Feral (12 page)

C
harity was torn.
 
She was hungry again, fiercely hungry, but she knew she couldn't stay with Shannon.
 
If she did, Shannon would die, just like her brother. She had to get back to Feral Park or The Bogey Man
would
get her again. If she stayed hidden, she knew she could make it back to Feral Park before night.

She turned off the television and climbed the steps, opening the door to the bright, hot daytime world.
 
The car was still there.
 
Charity wished she could drive; getting back to Feral Park would be easier that way, and quicker.
 
But she was just a kid.
 
She would have to walk, and if she was going to walk, she would have to start now.

Instead she turned back to the old house and walked back to the cellar.
 
She did not want to leave Shannon.
 
She left the door open, though and, sitting on the old sofa, stared out into the bright greens and crisp blue of the dawning day.

She had to go back.
 
She knew why nothing had happened before, when they had taken her there.

The kids didn't like Shannon or Jared.
 
They didn't like any grownups.
 
If she was going back there, it had to be alone.

G
ordon and Charles gave their statements and after four hours of tense questioning, together and separate, their status was changed from suspects to witnesses.
 
There had been another murder while they were in custody.
 
There was an APB out on Shannon Pitcher and Jared Cruse's Chevelle.
 
They said nothing about Charity.
 
That was Charles' suggestion, agreed upon while they waited in front of Shannon's house.
 
Sergeant Winter ordered them to stay in the area until further notice and sent them on their way.

They stepped out of the Riverside City complex and walked across the parking lot toward Charles' Caddy.
 
Another hot day, and muggier than usual, but the gathering cover of dark clouds hinted at relief.

Neither spoke until they were in the car, driving back to the motel.

“What do you think?” Gordon asked.

“What do I think?”
 
Gordon seemed to weigh the question.
 
“I think it's going to rain, at least I hope it does.”
 
He spoke with a terseness that surprised Gordon a little.
 
“I think I'm hungry, and I'm pretty damn sure I'm tired too, Gordon.”

“That's not what I meant, Charles.”
 
Gordon tried to keep his voice as pleasant as possible; he could tell Charles was on the ragged edge right then, but damn it so was he.
 
After six years of searching for his daughter, he finally knew she was still alive, but they had been too late and missed her yet again.

“Well, what
did
you mean, Gordon?
 
Please be specific.”

“What I told you earlier, about my dreams.”

“Oh that,” Charles said, feigning ignorance.
 
“I think you're out of your fucking head is what I think.”
 
He hit the horn with the heel of his hand, yelling at the car in front of them to move it or lose it.
 
When it didn't, he passed it and accelerated through the yellow light at the next crowded intersection.

“Pardon my bedside manner, Gordon.
 
I think you're grabbing for straws that don't exist.
 
I don't buy into all that supernatural bullshit, and honestly I never figured you for the type that would either.”

“I'm not the type,” Gordon snapped back at him.
 
“You can rationalize my dream, I'll give you that, but what about that scream, how do you rationalize that? ‘It didn't even sound human,' is what you said.”

“Then what was it, Gordon?
 
Let's see if you can say it with a straight face.
 
Even if you can look me right in the eyes and tell me, I still won't believe you.
 
I quit believing in the Bogey Man when I was a kid.”
 
Charles' dark skin was deepening further, a flush of frustration.

Gordon closed his eyes and lay back against the Caddy's headrest.
 
Part of him knew Charles was right, but most of him knew he was wrong.
 
“So did I,” he said mildly.
 
“But now I'm starting to believe all over again.”
 
He waited calmly for Charles to explode at him, but it didn't happen

“Okay, Gordon, I'll give it to you for now.
 
Call our killer whatever you want, but the point is that he doesn't have her anymore, Shannon Pitcher does.
 
Arguing about make believe bad guys isn't going to get us any closer to Shannon Pitcher.”

“Fine,” Gordon said, and left it at that.
 
He knew Charles was working on it, and left him alone.

Shannon hadn't gone to the police for help and she hadn't been picked up, which meant one of two things to Gordon:
 
She was either out of town, halfway to God-knows-where with Charity, or she had found a good place to lay low—hopefully the latter.
 
The closer the better; she couldn't hide forever.

They pulled into the motel parking lot next to Gordon's Mazda.

“Listen Gordon, I need to sleep.
 
Give me three hours and I guarantee I'll wake up with my head on straight again.
 
We can eat and get back to work in four hours, five tops.”

Gordon nodded.
 
“I understand,” and he did. He was on the brink again too, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep.
 
Instead of following Charles back to the room he dug his keys from his pocket and unlocked the Mazda.

“You should get some rest too,” Charles said.
 
“I have a feeling it's going to be a rough night.”

“I can't,” Gordon said.
 
“I'll just drive around a bit.
 
I'll be back in four hours with dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Charles said.
 
“Be cool.
 
Don't lose your head again.”

“I won't.”

G
ordon found a public library a few minutes from the motel and stopped there.
 
He knew Charles was right: Abstracts would get him nowhere now.
 
He felt embarrassed that he had even brought the subject up in the first place, but it was an itch he needed to scratch.
 
Using one of the library's computer terminals he found half a dozen promising titles.
 
He skimmed them at the shelf, and settled on one that seemed a step up from the usual campfire tales and fairy stories.

L
egend Of The Bogey Man: The Truth Told In Centuries, by Jeannine Carter

Centuries ago, when Christianity was new and superstition was still the religion of the masses, people believed in the Bogey, and they feared it.
 
Thought to be an evil spirit, fairy, or demon, it was known by different names throughout Europe:
Boggard
,
Bollybog
, Bug-a-boo, or Bogle.
 
Stories of the wicked creature's origin were also widely varied, but accounts of its evil deeds were the same.
 
The Bogey stole children from their beds at night and took them away, never to be seen again.

Some people used charms to keep the Bogey from their children, some poured milk onto the ground outside their homes, as it was believed good fairies loved milk and would protect the house from bad spirits.
 
Some hung open scissors over the cribs of their infants to scare the spirit thief away.

The Bogey was said to sleep with women and impregnate them.
 
The children of such unions were shape shifters, and would grow up to become Bogeys themselves.

Though in later times the churched population no longer believed in the Bogey, its legend continued to grow, as a fairy tale told to children to inspire good behavior through fear.
 
All little boys and girls knew if they were not good, the Bogey Man might come for them.

Even today, the grim legend of the Bogey Man persists, and every night children lay awake, fearful of every shadow and night noise.
 
They wait out the darkness in fear that the Bogey Man might come to take them away.

1793, a small village near Devon England.

More than a dozen children went missing over a period of several weeks.
 
Many of the missing children's parents were found brutally slain.

One woman, a local tavern-keeper's daughter with a less than savory reputation, claimed that the Bogle had taken the children and murdered their parents.
 
She further claimed that the Bogle came to her in the guise of a handsome young gentleman, and slept with her.
 
Three months later, when it was discovered she was with child, she was accused of witchcraft and burned to death by a mob in the town center.

None of the missing children were ever seen again.

Other local children, even some in neighboring towns, awoke screaming from nightmares during those bloody weeks, only to see that their nightmares had followed them back to their rooms.

1810, Dublin Ireland.

A prominent political figure, whose name was later stricken from public records, was murdered along with his wife and one adult son.
 
His two younger children were taken from their home that very night and never seen again.

Despite the ramblings of a superstitious house servant who claimed that a
Ballybog
committed the crime, the assassinations and kidnappings were believed to be politically motivated.

The courts found the servant innocent of any involvement in the crime, but committed her to an asylum, where she died a few years later.

1852, a ship carrying Scottish immigrants bound for the United States.

During the month-long journey, over half of the ship's population of children disappeared, many of their parents and older siblings were found butchered.
 
None of the missing children returned, and were assumed thrown overboard by the killer.

A young Scottish woman reported being assaulted by a strange young man who, after satisfying himself, suddenly became very old, and withered away to nothing before her eyes.

Six months later she died giving birth to a premature but healthy baby boy.
 
A Catholic home for orphaned children took the child in, but his fate thereafter is unknown.

The book read like a ghoul's encyclopedia.
 
It was very mater-of-fact, and at the same time very implausible.
 
Jeannine Carter cited cases from as long ago as eighteenth century Europe to as recent as fifty years ago in the United States.
 
The book was one in a series of supernatural tomes, published in the spirit of
The X Files
.
 
Whatever the publishers thought of it, it was clear that Jeannine Carter believed.

Gordon had been there for almost three hours, time to get back.

He acquired a library card using the motel's address and checked the book out.
 
On his way back to the room he stopped for sub sandwiches and espressos.

When Charles woke up, his espresso was still warm and Gordon was still reading.

C
harles called the detective handling the local murders to ask about Shannon Pitcher, and Gordon knew from his face that she hadn't been found yet.

“I think I made a mistake,” he told Gordon.
 
“I'm sorry, man.”

“We'll find them,” Gordon replied, refusing to give despair a foothold.

Charles nodded.
 
“We'll start in Normal Hills.
 
Her father-in-law might know where she is.
 
Even if he doesn't, it's the logical place to start.”

“Her ex-husband's house?”

“That's what I was thinking, if it's still empty.”
 
Charles pulled his gun from the desk drawer and began the cleaning ritual.
 
“Even if she's not at her ex's place, Normal Hills is her home.
 
She's only been in Riverside for a few months.”

“If she's running, it's probably back home,” Gordon concluded.
 
“Familiar territory?”

“You catch on quick, Gordon,” Charles said.
 
Finishing with his gun, he reloaded and tucked it back into its holster.
 
“You've been spending too much time with me.”