Evil Whispers

by Goingback, Owl

  “This body is beginning to be a problem.”

  Moving to the front of the second building, he tried the door but found it locked. Determined to find a way inside, he circled the building to the back side. He found a second door, but it too was locked. Frustrated, Mansa was about to turn away when he spotted a large metal bowl on the ground beside the door. Inside the bowl, several eating utensils soaked in water. There were forks, spoons, and a large wooden-handled butcher knife.

  Mansa smiled. Now this was something he could use. He reached in the bowl and removed the butcher knife, grasping it tightly in his right hand to get a feel for it. The knife was designed to be used by an adult, but its handle was not too large for a child’s hand. He slashed the air a few times and smiled again. The knife fit just right in Krissy’s tiny hand.

  He felt better now that he had a weapon, more prepared to defend himself. It was true that the magical powers he possessed could also serve as a weapon, but those powers never came as quickly as the slash of a knife. The knife would also help him to gather the body parts he would need. It was far easier to remove a heart with a knife than it was to remove one with magic.

  Mansa Du Paul studied the door in front of him, wishing there was a way to get inside to obtain food. He thought about using the knife to pry open the door, but was afraid of breaking the blade. The knife would be useless to him if it was broken.

  Deciding that food would have to wait, he turned away from the door and started back across the fish camp. He had not been seen by anyone and wanted to keep it that way. If anyone saw him, twice as many searchers would come looking for the little girl. If they thought she was dead, or that she was no longer in the area, they might look elsewhere, or give up the search altogether.

  He had just reached the other building, when he noticed a small wooden structure sitting beside it. The tiny structure looked like a little house, with a large doorway carved in its front wall. Mansa paused, wondering what the tiny building could be used for. Was it something for children to play in? If so, it was awfully small. Only one child at a time could fit inside the tiny house.

  Two bowls sat on the ground, in front of the tiny house. One bowl contained water, the other contained brown nuggets of some kind. The bowl containing the nuggets had the word PATCH written on it in large white letters.

  “What’s this?”

  The sorcerer bent over and picked up the bowl with the white letters. The nuggets it contained were the size of walnuts, but they were soft as if made from dough. Perhaps they had once been hard, but they had gotten soft from exposure to the elements.

  He held the bowl to his nose and sniffed. The nuggets gave off a strong food odor, though it was not like any food he had ever smelled before. Even the Seminoles had never made anything that smelled like that.

  Along with the nuggets, there was something else in the bowl. Tiny white maggots crawled about the bowl, feeding on the brown food chunks.

  Mansa smiled. If maggots fed on the brown nuggets, then they were indeed food. He could not imagine why someone had left a bowl of food lying on the ground. Perhaps someone had grown too full and simply wandered off. No matter. He was looking for food, and that’s just what he found.

  He popped one of the brown food nuggets into his mouth, trying to identify the flavor. It wasn’t pork, or beef. Nor did it taste like chicken, or even fish. It tasted sort of like hominy cakes, but not quite. Mansa picked up another one of the nuggets, ignoring the fat maggot that clung to it. He popped both the nugget and the maggot into his mouth and chewed slowly.

  The maggot seemed to bring out the flavor of the strange food. Perhaps that was why the bowl had been left on the ground: to draw maggots. Apparently the food was much tastier when served with the tiny worms. It was indeed a strange world that he had awakened into, but who was he to argue with changing times. At least now he would be able to feed the body he used.

  Mansa had just swallowed the food chunk, maggot and all, when he heard a door slam and the sound of approaching footsteps. Someone had just come out of the other building and was walking his way.

  Panicked, afraid of being spotted, or caught, before he was back to full strength, Mansa ducked behind the little wooden house, hiding in the shadows. He had just gotten out of sight, when a bearded white man came around the corner of the other building.

  The man must have been inside the building, and Mansa was surprised that he hadn’t been heard when he tried to open the front door. As the man walked past, he glanced in Mansa’s direction, but he obviously didn’t see the girl that crouched in the shadows behind the little house.

  Mansa remained perfectly still, watching as the bearded man walked on past. He thought about following the man, hoping for an opportunity to test out his new knife, but he quickly dismissed the idea. The body he rode was still weak from the magic he had performed earlier at the lagoon. He needed to eat first, then he could play.

  Waiting until the bearded man had left the area, Mansa Du Paul slipped out from behind the little house and hurried toward the river. Carrying the bowl of food in his left hand and the butcher knife in his right, he left the fish camp and hurried back across the wooden bridge, disappearing into the darkness of the forest. Later he would come back in search of the things he still needed, but not now. It was dinnertime, and Mansa always did his best killing on a full stomach.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Captain Williams had joined the Palmetto County Sheriff’s Department almost twenty years ago. Since that time he had been involved in stakeouts and drug raids, hostage situations, and had even single-handedly arrested a pair of bank robbers after a high-speed pursuit. He had been kicked, punched, and shot at, and had once been nearly run over by a speeding motorist.

  Despite his experience as a law enforcement officer, this was the first time he had ever been in charge of a search for a missing child. It was quickly proving to be one of the most frustrating things he had ever done in his career, far more frustrating than trying to track down bad guys and criminals.

  If Krissy Patterson had gotten lost in the forest, she could be injured and in need of immediate medical attention. The clock was ticking, and every hour that slipped past reduced the chance of the little girl being found in time to help her. And if, God forbid, she had been abducted, then they weren’t dealing with hours; they were dealing with minutes. The longer it took to find clues to her whereabouts, or pick up the trail of her abductor, then the less chance they had of ever finding her again.

  So far there had been few clues as to exactly what had happened to the missing child. The sheriff’s department had run a thorough background check on her parents, but nothing had turned up. Neither Robert nor Janet Patterson had an arrest record, nor did they have a history of child abuse. Except for a speeding ticket acquired three years ago, they would appear to be model, law-abiding, citizens.

  The Pattersons were not suspects in the case, at least there was no reason to suspect them at the present time. As far as the sheriff’s department could tell, they were not dealing with a case of parental abuse.

  Normally, the parents would not be the first ones suspected when a child was missing, but over the past few years an alarming number of child abuse cases had happened in Florida. Horrifying cases of parents, and stepparents, abusing, torturing, and even killing their own children. Captain Williams had worked on several such cases, and it made him sick to think about them. He remembered how one father had burned his infant daughter with a hot oven rack; another father had gotten stoned on crack and thrown his two children out of a second-story window.

  And then there was the father who had beaten and tortured his eight-year-old daughter to death. The little girl had shown up at school sporting suspicious cuts and bruises, yet nothing had been done to protect her. Family Services had not taken her out of the home, despite knowing that her father had a history of abuse. Instead, they had let her remain in the care of the man who would eventually kill her.

  The captain
shook his head, trying to clear the visions of child abuse from his mind. Why was it that all the sick people in the world seemed to migrate down to the sunshine state? Was the old saying true, did all the nuts roll downhill to Florida? One thing for sure, he would give a month’s pay to be locked up for five minutes with some of the bastards who hurt their kids. Just five minutes. No more. He was quite sure that’s all the time it would take to convince them never to lay a hand on another child.

  He sincerely hoped Krissy Patterson’s case didn’t involve child abuse of any kind. Her parents seemed like nice people, and he would hate to find out that they had anything to do with their daughter’s disappearance. He didn’t think either of them were guilty, because there was too much hurt in their eyes. He had met a lot of people in his line of work, both good and bad, and he could usually tell if they were lying by their eyes. The eyes were windows to the soul, and what he saw in the eyes of Robert and Janet Patterson spoke of their innocence.

  However, it wasn’t that way for Jimmy Cypress. Captain Williams had taken a good look at Jimmy’s eyes and had seen things he did not like. Jimmy had eyes that were cold and deadly, like those of a predator. Despite what Mr. Cypress had told him, the captain could tell that the Indian was lying or hiding something.

  A book belonging to Krissy Patterson had been found at the cabin owned by Jimmy Cypress. A Dr. Suess storybook. Jimmy said he had found the book in the forest, but he wouldn’t specify where. He simply said that he had found the book while he was taking a walk.

  Jimmy’s story didn’t hold up, because Robert Patterson was certain he had seen the book in his daughter’s bedroom the day of her disappearance. He had also reported that Jimmy Cypress had earlier threatened his life, warning him to stay out of the forest or something bad would happen.

  Had the crazy Indian kidnapped Krissy Patterson? Had he murdered her? A grave was found beside Jimmy’s shack, but it only contained the body of a dog.

  That was another mystery waiting to be solved. The dog in the grave had belonged to the owners of the fish camp, Ross and Mary Sanders. The dog had been noticed missing about the same time the little girl disappeared. Again Jimmy Cypress claimed complete innocence. He said he found the dog’s body while out walking, and decided to bury him out of respect. That just didn’t make sense. How many people would lug a dead dog back to their house for burial, especially a dog that didn’t belong to them? Stranger still was how the dog had died. He hadn’t died from sickness, old age, snake bite, or an attach by a wild animal. On the contrary, the dog’s neck and spine had been broken.

  Captain Williams slowed his unmarked patrol car as he passed the Blackwater Fish Camp. The hour was late and the camp was quiet, a pleasant change from the hustle of activity that had taken place earlier in the day. The searchers had gone home for the day, but they would return in full force first thing in the morning. The little girl had only been missing for a couple of days, so there was still a good chance that they would find her. None of them were about to give up on her so soon.

  The captain had driven no more than fifty yards past the fish camp when something darted across the road in front of him. At first he thought it was a deer and slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting it. But there she was, momentarily illuminated in the glow of his headlights, a little girl with mud-streaked blonde hair. And though her clothing and skin were stained and dirty, there was no mistaking that it was the same girl they had been looking for.

  “Holy shit,” Captain Williams said, swerving the car to keep from hitting the child. His patrol car came to a screeching halt, sideways in the road. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  He turned on his blue lights, unbuckled his safety belt, and jumped out of the car. But the girl was no longer on the road. She had vanished back into the darkness, disappearing as quickly as she came.

  “Damn. Where did she go?” He turned and looked behind the patrol car, but she wasn’t there either. And for a moment he wondered if he had even seen her at all. Maybe it was just a deer he saw, or maybe his imagination had played a trick on him.

  “No. No. No. I know what I saw. It was her.” Leaning back in through the open door, he switched on his spotlight and aimed it at the ditch bordering the right side of the road. At first he didn’t see anything, but then the bright beam of the searchlight danced across the figure of a child standing in the shadows, watching him.

  “Son of a bitch. It is her.” Captain Williams was shocked. Here was the little girl that half the sheriff’s department was looking for. She was there, no more than fifty feet from him. He had found her.

  He wanted to get on the radio and call dispatch to report the news, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the girl, fearful that she would vanish again. The radio call would have to wait.

  “Now what do I do?”

  Krissy Patterson had not moved. She still stood at the edge of the forest, trapped in the beam of the powerful searchlight. There was something odd about that, something not right about what was happening. The girl had run in front of his patrol car, as if running in fear from something, or someone. She had darted across the road and then stopped, hiding in the shadows to watch him. Now she just stood there, motionless, like a raccoon or some other nocturnal creature, frozen in place by the light.

  Was she hurt? She might be in shock, completely unaware of what she was doing or where she was. Perhaps she had been abducted and was traumatized by the event. If so, then Captain Williams needed to be very careful about how he approached her. If she was in shock, or scared, she might run from him. She might disappear back into the forest, never to be seen again. It wouldn’t look good to report that he had found the girl, only to lose her again.

  Stepping away from his patrol car, he started walking slowly toward her. “Krissy, is that you?” He forced a smile, trying to look as friendly as possible. It wasn’t easy because he was nervous, afraid the child might take off running. Although he was a fairly fast runner himself, there was no way he would be able to keep up with a frightened child in a dark forest.

  “Krissy, my name is Captain Williams. I’m a police officer.” He removed the badge from his belt and held it in front of him for her to see. “Are you okay?”

  There was no response from the girl. She just stood there looking at him, her tiny body illuminated by the searchlight that was still focused on her. The light made her skin look far whiter than it should have looked, deathly pale, as if she were nothing more than a ghostly apparition.

  The captain’s pace momentarily faltered, and he almost allowed the smile to slip from his face. The little girl who stood before him did indeed look like an apparition, as if he was seeing a ghost and not a person of flesh and blood.

  A chill walked down the big man’s spine. He was a devout fan of television shows like The X-Files and Sightings, shows which often portrayed incidents of ghostly encounters. He greatly enjoyed that kind of program, but that was when viewed in the comfort, and safety, of his living room. It was an altogether different situation to think that a meeting with the paranormal might now be happening to him, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

  A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He wanted to wipe it away, but he didn’t want to make any sudden movements that might frighten the girl. If it was a little girl that stood silently watching him, and not her ghost.

  Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. It’s just a little girl. A frightened little girl. It’s not a ghost. Quit scaring yourself.

  “Krissy, are you okay?”

  Again, she did not answer him. She only stood there, watching. No. Not even watching. There was nothing to indicate she even saw him. Her eyes didn’t move, nor her head. She only stood there, looking in his general direction. Looking his way, but perhaps not seeing him.

  He reached the edge of the road and started down into the ditch. He tried to move slowly, but the grass was slick with dew and his feet slipped out from under him.

  “Shit!” he cried as he lost his footing and landed
on his backside, sliding down into the ditch. He came to a stop at the bottom of the ditch, quickly getting to his feet. He was afraid that his sudden movements, and the obscenity he had yelled, would frighten the child, causing her to run away. But she was still standing there, only now she was closer to him.

  As Captain Williams got back up, he was surprised to see Krissy Patterson standing only a few feet away from him. Even though he had slipped and slid down into the ditch, she shouldn’t have been so close. It was as if she had hurried to him while he was sliding out of control, only to freeze in place once he recovered.

  “Krissy?”

  Maybe she had hurried to him out of concern, a helpful child rushing to the aid of an adult in trouble. Maybe so, but now she was again standing motionless, a blank expression on her face. Again, he wondered if the little girl that stood before him was made of flesh and blood, or was she nothing more than a misty apparition?

  The captain wiped the palms of his hands off on his pants. They had gotten wet during the fall. The seat of his pants had also gotten wet and was probably muddy. He tried to ignore the wetness, but the dew was cold and brought a chill to his legs.

  “Krissy, don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you. I’m your friend. Your mother and father have been looking for you. We have all been looking for you. We’ve been very worried.”

  He stepped up to the girl and gently laid his hands on her shoulders, thankful to discover that she was indeed the real Krissy Patterson and not her ghost. She looked up at him, and he saw that something was not quite right about her eyes. They were not the eyes of a frightened child. Nor were they the glassy, vacant eyes of someone in shock. They had a strange bluish-green shine to them, like the eyes of an animal.

  Captain Williams started to say something reassuring when he noticed a butcher knife clutched tightly in the little girl’s right hand. He also noticed the smile that unfolded on her face like a flower. A cold, deadly smile.