They said people had forgotten about us. That it was better this way. Lana sat in stunned silence. Some of the others they forgot about school, about home, Nora said. But I didn’t. I never did. Lana reached into her coat pocket and slid something onto the tray. A faded yearbook photo. Norah picked it up and stared.
That’s me, she whispered. And that’s Caleb and Marcy. And she stopped, her eyes filling with tears. You kept this? Lana nodded. I never stopped. Norah clutched the photo to her chest. Later that night, Lana sat alone in her truck parked outside the old H Hallstead barn on County Line Road. She’d remembered something from Norah’s description about the clocks, the way the windows were boarded.
This barn had belonged to a man named Frank Avery. He died in 2003, but he had a son name Martin Avery. Last known address, unknown. Lana stepped out of the truck and stared at the silhouette of the barn in the moonlight. The wind rustled the grass. A loose door creaked softly. She moved toward the side of the building, her flashlight casting long shadows across the dry wood.
Something glinted near the base of the barn wall. Metal. She crouched and found it. A small bracelet tangled in the weeds. She picked it up. plastic, faded purple, etched with a child’s name in blocky handwriting. K I M I. Lana’s breath caught. Kim Leong, one of the 15, a quiet, artistic girl who loved cartoons and wrote her name on everything.
Lana stood slowly, her heart pounding. The past wasn’t just whispering anymore. It was screaming. The bracelet was still in Lana’s hand when she returned to the station just after midnight. She didn’t turn on the overhead lights, just the lamp on her desk, casting a pool of amber across the surface. The rest of the office remained quiet and still.
She placed the bracelet beside the class photo, lining it up with the face of Kim Lung. She’d been 10 years old, wore glasses, loved dinosaurs, and now this. Found beside a barn linked to a man with no current address. Lana picked up the landline and dialed the Texas missing and unsolved cold case unit. She left a detailed message requesting a full report on Martin Avery and his last known associates.
She didn’t expect an answer until morning. But something was happening now, and she couldn’t sleep with ghosts pressing in at the windows. By sunrise, the morning lake dig site was buzzing with quiet urgency. More of the earth around the buried bus had been cleared, and a second team from the state’s historical preservation unit had arrived to document the excavation, less because of its history, and more because of what it now represented.
Lana stood beside the emergency exit, arms folded, watching the forensic texts catalog every inch of the hollowed shell. She had barely slept. Her mind was too loud with memory and unease. Sheriff, one of the investigators called, lifting a sealed evidence sleeve. You’re going to want to see this. She walked over.
The tech, a man in his late 40s with square glasses and a quiet voice, held the plastic pouch carefully. Inside was a photograph. Color slightly curled at the edges, but not aged like it should have been. Lana frowned. Where was it? Wedged behind the metal paneling above the back left window. Looked recently placed, honestly.
She took the photo and studied it. It showed a group of children, maybe eight or nine of them, standing in front of what looked like a low wooden building, a barn, a lodge. It was hard to tell. The sighting was weathered. The windows boarded. The kids expressions were strange, blank, not frightened, not smiling, just absent.
