July 4th, 2024
1:41 PM
Penny and I made for the eastern part of the forest. It was rockier, but the paths were clearly more trodden so getting around was less of a hassle. We had been searching for about an hour, talking about small stuff like what kind of movies we were into, what kind of games we used to play as kids. Eventually we learned that we went to the same high-school in Seattle, only she was two years my senior.
Imagine that… we were only a couple of years apart, otherwise we might have seen each other occasionally.
With a couple of years ahead of me, Penny was only 24 years old. I knew she was young, but she seemed older and more experienced to me. It made sense, however. For how pushy she might be sometimes, I could tell she’s used to dealing with the hand she’s dealt, never throwing a tantrum or lashing out at others. It was hard to relate to her, especially because she broke off the stereotype of your typical airhead blonde.
Getting to know her made me realize I was still very immature. Wanting to know more about her, I finally decided to ask her what I’d been meaning to since this morning. This time I was ready because I knew we both understood. You get what you give. It’s only fair.
“So… I understand searching for the missing people, but I can tell there’s more to it than that,” Penny didn’t react. I guess she was expecting it. I continued. “And in all honesty, killing wildlife to prevent it from happening again doesn’t seem like such an honest goal, if you ask me.”
The halt of her steps abruptly made me somewhat nervous. I felt like I had struck a nerve or crossed over a line. Then her shoulders slumped, and she turned around to face me.
“My fiancé is the last person to come to the lake before us. He went missing not long after they found Montey’s corpse. Neither of us knew anything about what was happening here. The day I heard about it I didn’t sleep for four days. I looked into any lead, any theory, anything that might tell me otherwise. Every family I spoke to, every article I read, every piece of evidence led me to believe he’s gone.”
Several moments passed as I processed it. Then I finally understood and felt stupid.
“… Why are you here, Bishop?” she asked, clearly wanting an honest answer now.
I never wanted to open up to anyone about this. I always thought they would use it against me to make me hurt more than usual. Being vulnerable felt dangerous. If you let someone in, they could hurt you. It was scary.
But I wasn’t scared. Not right now. Not in front of this woman, who even now stood strong. Knowing she might find the dead body of a loved one. I could tell Penny was scared, of course she was. The difference was that even in fear, she did not run. And right now, neither would I.
“My friend Peter… he killed himself. I’ve been drifting for years now… and I’m not sure where I’m headed anymore.”
Her face was serious when she told me about her fiancé. It was serious when I told her about Peter. Then I saw from the corner of her eye something shiny. A tear.
When we hugged each other, the silly sight of her kneeling down to hold me didn’t feel humorous. It was a gesture of the heart. It was empathy. To show we cared about each other’s grief. That we would both face it. I came to this lake feeling downtrodden. I felt like I was utterly lost. I wanted to do something, anything, to make the hurt go away. I thought I could do it alone. I thought it would be better if I was gone from this world.
I was wrong.
I needed this. To connect with someone else and accept that I was wounded. Healing the body is far easier than healing the mind. Penelope Ashwood taught me that. It was her courage that gave me the strength to open up. Although perhaps I wouldn’t feel too inclined to go hang out with a group just yet. Small steps go a long ways.
If Cordelia could see me now…
When we finally left this place, I would definitely reach out to Penny again. We were friends, after all. I had forgotten what it meant to be friends with someone. To be there for them when they needed you. To this day, I couldn’t bring myself to hate Peter. I was overcome with grief and sadness. I felt like I wasn’t worth being friends with, if this was what would happen when I made a connection with someone.
I felt like I was the reason he killed himself, somewhere deep down in my heart. It was stupid, and in a way, it was selfish. Peter couldn’t possibly have killed himself because of me, and even if he had, that wouldn’t have been fair. I loved him as though he were a sibling, and if that wasn’t enough to make him reconsider, to call me in his darkest hour, it wasn’t fair for me to endure such a scar upon my soul.
“It’s going to be okay. They would have wanted us to keep going, you know? Their absence doesn’t make the memories we made disappear. They’re still with us.” she said.
Penny’s smile, as her eyes shed hot tears, was proof of how much she meant those words. Nodding, I lay my head on her shoulder and cried. Sometimes, we make mistakes. Sometimes, we go astray. But sometimes, we meet those who give us the strength to stand back up when we fall down.
On this day, I felt just a little taller.
***
July 4th, 2024
7:56 PM
Having looked through a good chunk of land already and having no luck finding anything out of the ordinary, we simply made our way back to the camp. Penny had told me about Nathan. How silly he was and how they’d met. He sounded like the type of guy you call when you needed to lighten up. When she’d ask me about Peter, I only really had stories to tell from back during high-school and when we were kids.
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Setting up the firepit and eating marshmallows on a stick, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged somewhere. Penny’s rifle was never far away. Always at arm’s length. I figured it out by now, of course. She wanted revenge, and I couldn’t talk her out of it, but I was resolved to help her. Sometimes we do stupid things, and we need people to watch our backs. It was my turn to protect her, and I would do my best to live up to that.
If she was right, and there were black bears in these woods, then their days were numbered. Munching down on another marshmallow, the light of day had been gone for about a dozen minutes before we both started to quiet down a bit. We both felt it… night was much heavier than day here in these woods. It was the time when ‘it’ happened. After a little more talking, we decided to turn in and get our stuff ready inside the tent. It was merely the second day since she’d set up her trail cams, and they might show their worth yet.
Of course, she refused to get a full night’s rest again. I offered to stay up and help her get some sleep this time, but she wouldn’t have it. I had to give up after she started patting me on my head. Even though we were closer now, that still kind of stung my ego…
By the time morning came, she was still awake. Once she saw me moving about, however, she had no issues getting some sleep. I didn’t mind, she’d earned it. And in all honesty, now was as good a time as any to finally take a bath… I wasn’t comfortable with someone watching me clean myself, and I had a beautiful body of water to shake around in.
It must have been around ten in the morning when I’d come back up from the lake and dried myself. So, with not much to do, I decided to gather up all of the memory cards and bring them into the tent for her to check out on the laptop once she woke up.
It amazed me how Penny could run on just three to four hours of sleep. She was definitely pushing it… Yawning awake, she looked over the desk and her eyes went wide. Looking over at me, she gave a thumbs up. “Thanks, Bishop. Now let’s see what that sound was last night.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, of course. I was snoozing, so when we saw a cougar prowling behind our tent, I was pretty impressed that we’d actually caught something on video. The big cat was just sniffing and prodding at it. Eventually, it left our camp site without much incident. I was smiling at the sight of the thing, but when I saw Penny, she was scowling. It wasn’t what she’d hoped to find.
“Bah! They know we’re here… we even cooked marshmallows over a firepit for fuck’s sake! If that doesn't get their attention, what will?”
It was true. I had to start asking myself if this lake was even anywhere near as dangerous as Penny made it out to be. At this point, what if they really were all just accidents? Saying it would feel extremely insensitive, though.
“We’ll keep looking. Maybe we can check out the northern section today?” I offered as an alternative. Penny considered it for a moment before agreeing with me. I was starting to get invested in this whole operation, which was both a good and a bad thing. I suspected I was scaring my folks straight back home, but part of me felt like staying with Penny for as long as possible. The sensible thing would have been to drive back at least once and tell them I was fine, but then again there was a good shot they didn’t give a fuck about me.
I felt a sharp pang of pain in my chest at the latter. It was entirely possible, even probable that they didn’t care. Hell, they made it clear they had no issue kicking my ass out, so why would they change their minds now? At least Penny cared about me…
“Okay, let’s get ready to go check out the north. A self-proclaimed explorer by the name of Jenny Miller left an abandoned camp that was found there around five months ago.”
Slim chance of finding anything given she disappeared nearly half a year ago, but this was an opportunity to find another clue. I was already looking forward to it.
“Let’s see what we can dig up, then.” I said, eager to get out there with her.
***
July 5th, 2024
12:23 PM
By now I had gotten used to my boots. All of the walking was tiring, which didn’t get much easier, but I wasn’t as irritated as before. The northern part of the forest was much thicker, with the trees growing in a more narrow fashion. The inclines didn’t help, either. Often times, Penny had to brace herself down a slope and make sure I didn’t trip on anything.
With long legs, it was an easy stride for her, I could tell. For me, it wasn’t easy… I was over feeling like a burden, however. It took a good two hours to reach the supposed spot the camp site of Jenny Miller was found all those months ago. I could see why she picked a spot like it. It was a pretty flat, and decently wide patch of ground that gave her a gorgeous view of the trees below. It was higher up, but not in the way a cliff was.
It was almost as a high hill that just got shaved down to fit a narrow space, if that made any sense. One could see how this was an interesting place to set up a camp, but I could tell it was somewhat stupid despite my inexperience. She was extremely vulnerable here. A bear could easily get up and tear her to shreds, no doubt. And either she tumbled down to the bottom and hit a tree, or she slowly gripped the ground to get up when a who knows how many pounds heavy bear came bounding for her.
… I didn’t want to insult Penny, but most of these so-called hikers and campers seemed pretty stupid to me. An influencer, an “Explorer”, and a silly high-school sweetheart who thought coming here alone was a good idea.
…I shouldn’t be the one to make that argument, though.
Standing atop the hill, Penny looked all over, trying to make sense of something. “What’s up?” I asked her. She put a hand on her cheek before saying, “Kind of hard to breathe up here, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know what she meant. I was breathing just fine after a little rest.
Crack
Penny whipped her rifle over her shoulder and aimed it at the sudden break in less than two seconds. I was shocked at her dexterity despite her apparent exhaustion. The sound came from the south, where we had come from. I looked through the trees, trying to make out anything lurking past them, but I saw nothing.
Whrrrrr…
Crack Crack
I slowly made my way up to come closer to Penny’s position and held my hand in my jacket pocket, ready to take out the revolver. It was still heavy, and for a moment I wondered if I could really bring it up to aim accurately. My hand ran over the cold metal, and I found it beginning to shake.
Penny trained in her scope, seeming to have caught sight of something.
“… What the fuck… is that…?”
I looked up at her. She was stiff as a board. I tried to look at where the rifle pointed, but I saw nothing. Her mark wasn’t on the ground. Instead, it was a dozen meters off the ground, between the trees.
“… What do you see?” I asked her after several long moments.
Penny didn’t answer me until she lowered her rifle, clearly having lost sight of it.
“… I don’t know. It was… looking at us. It was just… staring.”
Penny’s voice was low, and there was an undertone of disbelief. Alarm bells were ringing in my head, which caused me to nearly go into panic, but I held off on letting go of the handle. I couldn’t lose my grip right now.
“Bishop. We need to head back to camp. Quickly.” she said, actually extending a hand for me to take. I thought about how silly that would look, but I didn’t feel like questioning her. If we split up right now… I didn’t want to think about it.
Holding her hand, we slowly made our way down the hill, and a few times I actually almost offered to hold her rifle while she took the revolver in this unsettling situation we found ourselves in. The terrain was against us in a far too shitty way. Getting here without being in a hurry was hard enough, but now even Penny tripped up a few times, quickly righting herself and stopping for a few moments to hear around before continuing on her way. That’s how I knew we were really in danger. This was the first time I had seen her actually flustered.
I resolved to ask her immediately once we were back at camp what she saw, but as we came out of the thick northern forest and walked along the sandy shores of Lake Hancock, the sight of our camp site as we slowly got closer to it was like ice cold water poured over our heads. It was then I knew we weren’t screwed.
We were fucked.