The walkie-Talkie Message That Came 15 Years Too Late

The Last Game

The summer heat pressed down on us that July afternoon, thick and heavy as a wool blanket. Lily's laughter rang through the trees as she adjusted the pink plastic headband holding back her sun-bleached braids.

"Ready?" she asked, her freckled nose scrunching the way it always did when she was excited.

I nodded, pressing my forehead against the rough bark of our counting tree. "Go!"

The sound of her sneakers crunching through dry leaves faded into the woods. I began counting aloud, the numbers tasting like salt and childhood on my tongue.

"Forty-eight... forty-nine... fifty!" I whirled around, the walkie-talkie clipped to my shorts crackling with static. "Ready or not, Lily!"

Silence.

Not the comfortable quiet of our woods, but a thick, watchful stillness that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

The Search

By dusk, the police had strung yellow tape between the trees. Flashlight beams cut through the gathering dark as officers called Lily's name. Her mother's wails carried across the field from the farmhouse porch.

I stood frozen near our oak tree, clutching the walkie-talkie Lily had dropped. Its plastic casing was warm from my panicked grip.

Detective Walsh knelt before me, his kind eyes shadowed in the fading light. "Jessica, did Lily mention going anywhere else today? Anywhere special?"

I shook my head, tears dripping onto the walkie-talkie's display screen. The last transmission light blinked mockingly back at me.

The Years Between

Fifteen years passed. The missing posters curled and faded. The news vans left. Lily's family moved away.

I grew up, went to college, became a teacher. But every July, I'd wake gasping from dreams of static-filled whispers and a little girl's laughter echoing through trees.

Then last month, I came home to clear out Grandma's attic after her passing.

The Box

The "SUMMER 2010" label was barely legible beneath layers of dust. Inside, beneath yellowed photos of lemonade stands and fireflies in jars, I found it.

Lily's walkie-talkie.

The same one I'd handed to Detective Walsh. The same one that had disappeared from evidence.

My fingers trembled as I popped open the battery compartment. A folded slip of notebook paper fluttered into my lap.

The date at the top stopped my heart: July 17, 2010. The day before she vanished.

"Jess—

Meet me at the shed at midnight. I saw Mr. Harris carrying bags inside yesterday. There are BONES in there! Real ones! Don't tell anyone—he watches our houses. Bring your walkie-talkie.

—Lily"

The paper smelled faintly of mildew and something metallic. Blood? My vision swam as I realized—this changed everything.

The Shed

Moonlight painted the rotting toolshed in silver and shadow. The door groaned like a living thing as I pushed it open.

The smell hit first—damp earth and something sweetly rotten. My flashlight beam danced over cobwebbed tools until it caught on a warped floorboard.

The wood came up too easily.

Below lay a child's pink hair tie crusted with dirt. A stack of Polaroids. And at the very bottom, pressed into the dirt—tiny fingernail marks scoring the wood in frantic arcs.

The top photo showed Mr. Harris smiling at his porch railing. But when I tilted it, the flash revealed what he'd really been looking at—Lily and me playing by the tree line, perfectly framed between his fingers like caught fireflies.

The Basement

Sheriff Dawson's face went gray when I showed him the note. "Harris died five years back," he muttered. "Cancer."

They brought cadaver dogs to the property. The animals went wild at an old chest freezer in the basement, their barks echoing off concrete walls.

Inside, beneath packages of frostbitten meat, lay a bundle wrapped in floral fabric. The coroner would later confirm Lily had been kept alive nearly three weeks before...

I can't write it.

Grandma's Confession

I found the missing corner of Lily's note in Grandma's recipe box. Her shaky writing covered the back:

"Forgive me. I heard a child screaming that night. When I called the police, Harris was on the porch smoking. He said if I told, he'd say I helped. I was scared. By morning, it was too late."

She'd kept the walkie-talkie all these years—her guilt preserved alongside Lily's final message.

The Vigil

At Lily's memorial last week, her mother pressed something into my hands—the matching walkie-talkie from the evidence box.

"Channel seven," she whispered. "That was always your frequency."

That night at 3:17 AM, static crackled through the speaker. Then, so faint I had to hold my breath to hear:

"...Jess...found you..."

The display screen glowed an impossible 00.00 before going dark.

I keep it on my nightstand now, volume turned all the way up.

Waiting.