by Scott Hale
“Before or after the kids went missing?” Stephen said.
“After, I think. I’m not sure. I started seeing out-of-state license plates, hearing accents from across the Atlantic. A lot of unfamiliar faces hanging around the motels off the highway.
“Did some sneaking around. All the ones I’ve found so far have been here only for the last week or two. You can have the names. I figure you’re going to make me give them to you, anyway.”
“You think they’re part of the cult?” Stephen persisted.
“That’d be nice. Cults are great. Catch a bunch of wackos gathered together in some basement or warehouse. So much easier than tracking individuals down. But, man, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Something’s going on, but I’m not sure it has to do with the kids.”
Linnéa tightened her gaze on him.
“Alright.” Connor stood up, set his cup on the table. “This won’t make you trust me completely, but let me give you a tour of the house. I can tell you guys aren’t telling me everything, either, which is understandable. But I think you and I have the same problem. Maybe we can help each other.”
“Same problem?” Stephen stood up. “Same problem? What do you mean? Do you have a child?”
Linnéa came to her feet. There were no pictures of children in the house as far as she could tell, and Connor didn’t seem like the fatherly type.
“Black Occult Macabre was my own thing, at first. A magazine I put out digitally back in the day.”
Connor led them into the kitchen. It was a tight fit with the three of them in it, but was even worse when he started opening every cupboard and drawer to show that there were no children hidden inside. Linnéa wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but in a way, it was. Not one stone left unturned, because the one they didn’t flip would be the one chained to their necks for eternity, giving poor Sisyphus some much needed company.
“It was mostly bullshit. Horror stories based around Bedlam. Then I started noticing weird stuff in our town.” He opened the refrigerator, the garbage can. “But it wasn’t until I met up with this old man for a story that I realized it wasn’t all bullshit. There were other things out there. He showed me. The Zdanowicz murders years back? Monster did that. Saw it with my own eyes.” Connor went into the hall, turned on the light, and waited until they joined him. “That old man’s name is Herbert North. He’s… he’s my boss. Don’t tell him I told you so.”
Connor continued down the hallway, stopped at the first door, which was a closet. He opened it up, stepped away.
Inside, there were toy boxes and Halloween decorations; old shoes, a vacuum cleaner; and a creased picture of an old Siberian husky on one of the shelves.
“Go ahead,” he said.
Linnéa and Stephen moved the boxes aside, checking for a trapdoor. They pressed against the inside of the closet for a false wall.
“Herbert is missing,” Connor said when they’d finished their search. “He’s been gone for a month. I can see what you’re thinking. He didn’t take the kids. But feel free to look into that, too, if you want.”
Going farther down the hall, Connor stopped at where it dead-ended. On one side of the room was one room, and on the other side, another. He chose the one on his left and went in, flipping the light switch on behind him.
“He didn’t live with me,” he said, as Linnéa and Stephen caught up with him. “So, his room isn’t much to look at it. Just… don’t mess up anything.”
Connor wasn’t lying. Herbert North’s room was an old person’s room if she’d ever seen one. Minimalistic as the website which they’d built, the room was one bed so tightly made it almost seemed a shame to sleep in. Other than that, there was a writing desk that had been kept in immaculate condition. The room had no closet, or access to the attic. It had no real hiding places, and yet, again, no stone left unturned.
Linnéa and Stephen swept across the room. They checked underneath the bed, searched every nook and cranny for any kind of trace evidence. The room wasn’t dirty, nor did it smell as if it’d been scrubbed clean recently, but in a way, a mother can sense the wake of their child, like aftershocks from an earthquake. Filipa hadn’t been here.
“He was investigating a lead. He got wind Ruth Ashcroft was somewhere in the state.”
“Amon Ashcroft,” Stephen mumbled.
“Yeah, his niece. He went and tried to find her and… he had a couple different places he was supposed to be looking and then… a month ago, he didn’t check in.” Connor stood in the doorway, fighting every impulse he had to cry. “I’ve been trying to… find him.”
Connor crossed the hall into the room opposite Herbert’s and turned on the light there.
Linnéa and Stephen followed.
“I have no idea where he is.”
Connor’s room was like Connor’s living room: a hoarder’s paradise; systematically arranged, and stuffily efficient. There wasn’t much floor space on account of the shelves and statues and glass cases filled with more action figures. Like Herbert’s room, there was a writing desk, but on this desk, there was actually something: a laptop, and beside it, stacks of papers and drawings being held down by external hard drives operating as weights. His room smelled like weed and other things she couldn’t quite place. Ancient things, earthy things. Packaged and powered things you might find in old timey stores; natural remedies to fight unnatural maladies.
“Your case is messed up. There’s something there. But I’ve been spending all this time trying to find Herbert that I haven’t been able to look into you and yours.”
Stephen scoured the interior of Connor’s bedroom, while Linnéa worked her away around the exterior, consulting every case and shelf—saving the desk, his writing, and laptop for last.
“But you found vermillion veins in your yard. That wasn’t in any police reports.”
“Didn’t seem like anything,” Stephen said.
“That’s the point, I think. But, I didn’t know about them. If they’re in all your guys’ yards, then either Ruth is here, or Amon, or one of their shithead followers. If you’re going to run with me on this, then some, one, or all of them took the children. But I don’t think it’s just about your daughter. Maybe it’s the house. Everyone inside it.”
“We had a break in,” Linnéa said. She went to the desk, started rifling through his papers.
Connor didn’t say a thing.
“Last night. Someone came into our bedroom and wrote in ash on our ceiling ‘A Child in Every Home.’”
Connor furrowed his brow. “Did you get a good look at them?”
Linnéa shook her head. The papers were nothing but cryptological crapshoots. “Just saw a dark shape. Saw a few of them outside.”
Stephen made a sound as if he thought Linnéa should stop speaking.
But she carried on. “Ellen Cross has seen them. Bethany Simmons, too, I reckon.”
“Shadows,” Connor whispered. Then, serious as a heart attack: “Have you been eating the veins?”
Linnéa and Stephen’s silence said it all.
“Uh, yeah, don’t do… that anymore. It wants you to. But then you see things. Like what you saw. The shadows. We’re not sure what they are, but eating the veins makes you more sensitive to seeing them. It’s like shining a light on yourself, or leaving your door open, inviting whatever happens by in. They can influence our world, but not much else. ‘A Child in Every Home’? That sounds like a warning. Herbert had this theory the shadows might not even be bad. They may be helpful. But… don’t eat the veins. That’s like eating raw meat. There’re things inside it… and it’s going to totally discredit you and what you have to say if people find out.”
Linnéa opened Connor’s laptop. Expecting him to tell her to stop, instead he sighed; she swore she could almost hear his eyes rolling in their sockets.
No lock screen. A black wallpaper with Black Occult Macabre Productions written across it. No icons on the desktop. She went into his web browser, checked his history. It
consisted mostly of sites used for pirating music and movies, and other generic websites that were to be consumed in this day and age’s food pentagram. She gave his email a cursory glance, but only found a few back and forths between the women he’d been presumably talking to at the coffee shop. That, and ‘work emails’ from desperate souls requiring assistance in being liberated from their monster problems.
“That woman you helped out the other day?” Linnéa said. “What’d you do for her?”
“Heh.” Connor rubbed the back of his head. “She thinks her house is haunted. I think she’s just lonely. But we both get something out of it, regardless.”
“You’re scamming her?” Stephen said, red in the face from all the kneeling he was doing.
“Since when do the jobs that matter ever pay the bills? It’s the bullshit that keeps us afloat.”
“You like black metal?” Linnéa sidestepped away from the desk to a milk carton full of records. She flipped through them, one incomprehensible logo following after the other against a backdrop of nature’s cruel beauty. “Nice collection.”
“Thanks,” Connor said. “Uh, all that’s left is the bathroom and the basement. You guys good in here?”
They were, and so they kept at it, going deeper into Connor’s ticky-tacky home. The bathroom was clear, and clearly owned by a man; there were driblets of piss all over the toilet seat, and the towels were so used that, given another week or two, they could probably stand up on their own and escape from this place.
“Alright, coffee aside, I’m fading, homies.” Connor yawned and brought them around, through the living room, to the basement door. “I’ll help you in any way that I can. But tell me: Did you or the other parents do something that might make someone think… think being the operative word here… that you deserve this?”
Linnéa and Stephen exchanged glances. For a moment, the play was back on—the curtains were drawn, and the story they’d been performing in almost perfect synchronicity since the day they’d met so many years ago started up once more.
“Yeah,” Stephen said. “We’ve all been taken to court by Child Protective Services. We didn’t—”
Connor’s eyes lit up. “Every single family?”
They nodded.
“There’s your intent. Or, at least, the reason you were chosen. Let’s stick with the human angle for now, but let’s say someone knew this. Someone who either has it out for people like you—”
Stephen tried to butt in.
But Connor kept going. “Maybe they are repulsed, maybe they have a history themselves. Or maybe they think you’re not worthy of your children. You guys seem pretty keen on the cult thing. If there is a cult, then maybe they took these children because they saw them as damaged. Right?
“The idea with the vermillion veins is that they mark some sort of change. An emergence about to happen. Or a literal change to the person they’ve marked. Alright? So, if we run with that, who are they trying to change? Are you being tested? Or are the kids? They’re watching you. Whether you buy into the shadow thing or not, someone was in your home, right? You said Helen Cross—”
“Ellen,” Stephen said, close enough to Connor to kiss him.
“Ellen Cross, yeah. You said she was part of the Disciples of God. Could be a place to start, but that seems obvious. Who was the other one who ate the veins? Bethany? I think I remember her. She’s on the TV all the time. The trash bag with bleached teeth.”
Linnéa tried not to laugh.
“I’d look at her. Her husband has ties with west Bedlam. I know that for a fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in some way connected to the Disciples.”
Connor went a little farther and opened the door to the basement. Lost in his thoughts, he went down first, tugging on each chain connected to the suspended light bulbs along the way.
“The detour for the construction runs through your neighborhood doesn’t it?” Connor asked, coming off the stairs and circling the basement, illuminating more bulbs. “That’s good cover. A lot of people that shouldn’t normally be there can go through without raising too much suspicion.”
In the basement, Linnéa and Stephen split up, even though there wasn’t much ground to cover. It was nothing but stone and cement marked by drainage grates and stress fractures. There was a washer and dryer, a fuse box, and a small storage space which they went over several times, finding nothing of importance.
“There was a white van with two kids from west Bedlam fucking in it,” Linnéa said, matter-of-factly. “Outside our house. Broad daylight.”
Connor belted out a laugh and said to Stephen, “I like your wife.”
Stephen made a fist. “So do I.”
“Alright.” Connor rubbed his hands together. “You got a bible-thumper following a rich people’s religion, and a person who wants to be rich possibly connected to that same religion. Isn’t there another parent?”
“Trent Resin,” Stephen said. “Don’t know much about him.”
“I’d find out more, then.” Connor shook his head, smiled. “Yeah. You got those two. Mystery man.”
“Ellen and Richard couldn’t get their stories straight the day Darlene disappeared,” Linnéa offered.
“Okay, yeah. There’s that… them… You’ve got a white van outside your house with two kids from the west. I wonder who their parents are, you know? You got them being… very good distractions. You got vermillion veins. And I’ve got people coming in from god knows where to stay in the town for god knows what.”
Linnéa drifted back towards Connor. “There’s a truck I keep seeing, too. A work truck for Price Homes. They built Six Pillars. I’ve seen it twice now parked in different places in the neighborhood. Never anyone inside.”
“Price Homes.” Connor scratched the side of his head. “They’re working on a new project over on Merrin. That’s like… fifteen minutes from here? Forty from you guys? Dude seems out of his way. That’s something, I’d say. Hey, were you, or all of the families, some of the first to move in?”
Stephen nodded. “We were. We live near the entrance. They built the rest over the years.”
“Taking four kids while the parents are home and all at once?” Connor clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Wouldn’t hurt to have some knowledge about the house. I imagine running around with a work truck like that, you could come and go as you pleased.”
Linnéa’s heart started to beat faster and faster. She looked at Stephen and took his hand. Squeezing it, she asked, “Connor, say we’re not just keen on the human element. If you were us, what would you be looking for?”
Connor’s mouth dropped open. The dark circles under his eyes appeared to grow larger. He started for the steps out of the basement and then stopped, resting his weight against the railing.
“Honestly, I don’t know. This would’ve been Herbert’s area of expertise. He’s the brain and I’m the… well, not the beauty or brawns. The snarky sidekick he gets to boss around, I guess? The son he never had, maybe? You’d have to ask the old son of a bitch yourself.”
Connor quickly wiped his eyes. “Shit. Guys, I don’t know.”
“Take a guess,” Stephen said.
Connor bit his lower lip. “I think something inhuman came into your house and is using your history as a means by which to transform either you, your daughter, or all of you into something else. Something horrible, or maybe just offerings for whatever the veins are connected to. But let’s say—”
Linnéa’s phone started to ring.
“—the people who are coming to Bedlam are somehow part of this.”
Ring, ring.
“Then maybe it is organized. Maybe there are a lot of players involved.”
Ring, ring.
“If… if that’s so, then they want to see what’s going to happen next.”
Ring, ring.
“Why?” Stephen whispered.
Ring.
Linnéa took the phone out of her pocket.
“So they can say
they were there.”
Ring.
“So they can be the first to the front of the line.”
Linnéa looked at the screen. It was four forty-five, and Detective Mills was calling. She flashed the phone at Stephen. His face flashed dread.
“But, uh, that’s the problem with this small, Podunk town. You have to be sure. You start loading these cops—”
She answered the phone.
“—down with suspects and theories and everything slows to a crawl… Is everything okay?”
Linnéa held up her hand. “Detective Mills?”
“I’m sorry to call you at this hour,” he said, shouting over the voices in the background. “But we found something.”
“F-Found something?”
Stephen and Connor moved towards her.
“A book,” Mills said. “A book with your daughter’s name written in it. The one, I believe, you said she was reading that day.”
“Yes…” Linnéa said, not breathing, not thinking; barely being.
“We found it in the junkyard.” He paused. “It’s covered in… someone’s blood.”
Copper pool. Burnt rubber. Creased sky. Leaking light.
Linnéa pushes the gas pedal to the floor, and then pushes it farther, harder.
Swerving cars. Fuming high beams. Stale AC. Fogging windshield.
Stephen has been shouting at her to slow down, but now, he just wants her to go faster.
Green time ticking rapidly in the dashboard. Thoughts of books and that day, and lies to make it all go away.
Linnéa nearly spins out taking a turn, as the scene takes a turn for the worse. The junkyard sits on the horizon, a shattered skull of once-cherished memories. Its sockets shine blue, its teeth bright red. There are pigs in its mouth, rooting for tiny, child-shaped truffles.
Shadowy figures flagging her down. A news van circling for scraps. A muddy puddle lapping at her ankles.
Out of the car, forgetting she had been in the car, Linnéa runs. She and Stephen break through the police barricade like a battering ram. No one can stop them. No one could stop them.
