Once Returned

by Darcy Coates

That was a relief. I put the kettle on to boil and shuffled to the cupboard to get a teabag.

  “Want me to stay for today?” Mum asked. “I can keep an eye on Ryan for you.”

  “That would be great.” It would give me a chance to talk with Jon, just him and me, without any distractions. Maybe we could go out somewhere. If I could get him to open up about what happened in the forest, I might be able to help - or, at the very least, understand why he’d been acting so strangely.

  I finished making the tea before venturing into the backyard to find my husband. We didn’t have a large plot of land, but it was big enough for a few trees and an unused vegetable garden behind the clothes line. Ryan’s toys were lying about the yard, waiting to be washed and put away.

  I found Jon kneeling under one of the trees at the back, intent on something on the ground. His whole body was hunched over, and he didn’t respond as I approached him. It was the same place as the night he’d come home, when I’d seen him through the bathroom window. Despite the warm morning, I felt chilled.

  “Jon, honey, is something wrong?”

  He twisted to look at me. His face was distorted with a smile so wide that it must have been hurting him. His eyes locked on me as he held up the object in his hand.

  An animal skull.

  “Look what I found, Carol.”

  His voice was low and thick, like his throat was choked. Dirt covered his hands, embedded under his fingernails and smeared up his forearms.

  He’d dug the skull out of the earth.

  I glanced down and saw the pit gouged into the ground, maybe two feet deep, with pale bones poking out of the dark brown dirt. The skull looked like it belonged to a small animal - perhaps a dog or a cat buried there years before we’d moved in.

  I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t move. I stood, riveted with horror, as he caressed the top of the skull, wiping the dirt off it while he cooed. “I smelt it, Carol. I could smell it trapped in the ground. It wanted to be let out. Isn’t it good we found it after all of this time?”

  My voice shook. “You’re not well.”

  He laughed - a bizarre jangling noise - as he rose off his haunches to stand over me, skull cradled in his hands. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew who these bones belonged to, Carol. They don’t like being lost. I didn’t like being lost in those woods, either. I wanted you to find me, Carol, but you walked right past where I lay. You didn’t even look my way, you just left me there to be eaten by the insects and the beasts that live in the night. I wonder, would you love these tired old bones if they were mine?”

  I dropped my cup and ran for the house. I heard his footsteps thumping behind me as he took chase. I reached for the handle to the door as I neared it, missed, and hit the glass pane hard enough to hear its reverberations. The headache flared through my skull. The second grab proved successful, and I wrenched the door open as Jon snatched at the back of my dressing gown. I shrugged out of it and slammed the glass pane behind myself, half frightened that I would crush his fingers if he was following.

  The door clicked closed and I twisted the lock before stepping back.

  Jon stood on the other side of the glass, the crazed grin still sprawled over his face, dressing gown in one hand and skull in the other. He stepped close enough to the door that the breath from his open mouth fogged the glass.

  “Car-ol,” he called in a sing-song voice. “Come out so we can talk, Carol.”

  “No,” I whispered back. I felt sick. “You need help, Jon.”

  He laughed, but took a step back. He loosened his grip and dropped the dressing gown and skull. The animal’s bones shattered on impact with the concrete porch.

  Jon shrugged and his face relaxed into an easy smile. “Alright, Carol, I can see you’re worked up about this. I need to go to work. We can talk tonight, if you’ve calmed down by then.”

  He turned and walked away. I watched as he stepped out of the side gate that led to the lane running beside my house and closed it behind himself, mud still caking his hands.

  “You need to call the police.” I turned and saw mum standing behind me, holding a mercifully quiet Ryan. Her face was pale but firm. “Call them right now.”

  I nodded and ran for the wall phone. I picked it up and felt my heart skip a beat when there was no dial tone. “What…?”

  I held it up for mum to hear, and her face darkened. “Your mobile.”

  My mobile would be in my bag on the bedside table, and I tore it open and began rummaging.

  It wasn’t there.

  No, it had to be.

  I tipped the contents of the bag onto the bed - my purse, packs of tissues, car keys, pens, makeup - but no mobile.

  Mum had followed me, and I confronted her on the landing. “He took it.”

  “Are you sure? Is there anywhere else you could have put it?”

  Ryan was squirming in mum’s arms, whining and threatening to start crying, as I ran past them and back downstairs. I checked the kitchen table and the lounge I’d been sitting on the previous night. Then, just in case, I tore through the kitchen and the laundry. No sign of it.

  He’d disconnected the landline phone and taken my mobile. What did that mean - he wanted to isolate us? Or was it because he didn’t want us contacting the police?

  “We’re going to the neighbour’s,” I told Mum as I grabbed a shirt and pants out of the laundry basket and pulled them on over the top of my night dress.

  The house to our left belonged to an elderly couple. They were quiet, decent people, and I knew they wouldn’t mind letting us make a call on their phone. It wasn’t until after I’d started pounding on their front door that mum indicated to the empty driveway. “They’re out.”

  The only other neighbours I really knew were Helen and Peter on our other side. We jogged to their front door and started knocking.

  Helen answered after just a few seconds. She looked desperate. “Carol?”

  “Helen, I really need to borrow your phone.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I realised that they were red-rimmed from crying. “Is this about Peter?”

  “No- it’s- I need to call the police. Peter isn’t back yet?”

  She frowned at me and I felt cold, uneasy prickles crawl up my spine. It was after noon. If he’d been on a bender he really should have come home by now.

  “What’s this really about?” Helen asked. “You can stop acting so naive. I know the police visited you earlier.”

  “What are you talking about?” I glanced at Mum; she looked just as confused as I was. “No one visited-”

  “I also saw your husband.” Her words hit me like a slap. “I don’t suppose you were planning to tell me he was back, were you?”

  I cringed. “I’m so sorry, Carol. I was going to-”

  Carol’s voice became louder. Her whole body shook with suppressed emotion and her face turned a blotchy red. “I helped you search for him! I helped! And you didn’t even tell me he’d been found!”

  “I- I-”

  “Now Peter’s lost in Harob Forest, and I know you have something to do with it. Tell me what happened!”

  I started backing away from her and reached an arm out to push mum and Ryan behind myself. “I don’t understand,” I said. My voice was thin. “Why do you think he’s in the forest?

  “They found his car,” Helen said. The anger drained out of her all of a sudden and she slumped, defeated, against the doorframe. “It was parked outside Harob forest. But you’d already know that, of course.”

  “What…,” I said, my brain whirring.

  “This has to do with your husband,” Helen continued, and as much as the thought revolted me, I found I was thinking the same thing.

  “I- I don’t know what to say-”

  “You can leave me alone. I don’t want you or your family anywhere near my home.”

  She turned in a whirl and slammed the door in my face.

  I was stunned. Stunned, hurt, and frightened.

  I turned and us
hered my mother away from the stoop. Ryan’s whimpering evolved into full cries. My head ached. I closed my eyes and tried to think.

  “Mum, you need to take Ryan back to your place. Lock the doors. I’ll drive to the police.”

  “We shouldn’t split up. I’ll come with you.”

  I shook my head and tried to block out some of the noise my son was making. “Ryan’s exhausted, he needs a nap or he won’t be quiet. Take him to your place. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Carol-”

  “I’ll drive to the police and tell them about Jon. Maybe they can give us some protection. Just sit tight until then.”

  Mum looked like she wanted to object, but shut her mouth and nodded. “Drive safe.”

  She always said that when I was leaving after my weekend visits, but today it had special significance. “I will. Take care of Ryan. Lock the house up tight.”

  I paused just long enough to press a kiss against Ryan’s pink forehead before climbing into the car. I watched Mum fasten Ryan to the baby seat and waited until she’d pulled into the street before putting the keys into the ignition and driving towards the nearest police station.

  Part Five: Taken

  The trip between my home and the station normally took eight minutes. I made it in seven.

  The station was small but tidy. The front room only had a handful of chairs, a reception counter protected with reinforced glass and a board with announcements and bulletins pinned onto it. The woman behind the counter leaned forward and smiled as I approached. Her nametag told me she was Officer Reese. “What can I do for you?”

  I stuttered out my name and began to give a confused explanation of why I was there. She stopped me before I was more than two words in. “Carol? We’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day. Please come with me.”

  Reese sat me down in a quiet back room of the station. It was even smaller than the reception, and bare except for a table and two chairs. She indicated the closer one for me to sit in.

  “I’m glad you came in, Carol. We weren’t able to contact you by phone so we sent two officers to your home, but the gentleman who answered the door said you were out.”

  It must have been Jon. I clenched my hands in my lap but didn’t interrupt.

  “There have been some developments in your husband’s case,” Officer Reese continued. “Yesterday and today, three people have gone missing from this area. Earlier this morning their cars were found at the entryway to Harob Forest Trail. You’ll probably remember this was where your husband’s car was left.”

  I felt sick, but nodded.

  “We have search parties looking for them now. An hour ago, we found a body in the woods.”

  She reached forward and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. At that moment I realised what she was going to tell me, and why she had taken me to this back room to break the news. I began to shake my head to stop her, as though not hearing the words would prevent them from being true.

  “I’m sorry, Carol, but we found Jon’s body.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. It came out as a whisper.

  “The body has decomposed significantly, but we were able to get a dental match. It’s definitely him.”

  I stared at her as shock, horror and fear burned at my insides. Reese gave my hand another comforting squeeze, but my fingers were almost too numb to feel it.

  She had to be making this up. Jon had come back. He was changed; strange and frightening, but he was still Jon. There was no way he could have been found in the forest.

  “I want to see.”

  Reese shook her head. “That’s not a good idea, Carol. He… there’s not much left to identify him. You don’t want to see that.”

  I took my hand out of hers and fixed her with the most determined stare I could muster. “I have to see him.”

  “Carol-”

  “Let me see him.”

  She sighed and stood up. “Okay. Follow me.”

  * * *

  Harob Forensic Science Center was within walking distance of the police station. It was a large, unbranded building surrounded by a chain-link fence.

  “All bodies that need to be seen by a coroner are taken here,” Reese explained as we entered the lobby. “They’ve got the tools for diagnostics and body identification. Because there are three other missing person cases involved, your husband’s autopsy has already been performed.”

  She signed us into the register and indicated for me to follow her through one of the doors at the back. “Put the gloves on,” she instructed, pulling two pairs from a box beside the door. I did as instructed and followed her into the back room.

  It was a large, mostly empty space, with cupboards along the walls. Two empty steel tables stood to one side, and several unidentifiable machines in the corner made me suspect it was the examination room.

  A man scrubbed at the sink in one corner. Reese spoke to him in hushed tones and he left through the heavy metal sliding door in the back.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Reese asked. She sucked on her teeth as she appraised me. “He’s been in the forest for three weeks. He’s barely recognisable as human by now.”

  I felt like my whole life had been filled with lies for the past three days. I had to know for sure.

  I nodded.

  She sighed and stepped to one side as the sliding door was opened again, and a new steel table was wheeled out. On the table-

  A scream built up inside me, rising from my stomach to my throat, fighting to escape. I bit down on it and felt it whirl around inside me, looking for a way out.

  Reese had been right. I shouldn’t have asked to see him. The right arm was lain neatly beside the body, in the same position that it should be if it were still attached. The right foot was missing entirely. His clothes had been placed beside the body and, although they were putrid and stained from the decomposition, they were unmistakably Jon’s: a red and white flannel top with a singlet underneath, dark brown cargo pants, and, of course, one of his favourite hiking boots.

  I glanced at the face and looked away. It was too fast to get a good look, but not fast enough to avoid the sight of the sunken, empty eye sockets, the hole that had been picked through his cheek by some inquisitive animal, or the skin peeling away from his teeth. Jon’s teeth. My darling, sweet Jon’s teeth.

  I was in the corner of the room, facing the wall, before I was even aware I’d moved. Hands covered my face as I tried to control my breathing and my stomach.

  “Take him back,” the policewoman said. I heard the wheels of the trolley squeak, the grinding slide of the door being opened, and a faint clunk as the table was returned to its resting place. I was aware of a stench - not as bad as I had expected, but definitely present - that remained in the room even after my husband had been taken out.

  Because that was definitely my husband.

  “I need to use a phone,” I whispered. The policewoman came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “You should sit down for a while. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I need a phone,” I insisted.

  Reese sighed and led me out of the building, ditching the gloves at the door, and back to the police station. She took me to an empty office and indicated to the phone on the desk. “Use this. I’m going back to reception. Come find me when you’re done, okay?”

  I nodded and waited until she’d left the room to pick up the receiver and dial my mother’s number. It went straight to the answering machine. I considered leaving a message, but this was something I wanted to talk about in person.

  I hung up the phone and tried to think. Was there anyone else I should be calling? What about Jon’s work? At the very least they could tell me if he’d come in that morning.

  I still had the number memorised. My call was answered on the second ring.

  “Bradley and Raul. How can I help you?”

  I recognised the receptionist’s voice. I liked her; she’d always gone the extra mile to
be helpful. “Hello, it’s Carol Garrett. Can you tell me if Jon Garrett has signed in today?”

  There was a very long pause.

  “Ms Garrett… Carol… Jon doesn’t work here any more, remember?”

  The receptionist kept her voice soft and gentle, but she wasn’t able to hide her concern.

  “But - he didn’t call you - he wasn’t in yesterday?”

  Another long pause. “Carol, don’t you remember? He went missing? In Harob forest?”

  Crap.

  I hung up and ran my hands over my face.

  If Jon hadn’t gone to work yesterday, what had he been doing?

  The answer came to me quickly: the policewoman said three people had gone missing over two days.

  Was Jon responsible?

  The disappearances could correlate with times Jon was unaccounted for. He could have taken two of them yesterday, when he’d said he was at work. And then, last night, when I’d woken up and he wasn’t there - that would have been when he’d taken Peter.

  Why would he take them to Harob Forest? What was he doing?

  His smile flashed up in my memory. Those teeth, all exposed so enthusiastically, so hungrily, wanting to bite and tear-

  I had to make sure Ryan and Mum were safe.

  I dashed out of the room to find the officer Reese, but stopped myself before I reached the reception.

  They didn’t know Jon had come back. They’d just shown me his body, spread out and decaying on a metal tray - how could I possibly explain that a monster wearing Jon’s face was a threat to my home?

  They’d think I was delusional. Suffering from stress, perhaps even in the middle of a nervous breakdown. I needed someone to corroborate my story.

  Mum. I’d collect her and Ryan and bring them back to the station - they’d not only be safer here, but the officers would be more likely to believe my story with a second witness.

  I entered the reception and glanced at Officer Reese. She had her back to me, stapling paperwork. I left without disturbing her.

  Mum’s house was in a peaceful neighbourhood. The yards were full of trees and the grass was always neatly trimmed. I parked in the driveway, jogged up to the house and tried to open the door. Locked, of course. I knocked hard and called that I was back.