Page 85 of Fragments of the Lost
The drive takes almost two hours, but alone, it feels longer. It feels like I’ll never make it, that he’ll always be somewhere just out of reach. I’m constantly checking the rearview mirrors, but that’s crazy, and impossible. She didn’t see me go. She missed her chance. I’m free of her now. Free to find him on my own.
Max calls back when I’m almost there. It’s started to rain, and it’s hard to hear him over the wipers. “Jessa?” His voice is frantic. I’ve pulled into the lot I remembered from the day months ago, and I sit there in the empty parking spot, the rain faintly hitting the windshield.
“I’m here. I made it.”
“You’re where?”
“A parking lot where we once took this trail. I remembered, he met his dad here. Only I didn’t know it was his dad. And Brandon said Caleb had a bunch of camping gear, but I never saw it. It’s nowhere. It must’ve been in the attic, and now it’s gone.”
“Wait for me, Jessa. Okay? Tell me where you are.”
“I don’t know exactly. It’s this trail we once took. So, take the parkway to 80, and then follow signs. It’s in the town of—”
“Just send me your location.”
“What?”
“On your phone. Go to my contact, and hitshare location,and I’ll be there.”
“Okay,” I say. I hang up. I open his contact page. I see the arrow, and I hit it.There.He has me, I think.
And then I freeze. My finger shakes. I slowly scroll through the names, until I see the entry markedEve.She took my phone, that day, when Hailey texted. She checked my text, and she entered her own information. I thought she was just being nosy, seeing who I was talking to, making sure that I wasn’t lying, but a slight moan escapes my lips.
How she always shows up just after I get there, or seems to know when I’m about to arrive. How she seems to know when I’m not where I say I am. How someone showed up at that old house, just as Max and I did. Did she think Caleb would be there? Hiding out inside?
I press her name, and that same arrow comes into view, enabled. I click it, frantically, to turn it off. But it’s too late. She set this up. She doesn’t need to follow with a pen and paper anymore, because she could follow me remotely. She knows exactly where I am. Where I’ve stopped.
I’ve led her straight to him.
—
I’m bouncing on my toes, pacing back and forth in front of the trailhead. It’s still daylight, but the rain is starting to come down heavier. Max is coming. But so is Eve. And if she makes it here, if she finds Caleb first…I don’t know what happens next.
Still, right now, I have a head start. I can’t wait for Max. I don’t have time. I don’t know if she’s on her way or not. And so I run.
There’s something about having Caleb’s bag on my back that gives me comfort. His flashlight in the main pocket. The papers I’ve found, my wallet, my things.
But then I remember the hike. How everything hurt. And it does. Oh, it hurts. The trail is wetter, and I lose my footing, cutting my knee once. It seems to take twice as long, alone, in the rain, with the sun slowly setting.
When I finally come up on the view I last saw with Caleb, the wind blows and lightning strikes somewhere in the distance, and I feel too close to the sky. Too exposed.
And then I think I’ve made the wrong decision. That I am out here alone, and it’s cold and raining, and there could be anything hidden in the trees, in the dark.
But still, I keep moving. As if I can feel something just at my back. Stepping in our steps, from long ago. Feeling our strides in sync, hearing his breathing, just under my own.
I know when I’m getting close, and I will my legs to move faster. The sound of water in the darkness feels like a tidal wave, like a flood. It’s dark before I make it, and I have to stop to pull out the flashlight, shining it on the path in front of me.
I’m shaking, from adrenaline and the rain and the fact that I’m on this trail, alone, in the dark. I could turn back, I think. But I also think of Eve heading this way, and I’m not sure which I’m more afraid of. I have to move forward.
There’s water in my shoes now, and it only gets worse as I plant my feet in puddles forming on the trail, over and over. And then, finally, I’m there. I hear the waterfall, shine the light in an arc in front of me, and the light reflects off the rain hitting the surface of the water.
This is it. This is the spot. There’s the rock where Caleb and I sat. There’s the waterfall, where the people once swam. But now, there’s no one here. There’s no campsite, no tent, no Caleb. It’s eerily empty. A chill rises up my spine as I’m standing in the middle of the woods, so far from civilization, all alone.
I remember that he told Stan he needed an ID for Pennsylvania, and I know I’m not quite there. We’re separated by a state border, deep water, a place we once called Nowhere.
The beam of the flashlight shakes in my hand. I can hear his whisper almost as clearly as I could that day back in March, when we were sneaking across his backyard, and he placed this in my hand.Quiet, Jessa.
I scan the light behind me, around me. Across the way, trying to see through the trees. It looks so different here than the last time. It feels more dangerous, sounds more ominous.
