Another excerpt from a piece I'm hoping to include in my next collection. This one is clearly more rooted in reality than most of the other pieces, but I like the dread/menace that's been built up in a short amount of time. I like that the father may or may not be the guilty party here; hell, even I don't know if he is or not, which I like. If, as a writer, the story surprises me, then hopefully it will surprise the reader as well.
'A single house sits on a single street in a single neighborhood of thousands tangled up in ways meant to confuse outsiders. It is a two-story house without a picket fence, without shrubs lining its outer walls, but with a lawn in need of mowing.
It is 2am. The red and blue lights of several parked police cars circle the neighborhood, painting the previously darkened houses a revolving shade of patriot. No one is asleep anymore; every light is on, every child held tight, held close.
The door of this particular house hangs crooked, broken by a strong, single kick or several weaker ones. The frame is splintered, its dangerous edges jutting out into the dark of the morning.
Inside, a rug lays bunched up against the wall of the stairwell leading up to the bedrooms. A lamp, still lit, rests on the floor, its shade crumpled. Unopened mail and random papers litter the living room, cover the rug. Pictures hang askew on the walls.
Nothing is missing except: the father and the son.
The police find tiny drops of blood along the wooden floor leading down from the upper floor. The trail leads out through the kitchen, stark red against the sparkling white linoleum floor and out the back door. The backyard is spotted all the way to the tree line lining the highway. Here, the drops disappear, vanish, stop.
Posters are made; one for the father, one for the child. Recent pictures of both are affixed. Heights, weights, eye color are described. A mother weeps on a sofa, a box of Kleenex beside her nearly empty. The officers inside don't know what to say despite having done this before. The words they want feel hollow, fake. They've all been said before. Their movements feel forced, robotic.
Days pass with no word. Posses form. Men in uniforms and hunting gear traipse through woodland hunting something other than wildlife. Guilt weighs heavy; on the father, on their own inadequacy, on every tree limb they pass by. Each step heavier than the last.
What is found in the woodlands at varying distances:
-A piece of ripped cloth, blue and from a backpack.
-A discarded water bottle, partially empty.
-A candy bar wrapper.
-Dark red drops spattered against hanging vegetation.
Pictures are taken, any possible evidence is bagged and tagged.
The blood, weirdly, gives them hope. It pushes them on, emboldens them to keep searching through the exhaustion that shows on every face, protests with every sore muscle now that there is a trail to follow. It is an empty hope, but a hope nonetheless.
The posses come upon an open meadow bathed in moonlight. On the far side, a truck sits stranded in a ditch off the side of the road, driver's side door flung open. The windshield is spider-webbed in several places from the impact.
Found inside:
-Empty coffee cups
-cellophane wrappers
-cigarette butts and spent matches
Pictures are taken, any possible evidence is bagged and tagged.'
