Return to Red Creek

by Nathan Hystad

  He had no warrant, but he didn’t give a crap today. He was miserable, a looming headache threatening to take over at any moment as he lifted his leg over the fence separating the Orchards condo area from the field and forest beside it.

  It was now early Saturday afternoon, and the sky was overcast, but it was getting warmer. He could feel the sweat dripping down his sides from the muddy walk, mixed with the nervous anxiety surrounding him. Fredrik Karlsson had been abducted from his house, from his own damned window. What had the kid been thinking, to open it like that? Or maybe it had never been locked at all, and the perp had slipped in, grabbing the boy from his bed. That would explain the pillow on the floor. But he hadn’t seen any footprints on the bedroom floor, and if the perp had come from over here, he would have been covered in mud, just like Tom was now.

  The fence was the same wooden design as the one near the Karlssons’ house. Tom had seen photos from the old orchard as it was on fire, twelve years ago. The fence surrounding the property had been ten feet high, with barbed wire at the top to make sure no one climbed it. He wasn’t surprised that an apple farm needed such levels of security.

  Tom was also amazed that the local sheriff’s office hadn’t investigated the land better, especially the old decrepit house and barn on the property that the tunnels led between. They were either in on it or just grossly incompetent. Tom chuckled to himself. Or both. It was more likely they were on the take, and idiots.

  Tom stood there on the lawn of the condo building, staring toward it. There was a shed nearby, but other than that, there were no other structures in the vicinity. Someone had taken that boy, brought him here, and if that was the case, he was still in the building. Fredrik Karlsson was in one of these units, he’d bet his damned badge on it.

  He could go about this a few different ways but didn’t think he’d be able to do it solo. Tom preferred it that way, working by himself, but if he started busting down doors and chose the wrong one first, the perp would get spooked and run. He couldn’t have that. Tom pulled out his phone and made the call. “Sheriff Tyler, please,” he said, and the secretary asked him to hold a moment.

  “Tyler here,” the sheriff said.

  “I found him. He’s in the Orchards. Bring backup. Call Gilden too. Bring them now,” Tom said, gaze fixed on the condos.

  “Are you sure? I was out there snooping around yesterday and it was as clean as a whistle,” Tyler said.

  “Bring the warrant and the men, and we’re going to find what we’re after. I know it.” Tom hung up and tried to stay out of sight while he waited for the backup. He opened his suit jacket and made sure his gun was in place, safety on – for the time being.

  _______________

  “So the kid did see the shadow creature? Isn’t that what we expected?” Brent asked as they cruised the highway toward Red Creek.

  Taylor was a little shaken, and she gripped the steering wheel tightly to keep her hands from trembling. The fear in Trevor’s voice had been palpable. “It wasn’t just that. He said the shadow watched him for months, stalking him. Why? Why not grab and go? It had no problem holding on to me, but when it reached for Trevor in front of the house, its hand went through him. When it touched me, it was hot. We saw a burn print on the wall in the house, remember?”

  Brent nodded. “Sure. It’s freaking me out now that I know what it’s from.”

  “My dad saw the same thing in the shed when he was there last time. A burning handprint. This thing isn’t wet and cool like Trevor said, so it got me thinking.”

  Isabelle was in the backseat, and she leaned forward, her head between the front seats. “What is it?”

  “This shadow man didn’t die like my dad thought. It went into hibernation or something. It was weakened when the bond was broken with the Smiths. Think about it… Conway was the link to our family, right?” Taylor asked, and Isabelle agreed. “Then maybe it passed to Katherine. She was in prison, remember? She killed herself not long after. What if the monster forced a link to her, and she went crazy, then hanged herself?”

  “Devil’s advocate here,” Brent said. “What if she felt bad about all the kids that were killed and her role in it, and offed herself because of that, not what you’re saying?”

  Taylor thought about it. “Could be, but I think I might be right.”

  “What does that have to do with this Trevor kid?” Isabelle asked.

  “Don’t you see?” Taylor looked at her cousin, then at Brent beside her as she drove. They were both shaking their heads side to side. “The monster’s active, but it’s not strong enough yet. It hasn’t fed in years. Not since Tommy O’Brian, when my dad first came back to Red Creek.”

  “Then how did it harass Trevor?” Brent asked.

  He was asking all the right questions, and Taylor was doing her best to hypothesize the answers. “Maybe it could still be seen, but couldn’t act. When it’s fed, it’s corporeal, and when it’s not, it’s merely ethereal,” she said.

  Brent appeared confused. “You’ve been reading too many of your dad’s books. This is probably just some sicko nabbing children.”

  Taylor was getting angry with him, but she tried to see it from his perspective as she held herself back from lashing out. “You don’t believe me, then? The night I was abducted, the journal, what Trevor said to me? The handprint in the living room of the house everyone on Wood Street thinks is haunted?”

  “It’s not that. Maybe I don’t want to believe because it means things aren’t so black and white,” Brent said.

  “Let’s stop at the orchard on the way home. I want to look at the grounds,” Taylor said. When no one disagreed with her, she made the exit a few miles later. It started to rain lightly as they wound their way in her car past the gravel roads that led to the old spot where Granny Smith’s Orchard had sat since the thirties.

  “Oh my God,” Isabelle said as they made a right, heading toward the plot of land. Taylor rolled her windows down and saw the flashing blue and red lights filling the entire area. The roads in and out were blocked by Gilden PD cruisers. Taylor pulled over and grabbed her phone from her purse. She saw a dozen missed calls, all from her mom and dad’s numbers. She’d forgot she’d put it on silent when she got to the hospital.

  She opened the text string from her mom, and her jaw dropped.

  Mom – Taylor, we know you’re there and we’re heading for your aunt’s house now. See you soon.

  Taylor looked up at the heavy police presence and hoped they’d found the nest before it was too late.

  _______________

  Tom Bartlett moved to the next suite, a street cop behind him. So far, they’d discovered only pot and a few unsavory units in the complex. Buzz and his lady were cooperative, and they’d found nothing offensive, at least not for the missing children case. The other three main floor units were clean, two of them empty.

  They’d secured the building, covering all exits, and so far, none of the residents had tried to run off. Tom had been hoping one of them would, making the search far simpler. He now walked down the second floor hallway, his gun in one hand and a warrant in the other.

  He knocked on a door and a woman answered it. “Emma Jeanne?” Tom asked, and the older lady nodded, her eyes wide. He saw a tremor in her hand, and wondered if she had the early stages of Parkinson’s or if she was just afraid. He’d be scared too if the cops showed up at his house on a Saturday afternoon wanting to snoop through his things.

  “We need inside your suite.” He glanced over her shoulder, noticing the usual things you’d expect from a seventy-year-old single woman: pictures on the walls, some knitting supplies on a living room coffee table. The TV was on; a renovation show, from the sounds of it.

  “By all means. What’s this regarding?” she asked, worry thick on her tongue.

  “We have reason to believe a missing child may be in the vicinity.” Tom stepped around her and went through the process of clearing the apartment. It was a two-bedroom, but the spare room onl
y had a few boxes on the floor, no guest bed. He searched the closets, the bathroom, under the beds, inside the kitchen cupboards. Tom didn’t expect to find anything of use in here. The sweep took less than half the time of the other units, and he left the suite.

  “Thank you for your cooperation. Please stay inside until we’re gone, Ms. Jeanne,” Tom said, and she said she would.

  “Officer?” she asked with a meek tone.

  “Yes?”

  “Is there anything you can do about my neighbor above me? He stomps around a lot and is always coming and going at all hours of the night. I don’t trust him,” she said with innocence, but Tom sensed something deeper behind her words. It sounded like the usual upstairs neighbor vendetta. It was the main reason he was paying far too much to live in his own house in Gilden.

  “I’ll see what we can do,” Tom said. Her words rang through his mind. Comes and goes at all hours of the night. That could be their guy.

  Sheriff Tyler exited a suite across the hall and shook his head. “It’s clear, Bartlett. There better be something here, or you’ve wasted a lot of officers’ time and given both our departments a black eye. Do you know how hard it is to get one of those things on a Saturday, let alone one that gives you carte blanche on the building?”

  Tom shrugged, waving the warrant in the air. “We got it. That’s all that matters.”

  The sheriff stood tall, hands on hips, taking up the whole hallway. Tom walked past him, brushing against his shoulder as he made for the stairs. He motioned to Juan from the Gilden PD. “Keep sweeping. Sheriff, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me.”

  “Where?” Tyler asked.

  “Upstairs. I have a gut feeling.” Tom held the door open for the big sheriff, who surprisingly listened.

  “You know what I do when I get one of those?” Sheriff Tyler asked.

  “What?”

  “I eat something.” The sheriff grunted and started up the stairs.

  A minute later, they were in front of the unit directly above Emma Jeanne’s, and Tom grabbed for his gun again. “This could be nothing, or it could be everything.” He knocked. No answer. He knocked again, harder this time. Bang bang bang.

  He heard a lock slide on the door, and it opened a crack. “Whattaya want?”

  “Gilden PD. We have a warrant to search the premises.” Tom felt a rush of adrenaline, like the guy was going to do something stupid. He was gripping his gun tight, out of view of the resident. The guy’s name was Carl something… he couldn’t remember at that moment.

  The door opened slowly. The man looked like crap. His hair was wet, like he was sweating, and Tom noticed he had sleep lines on his face. “Having a good day?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Work night shift security in Gilden. What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, glancing at the sheriff.

  “Carl,” Tyler said, nodding his head to the man. “We have reason to believe someone has abducted two children in the area, and we think the perpetrators might be in this building.”

  Carl raised his hands in the air, pumping them forward. “Whoa. I ain’t done anything of the sort. I worked last night, and I’ve been sleeping ever since.”

  “Then you have nothing to hide. Step aside, please,” Tom said, entering the unit. It smelled like stale bread and cigarettes inside. Tyler kept an eye on Carl while Tom set forth, moving through each room. He knew this place had something to do with the missing kids. If it didn’t, he’d wasted a lot of time. Time they didn’t have.

  The bedroom was messy, the blinds closed tight. Clothes were spread out on the floor beside an overflowing laundry hamper. He opened the window coverings, and mid-afternoon light poured into the room. He had the urge to open the window too, to get the musty smell of the sleeping man out of his nostrils. He’d seen no sign of the children at all, but something on the nightstand caught Tom’s eye.

  It was pink, balled up, and sitting in the center of the cheap wooden table, right in front of a lamp.

  He pulled a pen from his pocket and opened an evidence bag after stretching thin gloves over his hands. His heart beat fast as he lifted the scrunchie up and let it fall into the bag, sealing it tight.

  This was it. He’d found the son of a bitch. He took a deep breath and pulled his gun from the holster, removing the safety.

  “Carl Peters, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney,” Tom was already saying as he approached the man outside the bedroom.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!” Carl was backing away, but Sheriff Tyler was blocking the exit.

  “What’s that?” the big man asked calmly, but Tom saw the desperation in his eyes. He wanted this to be the perp as badly as Tom did, that much was clear.

  “Scrunchie. Same color and design as the one missing from the girl.” Tom’s parents had told them about the hair elastic, the one she didn’t go anywhere without, but when they’d searched the trash can where they’d found Brittany’s pants and socks and the solitary shoe, the scrunchie wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the laundry room at the Tremblays’, nor was it in her bedroom. She had to have been wearing it when she’d been abducted.

  “That? I found it in the forest on the other side of the creek. I go walking out there sometimes. It’s spring, and I’ve been cooped up indoors for too long. Come on, you have to be kidding me,” Carl said, and Tom just shook his head slowly. This was the guy. He knew it.

  Tom wanted to throttle him, punch his button nose through his skull for what he’d done to the kids. He wanted to shout and ask where the children were now, but they’d search the property, and if they found any signs, he was going to rot away for a long time.

  Tyler was behind the man, cuffing him. Tom’s gun was raised, aiming at the perp. Innocent until proven guilty. In Tom’s eyes, the scrunchie was all the evidence he needed to know this man had taken that little girl. Probably her life and the boy’s. Fredrik.

  He marched up to Carl, his face inches away from the man’s. His breath came hot and quick, sour like old milk. Tom didn’t turn away. “Where are they?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I found that thing in the forest.”

  “Why would you take a girl’s hair elastic? Why keep it by your bed?” Tom asked, but Carl didn’t have an answer for them.

  Tom searched around, making sure there was no one nearby, and he slipped the gun in its holster before making the fist. The impact was fast and solid with the man’s solar plexus, and Carl doubled over, gasping for air.

  “Detective Bartlett,” Tyler said, hauling Carl back up. “He said he doesn’t know.”

  “You believe him?” Tom asked.

  “I believe in the due process,” Tyler said, and Tom turned away.

  “Then take him. We’ll find something.” Carl was trying to find his breath as the sheriff hauled him away.

  Tom had to remember this wasn’t Chicago. There were no big forensics teams coming to find hair follicles for the missing girl. He’d have to ship the one piece of evidence off to the nearest lab, and for the time being, he couldn’t let it out of his sight. He pushed it into a pocket and kept looking around the suite.

  Two hours later, the entire regiment was standing there, looking to Tom. They’d found no further evidence of foul play at the condo.

  “What’s down here?” he asked Buzz. The man had proven helpful, showing him where to find the key for the outdoor shed and touring him around the property.

  Buzz scratched his stubble-covered chin. “That’s our storage facility. Have to pay extra, but that’s where some of the residents store their bikes and what not.”

  “You have a key?” Tom asked, staring at the lock. He’d thought it was a closet when he walked by it a dozen times throughout the day. Buzz shook his head.

  “I knew he was bad news. Didn’t I tell you about all the coming and going at all
hours of the night?” It was Emma, the woman who lived directly below Carl.

  “You were right. Do you have a key?” Tom asked, and the woman gave him a knowing smile. He felt sorry for her. Her file said she came from Florida two years ago, and he hated that someone on a limited budget had to rent with such seedy neighbors. Maybe this would be enough of a wakeup call for her to move away from Red Creek. This was no safe place for someone like her.

  “I do, but it’s upstairs. Bear with me.” She stalked off with purpose, and Tom waited five minutes, growing more impatient with each beat of his heart. By the time she arrived, he wished he was at the station alone in a room with Carl, with no witnesses. He needed to find out where these kids were. Fredrik might be alive somewhere, even Brittany, although he didn’t put the odds that she was breathing very high.

  Ms. Jeanne stepped down the stairs, and Tom met her while Buzz rambled on about Carl being a killer. He could always tell. Something about the man’s eyes, and on and on he went. Tom wanted to tell him to shut up, but he held back, happy to have the key to the last area of the condo building they had yet to search. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he needed to check for peace of mind.

  The deadbolt clicked open with an extra turn of the key, and the handle pressed easily. “How often do people use this?” Tom asked Emma.

  “I don’t know. I keep a few things here that I couldn’t fit in my unit, or that I couldn’t bear to part with. I had a house in Florida, so my compartment’s full. I only go to the cubicle every few weeks, maybe. Sometimes to look at a photo album I have stored away,” she said.

  “Does Carl have a storage unit?” Tom asked.

  Buzz took this one. “Sure does. Seen him going into it every now and then. Think he’s one of the ones with a bicycle. Doesn’t ride it in the winter, but he may have dusted it off already this spring.”

  Tom told them to wait there, and he eyed Sergeant Juan from the Gilden PD, waving him over. “Sergeant, would you mind giving me backup?”