Buried During Snowfall – Chapter 4
The Ninth Body
The drive north took nearly four hours.
Greyford disappeared behind them slowly, drowned beneath rain and industrial fog, until only forest remained. Endless black pines crowded both sides of the highway like walls closing inward. The farther they drove, the worse the weather became. Rain turned into sleet. Sleet became violent snowfall. By the time Mara’s vehicle crossed into Blackwater County, visibility had dropped so badly the headlights barely reached beyond the hood.
Adrian had not spoken in almost an hour.
Mara glanced at him occasionally while driving. He sat rigid in the passenger seat staring into darkness beyond the window, jaw clenched tight enough to twitch. She had seen traumatized witnesses before. Murder survivors. Combat veterans. Parents identifying children in morgues. Adrian looked different from all of them.
He looked guilty.
“You really never came back here?” she asked finally.
“No.”
“Thirty years?”
“Yes.”
“You never wanted answers?”
Adrian gave a faint smile without humor.
“No. I wanted distance.”
Snow hammered the windshield harder.
Mara tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “You said something earlier.”
“What?”
“You said the official number of missing students was wrong.”
Adrian remained silent.
“Why?”
Still nothing.
“Adrian.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
“Because there weren’t seven.”
Mara felt the temperature inside the vehicle drop despite the heater blasting warm air.
“How many were there?”
Adrian stared forward.
“Nine.”
The tires slid slightly on ice before Mara corrected the steering.
“Nine students vanished?”
“Yes.”
“Then why report seven?”
“Because only seven families came looking.”
That answer stayed inside the car like poison.
Mara frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means two students officially never existed.”
She stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Not at Ashriver.”
The road narrowed as they climbed deeper into forest-covered hills. Eventually the first structures appeared through falling snow — abandoned gas stations, collapsed barns, old mining buildings rotting beneath ice. Blackwater County looked frozen in time, the kind of place where people disappeared without making headlines.
Then Mara saw it.
Ashriver Boarding School.
Or what remained of it.
The main building stood atop a hill overlooking Blackwater Lake like a corpse refusing burial. Three stories of cracked stone and shattered windows coated in snow. Most of the eastern wing had collapsed years ago, exposing rusted hallways and broken staircases open to the winter air. Floodlights from police vehicles illuminated the grounds below where officers moved between barricades.
The lake itself stretched behind the school like an endless sheet of black glass beneath snowfall.
Adrian stopped breathing for a moment.
Mara noticed instantly.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He stepped out of the vehicle before she could say anything else.
The cold hit like knives.
Wind screamed across the lake carrying snow hard enough to sting exposed skin. Adrian stood motionless staring at the ruined school while old memories clawed upward inside him whether he wanted them or not.
Children running through hallways.
Whispers after lights-out.
Frozen fingers clawing beneath ice.
Then another memory surfaced.
Something worse.
A door beneath the lake.
“Dr. Quinn?”
A voice snapped him back.
A county officer approached wearing heavy winter gear. “Detective Quinn. Crime scene’s this way.”
Mara followed while Adrian lagged behind slightly.
Construction equipment surrounded the southern edge of Blackwater Lake where floodlights illuminated a large hole cut into the frozen surface. Workers stood nearby smoking nervously while officers pushed reporters behind barricades farther uphill.
The smell hit Adrian first.
Decay.
Old decay.
The kind trapped underground for decades.
Mara pulled her coat tighter. “Jesus…”
The body lay partially uncovered beside the ice hole.
Small.
Wrapped in filthy white cloth.
One skeletal arm protruded outward from beneath the fabric.
Adrian stopped walking.
Every muscle in his body locked instantly.
The cloth.
He recognized the cloth.
Hospital linen.
Ashriver infirmary linen.
One of the forensic technicians approached carefully. “Body’s been down there a long time. Hard to estimate yet because freezing temperatures preserved some tissue.”
“How old?” Mara asked.
“Child. Around eleven to thirteen.”
Adrian couldn’t move.
The technician continued.
“There’s something else.”
He pulled back part of the cloth carefully.
Mara inhaled sharply.
Numbers had been carved into the child’s chest.
Not one number.
Hundreds.
Tiny numbers covering the ribcage like mathematical scars.
Adrian stepped backward slightly.
“No…”
Mara looked at him immediately. “What?”
He shook his head slowly.
“No no no…”
“What do the numbers mean?”
Adrian’s eyes remained fixed on the corpse.
“Student IDs.”
Silence.
Mara stared at him. “Those are IDs?”
“Yes.”
“Why carve them into a child?”
Adrian’s face had gone pale beneath falling snow.
“Because that’s how they cataloged us.”
A gust of wind howled across the lake.
Somewhere nearby metal groaned inside the ruined school.
The technician frowned. “There’s more you should see.”
He carefully lifted the body’s frozen left hand.
Three fingers missing.
Same as the previous victim.
Mara swore quietly.
But Adrian barely heard her.
Because the dead child’s face was visible now beneath snow-covered cloth.
And Adrian knew him.
Not vaguely.
Not maybe.
He knew him.
The boy from the tunnel.
The boy he had seen at Bellgrave Station.
Same hollow cheeks.
Same dark hair.
Same damaged left eye.
Thirty years dead.
Yet Adrian had seen him alive two nights ago.
The world tilted slightly beneath his feet.
“Adrian?”
Mara’s voice sounded far away.
“He was real…”
“What?”
“That boy…” Adrian whispered. “His name was Noah.”
Mara stared at him. “You knew him?”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“He disappeared first.”
Snow blew violently across the lake now.
Officers shouted near the barricades as reporters pushed closer trying to photograph the body. Somewhere in the distance thunder rolled through mountains despite the blizzard.
Then one of the construction workers began screaming.
Everyone turned instantly.
The man stood near the ice hole pointing downward in terror.
“There’s another one!”
Officers rushed forward.
The floodlights shifted toward the opening beneath the lake.
And then Mara saw it.
Another body beneath the ice.
Then another.
Then another.
Shapes.
Small shapes.
Dozens of them.
Perfectly preserved beneath frozen black water.
Children.
The lake was full of them.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Only wind.
Only snow.
Only the horrible realization spreading across every face present.
The official Ashriver story had been a lie so massive it barely seemed human anymore.
Not seven missing children.
Not nine.
Dozens.
A forensic diver stumbled backward away from the hole, shaking uncontrollably.
“Oh my God…”
Mara grabbed him. “How many are down there?”
The diver looked physically sick.
“I don’t know…”
His eyes watered from panic.
“But there’s a room under the ice.”