Black Box: Book Three

67 ~ The shoe in the river

A few years ago, Sam had just been through a rough divorce from their high school sweetheart. Their best friend had taken to distracting them by taking long road trips. One morning, they were on their way to Carlsbad, New Mexico when they paused alongside a river dam. They were drinking cider and snacking when the pair decided to explore the dried river bed. It was obvious that they weren't the first ones to go trekking through the riverbed. The pair could see human, canine, and feline footprints in the mud.

They then recall starting to feel an odd sensation, like they were being watched. Their friend caught the writer's attention and called them over. There was a bone in the ground - what they now believe was a spinal cord. At first they thought it was a beef or pork bone on some kind. They continued looking around the river bed when they found a strange rust colored rock sticking out from the sand. When they got closer, they realized it was a half-buried little girl's shoe. Sam stepped back and ran forward, preparing to kick the shoe. Suddenly, they heard a little girl's voice shout "No! Don't, please!" They looked around but didn't see anyone besides themselves, and their friend. The friend asked why they stopped and they replied "Didn't you hear that little girl?". Both confused, they decided to shrug it off and continued on their way. Meanwhile, the feeling that someone was watching them grew stronger. A few minutes later, they spotted another bone.

Now, they began to get scared. The bone was clearly human. The friend called the non-emergency police number for Carlsbad, and they reported what they saw.

One week later, they received a call from their friend that the Carlsbad Police had called to report the bones they found were indeed human. During the investigation, the two were questioned and eventually informed that the rust-colored rock actually wasn't a rock at all, but the shell of a pickup truck that had disappeared along with the family of three it had been carrying: a man, a woman, and their daughter.