Chasing Memories

[22] Trail

    A dank, rotten stench dragged down the walls of the fishing hut. With the lightest press of Elise's foot, stagnant rainwater spewed out of the large orange rug to trickle into the corners of the room. Dense drops tore from the ceiling to drum against the floor, and the beam of her phone's torch painted a dull grey stain across the wall opposite the doorway. The metallic tang that infected Elise's mouth suggested that more damp and mould lurked beneath the hut's few remaining furnishings.

    "How long has Matt been staying here?" Elise asked in surprise, directing a sickly cough into her elbow. Another step into the hut pressed more water out of the rug's ragged fibres, and a flash of her light discovered the faint copper colour that tinged the liquid. "This place is a wreck. It's freezing in here, and he could actually die from all this mould."

    "Maybe that's the point." Trudging over a broadening pool of murky water, Cadence stood under the ceiling leak and widened her eyes at the size of the damp stain. She glimpsed Elise's disapproving look from the corner of her vision and shrugged. "What? You've seen how badly the guy's crashed since Mel dumped him. People have done crazier stuff for worse reasons, and some of them weren't even blasted out of their minds."

    Elise wiped a dot of spattered water off her shoulder. "Thanks for the insight, Little Miss Sunshine," she said, peering in the crack of space between the wall and a well-used sleeping bag. Nothing but mould and clumped dust met her eye, and she choked down the nausea that bubbled up her throat. "You know what Matt and Melody's relationship was like. What kind of stuff are we looking for here?"

    As she flicked on her own phone light, Cadence entered the hut's cramped storage room and groaned at the sight of another pool of standing water. "Matt's totally one of those mushy hoarder creeps," she answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "If Mel gave him anything, wrote him any notes, even spat in his stupid face, he probably held onto it. Maybe something like that can lead us to where she's at now."

    Moving to the other side of the main room, Elise peeled off a soaked blanket to reveal a simple, sturdy dinner table. Messy piles of belongings sprawled across the table's surface, their contents ranging from worthless junk to a mysterious chunky device with a pistol grip and a thick black hose drooping from one end. "For someone living in a dingy dump, Matt sure has some fancy stuff hidden away," Elise called out as she held the device up for Cadence to see. "Any idea what this is?"

    "Woah. Nice find, killer," Cadence said, aiming her phone light at the machine in Elise's hand. "That's a cordless tyre pump, and a hella dope one at that. I'd kill to have one of those sometimes, especially when my lungs are screaming at me halfway through checking my piece of junk's tyres. I wonder..."

    "No, Cade. You can't steal Matt's tyre pump." Folding her arms, Elise silently stared at her friend, the whites of her eyes glowing in the darkness.

    With one last longing look at the device, Cadence tossed the pump back into its gap on the table. "Damn it. You know me too well."

    The device scattered a stack of rubbish as it landed, and Elise picked up a large lined note that fluttered out from the sea of assorted litter. Against the backdrop of the creased, battered paper, the careful cursive handwriting that adorned the note's surface defied her expectations. The note was unsigned, yet it took less than a moment for the penny of the writer's identity to drop in Elise's mind. "Look at this," she said as she extended the note to Cadence. "I think it's from Melody."

    "Aha! Thank you, Stalker-in-Chief," Cadence cheered, clapping before taking the note in hand. Her eyes blazed streaks over the message's lines, and Elise perched by her friend's shoulder to scan through the note again.