Page 55 of Buried in the Woods Below

He said I must be seeing things. Probably just a bird.

But as the boat arced, the sun caught the lake at the perfect angle, and we spotted her. A woman, struggling. My dad didn’t hesitate. He cut the engine, yanked her out like a fishing net, and wrapped her in a towel.

She said she’d swum out too far and gotten tired. That was it. No story. No thanks. Just exhaustion.

She looked fiftyish, soft around the middle. A full mile from shore? No way she swam that far.

We dropped her off at a lakeside bar. She vanished into the dusk, and we never spoke of it again.

But we both knew there was an explanation for her presence there. We just didn’t know what.

That’s how I feel now.

There’s an explanation. I just don’t know what it is.

The note. I need to pull harder on the thread.

A small cabin appears down behind a copse of trees along the lakeshore. The spark of an idea catches in my mind. Someone might know something.

I veer off toward the structure. It’s modest compared to the Parkers’ mansion—single-story, brown siding, an overgrown yard choked with weeds and brittle branches. It looks abandoned for the season. Still, I knock.

No answer.

But as I wait, I spot something: a rusted nail hammered above the peephole. Like the one that held the Parkers’ note.

Did this place get a note too?

I circle the house, boots crunching over dead leaves, eyes combing the underbrush like it might lunge at me. After a few minutes, I find it snagged in a thicket, a yellow paper sagging from a branch.

I tug it free. The paper is soaked, the ink bleeds, but the message is clear:

LEAVE. OR ELSE.

Same jagged, childish strokes. Same cheap threat.

Now we know it’s not just the Parkers.

Someone wants everyone gone. Evacuated. Erased.

I tuck the note into my waistband and turn back to the trail, unwilling to linger a second longer.

So this isn’t about me. Not exclusively. Someone wants the entire island cleared out. But why?

Strangely, I experience a flicker of relief. If I’m going to be threatened, it’s better to be threatened in good company, right?

The comfort vanishes near the bend, where the path grows tight and the light goes dim. I don’t know if it’s the clouds rolling in from the north, or my discovery of the second note, but the woods appear darker today. Heavier. The deeper I go, the more the forest seems to shift. Birds fall silent. Frogs raise their low chorus. Trees bend. The air cools.

My skin hums.

I consider turning back to brief Eric, but I don’t. Because despite everything, the silence bolsters me. But it’s not just the silence driving me forward. There’s something in these woods calling me.

The Ferris wheel.

Some stubborn part of me believes that if I find that wheel again, I’ll understand something about what’s happening here.

Or maybe I’ll find a ghost.

I keep walking.