20 -The notebook
20 -The notebook
CLAIRE
The first thing I felt was pain.
As the crown of my head hit the corner of the brick wall. My body gave out, and before I knew it the ground came rushing up. My shoulder hit first, then my hip, then finally my cheek,all pressed against the floor
But,I just lay there.
The sensible part of me said to get up, shake it off, keep moving. But I didn’t. I just stayed down, staring at the tiny cracks in the pavement where grass tried to grow.
“So far,” I muttered “my idea of a walk to clear my head is going shitty.”
The words didn’t sound like a joke. Not to me. They sounded tired.
I rolled onto my back, the sky a heavy gray blanket stretched tight overhead. My head throbbed where it had hit, but the ache wasn’t what kept me down. It was everything else.
The cannery.
The way the ledger had been used .Those initials—A.P., D.K., L.C.—like a chant written by someone who believed in ritual more than record-keeping.
And that Polaroid.
I could still see the faded grin of Arlen Pike as if it were burned onto the back of my eyelids. A man who had once stood in public light, shaking hands, holding trophies.
The ledger had whispered one thing clear: this wasn’t random. It had roots. Years of them.
I closed my eyes, letting the air touch my face.My chest tightened as the memory tried to circle me again and again..
I knew I needed rest. That was the truth of it. My head couldn’t keep spinning like this. Burnout was the fastest way to end a chase before it began.
If I let my nerves fray now, I’d never find out who D.K. and L.C. were, never learn what the system behind those initials meant, never pull Pike out from the shadows he had crawled back into.
But rest wouldn’t come. Not last night, not today.
So I walked.
Or I tried to.
The street was quiet, except for the rattle of a loose sign in the breeze.
I pushed myself up finally, brushing dirt from my palms, and took a step. Then another. The ache in my head was dull now, but my thoughts still felt sharper than they should have.
That’s when I heard it.
Footsteps.
Not calm ones. Not the even tap of someone out for a late walk. These came in bursts—then a stumble, then fast again. Like whoever it was couldn’t decide whether to flee or collapse.
I turned slowly.
She was there.
A woman was moving toward me from the far end of the street. Her coat was buttoned wrong and the fabric wrinkled. Hair spilled across her face in wild knots, hiding half of it, but the other half—her eyes— they burned wide in the dark.
My first impression was that she was mentally ill.
She looked past me, through me and at everything around us. Her head snapped toward each shadow like she expected something to crawl out and grab her.
When she saw me, she stopped.
We stood locked there in silence. Then her mouth twitched.
“The tide,” she rasped. Her voice was scraped “You have to watch the tide. Low water—that’s when they come. They always come then.”
I was confused “Excuse me?”
Her chin jerked“Yes. You. You have to listen. The charts—they mark it. Low tide nights. That’s when the runs happen. That’s when it’s not safe.”
Her voice shook, but it wasn’t weakness. It was basically terror forced into sound.
“Okay,” I said slowly, i even started holding my hands out just a little, like I was calming a skittish animal. “Why don’t you tell me your name?”
She didn’t. Her eyes darted again, scanning the alleys and the windows. Her lips trembled.
“They think no one notices,” she whispered. “But I see. I see every time. Always there. Always moving. Always waiting.”
My heart pounded hard“Who?” I asked, “Who’s waiting?”
Her whole body stiffened. She leaned forward suddenly, like she was about to fall but instead words rushed out.
“They took him. When the tide pulled out. He went down to the water and didn’t come back. Gone with them. Gone.”
Her hands twisted in the air, she was clawing at nothing.
I stepped closer. “Who took him? Who?”
Her mouth opened, but no answer came. Only a weird sound came out, it was something like a half sob and half hiss.
And then—she moved.
Not away. Not back. But forward.
She slammed something against my chest, so fast I didn’t have time to brace. I grabbed at it automatically. A notebook. It was small and battered
Her hands pushed against mine until my fingers curled around it.
“What is this?” I demanded, my voice was sharper now. “Why give this to me?”
Her breathing came in ragged bursts. “They’ll know if I stay. They’ll know.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” I pressed, “Tell me your name. Tell me what this is.”
She shook her head hard enough to send strands of hair whipping across her face. “Not safe. Not safe. They watch. They always watch.”
Her fear rolled off her .
And then—she turned around so fast, running with speed.
Her body vanished into the dark at the end of the street before I could think to chase her.
The silence she left behind felt heavier than the air itself.
I looked down. The notebook was still in my hands. My thumb traced the edge of its cover. It felt wrong there.
I opened it.
Tide charts. Dozens of them. Each page marked, circled . Low tide nights looped in pen, over and over. Beside them, there were notes scratched in a hand too frantic to stay straight:
AP nights.
Another page: Use maintenance channel.
The warnings repeated. They were obsessive almost ritual. And in the margins—the drawings.
Dark spirals. The Ink was pressed so deep it nearly tore through the paper. Spirals curling inward,drawn page after page after page. Then a weird triangle shape was drawn a few times
My stomach turned.
It was the same spiral Mason had drawn in his madness. The same one carved into the hood of my car. And the same
It followed me.
The notebook trembled slightly in my hands. Or maybe it was me shaking. I snapped it shut, clutched it tight to my chest, and ran.
I turned the corner where she’d gone, scanning every alley and every doorway. Nothing. She was no where to be found.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
She was gone.
All I had was the notebook, still warm from her hands,
Still,i knew one thing clear: I had to find her. Whoever she was, she knew too much.
She knew.