached to the center, the lime green cloudy from two decades in the dark.