Chapter Three : The Missing People
872 Words
The rain began as they left Briar's Hollow.
Not a heavy storm.
Just a steady drizzle that coated the windshield and blurred the world beyond the glass.
Nobody spoke much at first.
The old woman's warning lingered in the SUV like a bad smell.
"The swamp doesn't kill you. It keeps you."
Maya wished she could stop hearing those words.
Unfortunately, neither could anyone else.
"I still think she was messing with us," Trent finally said.
No one answered immediately.
Even Trent sounded unconvinced.
"You don't believe that," Lila said.
"I believe old towns survive on local legends."
"You didn't see her face?"
"I did."
"She looked terrified."
Trent gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"Yeah."
The conversation died again.
A few miles later Ethan spotted a roadside historical marker.
"Pull over."
Trent groaned.
"Why?"
"Because we're about to drive into one of the creepiest places in the country."
"Your point?"
"We should probably know something about it."
Ten minutes later they stood beneath a weathered information board overlooking a section of dark marshland.
Most of the sign had faded.
What remained was disturbing enough.
BLACKWATER SWAMP
ESTABLISHED PROTECTED WETLAND 1937
KNOWN FOR UNIQUE ECOSYSTEMS, UNEXPLAINED DISAPPEARANCES, AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
Zoe immediately began taking photographs.
"Unexplained disappearances?" Maya asked.
Ethan pointed lower down the sign.
"There."
Several newspaper clippings had been preserved beneath protective plastic.
Most were yellowed with age.
One headline caught Maya's attention immediately.
LOCAL FISHERMAN VANISHES WITHOUT TRACE
1948
Another.
SEARCH FOR MISSING HUNTERS ENDS
1963
And another.
TOUR BOAT FOUND ADRIFT
ALL PASSENGERS MISSING
1989
The deeper they looked, the worse it became.
Dozens of names.
Dozens of disappearances.
Spread across more than a century.
Jace frowned.
"That's a lot of people."
"Way too many," Maya agreed.
Ethan pulled out his phone.
Miraculously, he still had a weak signal.
A few minutes later his face paled.
"What?"
Ethan turned the screen around.
An old newspaper archive filled the display.
"I found a database."
"How many?"
Ethan swallowed.
"Officially?"
The rain intensified.
Droplets pattered against the information board.
"Thirty-seven."
Nobody spoke.
Thirty-seven was already a horrifying number.
Then Ethan continued.
"Unofficially?"
The silence deepened.
"Closer to eighty."
Lila stared at him.
"Eighty people vanished?"
"Over the last hundred and fifty years."
"No."
Zoe shook her head.
"That's impossible."
Ethan kept scrolling.
"The strange part isn't how many disappeared."
"What's the strange part?"
Ethan looked up.
"The bodies."
A cold feeling settled in Maya's chest.
"What about them?"
"There weren't any."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean none."
Rainwater dripped from Ethan's hair as he stared at the screen.
"No remains."
"No skeletons."
"No clothing."
"No evidence."
He looked genuinely disturbed now.
"The search teams never found anything."
Jace frowned.
"People don't just vanish."
Apparently they did.
According to every report, search parties found the same thing over and over.
Abandoned boats.
Empty campsites.
Discarded equipment.
But never the missing people themselves.
As if they had simply ceased to exist.
Maya read one article describing a search operation in 1976.
Twenty-three volunteers had combed the swamp for six days.
Nothing.
No footprints.
No blood.
No bodies.
No clues.
The missing family had simply disappeared.
Zoe lowered her camera.
For once she wasn't excited.
Just uneasy.
"That's not normal."
"No kidding," Trent muttered.
A sudden crack of thunder echoed across the wetlands.
Everyone jumped.
The sound seemed strangely distant.
As though it had come from somewhere beneath the earth rather than above it.
Maya glanced toward the swamp.
The trees stretched endlessly across the horizon.
Dark.
Ancient.
Waiting.
For a moment she thought she saw movement among them.
A figure standing between the trunks.
Watching.
Then lightning flashed.
The figure vanished.
Probably a tree.
Probably.
"Guys."
Lila's voice trembled slightly.
They turned toward her.
She pointed at the bottom of the display.
A final article sat partially hidden beneath years of grime.
The date read:
October 12, 2003.
RECOVERED BOAT RAISES NEW QUESTIONS
The accompanying photograph showed a small fishing vessel.
Its sides were covered in mud.
The inside looked untouched.
Fishing equipment remained exactly where it had been left.
But something else caught Maya's attention.
Deep scratches covered the hull.
Long grooves carved through the wood.
Almost like claw marks.
"What made those?" Zoe whispered.
Nobody had an answer.
The article mentioned investigators examining the damage.
No conclusions were ever reached.
The case remained unsolved.
Just like all the others.
Ethan slowly lowered his phone.
"We should probably get moving."
Nobody disagreed.
The atmosphere had changed.
What had started as an adventure was beginning to feel different.
More serious.
More dangerous.
As they returned to the SUV, Maya glanced back toward the swamp one final time.
The rain blurred everything.
Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that something was standing out there.
Hidden among the trees.
Watching them.
Not with curiosity.
With recognition.
As if it already knew who they were.
As if it remembered every person who had ever crossed into Blackwater.
And was waiting to add six more names to its collection.
Far beyond the visible tree line, where the swamp became impossibly deep and ancient, something stirred beneath the black water.
Something old.
Something hungry.
And for the first time in many years...
It was no longer sleeping.
- Writer
