The Nelson Files: Episode #1

THE
NELSON FILES: EPISODE #1

Ryan Cecere and Scott Lucas

Copyright © 2016 by Ryan Cecere and Scott Lucas. All rights reserved.

Cover design by NEONWOLF4

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Ryan Cecere and/or Scott Lucas.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are use fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Edited by Julie Hutchings

Copyright

Episode #1 “Home”

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About the Authors

Special Thanks

E
PISODE #1

“HOME”

1

Ridgefield, Connecticut

July 2015

11:47 p.m.

Every twenty-three years it came out of hibernation and killed during a three day cycle—just like clockwork. Its victims: children. Its hunting grounds: small, quiet neighborhoods. That's where all the children would vanish during the night.

It was the final night of the cycle. If it wasn't found and killed fast, it would be another twenty-three years before it struck again.

Lance Chambers, Paranormal Specialist (a small underground group of Paranormal Investigators who vanquish the things that go bump in the night, rather than research them for study and evidence of their existence) was assigned the case after the first victim, a ten-year-old girl abducted from her bedroom a few nights before. The cops were searching for a kidnapper, but the girl’s windows locked from the inside. There was no evidence of entry or an exit point for escape.

Lance’s mentor, Kurt Nelson, knew better. Anything out of the ordinary that pops up, Kurt is on it like a pack of wolves on their prey. Lance and Kurt had quickly ruled in a supernatural entity.

On the second night of the cycle, a little boy–same age as the little girl from the night before–was taken from his bedroom. By morning, Lance had approached the house and flashed his badge. Upon investigating the boy's room, Lance found a few strains of hair underneath a T-Rex toy next to the bed. He followed the strain of hair up to the closet. Inside the closet there was nowhere anything could've entered or exited from.

How could whatever had taken the boy just appeared and disappeared?

Lance glided his hand around the walls, hoping that there may have been a way it could've entered. Nothing.

This case was unlike his usual cases of investigating houses haunted by poltergeists, that he could easily vanquish. This case had him scratching his head from the get-go.

Lance returned to Nelson's house immediately after. Kurt examined the hairs and found that no human nor animal possessed that type of twisty, coarse hair.

Kurt walked over to the bookshelf in his office and pulled out a large, dusty hardcover book. He dropped it on his desk and thumbed through dozens of pages until he came across one entitled: Bogeyman.

Bogeymen were ogre-like monsters with large noses, green/gray-ish skin and hair growing out of the warts that grew all over their bodies. They hide out in dark, damp, and abandoned areas. They feed for three nights, every twenty-three years, and their food of choice is kids.

“I can’t believe it,” Kurt said with astonishment.

Lance raised a brow and said nothing.

“Bogeyman are rare creatures, Lance. They’ve been sighted for years centuries ago…but I haven’t seen or heard of anyone who’s encountered one—ever!”

“How do we kill the fugly bastards?” Lance leaned in for a closer look.

“Light is a weakness; so is fire.”

With only one more night to go, Lance knew he had to find the Bogeyman–and kill it–before it found its last victim. Or the next time this thing popped up, he'd be forty-six years-old.

Lance parked his Ford Ranger at the beginning of the block. He opened his glove compartment and withdrew his Desert Eagle, then slapped in a magazine loaded with silver bullets, the only thing to kill ghosts or monsters. Behind that was his flashlight, and he clicked the button to check the brightness. The light shined brilliantly in his eyes, blinding him for a moment. For the next hour, Lance walked up and down the neighborhood, cautiously scanning each house two to three times. Everything seemed quiet, not a soul in sight. The majority of the families were in bed and on high alert due to the police warning folks about a possibly kidnapper. Lance chuckled and shook his head at that, knowing the truth about what was really out there "kidnapping" these children.

A half an hour had gone by when he halted at the faint sound of screaming in front of one of the houses. He glanced up at a second floor window and noticed a shadowy–a very tall, and wide–figure moving about. He drew his gun and kicked the door in, right under the knob, so hard that when it flung open, part of it came off its hinges.

Lance darted up the stairs and into the room just in time to see the boy clawing his fingernails into the carpet as he was being dragged into the dark pit of his closet. Lance didn't get a look at what was yanking the boy in, but he knew what it was.

The Bogeyman.

Lance tossed his gun and flashlight on to the bed and dove for the boy. With the help of his tall body, Lance was able to get hold of the boy's hands. He wrapped his long legs around the bedpost for leverage. The boy screamed for help, his hands sweaty and slippery.

"Don't let go!" Lance shouted. "I got you, just hold on."

The game of Tug-of-War ended rather quickly as Lance lost grip of the boy, who was yanked into the black abyss. Gone, just like that. Vanishing into thin air.

"Dammit!" Lance pounded his fists on the floor. He jumped to his feet and shone his flashlight into the closet.

"Ajay? Ajay?" A woman's faint voice came from the hallway in panic. Lance was too busy frantically searching the closet to take notice to the Ajay's parents who rushed in. "Who are you? Where's my son?" Ajay's mom cried.

Ajay's dad grabbed a hold of Lance, anger and fear boiling within him. "Where's my son? What'd you do to him?"

"It got him..." Lance softly said. When it was clear the boy’s father couldn’t listen, Lance shoved Ajay's dad hard, causing him to fall to the ground on his ass. "Get out of my way." He gritted his teeth. "If any of you two call the cops, this will just get worse."

Lance grabbed his gun and ran down the stairs and back onto the street. "Fuck," he yelled. He places his hands on his head, trying to recollect himself and think. Think of where the Bogeyman could've taken Ajay.

Then it hit him. It hit him like a bolt of lightning. The abandoned house located at the end of the block.

He hauled ass down the street, getting to the house in less than two minutes.

The house was barely standing, forgotten over the decades. Wood chipping off, the roof looked like it'd cave in any moment. Broken windows and graffiti splattered the outside and the partially intact front door. Lance drew his Desert Eagle and jogged up the rickety steps, making his way inside.

Just like the exterior, the interior was no better. As a matter of fact, the interior was more destroyed than the exterior. The walls were yellowed, furniture was overturned and torn into; the kitchen was full of decaying foods, and scattered on the floor were broken dishes and silverware. The house smelled as if a rotten corpse was hidden inside the walls. Lance was greeted by a cobweb smacking him in the face as he entered.

He shook it off and spat. "Ugh. Gross." The floorboards creaked under his feet as he moved down the hallway, heading towards a door at the end. Lance didn't move like an amateur--he moved like a professional. His mentor had trained him the best way he could. Lance yanked the door open.

Bones, small bones. Children’s bones, stood at the top of the stairs, and led downward into the basement. In a pile and thrown to the aside after the last piece of flesh was sucked cleanly off. Lance made his way down, steeping over the bones and shone the flashlight to guide his path. The musty steps creaked underneath his weight. Coming down the last step, Lance scoured the basement–only to realize it wasn't a basement. It was a tunnel that led further down. Lance had to bend over so his head wouldn't bang against the low ceiling. The lack of oxygen became phenomenal and Lance soon found himself sweating and breathing heavy. He followed the leaky pipes down the narrow path for about a quarter of a mile until he came across a metal medieval-looking door.

Its lair.

He loaded his gun. The door wailed as it opened.

The room Lance entered was dimly lit with a few candles hung on the walls. The atmosphere was cold and damp feeling. Water leaked from above, dripping and forming puddles. Chains were nailed into the walls. To his left-hand side, a few cages were seat up.

Two of which were occupied.

One held Ajay and the other Billy, the young boy who was abducted on the second night. Lance rushed to the cages. Billy was in a fetal position, his legs chained up, filthy and crying. Ajay was unconscious.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lance asked.

Billy, wild-eyed and shaking uncontrollably, looked over his shoulder at Lance. He gulped. "Help me...please."

"Don't worry, that's what I'm here to do. I just need you to stay calm and you'll be out of here in no time, all right?" Lance pulled on the padlock. "These look like they're gonna be a bitch."

Billy sat up and gripped the cage bars. "Try that big rock over there in the corner," he said, pointing.

Lance grabbed the rock and smashed away at the padlock. "Dammit," he snarled. Lance swiped the sweat dripping off his forehead with the sleeve of his brown hooded jacket. Billy's eyes widened, his throat dried up. Lance noticed. "What's wrong?"

Billy was looking beyond Lance. Behind him. That’s when Lance felt a warm gust of air on his neck. The hairs on his arms and neck stood at attention. He slowly turned around, and only got a glimpse at the monster. It grabbed him by the jacket and flung him across its lair. Lance smacked against the wall, sending dirt crumbling to the ground. "Ah!" Lance grunted as his body hit the ground.

Billy shrieked as the Bogeyman dragged its feet, slowly approaching Lance. With its meaty hands, it grabbed a hold of Lance's throat–its hand large enough to cover the majority of it. The Bogeyman squeezed away. Lance's face quickly began to turn purple, his breath fading.

He clawed at the Bogeyman's eyes, to no avail. He reached for the gun tucked into his belt. Lance pressed his forearm into the monster’s throat, grabbed his gun, pressed it against its temple, and fired a shot. The Bogeyman released Lance, who gasped for breath, as it stumbled back a few steps and dropped to its back. Lance shook the cobwebs and filth off and rushed to Billy's cage.

"Is...is it dead?" Billy questioned.

Lance nodded lightly, "I hope so. Let’s get the two of you out of here."

The padlock to Billy's cage broke off, as did the one to Ajay's cage, which seemed easier than Billy's. Ajay was still unconscious. Lance bent over him, shaking his tiny body to wake him. "Hey, Ajay? Wake up."

Ajay groaned, his eyes opening slowly. "W-who are you? What happened? Where am I?"

"Come on, let’s get you two home."

Lance, with Billy's help, assisted Ajay to his feet. Ajay looked to his left and saw the monster still, its head shattered. "What is that?" he asked in a high-pitched voice.

"Nothing," Lance said.

He lead them down the narrow path and back upstairs.

"Wait. Hold up," Lance said. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it had all been too easy. The two boys turned to him. "I need the both of you to wait for me outside. This thing might not be dead, yet. Understand?"

The boys nodded.

"Okay, good. I'll meet you outside in a min–" before Lance could complete his sentence, Billy and Ajay screamed. Lance spun around to see, standing at the top of the stairwell, the Bogeyman. It punched Lance, knocking him down. It snarled at the boys, then turned its attention back to Lance.

Lance scrambled backward. On the wall next to him was a fuse box. Lance jumped up and started fiddling around with the wires.

"Die, you stupid motherfucker," Lance said as he turned on the switch, the Bogeyman just inches from him.

A brilliant light illuminated the entire house, blinding, bright enough to light up the neighboring houses. The Bogeyman growled and pressed its paws against its head. Its flesh dripped off its body, dropping to the floor in gooey puddles. Turning into liquid, the Bogeyman roared in pain and agony as it melted away into a pool of green goo.

Lance pulled the switch down, turning off the power. He looked at the boys and laughed in pain. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Neither laughed or smiled. Not even the tiniest of smirks crossed their horror-filled faces. Lance raised a brow, then stood up, leading the two boys outside. As he made his way down the street with them in pure silence, he tried to think of what he'd tell their parents. Or would he even try?

They reached Ajay's house first. He nodded, signaling for Ajay to go inside and be with his parents. Next stop, Billy's house. Lance remained quiet, knowing that it would be best to just bring both home and not speak to any of the family members. As he arrived at Billy's house, he did the same to Billy as he did to Ajay–nodding for him to go in.

The hallway, living room and kitchen lights were on. Billy entered his home and Lance watched on as Billy was embraced by a brunette in her pajamas, older than him by a handful of years. His mom and dad rushed in with tears in their eyes and grappled him tightly in their arms, swinging him back and forth. They all joined for a family hug.

A smirk of joy crossed Lance’s face. He shuffled up the street to his car, rubbing his bruised jaw, limping only a little. He got in, placed his gun and flashlight back into his glove compartment along with his badge, then drove off. Awaiting his next case.