When I had come unarmed into the house and found it empty, I assumed the worst. The car was gone, yes, and they didn’t seem to have been dragged from their home but there was no possibility in my mind that they had actually kept the forest at bay or that they could have liberated it. Dead, surely. What then? I walked back into the woods and found there were things living in them once again. The animals all looked to me hungover. That only confused me more.
It was only when I found the body by the cave mouth that I started to form a full picture of what had happened — and what had happened was very, very bad for me. I felt some mild relief that they were alive, but it didn’t necessarily assuage any of the shame, or for that matter panic. I took only a second to examine the bear’s corpse and noted it was full of stuffing. I got the funniest feeling that the stuffing was like fiberglass and thought better than to root around in it. I wanted badly to file for an autopsy for my own curiosity, but I recognized the issue the body presented. The threat had been elevated now, vastly. Lola was either more in control of her ward than she had been and could use it for great violence or she had lost to it entirely and its will was murderous. Brackish blood stained the grass, half washed away. June and Micah’s bodies were nowhere to be found, which was probably a good sign.
I walked back to the house for a second look and saw all their best clothes now packed away, many sentimental items missing. With a twinge of annoyance, I realized both my gun and guitar had disappeared with June. The more I walked around the empty cabin, the more resentful I became of the mess they had left for me. Lola struck me as a tremendously ungrateful person, either unaware or uncaring towards the actions I’d taken for her safety. If I wanted to then, I could have called it all in. I could’ve told them about the eldritch reaches, the cave carcass, and the exodus. They would have sent a team just as quickly. She would have been caught no matter where she was on Earth.
What really stopped me was the knowledge of how this would reflect on me. My work would have been audited after the fact and I knew all the things I had failed to report would come under scrutiny. I’d be demoted and likely wouldn’t get another case until the time I was twenty. The thought made me shiver. I wanted this one all to myself.
I wrote the report from my cellphone, emailed it back to HQ, and immediately shut it off. I knew what would be waiting for me when I got back, so I just didn't go home.
It was a nice town they had come from. It was not hard for me to find the address of Lola’s parents. Both of them were there when I stopped by. Her mother was painting in her study while her father slept in the den. Neither of them saw me.
Lola’s room had not been cleared out entirely, but another child was now sleeping in it. She had mentioned she had siblings, but not often. The girl couldn’t have been older than ten. I left very quickly after that. It was obvious to me that she hadn’t stopped home and that there was very little to be gained here.
I went to June’s house next and got lucky. The sun was setting and the dark hid me out. The two of them were on the roof together, silhouetted against the bedroom’s purple light. I got only a quick view of April as she stopped into the kitchen. For some reason, she unsettled me. Her resemblance to June was very genuinely uncanny. April was lanky and moved like she was in water. She was pretty. Their faces were very similar, but now it felt to me that one of them was wearing it wrong. These are all very erratic thoughts to have had. I still don’t know how to account for them. Nevertheless, they did happen.
(April, if you read this, I am sorry for staring at you through your kitchen window. Though with the company you keep now, I doubt that bothers you.)
I watched patiently from the woods and was relieved when Micah finally came down. I had expected him to notice me right away, but he didn’t. I followed him at a distance, still keeping to the woods. I was nervous and irritated and called on the flood without realizing it. My boots were filled with rain before I even noticed what had happened, but then it was time to move and I was too excitable to stop it.
He saw me then and I knew he saw me because I had made a point to stand up against the dying light of the train track. I thought it would look cool and I had been right, but he didn’t appreciate it. He fled; I followed him down the ridge.
The agitation crept into my speech. I hadn’t planned out what I was going to say and accidentally told the truth. That they’d scared me. Maybe that was what she always wanted.
When I reached out to touch him, he flinched. It was the only thing that gave me pause.
“Did you think I was going to hurt you?” I asked him.
Truth is, I was thinking about it. I had him in a good spot.
Yeah, it wouldn’t take much to crack his skull open and scrape out whatever wisdom was inside, to go and do it the hard way. But why would I do that? I had been coached, you see, and the coaches had warned me. They told me to be kind as long as I could manage. They told me cruelty would come naturally to me in its time. I wiped the water from his temple. He was cold to the touch.
I felt myself steadily growing insane around him - around this whole operation. I couldn’t even temper the storm. I thought if I could at least get him under my control, I’d have an edge.
I was an idiot.