“Elsie, since you're a woman, I think you should go up there alone and see if you feel anything. This was a very small child. If she was alive when she went into that cavern, she would be scared and confused. She probably wanted her mother. A woman would be comforting to her. Why don't you go up there and sit in the cavern for a bit and see if anything happens?"
Elsie agreed and started up the rocks. She carried a small camera of her own and was holding it while also trying to keep some of the light from her flashlight trained on her feet to stop herself from stepping on something loose or slippery and tumbling down.
Ken watched her progress, describing what he was seeing and hearing to the camera. It was important to differentiate the sounds of a regular night of nature from those that were unexplained.
“I mentioned there are people who believe Violet simply wandered away and got lost. In fact, that is considered the official theory by the park authorities. But something not many people know, and something law enforcement doesn’t want you to know, is that the case was never closed. It is still an open investigation, and there’s one important detail that is usually left out when talking about this case. There was a witness who …”
Elsie reached the top of the rocks and briefly disappeared as he was saying the sentence. He never got to finish it.
"Holy shit! Ken!" Elsie shouted from above his head. "Ken, get up here. Now."
"It sounds as if Elsie might have captured something she wants to share with us. I'm going to attach my camera and climb up…"
"Ken, now!"
He was making his way up toward the cavern when Elsie rushed from the mouth of the cavern and reached out for a tree. Grabbing onto it, she covered her mouth with her hand and turned away from the camera.
"What's going on?" Ken asked. "Elsie, what happened?"
She shook her head and moved her hand, drawing in a breath before turning to him.
"Something is in that cavern," she said.
"Did you hear something? Did you record it?" Ken asked.
"No. Ken. There are bones."
Chapter Thirteen
The Investigation…
Ken's face fell and he scrambled to the outcropping where he could look into the cavern. Taking his flashlight off his belt, he shined it into the gap in the rocks. At first, he didn't see anything. A couple of rocks and a few scattered branches on the floor could have confused Elsie, but he didn't know her to be irrational. Usually, she was well under control and looked at everything with a cooler and less impulsive mind than he did.
It was part of why they were a good team. They could go into the same situation and see it completely differently. While he was more likely to jump into things and make faster assumptions and conclusions, Elsie had a more analytical mind. She liked to look at situations and break them down carefully, approaching them with the belief that logic and calm were the best ways to dismantle skepticism.
But there she was, struggling to breathe, her eyes wild. She’d obviously seen something that disturbed her. Even scared her.
Ken took a step further into the cavern, bending down so he could sweep the beam of his light across the entire space. Only a second later, he saw what she had. The small camera attached to his shoulder captured every second.
At first, his brain couldn't process what he was seeing. It didn't make sense. It shouldn't be there. Yet it was. A dirty, dingy sleeping bag, torn and streaked with mud, spread across the back corner of the cavern. But it wasn't the sleeping bag itself that bothered him or set off the alarm bells now ringing so loudly in his head he could barely hear himself think.
Instead, it was the hand prominently sticking out of the top of the bag. Nothing but bone. The hand seemed to be reaching for something, as though someone inside was trying to climb out and had been for many years.
Forgetting to talk, forgetting there were people watching him live, he approached the bag without saying a word. He didn't describe what was happening or turn off his camera so the audience couldn't watch. He was lost in the moment, unable to stop himself as he reached down and moved the edge of the bag aside. It opened and Ken gasped, scrambling back a few steps.
Deep in the bag, surrounded by dirt and leaves, was a pile of old bones.
His flashlight fell from his hand as he ran out of the cavern. Scrambling down the rocks, he commanded anybody who could hear him and had a phone on them to call the police. It wasn't until his feet were back on the makeshift path leading to the rocks that he felt in control again. He took back his leadership and got the attention of the other four members of the team.
“We're going back to the campground,” he said. “We need to get somewhere more centralized so the police can find us. Then we'll lead them back to the cavern. Turn your lights on to be aware of your surroundings. I’ll call the police myself when we get back to the campground. We need that documented. Jeremy, turn off the camera.”
Ken didn't know how the producers would handle the sudden cut of the stream, but all he cared about was not showing how to access the cavern while they were on camera. It was
