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spacedogfromspaceThe Vanishing
Chapter 2: The Return
Nyota Returns to Yosemite National Park.
The door of the storage unit creaked and clanked and screeched as it lifted up, rolling back to rest along the ceiling. Light shone into the dust covered space. Nyota stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, surveying the piles of sealed cardboard boxes before her.
She was a different person than she was the night before, when she had bags under her eyes, a tired and lifeless expression on her face, and thinking about how miserable she was in her job. Now, as she stood before the familiar boxes of her past, her deep brown eyes possessed the fire of determination. Her nearly waist length micro-braids were pulled back into a high ponytail, rather than laying in a damp, messy heap around her shoulders. And her frumpy lounge wear was gone, replaced with stylish clothing. She wore a comfortable sweater with wide horizontal stripes in white, navy, and gold under a smart black leather jacket. Her dark-wash jeans bared no wear and tear, even of the artificial kind, and were long enough to cover the tops of her sensible leather boots. It was her favourite outfit. The one that made her feel most confident, a bad ass motherfucker. She wore it today because she was going to need all the confidence she could get.
She waded through the sea of boxes, wiping the thick layer of dust off the tops to read the hand written sharpie labels. Some of the boxes she moved out of the unit, setting them aside unopened. She knew she couldn't take all the boxes with her, so she chose the ones she thought would be the most necessary or the most helpful to her once she was back in Yosemite.
Closing up the unit again and locking it, Nyota surveyed what she had withdrawn. She felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that she was able to narrow her selection down to just ten boxes. The taxi driver, knowing that he was to drop Nyota and all her boxes off at the bus station, raised an eyebrow but said nothing, silently helping his passenger load the boxes into the van.
A sparse smattering of raindrops tapped at the bus window. Nyota watched them streak across the glass, driven by the bus' highway-speed advancement. She was lucky enough to have scored a window seat— actually, she was lucky to have been allowed on the bus at all with all her luggage. But the bus wasn't fully booked, so the driver mercifully allowed all her boxes and her duffel bag to be stored under the bus.
Nyota pulled her head off the window as the bus rolled over a rough patch of asphalt. The bus shook minutely, but with her head leaning on the glass it felt like jackhammers against her skull.
The trip wasn't too long, only four, four and a half hours, depending on traffic. She almost wished that the trip were even longer, with a stop between point A and point B. A stop where she could get off the bus and turn around. But there was no stop, and she had already passed the point of no return.
Trying to ease her cold feet, she opened her phone, reminding herself of her cause by reading Jim's missing person page. She had already memorized all the details, so instead she focused on the photo. it was the same one that was shown on the news the previous night. She studied his bright eyes, his carefree expression, wondering if he— at the moment that photo was taken —would have ever thought that he would vanish off the face of the Earth only weeks, maybe months later.
Shutting off her phone, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window again, listening to the tires roll over the asphalt and the few drops of rain striking the windshield, ignoring the bumps that knocked her head into the window. She still dreaded her return to Yosemite. She still wanted to turn tail and flee back to San Francisco. But she couldn't just abandon Jim. She owed it to him to try.
As the bus neared its destination, Nyota reached into her pocket for her wallet. From it, she pulled a worn and wrinkled photograph of a boy, seventeen years old. His skin was the same sepia tone as hers, and they shared the same eyes, down to the dark brown shade of their irises. The boy's smile revealed a gap between his two front teeth, a feature he did not share with Nyota. His dense afro clouded up over a green headband that nearly— but not quite —matched his outdoorsy flannel shirt.
She stared at the photo for a long while, stroking a thumb down the side of the picture, where the glossy finish on the photo had been worn away. The boy stared up at her, eyes sparkling. She owed it to him too, to look for Jim. She had to try.
The woman at the counter was leaned over a newspaper, not having noticed the door open and close. Nyota was glad to recognize the woman. The golden blonde hair that would have formed a lion's mane around the woman's rosy pink face were it not tamed in a thick braid down her back was unmistakable.
She was less glad to recognize the wall behind the woman, plastered with photos of all those still missing. She recognized every face on the wall, only now, there were two people she knew personally instead of just one.
"How are you, Janice?" Nyota asked as she stepped up to the desk.
The woman— Janice —jumped, startled, leaping up from her newspaper. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in— wait, Nyota? What are you doing back here?" She asked, her state of fluster turning to one of confusion and curiosity.
Nyota pointed to the newest poster on the wall. "Guy went missing," she said casually, nonchalantly. As if this were a normal thing for her to do. As if it were still a normal thing for her to do. "I came to look for him."
Janice regarded her sadly, her big brown doe eyes giving her a natural expression of pity. "I thought you were done with all this," she said softly.
Nyota sighed, slumping against the counter as if she was literally deflating. In a tired, defeated tone, she admitted: "Yeah, I was. But this one is different. I know this one." She traced a long fingernail along the grid of the newspaper's crossword puzzle idly. "I mean, you can't expect me to not show up to look for a friend, right?" She chuckled darkly, the defensiveness in her voice not concealed in the slightest.
Janice sighed and shook her head. "Of course not. I just worry you'll let it consume you again."
Nyota grimaced. "I have to try," she said quietly.
"I know," Janice answered with a gentle smile. She looked past Nyota for a moment. "Go on, grab a trolley. Your driver is getting impatient."
With a grateful smile, Nyota left the desk, and dragged the old trolley out to the taxi that took her from the nearby town into the park. The way that the wheels squeaked and shrieked suggested that they hadn't been oiled since the hotel first opened back in the seventies.
After all of her boxes and her duffel bag were stacked precariously atop the trolley, Nyota paid the driver, thanking him with a generous tip for his patience and his assistance with her cumbersome luggage. Then, she hauled the trolley back into the lobby of the small hotel. She had to drag it, using her whole body weight to get it moving, the old wheels protesting under the weight of the boxes.
"I sure hope your elevator is working," she panted once she managed to return to the desk.
Janice smiled at her. "You're in luck. We just had it serviced last week." Nyota exaggerated a sigh of relief, earning a chuckle from Janice. "Your room is vacant," Janice said, then her face darkened a bit. "Unless you'd prefer a different one...?"
"That one's fine," Uhura insisted, sliding her credit card across the counter for Janice to put on file. "It'll help me get back in the swing of it all."
Janice gave her an uneasy look, plucking the plastic card from the counter, holding it between red acrylic nails. "If you're sure," she said uncertainly, and copied the card information into her computer with one hand, nails clicking on they keys.
"I'm sure," Nyota said, feeling less than sure.
Janice handed her back her card, accompanied by a familiar brass key on a large ring with a big leather tag. The tag was a dark green, with a simple silhouette of a white wolf howling on one side, and the number 203 on the other. The scuffs and scratches in the leather were a testament to the last time she held this key.
Before she could change her mind, Nyota took the key, and started the arduous process of dragging her trolley over to the elevator.
"You want a hand with that?" Janice asked, watching Nyota struggle.
"Nope, I'm fine," Nyota said in a strained voice, finally persuading the trolley to move. The door chimed. "Looks like you have a customer, anyway," she commented, pulling the trolley into the elevator, her tower of boxes blocking her view of the lobby.
The door opened to the second floor hallway, and Nyota braced her back against the trolley, pushing it out of the elevator ahead of her. Once she and her luggage were out of danger of having elevator doors shut on them, she allowed herself a moment to catch her breath.
The musty, damp smell of the old carpet instantly brought back memories of the months she spent here. The hallway itself was as it had always been. The carpet was worn down, the multiple stains disguised partly by the overwhelming seventies era pattern, though the colours were faded. The walls were the same dark green as they leather key tag in her pocket, and sported less scuffs and dents than the wood panelling that decorated the lower half of the walls. The light wood was covered in gouges, long black streaks, chips and dents from five decades of having luggage rammed into them. Much of the damage was perfectly aligned with the bed of the trolley she now continued to drag down the hallway, cursing the wheels for working even worse on the carpet.
She paused again when she reached room 203. She didn't have to look at the number to know that it was the one. With a moment of hesitation and a deep breath, she put her key in the lock. The door was just as sticky as always, and her muscle memory took over, knowing exactly the way to force it open. With the door now open only an inch, she paused. She could still leave. She could turn around and go right back home, leaving all her boxes in the dumpster out back. But she knew she couldn't do that. Not without at least trying to find Jim.
With a shaky breath, she pushed the door open.
She was back.
Nyota surveyed the room. She had purposefully avoided looking at the room when she first entered, just focused on unloading her boxes and duffel, stacking them in the middle of the room as quickly as she could. She only allowed herself to really look at the room once she had returned from depositing the trolley back in the lobby.
To anyone else, the room was sparse and empty, but to Nyota, it was filled with memories. The off-white walls still bore the constellations of holes that she punched in the wall with thumb tacks. The window still opened out to a view of the densely forested mountain where one of her cases vanished, never to be found. The room's single arm chair was still sitting before the window. She remembered long nights working on that case, when she would just sit in that chair, elbows on the windowsill, staring out at the starlit mountain wondering, *'what happened to you?'
She stepped into the small bathroom, glancing at her reflection in the small mirror. Her face fragmented into a kaleidoscopic pattern. The mirror she broke one night in frustration had not been replaced. She grimaced. Janice hadn't made her pay for the damages, but Nyota was feeling guilty for not paying up anyway.
Shaking her head, she turned to the pile of boxes in the middle of the floor and got to work. She dragged her duffel bag off the top of the pile and slugged it onto the bed, getting it out of the way. Then she started opening boxes, cutting away packing tape with her Swiss army knife.
Most of the boxes were stuffed with papers, photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, police reports, and scribbled notes. These she opened up, folded the box flaps down neatly, and lined up against the wall like a makeshift filing cabinet.
The few boxes that weren't full of case files were filled with her field equipment. She pulled from one box a GPS, a handheld ham radio, an ancient tape recorder, a digital video camera, a flare gun, a spot tracker, and a battery charger. She laid each item out neatly on the small plain desk in the corner, then started opening battery compartments, hoping that none of the batteries leaked. Though she cursed herself for not removing the batteries before sending the items into storage, she was relieved to find that the battery compartments were free of the tell-tale greenish-blue gunk.
Another two of the boxes held her other gear— water bladders, a hiking backpack, a sleeping bag, rain gear, collapsible hiking poles, a box of waterproof matches, a watertight bag, bear spray, a coil of synthetic rope, a folded down tarp. Once she had examined the items, taking an inventory of what she had, she piled them all back in the box and kicked it over into a corner, where it would be out of the way.
Reluctantly, she started on her 'filing cabinet,' each one containing a case of someone who had vanished without a trace in Yosemite National Park. Of course, there wasn't a box for every one of these cases, only the ones she had investigated. And she only brought the ones she thought would be helpful to her current case. She hoped she chose the right ones.
She waded through the boxes, picking out annotated maps, detailed summaries of her investigations, photos of the missing, choosing the most pertinent material to review. She was halfway through the boxes when her focus was interrupted by a knock on her door.
Assuming it was Janice calling on her, Nyota called out, "come in." She didn't rise from her spot on the floor, knowing that she hadn't bolted the door. When the door opened, she blinked in surprise to see that instead of Janice, a tall, tired looking man stood in her doorway. A couple blinks later and her surprise turned into recognition. "Leonard," she greeted, slowly shoving to her feet. Her legs protested, tingling from having been sat on for too long.
"Been a while," he said, giving her a nod. The understatement of the century, really. Nyota hadn't seen one Doctor Leonard McCoy since college.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
Leonard raised an eyebrow at her. "Same thing as you, I'm assuming," he said.
Of course, Nyota shook her head at herself. Leonard was Jim's roommate, back when they were all housed in the same college dorm. The two of them kept close in touch after graduation, staying close friends all this time. Nyota remembered her friends and was still fond of them, and she felt guilty for falling out of touch with them like she had. She had other things going on.
"Right, Jim," she said, sheepishly.
Leonard nodded absently. He was busy frowning at her boxes and piles of papers and electronics and other gear. "What's all this?"
Part of her felt guilty. That he didn't know what all this stuff meant was a testament to how little she had kept in touch after college. On the other hand, she felt relieved at having a friend who wasn't aware of all that had happened. Someone who wouldn't look at her with pity, ask her if she was sure she wanted to be doing this.
"Case files," Nyota said, waving him over to show him some of what she had taken from the boxes. "Lots of people have vanished out here in Yosemite. If I can find a pattern, maybe it'll help us find Jim." Before it's too late, she didn't add.
Leonard nodded. If he was confused as to why she had all these extensive details of so many cases, he didn't show it.
Feeling like she should confess, she explained, "I investigated these kinds of cases for a while. Collecting all sorts of information and looking for patterns."
Leonard gave her a long look. "Is one of these boxes Shahaab?" He asked.
She flinched, but nodded anyway, gesturing to one of the boxes she hadn't yet opened. Was Shahaab's case file relevant enough to have dragged it all the way here from San Francisco? No. But all her investigations were also an investigation into what happened to her twin brother.
Knowing that he had touched on a sensitive subject, Leonard didn't press further, instead crouching down to examine the old missing posters that were laid out on the floor. "Been a lot of them, hasn't there?"
Nyota nodded grimly. "None of them have ever been found," she said. "These aren't the half of it. I have more boxes just like these back in San Francisco. And even those are just the cases I've investigated. There are tons more."
Leonard looked up at her, skeptically. "None of them have been found?" He asked. "Not even remains?"
She shook her head. "Not a single one. Well, at least of the ones of a certain profile. There are plenty that are found, but those are regular cases of someone getting lost."
"What do you mean, a certain profile?"
Nyota frowned, and gathered up the pages she had taken from the boxes so far. She tacked them up on the wall, five of the seven cases she had brought with her. She pointed out the similarities on her summary sheets as she explained. "They all just seem to vanish into thin air. As I've said, they're never found. Typically they disappear near boulder fields, or near caves. Dogs can't pick up a trail. Sometimes they aren't alone when they go missing," she said, pointing to two of the missing posters. "These two were in groups when they disappeared. One was at the back of the pack while hiking the trail. The others in her group said that she was there one minute, and the next she was gone without a trace. The other one stepped off the trail for a bathroom break and never re-emerged. His backpack was found against a tree just off the trail. It's like they just vanished into thin air."
Leonard glanced between the pages on the wall. "Maybe they fell into the caves," he suggested. "You said they tend to happen near them. Maybe there were hidden openings in the brush and they just fell in."
"That's one of the theories," Nyota said, shaking her head. "But then why aren't they found? If they fell into a hole in the ground, why wouldn't anyone hear them shouting for help, or at least make any noises when they fell? And the caves were searched in most of these cases, and there was still no sign of them."
"There has to be some sort of explanation," Leonard said, then bit his lip. "Do you think Jim is one of these cases?" He asked worriedly.
"I hope he isn't," Nyota said quietly. "Hopefully the rain lets up and the organized search can go out tomorrow. Best case is he just got lost, or hurt himself and was unable to get back to the trail-head for help. The dogs will pick up his scent, we'll find his tracks in the mud, and we'll find him a little worse for wear, but alive."
"And worst case is—"
"Lets hope we don't have to think about that," Nyota said quickly, ignoring the fact that she had done nothing but think about that since she saw Jim's face on the news.
The weather cleared by the next morning, and the search was on. Nyota met Leonard in the hotel lobby and rode with him to the trail-head in his rental car. A veteran of search parties, she knew what to wear and what equipment to bring. Though the rain had ceased, she wore her waterproof boots and long rain slicker. The trail would be wet and muddy, and the rain could return at any time. She put a sweater in the bottom of her backpack, in case the temperature dropped, brought plenty of water, made sure the batteries in her handheld radio and GPS were charged, and she clipped her spot tracker beacon to the shoulder strap of her backpack. Leonard wasn't quite so prepared, but at least he had waterproof shoes.
Despite their early departure from the White Wolf Lodge, they were hardly the first to arrive at the trail-head, where the search was being launched. They had to park at the end of a long line of cars that stretched a ways down Glacier Point road, and walk the rest of the way up to the trail-head.
The search was organized by Yosemite park rangers and the state police. The officers at the trail-head spoke to all the volunteers who came through to search, handing out maps and directing them to search locations, as well as checking for proper footwear and clothing. Volunteers were strongly encouraged to search in pairs, sticking within visual range of their buddy at all times; it wouldn't do to have anyone else go missing during the search effort.
Nyota didn't stick around to speak to the cops for any longer than necessary, taking her map, noting her assigned search area, and practically dragging Leonard down the trail. He didn't protest, having an understanding of Nyota's distaste for the police.
"Where are we looking?" Leonard asked once they were down the trail a ways.
"The lake," Nyota said, giving him a skeptical look. "You're up for a ten kilometre walk just to get there, right?"
Leonard blanched, but sighed. "Whatever helps us find Jim," he said, and that was that.
They walked briskly down the trail, passing other volunteers as they searched their areas along the trail. Some of the volunteers patrolled up and down long sections of trail dragging wagons of water to keep people hydrated. Park rangers consulted with one another and volunteer groups over maps. In the forest all around them they could hear people calling out for Jim, in hopes that they would get an answer. Nyota couldn't help but think about all the other searches she participated in, where the calls were never answered. As they walked, she found herself transported back in time. She was seventeen, clomping through the woods off a trail not unlike this one, cupping her hands around her mouth and calling her brother's name long after her voice ran hoarse. There were a few times where she could have sworn she heard him answer, but it was just her imagination.
"Nyota!"
Nyota snapped out of her thoughts at the sharp tap on her shoulder, turning towards Leonard. From the look he was giving her, he had called her name a few times already.
"You okay?" He asked, sounding concerned.
Nyota nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I was thinking."
He gave her a long, expectant look, but when she didn't elaborate, he said, "we're at the lake."
Nyota looked up ahead of them in surprise. Sure enough, she could see the blue water through the trees up ahead. Thinking that they couldn't have gotten all the way to the lake so soon, she checked her watch, and realized that she must have been zoned out for at least an hour. Still, the walk had only taken them two and a half hours. "We've made good time," she commented.
"Yeah, I asked you to slow down a few times, let an old man keep up. But you just ignored me and kept trucking," Leonard complained, rolling his shoulders a few times and grimacing.
Nyota winced. She really had been out of it. She mumbled a sheepish apology, then added, "But you aren't that old, come on."
Leonard rolled his eyes. "Yeah, tell my bones that tomorrow when they're screaming bloody murder at me."
Nyota shot him a wry smile, then pulled the map out of the pocket of her rain coat. "We're supposed to search the lake perimeter, and check at the ski hut." From the distant voices she could hear calling out for the missing, she knew they wouldn't be the first ones to search the area around the lake, but the more eyes the better. "We should get started," she said, folding the map and striding forward as if she hadn't just walked ten kilometres.
"Hang on a minute," Leonard said, catching her by the elbow and stopping her in her tracks. He gave her a pointed look that said 'don't lie to me.' "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah?" She said, her face saying 'why wouldn't I be?' When he looked no more convinced, she pulled her arm out of his grasp, grumbling, "Quit trying to doctor me."
Leonard rolled his eyes. "It's kind of my thing, you know. Will you at least drink some water? You've hardly had any the whole hike."
That was something Nyota was happy to oblige. And thankfully, Leonard took the hint and didn't pester her any more, and they set out around the lake, combing slowly through the brush at the lake's edge and the nearby trees. Having experience, Nyota instructed Leonard on what to look for, and how to look for it. They might not find Jim himself, but they might find some evidence that would help determine where he was or what happened to him. As of the moment, nobody was sure where on the trail Jim had disappeared from. It was unknown if he even made it to the lake. Finding any clues would be very useful information. While Nyota hoped someone would find something of Jim's to give them a hint, she desperately hoped they didn't find his shoes. Finding shoes was never a good sign, if her case files were anything to go by.
Nyota was in such deep focus that she once again, didn't realize that Leonard was talking to her, even raising his voice to try and grab her attention.
"Hey! Earth to Nyota, what planet have you gone off to?" He was practically yelling by the time she finally noticed. She looked at him eagerly, hopeful that he found something, but it turned out he had just asked a question, only to find that she had gone off into her own little world again.
"Sorry," she muttered. "What is it?"
"I asked if you think this fits the profile," he said, forcing patience into his voice.
Nyota frowned. "It's too early to tell," she admitted.
"What about the terrain?" He asked. "There aren't any boulder fields or caves around here. Does that mean it's less likely for him to be one of your cases?"
Nyota realized that he was looking for reassurance, and she felt bad that she wouldn't be able to give him any. "There aren't any boulder fields, but there could be caves," she said. "Just because there aren't any marked on the map doesn't mean there aren't any around. And unfortunately, disappearing near lakes is also part of the profile."
Leonard frowned. "People don't disappear forever if they drown in a lake. They wash up, or are found when search and rescue divers go looking, or when they dredge the lake. So how does that fit the profile?"
"They don't go missing in the lake," Nyota clarified. "Just near it. Usually the theory is that they drowned in the lake, but when nobody can find the body... Well, there's no saying what really happened to them. They might not have gone into the lake at all."
There was a long silence, broken only by the sounds of their footsteps and of flora being nudged aside as they continued their search, heads down, eyes scanning.
"I don't like this one bit," Leonard said. Nyota agreed with him.
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