Don't Look Back - Chapter Two

"Dan, I'm telling you, there's a story here," Cooper insisted, pacing the length of her motel room.

Dan rubbed one hand over his weary eyes, the other holding the receiver to his ear while he sat at his desk. Story here, my ass, he thought bitterly. His best journalist was in the middle of nowhere Wyoming chasing ghosts again, and all he could do was sit back and let her. She was the work equivalent of a daughter to him. It was pity, and the fact that she wrote enough articles to be considered doing the bare minimum of her job requirement, that kept Cooper on his payroll. But there was only so much he could do before people started to question his judgement and his responsibility to the paper.

Everyone, from the staff at the paper to the citizens of the US, was divided on Cooper's innocence. Half of them believed her when she said that she didn't kill Iris, and the other half was convinced she'd taken her four-year-old on a camping trip through a very unpopulated Wyoming mountainside, murdered her and disposed of her body quite conveniently, in a place where trying to find a body would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It didn't stop them from looking, but no one was exactly surprised when Iris' body was never found, despite the month-long search that was conducted. Cooper passed a polygraph, but that didn't mean much.

Dan was a good journalist and had a strong instinct that boasted of his thirty-year career, and in those thirty years, he'd never questioned his instincts as much as he did when they told him that Cooper was telling the truth. How many grieving parents had he interviewed over the years? Too many to count. He could separate the parents hiding behind their guilt over something from the ones genuinely suffering a loss, and Cooper fell into the latter no matter which way he sliced it. It was the rest of her story he struggled with, despite the way his subconscious demanded his blind faith. Dan sighed. He knew he'd give in, again, and Cooper would send him some crappy fluff piece about freaking moose and people crazy enough to hold a festival about them, before diving head-first into this obsession of hers. Saying no would only ensure Cooper did exactly what she was already planning to do, and then he wouldn't get a story from her at all.

"You have one week, Coop. Get what you need, and then get back here. Got it?"

Cooper pumped her fist into the air, relief surging through her veins. The ice on which she was standing with Dan was thin, and she knew it, but she'd take whatever she could get away with. "Thanks, boss. You're the best."

She hung up before he could grumble some complaint, and she sat down at the cheap desk next to the motel bed, her fingers already flying across the keyboard of her laptop.

Eleven months and three days.

That's how long it had been since that God-awful night on the mountain. Cooper hadn't slept a full night without the help of her reliable friend, Tito, and despite flying out to Wyoming at every available opportunity, she hadn't gotten any closer to finding Iris, though not for lack of trying. She knew what people said, what people thought, and if she was being honest, she couldn't blame them. The whole story sounded crazy, and if it weren't for how often the whole ordeal played on repeat in the infrequent and fickle sleep she got, Cooper would question her own sanity.

She finished typing out the email and sent it with a distracted indifference toward whether or not she'd get a response from the man, and closed the laptop before grabbing her hiking gear and camera bag.

"Hey, Cooper," Grace greeted from behind the counter at the front desk without looking up as Cooper walked by with a little wave. The young woman smacked her gum, flipping through a People magazine, and she glanced up to watch Cooper getting into the Jeep with her gear. Going out there again. That Cooper woman was downright certifiable, in her opinion, and the whole town thought so. Most hadn't remembered the brunette with the little girl driving through town for food and supplies before the two went up camping down at the base of Rockchuck Peak, but as news crews and all the state and local law enforcement swarmed in after the girl went missing, folks started to remember them real quick. "Hmmmm, she did seem a little manic when she drove through here," someone had said. "I bet you that poor baby just wandered off and the coyotes got her." It sounded harsh, but that was the country for you. Life out here was brutal at times. Most of them thought she was crazy, not because they thought Cooper killed Iris, but because she wasn't willing to accept the cruelty of the environment they lived in. Shaking her head, Grace went back to her magazine.

Cooper took a healthy swig from her water bottle, keeping one hand on the steering wheel as she sped along the highway out of Colter. She figured she could get in a hike before heading back to the town for the festival. Snap a few pics, take a few quotes, write a quick piece to appease Dan, and then she could really focus on scouring the trail again. The Jeep drove the familiar path along the highway, down to the turnoff of Teton Park Road which took Cooper around the Southwest border of the lake, across the dam and around Spalding Bay, the furthest tip of the lake. She parked at the trailhead, tightening the straps of the pack across her chest over her light jacket. It was warmer during these few weeks just before the fall frost which had frozen her breath last year, and the memory of the ache in her lungs from the cold and the exertion made Cooper shudder.

As she walked, her mind wandered, and her eyes panned over Jackson Lake. Once upon a time, the view of it had sparked such joy, a reminder of her childhood and her Papa, and all the skills of hiking, hunting and foraging she only seemed to remember when she was out in the wilderness. But the lake held nothing but heartache and an unshakable feeling of ominous intent. She veered off the hiking trail and walked a good mile toward the lake, breaking out of the trees and climbing over the sun-bleached timber that littered its beaches until she was standing right at the water's edge. A deep breath of fresh air filled Cooper's lungs, and she closed her eyes as the sun beat down on her.

In her mind, the sun sank behind the Teton Range to the west, cloaking the lake in darkness, and the moon rose in its place, illuminating the scene in a cool white light. It danced across the water, frosted the edges of the trees, and Cooper's mind dipped into the vision effortlessly. She stepped onto the water, walking forward on its surface a good distance until she could turn, arms crossed over her chest, and observe the line of trees against the lake at the North of her.

Slowly, seven figures broke from the trees, their tan skin highlighted by the moonlight. The hunters. Native American features, likely of Shoshone descent based on location. Two older, with wrinkled, leathery faces. Three were middle-aged, and two were young, no older than mid-twenties. Each face was burned into her memory, and she'd sent countless emails to local representatives for all the reservations within a five hundred mile radius casually asking for a list of locally based hunters who may have been in the area at this time last year. But her query was unusual, she knew, and it wasn't a leap for people to connect Cooper's request with the disappearance of a four-year-old girl in that same area from that same time. Obviously, she'd yet to receive a helpful response.

Behind them, dogs appeared, the hounds howling with their heads tipped up to the sky.

Then, from the water along the beach, the creatures from her nightmares sprang up, forming together from the water around them. Round, cherubic bodies with rolls of fat on their arms and legs, of varying sizes and supposed ages magically apparated into solid form. Bodies of white skin, glowing in the moonlight, wet in appearance with spots of green and a tint of blue led to chubby, child-like faces that smiled at her. It was the disconcerting joviality of those smiles, with their perfectly lined and sharpened white teeth, that reached their black, bottomless eyes, that sent blood-curdling terror down Cooper's spine.

Water babies. A quick Google search sent Cooper diving into hours of local folklore, and all her investigating pointed to these little monsters. Their origin was traced back to varying legends from the Shoshone Indian tribe between Idaho, Utah, and Nevada, about mothers drowning their newborn children during a famine. The spirits of those children were said to have occupied the Snake River as the babies turned into fish-like creatures. Other legends still said they became vengeful tricksters who would lure people to their deaths in the water with the sound of a crying baby. Cooper thought there was merit to both of these; They were certainly spirit-like and equally child-like, and if they'd expressed any sort of animosity toward Cooper, she imagined they'd be truly terrifying. There wasn't a legend of them in Wyoming, but if any of their history was true, they'd likely spread from the Snake River in Idaho through to Jackson Lake. She'd stopped really focusing on them, though. For all their teeth, it didn't appear as though they held any ill will toward Cooper.

No, Cooper was waiting for him. He parted the men on either side of him with a wave of his hand as he stepped out of the shadow of the trees, and Cooper watched as he walked slowly down the beach. The men, as he passed, fell to their knees. The dogs, to their bellies. The creatures, still smiling, gazed up at him, and followed his movements with their unblinking eyes. Cooper waited.

His bare feet made no noise as he moved, and she studied him from head to toe. Long, jean-clad legs led to a trim waist and a white t-shirt covered chest which was wide and strong. His long arms were relaxed, swinging gently at his sides with each stride he took in her direction. His steps on the surface of the water each made one single ripple that smoothed the lake around him. Within twenty feet of her, Cooper's eyes raised to his face, to the curtain of black hair that fell down his back, to the wide, thin lips, the strong, hooked nose that fell from a large nasal bone and high cheekbones that framed those black eyes. Black and cavernous, yes, but Cooper couldn't call them soulless, because as empty as the babies' were, the stranger's were overflowing with raw emotion and power, so much so that Cooper could only meet them for as long as the vision lasted, which wasn't long. When they stood inches apart and the tension in the vision stretched taut, Cooper took a breath.

In the early visions, she'd tried everything. She'd tried to kill him, to wrap her hands around his throat and demand answers: He always dodged her attacks. She'd screamed and cried and begged him to give Iris back. She'd tried to have a calm and logical conversation. But every time, he said nothing, so Cooper stopped trying. Now, she simply watched him, memorized every nuance of his expressionless face and waited.

No amount of her research produced any results on him. If she saw his face in the real world, she'd recognize immediately for the rest of her life, but every single feature he had was nondescript and only definable as inhuman but distinctly Native American. The sketch artist who'd taken her description of him after Iris disappeared produced a drawing that was familiar, but too... human. Cooper realized relatively early in these visions, hell, she'd realized it that night, that this stranger was something, but he wasn't human.

He opened his mouth. His lips formed an 'O', and without taking his eyes off hers, he lifted his face toward the sky. The hair on her arms lifted. A wolf's howl filled the air.

"Mama!"

Cooper gasped, her eyes flying open as the serene picture of the lake with the sun glaring around her and the greenery in every direction she looked greeted her again. The word, her name, her meaning, echoed around her as Iris' voice faded. Trembling hands lifted to her face and brushed the wisps of auburn hair from her sweaty hairline while Cooper tried to clear the lingering effects of the vision. She'd seen it so many times, and no matter what she did, it was her daughter's voice that pulled her back, as real to her as the sand under her boots. It didn't matter where she was on the lake, if Cooper waited and focused, the vision would come.

Iris was alive. Cooper could feel it. She'd never give up trying to find her as long as she knew her daughter was here, somewhere, waiting for her.

On the drive back to Colter, Cooper's phone rang, and she groaned as Evan's name flashed on the screen. She answered on the third ring.

"Hi, Evan."

"Cooper. Where are you?" Her ex-husband's voice was disapproving, as though he knew full well where Cooper was, and in her mind, she ripped Dan a new one.

"I'm covering a moose festival," she replied cheerily, and a beat of silence on the other line greeted her.

"That sounds incredibly stupid and far from something you would be interested in covering."

Cooper shrugged, knowing he couldn't see her. "What's not interesting about moose? They're the same in singular and plural, you know. And do you realize how big they are? Moose average six feet tall at the shoulder. That's huge. Honestly, this story is a gold m-"

"Cut the crap, Cooper. You need to come home, and you need to let this go," Evan said with equal parts impatience and sadness. He'd long since gotten over his hatred for Cooper after Iris' disappearance, because as tumultuous as their divorce had been, the one indisputable fact he knew was that Cooper was the best mother. Thoughts of Cooper killing their daughter hadn't even crossed his mind until the news began to speculate the possibility, and he'd immediately dismissed it. Evan firmly believed that Cooper had likely fallen asleep deeply enough that Iris woke up at some point in the night and wandered away from their campsite. And from there, the wilderness took over. He knew his ex-wife. She was a talented journalist, and it was her mesmerizing way with words that had attracted her to him in the first place. Evan suspected that it was Cooper's guilt that manifested itself into this ridiculous scenario she'd concocted. It was the desperation on her face when she'd first told him the story that appealed to his compassion and sympathy, and as the year had dragged on, and her obsession hadn't waned, he just pitied her, like most people did. It overwhelmed some of his grief, which he was grateful for, in a way.

Cooper grimaced. "I'm sorry. I can't do that. She's alive, Evan, I know she is. I don't expect you to believe me, okay, I get it, but I am going to find her."

There was another pause, but she heard him sigh. "Dan's worried about you. So am I. Besides how close you are to losing your job, you're going to kill yourself with this. Look, I did some digging, and there are some studies out of Berkeley that suggest moss from that region during the fall season grow a mold that, when ingested, can have hallucinogenic effects. I mean, you've got to admit that it's possible this is all in your head. Physically, there might be an explanation, if not psychologically."

Eyes wide with disbelief, Cooper almost laughed. In fact, she almost cried. Instead, she blinked rapidly before responding. "That's fascinating." It wasn't. "But I didn't hallucinate, Evan. Look, I've gotta go. We'll grab lunch or something when I get back to New York."

"Coo-" he started to say, but Cooper ended the call before he could say something else that would strain the already fragile tenacity of her mental state.

The first thing she did back in her motel room, after taking all the photos of the festival she could stomach, was crack open the new bottle of Tito's, taking a shot directly out of the bottle. She relished the instant relief it was to her nervous system. To herself, Cooper acknowledged that she may have a drinking problem, and then congratulated herself on completing the first step of her sobriety process. It was a comforting nightly ritual. The second thing she did was pry open her laptop and check her emails, already feeling the weight of her exhaustion pressing down on her. There wasn't usually anything significant in there. Usually just a single-word response from Dan to her sending in her articles, and most often, a dismissive email to Cooper's requests for information from the locals.

But the email waiting for her this time was different, and after reading the first few sentences, Cooper's attention was completely occupied, all thoughts of sleep forgotten.

I heard you were looking for men that might have been in the Tetons the night your girl went missing. I cant say much in an email and I dont know how far youre willing to travel but I might be able to help. If you can meet me I can tell you what I know.

Your daughter isn't the only one.