by N. M. Brown
Once she had wriggled free of the back seat, Tina pushed it closed and reached her small hand for the door handle on the side furthest from where the stranger was. All the while she kept her small eyes fixed on the stranger. Luckily, he was facing away from her as he struggled with the other man to move the obstacle.
The door clicked softly as Tina opened it and quietly slipped out of the passenger side of the car. The body of the vehicle remained between her and the stranger, as Tina gently closed the door behind her and then crawled on all fours like a kitten into the long grass.
As soon as she was clear of the car and hidden among the taller bushes, Tina got to her feet and ran as fast as she could. Her feet slapped off the dusty ground as some primitive survival instinct sent her thundering forward. She brushed the tall dried plants aside as she rushed through the brittle undergrowth. With little sense of where she was going, Tina hurtled deeper into the wilderness. Even when a dull pain in her side began to form, she kept moving, all the time aware that in the fields behind her, the stranger was looking for her.
Chapter Six
Leighton was half listening to the Coping with Loss cassette whilst driving home from work along a dusty Olive Hill Road on the north side of the city. Oceanside was an area characterised by rust coloured hills and parched planes of land studded with the sturdy cacti which sat among an infinite carpet of needle grass.
Today, like most days in California, was hot, and despite the mellow tone of the cassette, Leighton found it more irritating than relaxing. The disclaimer at the start of the recording gravely stated that it should not be listened to whilst driving or operating machinery. He had smiled at this advice – as far as he was concerned they were both the same thing. In the previous ten years, he had often seen just how dangerous three tons of hot metal moving at forty mph could be.
Glancing at his hand gripping the wheel, Leighton noticed that it was still stained from the earlier incident. A streak of blood from the young driver had dried to rusty crumbs on the back of his fingers. Leighton sighed. He knew Teddy would probably report him for not wearing the standard issue latex gloves whilst administering medical treatment to a member of the public. Any such report would be nothing new either. In the six months they had been working together, Teddy had reported him on six separate occasions. Prior to working with the rookie, Leighton had never been summoned by the captain. It was therefore obvious that every lapse in protocol was being recorded and reported. On the first occasion, Teddy had gone directly to Chief Winston and complained that Leighton was too lax with completing paperwork. Thankfully, the chief had bigger things to worry about than admin and had suggested that perhaps Teddy should probably concentrate on developing his own skills rather than identifying flaws in more experienced officers. However, privately he had summoned Leighton to his office and advised him to be more careful around his new partner.
Although Leighton had not confirmed it, he suspected that this eagerness to report colleagues had been the reason for Teddy’s previous two-month partnership with another officer – Danny Clarke – falling apart. Danny, who was a few years younger than Leighton, was known to be a decent cop. Leighton figured if things had not worked out with the two of them, it had most probably been the rookie’s problem rather than Danny’s.
Even without Teddy’s unwelcomed scrutiny, it had already been a tricky afternoon. Leighton was confident that Teddy would undoubtedly snitch on him for spending too much time trying to keep the kid alive today, but Leighton didn’t care.
This time they would most likely blame his actions on grief, and then find some bullshit way of linking it back to Heather’s death. It wasn’t true; Leighton would have tried to save the young guy whether or not his wife had still been alive. In any case, at least he was trying to play the game in terms of his emotional well-being.
The hypnosis tape, a gift from his grief counsellor – James Hernandez, was designed to help alleviate Leighton’s stress at the end of each day. As he had sat self-consciously in the therapist’s office, Hernandez had told him that it was necessary to reduce the stress in his life in order to allow natural grieving to occur. As far as Leighton was concerned there was nothing natural about grieving. To him it seemed as if a bomb had exploded in the middle of his life and now he had to carry on living in a world of splinters and ash, acting like everything was normal. However, he was willing to jump through whatever hoops might possibly allow him to get back to some sort of normality. For Leighton, normality meant being able to function as cop, but more importantly as a father to Annie.
So he reluctantly accepted the cassette tape and agreed to listen to the soothing melodies and comforting affirmations on a regular basis. The problem was that he couldn’t sit at his desk and play it in the station whilst surrounded by thirty-five other cops; Leighton figured that some of them were too relaxed already. Neither did he want to play the therapy tape after he had picked up his daughter Annie from the child-minder at the end of each day. That time was their only opportunity to relax together and make up for lost time.
But despite this, Leighton accepted that he should at least become familiar with the content just in case the therapist asked him about it in their weekly meetings. Although it had never been explicitly said aloud, it was apparent that Leighton’s continuing role serving with Oceanside P.D. was dependent on him being given a clean bill of psychological health. If part of getting through the game required him listening to the required self-help tape then Leighton was willing to give a shot – just not publicly.
Therefore, listening to the cassette during the journey home seemed like a good option; no distractions, no audience. He slotted the cassette into the mouth of the player and then took a few deep breaths. Leighton wasn’t convinced that the mellow sound of the recording helped fill the dark chasm inside him. It didn’t seem sufficient enough to lighten the weight of imminent mortality bearing down upon him, but at least taking some type of positive action might just help keep him breathing a little while longer.
Chapter Seven
His instincts had told him something was wrong. He had felt a disturbance somewhere deep in his mind, and he should have listened to it. It was always the same – starting with a strange fizzing sensation in his skin, building up to a full-on trembling sensation in both arms. It was the closest thing he knew to fear, and it had happened once before, back in the scorching summer of 1986.
That had been the summer when his dark urges had first become impossible to resist. They had been simmering for a couple of years prior to that, but in that particular season, his need to take a child had been so powerful it had been inescapable. Despite his skill in snatching the kid from the play park, he had seriously messed up. It was a dumb error, and part of his learning curve. He had simply left the stolen kid in the trunk for too long in an exposed parking area of the national park. At the time, he had driven out of the city to the remote area. At one point he had considered stopping at a mall parking lot, but he knew that those places increasingly seemed to have cameras everywhere. Escaping into the wilder places seemed liked a better option. But it had been a hot day and as he had sat in slow lanes of traffic, Leighton knew that he should check that the recently acquired kid was alive. The journey out of the city had taken him into the desert heat of the highway, which ran north-east towards Fallbrook. Eventually, he found a parking area at the start of the Guajome Regional Park. However, just as the stranger pulled and switched off the engine, a couple of park rangers pulled in alongside him. By that time, descriptions of the missing kid had been all over the radio. It would have looked too weird for him to have sat in the car while two rangers enjoyed their lunch, so he got out of the car and wandered off. He got into his head the rangers might hear some noise coming from the car and investigate it. In order to get himself out of harm’s way, he drifted steadily out on the baking road and hitched a ride from a bearded truck driver back into the city.
He had returned to his trailer and taken a cool bottle of bee
r from the refrigerator. Slumping on the battered couch, he twisted the cap off the bottle and then tossed it into the corner of the room. He felt like a starving creature who had been given a delicious meal, only to have it ripped away from him before he could take a bite. Cocking his head to one side, he listened to the distant moan of a police siren. As it faded into silence, he tilted the bottles and gulped it down in a private celebration of his continuing liberation.
His mind shifted from the risk of getting caught to the passenger hidden in the darkness of the trunk. It looked like he would be spending the night there. And deserts could get a bit chilly too. Still, he figured that the kid would most likely be alright. No car trunk was ever airtight, so he would be able to breath, plus there was an old tarpaulin in there too. The kid could use that if he got cold.
Given that everything seemed cool, he got up and walked back to the refrigerator. Took out another beer. He held the door open allowing the cold air to cool his sweating face. The stranger thought for a moment about whether or not he should have a second beer, but he figured that he wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. After a moment of further considerations, he reached back in and removed the rest of the six-pack.
He took the beers outside, to where a tattered folding chair sat next to his trailer on the western edge of the Sun View caravan park.
Easing himself into the chair he opened his beer and began drinking. His chair was strategically located, although it was tilted towards his own trailer. He had attached an old cracked shaving mirror to the outside wall of his unit. This meant he could relax any evening and watch the kids who lived on the park – scooting about on their bikes or chasing each other around – without arousing suspicion. On hot nights they would be wearing less. He liked that.
Eventually, his thoughts of the kid locked in the trunk of his car – and the associated fears of getting caught – were eclipsed by the cold alcohol running through his bloodstream, as well as the inevitable craving for more. Stepping back up inside the trailer, he rummaged through the debris of his lair until he found a half empty bottle of bourbon beneath a cluttered coffee table. He dragged it out and unscrewed the cap off the bottle. Tilting his head back, he brought the bottle to his cracked lips and drank the darkness.
By the time he had taken a stuffy taxi cab ride back to the location at the edge of the sprawling national park, twenty-four anxious hours had passed. But the stranger had not arrived without provisions. He had brought a plastic bottle of water and a packet of cookies, to help revive the kid. Having paid the taxi driver a bundle of crumpled twenties, he stood back and waited for him to leave the remote parking spot. Once the cab had trundled away in a cloud of hot dust, the stranger finally hurried over to the car and opened the trunk. Even then, in the act of opening that lid, he noticed that the metal of the car felt almost too hot to touch. It was then he discovered that the baking heat of the exposed car had been too much for his passenger. After closing the trunk then sitting in the dust where he ate most of the cookies, he had driven the car for almost an hour, before dumping the wasted remains in a dusty ravine.
But that had been an error.
This time, however, he had been determined not to make the same mistake.
By the time he had finally dragged the old idiot’s trailer to the side of the road, an impatient tailback of six honking cars had formed behind his own one. Despite a gnawing urge to check on his passenger, he knew he couldn’t risk opening the trunk. Instead, he had jumped back in his car and driven a mile or so away until he found a quiet stretch of road. After checking his mirror, he slowly pulled over on the verge. He switched off the engine, and checked the road once again. It was still empty. He then reached beneath the driver’s wheel, pulled a lever to unlock the trunk and hurried out of the car.
However, this time when he peered into the dark cavity the body was gone.
The empty trunk still smelled of the absent child, and the sense of his loss caused him something akin to pain and rage. He knew even before he leaned in to the humid cavity, and pushed the unsecured backrest forwards that this was how she had escaped. The growl of pain and which escaped from his mouth sounded completely guttural.
Slamming the lid of the trunk shut, he climbed back into the car and revved away in a cloud of dust. The kid had seen his face – she knew what the car looked like too. Even if he hadn’t been consumed by the thrill of ending her life, there was no way he was going to let the little bitch get away.
Chapter Eight
‘Oceanside Police, how may I help?’ The voice on the telephone sounded cool and efficient.
‘My daughter is missing.’ Angela gulped the words out, the phrase seeming to stick in her throat. ‘Please, you have to find her.’
‘What’s your name, please?’ The voice sounded unfazed by Angela’s words.
‘Please,’ Angela said, as she ran a hand through her sweat-dampened hair, ‘you’ve got to help me!’
‘I hear you, ma’am, we just need some details from you, and then we can help. Can you give me your full name?’
‘Angela Blanchette.’
‘Any middle names?’
‘No.’
‘And your address, Mrs Blanchette?’
‘Four hundred and seven Alta Vista Drive, Fallbrook.’
‘Is this your home number that you’re currently calling from?’
‘Yes,’ Angela said, ‘Jesus, yes!’
‘Can I have your daughter’s full name?’
‘Christina Blanchette – but we call her Tina.’
‘Thank you. When did you last see Tina?’
‘Around 2.00 – maybe 2.30 this afternoon.’
‘Can you confirm your daughter’s date of birth?’
Angela had to fight the urge to pass out as she recalled Tina’s birthday. ‘It’s ten, eighteen, ninety.’
‘So she’s seven years old, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hair colour?’
‘Light brown. Is all of this goddam necessary – she’s missing!’ Angela blurted. ‘My daughter is missing!’
‘I understand, Mrs Blanchette, these details will help us find your daughter. Now where did you last see Tina?’
‘She was here in the house about an hour or so ago. She left our house to go play with her friend who lives nearby. But her friend says a man came along and spoke with them, and now she’s missing.’
‘Okay, Mrs Blanchette, somebody will be with you soon. Please, be aware that we receive many missing persons reports every week, and almost all of them are nothing to worry about.’
‘Please hurry,’ Angela said in a quiet and desperate voice.
After she put the phone down, she paced the length of her small home. She rubbed her hands restlessly together as she moved. Her mind kept turning over and over as if there was some solution, some logical explanation she was somehow missing. Perhaps there was some arrangement she’d forgotten about, or perhaps Tina had fallen asleep in the woods. But none of that was the reality. Tina had been taken by some sick bastard. And Angela knew it too. She knew the man had taken her. There was no other logical explanation for her disappearance. Angela rushed into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.
Chapter Nine
Tina was crouched like some wild creature on the hot dust in the middle of a patch of wilderness. The yellow grass around her was tall and thin but not particularly dense. It reminded Tina of the strands of dried spaghetti she had once used in kindergarten to make a picture of a scarecrow for her mom. At the time she had enjoyed sticking the brittle pieces all over the paper, but Tina had been unsettled by the grinning face with a lurid carrot for a nose. After her mom had proudly stuck the picture on to the side of the refrigerator at home, Tina had snuck in, taken down her creation, before scrunching it up and dropping it in the trash can.
In the ten minutes since her escape from the stranger, Tina had stopped only momentarily to regain her breath, but it was at those few seconds of rest that the tears finally
came, drenching her small cheeks in a sudden deluge. Her head hung downwards and her tears dripped from her chin on to the parched ground. She wiped at her face, streaking it with the dust from her fingers.
The upset was only natural. In a period of a couple of hours, her entire world view had suddenly shifted from the predictable geography of her relatively stable little world of school and home to an unfamiliar chaos of infinite dangers and frightening landscapes. She knew now that she and Suzy should never have gone to the creek alone. It had been stupid and her mom would be angry with her. But Tina knew that she would be safe with an angry mom, and that was what she wanted most of all.
Eventually, when the tears had subsided, she wiped at her eyes and cheeks, then looked up. It was then in the stillness of her gesture that she heard the stranger call out to her from across the countryside. The sound chilled her blood. The call sounded like that of a blind and hungry ogre from some dark fairy tale. In the silence that followed, Tina stayed frozen in position. The rapid rise and fall of her chest was the only sign she was alive. In her mind, she could easily imagine the stranger creeping through the fields scanning from side to side. The image was horrific enough to break her paralysis. Getting cautiously to her feet, Tina glanced around trying to locate which direction the yelling was coming from. At first the sound was indistinct and difficult to locate, but then when she tilted her head and listened carefully, Tina could locate it.
The voice was not close, but it was growing in volume. Turning away from the sound, Tina ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction. She no longer cared what she was running towards as long as she was getting further and further away from the calls.
