I only joined the group because my therapist said I needed “routine and low-stakes community engagement.” Whatever that meant. So every Saturday morning, I throw on a neon vest, grab a trash picker, and meet up with three other women to clean up the park near the old library.

They’re all older than me—friendly, chatty, always offering biscuits or asking about my week like we’ve known each other longer than four Saturdays. Carol leads the group, always shows up with laminated maps and highlighters. Janet talks nonstop about her cats. Linda mostly just smiles and hums along to whatever 80s song is in her head.

Then there’s Marlene.

She’s the quietest, but somehow… she knows everything. Like the exact time the street lights switch on. Which tree the foxes sleep under. Even the names of the people who don’t live around here anymore.

Last week, we were collecting by the canal when Carol tripped and dropped her grabber in the water. As she leaned over, Marlene practically shouted—not screamed, just… firmly. “Don’t touch the edge.”

Carol froze. We all did.

Marlene was pale. Staring at the corner of the canal wall like she expected something to rise out of it. Then she changed the subject so fast it gave me whiplash. Talked about bin liners for ten minutes straight.

Today, I lingered after the others left. I doubled back toward that same spot by the canal wall, something pulling at me. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was just boredom.

But when I got close and looked behind the old brick ledge, I found something.

Folded, wrapped in plastic, and tucked deep into the corner.

I recognized the edge of it.

It was a laminated map.

But it wasn’t one of Carol’s. I knew that instantly. Carol used bright pink highlighters and labeled everything with dates. This one was older. Faded. Yellowed at the edges. It was marked with red dots in a pattern that didn’t make sense—until I realized each one matched a spot where we’d picked up odd things over the last few weekends.

A rusted chain near the swings.

A broken locket in the bushes by the tennis court.

Half a shoe, with the sole peeled back, like it had been buried and then dug up.

All of them were marked on this map.

And next to each dot, someone had written a name.

My skin prickled as I read the names out loud. Derek, Leila, Marcus.

People I’d never met—but the way they were written felt personal. Not like notes for a clean-up route. More like… a list.

I stuffed the map back into the plastic and into my bag, unsure what I was supposed to do with it. Report it? To who? “Hi, yes, I found a creepy treasure map at my volunteer clean-up group.” That’d go over well.

I spent the whole week thinking about it. I even googled the names, but nothing obvious came up. A few old LinkedIn profiles. One obituary for a Derek that might’ve been the same one, might not.

By the time Saturday rolled around again, I was twitchy. My brain had built it up into a full-blown conspiracy. I figured I’d bring it up casually, maybe joke about it.

But when I showed up at the meeting spot, only two people were there.

Carol and Janet.

No Linda. No Marlene.

“Linda’s down with the flu,” Carol said, handing me gloves. “And Marlene… well, she messaged last night. Said she’s taking a break.”

I tried to act normal. “Oh yeah? That’s… unlike her.”

Janet was already going on about her new kitten, so Carol leaned in a bit and whispered, “Honestly, I’m surprised. Marlene’s never missed a Saturday in the seven years I’ve been here.”

That made my stomach twist.

After we wrapped up for the morning, I pretended I had to use the loo and doubled back to the canal again. The spot was empty. Nothing behind the bricks now. But I noticed something I hadn’t before.

Scratches.

Like someone had used a rock or a key to carve into the wall. Most of it was too worn to read, but one part was still fresh.

They’re still watching.

I bolted.

Back home, I stared at the map again. Then I marked all the red dots on Google Maps. They formed a shape. A rough spiral, looping inward toward a spot just outside of town.

An abandoned greenhouse behind a boarded-up nursery.

It was the kind of place kids dared each other to visit, especially around Halloween. I hadn’t been since I was a teenager. But I remembered the stories. The place had burned once, or nearly burned—something about squatters and a faulty generator.

The center of the spiral landed right there.

I told myself I wouldn’t go.

But by Sunday morning, I was pacing like a caged cat. Curiosity has a way of chipping at your common sense. I packed a flashlight and some water. Just in case.

When I got there, the front gate was chained, but someone had clearly forced the side fence open. The trail was overgrown, yet trodden. I pushed through the thistles and stepped inside.

It smelled like dust and wet leaves. Broken flowerpots lined the cracked tile floors. Vines snaked up through shattered glass. And in the far corner, past a wall of dead ivy, was a small wooden box.

I approached slowly, heart pounding. It looked like a toolbox. I knelt, opened it—

Inside were photographs.

Some old, some newer. All of people. Smiling in parks, standing in front of brick houses, riding bikes. And on the back of each photo, a date. A few matched the names from the map.

And beneath the stack of photos was a notebook.

It was Marlene’s handwriting.

“They never believed me. I tried to tell the police, but no one thought it mattered that people were vanishing from the same five blocks. Just addicts, runaways, loners, they said. But I saw the pattern. I kept notes. I kept things they dropped, things they left behind. I mapped it all.”

The next few pages were lists. Timelines. Descriptions. Some entries had circles around them, others were crossed out.

Then one entry caught my eye.

“Found the shoe near the tennis court. Same model Marcus wore the day he vanished. Can’t prove it, but I know.”

Suddenly, this wasn’t just a strange hobby. Marlene had been investigating disappearances. Quietly. Obsessively. And judging by the spiral, she believed someone—or something—was luring people in, one loop at a time.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

The photos. The notes. The fact that Marlene vanished the same week I found the map—it all felt too connected. I didn’t want to think it, but what if she hadn’t just “taken a break”?

On Monday, I called Carol. Asked if she had Marlene’s full name. Told her I wanted to send a get-well card.

Carol hesitated. “She’s not sick, love. She just said she needed time. Why?”

I lied and said I was worried. Carol gave me the name: Marlene Avery.

I looked her up.

Nothing.

Not on Facebook. Not in the local directory. Not even in old community posts from the clean-up group’s early days. Every tagged photo I found had her cropped out, or blurred, or facing away.

It was like she didn’t exist.

Or someone didn’t want her to.

I took the notebook to the local historical society. There’s a man there, Mr. Lang, who knows every square inch of this town and treats old documents like gold.

He looked through it, frowning. “You say you found this near the old nursery?”

I nodded.

He tapped one photo. “That’s Edwin Hart. Owned the nursery before it closed in ’93. His wife disappeared. No foul play, but… people always wondered.”

He kept flipping. “And this… this one here is Dora Quinn. Went missing in 2007. Her bike was found near the canal.”

I told him I thought Marlene had been tracking them. That she might be missing now, too.

He looked at me for a long time. Then said something I didn’t expect.

“Then maybe she left this for someone like you to find.”

That hit me hard.

Because suddenly, it made sense.

The way Marlene always guided us, subtly, toward certain spots. The way she stared at the canal wall, the urgency in her voice. She’d been trying to pass the baton. Quietly. Just in case something happened to her.

So I started digging.

Not literally, though it felt close. I talked to people, went to the library, scoured old crime logs. I cross-referenced Marlene’s notes with public records. Some names were dead ends, but others…

They connected.

And the one thread that linked the most of them? A now-defunct security company that used to patrol the park, the nursery, and the canal. Owned by—you guessed it—Edwin Hart’s nephew.

The same man who now manages a storage facility on the edge of town.

I told the police everything. At first, they gave me polite nods. But once I showed them the notebook, the photos, and the connections, they took it seriously.

Within a week, the storage facility was raided.

They found more.

Keepsakes. Clothes. Even a few ID cards.

No bodies. But enough to reopen several cold cases.

They issued a warrant for the manager, but he fled. Still hasn’t been found.

And Marlene?

Three weeks after everything broke, I got a letter.

No return address. Just a card inside. One sentence.

“Thank you for listening when no one else would.”

I think she’s alive. I think she’s safe. And I think she knew she couldn’t stay once the spiral closed in.

Now I lead the clean-up group.

Carol still brings biscuits. Janet still talks about cats. Linda came back once she recovered.

And every Saturday, we still wear our neon vests and clean the park.

But we also remember.

We remember that quiet doesn’t mean clueless.

That kindness isn’t weakness.

And that sometimes, the people who say the least are the ones watching the most.

If this story gave you chills—or reminded you to trust your gut—share it. You never know who might need to read it.