The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  Chapter Nine

  “What are you doing here?”

  Max looked over his shoulder. Jack stood at the side of Max’s cubicle with a handful of files and a coffee cup. Giving him a once over, Max went back to his screen.

  “Your mom and I had a fight. So, I came into work instead.”

  “Huh.” Jack took a sip of coffee. He hissed when it burned his tongue. “Did you just do a mom joke? Really, Max?”

  He typed a little on his keyboard. “It’s a quarter after eight, Jack. That’s the best you’re going to get.” Max grinned at him and Jack smiled back. “What do you mean what am I doing here?”

  “I thought you were off doing something for Brian.” Max gave him an incredulous look as he attempted another sip of coffee. “What?”

  “It’s not supposed to be common knowledge.”

  “Meh.” Jack walked away. He liked Jack, but Max often entertained thoughts of crushing his head with the skull-shaped paperweight on his desk. Jack appreciated irony, so if he ever recovered, he’d have found that enjoyable.

  His presence in the office at this hour was unusual. There was method to it, though. He needed someone’s help, and his best chance was early in the morning. His target entered a few moments later. Max grabbed a file and jogged around an ocean of desks and chatter to meet him.

  “Donald!” The balding, middle-aged man in a sleek leather jacket didn’t respond to the call. Max drew closer and tried again. Donald turned and tucked his full-face helmet under his arm. He gave Max a big smile and said his name.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Max held up a file. “I pulled Abigail Soptik’s file and saw you were the last Senior Services worker on her case.” In fact, Donald Groomer was the only Senior Service worker to ever take her case.

  “Oh yes, Abbie.” Don nodded. “I know her very well.”

  Max smiled inside at his brilliance…even though the idea technically came from Sadie.

  “Don’t tell me she’s been reported for child abuse?” He laughed.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. I just need to speak to her. See, I think she might be the anonymous reporter on one of my hotlines.”

  “Right, and she won’t answer the door unless she knows who’s there.” He nodded. “I can certainly understand you wanting to speak with her.” Donald stroked his beard. “Let me see what I’ve got going on this morning. I’ll be more than happy to go out there with you, if you don’t mind driving.”

  Senior Services wasn’t even part of the same department as Child Protective Services. They were Department of Health, while the latter was Department of Social Services. They shared a building, though Senior Services only had five desks. They didn’t just handle senior citizens, but any disabled adults. Max used to think that job might be easier than his, until he spent a little time talking with Don about it.

  If Max found a child living in a house without electricity or covered in filth, he could have the police take the kid out of the home. Kids didn’t have any rights. When Donald found a disabled adult or senior living in those same conditions, it was more complicated. Adults can live in filth if they choose. They can also put up with abuse and neglect if they want. Many of them did. Donald had to prove the adult was incompetent before he could remove them from an abusive situation against their will, and that was very, very hard. Max didn’t envy Donald’s job one bit.

  It wasn’t that every old person in the state had a case file with Senior Services. But the poor ones usually did, especially when their neighbors thought they were crazy. Soptik was an unusual enough name that Max was able to find the file quickly, and matched the address to the Hagshead trailer park. He’d only reviewed the file. All he really needed to know about Mrs. Soptik was if she’d be able to answer questions.

  “She’s eccentric,” Donald explained on the way. “She might have the early stages of dementia, but it doesn’t affect her much. She’ll be able to answer questions.”

  Donald was a little younger than Max’s father. He had a soft, deep voice and an engaging manner. Max found being around him relaxing. Donald also had this way of seeming absolutely fascinated by just about anything Max had to say. It wasn’t just Max though, he genuinely seemed to approach life with an unassailably positive attitude, but he wasn’t obnoxious about it. Donald was just impossible not to like.

  “That’s new.” He nodded to the skinhead compound at the end of the park. That answered another question for Max, how long the Aryans had been operating here. The last time Don was at Mrs. Soptik’s home was January, almost eleven months ago. The Aryans must have moved in sometime after that, or else become brazen.

  Today was a warmer day, so there were a couple more shaved heads present beyond the fence with Ollie and Leroy. There were a pair of rough looking bikers there as well, both sporting Confederate flag patches on the back of their leather coats. Two fancy looking Harleys were parked next to the skinhead’s jeep.

  “Glad I didn’t ride my bike out here,” Donald mused before opening the car door. “Those two look like serious Harley fans…they wouldn’t have thought much of my little Honda.”

  “They don’t think much of Toyotas either.”

  Max closed his door and locked the car with the remote. In the middle of the little collection was a familiar white face in sunglasses. Boone nodded to Max and gave him a shimmering toothed grin. Max waved. One of the bikers looked over his shoulder at him while he stroked the head of a tawny pit bull.

  “Friend of yours?” Donald grinned.

  “Something like that.” Max was less comfortable discussing it, because he knew Boone could hear them. From the look of the two bikers, they could hear them, too.

  Vampire bikers, Max thought, looking away. This is getting out of hand.

  Donald’s rapping on the aluminum door was answered by yipping. Mrs. Soptik had some manner of small dog in there with her. When she opened the door a crack to look out, Max saw it was a toy poodle.

  Yay.

  It didn’t take Donald long to convince her to let them in her house. She regarded him warmly, but gave Max a suspicious look. Mrs. Soptik’s house was well taken care of, though it smelled like the little dog. Most of the furniture and appliances looked over forty years old, so being in the place felt a little like walking through a time window to the not-so-distant past.

  “Are you training a new one?” She offered Max and Donald seats on her couch. Mrs. Soptik lowered her body to a padded rocker. She walked without a cane, but grunted as she sat.

  “No, Abbie. This is Max Hollingsworth.” Donald gestured to him with one of his big hands. “He’s with Child Protective Services.”

  Mrs. Soptik’s chair made a light creak as she reclined. The little dog hopped into her lap and fixed Max in its angry glare. Max stared the little dog down until it responded with a bark.

  “Hush!” Mrs. Soptik swatted the dog’s fanny. It grumbled and curled up in the folds of her flowered dress. “Child Services?” She looked at Max through her thick bifocals. He gave her a somewhat genuine smile. He wasn’t used to smiling at grown-ups.

  “Abbie, I’ll let Max tell you why he’s here.” Donald leaned back on the sofa. Max nodded and took a notebook out of his bag.

  “Mrs. Soptik, may I call you Abbie?” She nodded. “Abbie, I want to ask you about the Winnans’ daughter.”

  “They don’t have a daughter.” Max felt sinking in his chest. “Anymore.”

  He tried to keep from startling her when he looked up. “They don’t have a daughter anymore?” She nodded. “What happened to her?”

  Abbie threw her hands in the air. “Gone. Who knows where they go. But they all go. That’s what I told Janet. I’ve told them all that.”

  Max blinked. “Your accent, where are you from?”

  “Utica, New York.” She smiled. “I’m amazed you noticed…most people say my accent is almost gone.”

  “How did you get from Utica to here?”

  She curled her fingers under
her jaw. “My husband was in the Army. Stationed at Camp Crowder, he was…like Dick Van Dyke and Beetle Bailey!” Max grinned when she laughed. “We liked the area so much when he retired, we stayed.” Her smile disappeared. “That was a long time ago.”

  “The Winnans had a daughter?”

  “Penny. She was a little blonde girl. I used to see her playing around outside. She went to the same school as the rest of them.”

  “This is a Carl Junction school district, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t know, but they don’t go to the public school. They all go to the church school.”

  Max looked up from his writing. “The Eternal Life Christian Church?”

  She nodded. Max wrote down, ‘Church has a school.’

  “All the children, you mean all the children in the park?”

  “Just the elementary ones, the teens—the ones who go to school—go to the regular school. I think the Eternal Life School only goes up to grade eight.”

  “So you called the hotline before Penny went missing?” When Abbie didn’t answer, he glanced up from his writing and saw her grin.

  “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you?”

  Max grinned. “It helps with what I do.”

  “That might work on children and pedophiles, Mr. Hollingsworth. It isn’t going to work on me.” She giggled. “But if I had called the hotline, I would’ve told them about the children going missing. It’s always the young ones. They just disappear! Poof!” She clapped her hands. It startled the dog. “And suddenly, no one remembers them.”

  Max’s arm-hair stood up. It was an unusual reaction because he was used to creepy stuff. He glanced over at Donald and saw him smile.

  “Yes I know. Who am I to point out when other people forget things? I barely remember what day it is. But I remember children! I don’t know how anyone could forget they had a child.”

  “Wait ... ” Max waved his pen. “Multiple children have gone missing?” She nodded once. “Why haven’t you called the police?”

  “She has,” that was Donald. “She’s been told about that—”

  “They said I can’t keep calling them about every little thing. But children disappearing isn’t a little thing!”

  Max had no idea where to go from here.

  “Why don’t the parents call the police?” That seemed like a reasonable question.

  “They don’t remember.” She shook her head. “I stopped talking to them after that. Boy, they give me the creeps! Looking at me like I’m crazy. I know that look! It’s how my sons look at me.” She looked Max in the eye. “You don’t think I’m crazy though, do you Mr. Hollingsworth?” When Max didn’t answer, she smiled. “Aw, you don’t! You know something the others don’t.”

  More hair stood up. “Where do you think they’re going, the children?” Max tapped the notebook with the end of his pen. “They can’t just disappear.”

  “Why can’t they?” Abbie shook her head. “Children vanish all the time. Who knows where they go? But all in one place, that’s different. I’ve been living here for forty years. This is a very old park. It used to be much classier.”

  “What happened?” Max grinned.

  “Oh, who knows? The owner died and left it to his children, and they didn’t do much for the place. They moved in more trailers and pressed into the woods back there.” She gestured through the curtains in the direction of the skinheads. “Putting so many together, buying cheap trailers, it made this place more like a slum. They didn’t pay their taxes so it went up for auction. Then the church bought it, and now they rent it out to people who can’t pay the rent and don’t keep up the places. I guess they think it’s a charity now, but even charities have to have some standards, don’t they?”

  “Why don’t you move?”

  “Where would I go?” She laughed. “I’ve been over all this with Donald, Mr. Hollingsworth. You’re not here to help an old lady.”

  “You can call me Max, ma’am.” She smiled at that. “Did you ever speak to someone from my office? A woman, perhaps?”

  “No. But I don’t answer the door if I don’t know who it is, especially if it’s someone young.”

  “Why not?”

  “People from this park used to come to my door all the time, asking for money or to use my phone. Sometimes they want me to watch their kids. Then there’s the people across the street….” She got quiet. “They sell drugs out of that trailer. I’ve told the police that too, but they don’t do anything about it. They make the drugs in the woods and sell them at the trailer. Motorcycle riding lowlifes and toothless hillbillies come in and out of there all hours of the day and night.”

  “Do they come over here?”

  “No, but I’m just waiting for the day when one of those scummy losers comes to my door with a handful of sweaty cash looking for a bag of drugs.” Max and Donald chuckled at her description. “I know the meals-on-wheels volunteers, and my home health aide, and a few other people. I can see them from that window right there. If it’s someone I don’t know, they can leave a note or a card.”

  Of course! Max almost slapped his head.

  “Did anyone ever leave a card from my office?”

  “Maybe.” She struggled to stand. Max held out his hand to help her. She used it for support to get up, and then waddled around a bar to a napkin holder on the counter. It was stuffed with bills, prescription notes, and a few napkins used as note pads. A handful of business cards fell out of an envelope and scattered across the bar. “What does it look like, dear?”

  Max came to her side and started pushing through the cards. Most of them were for in-home service providers looking for new clients. He saw one of Donald’s cards in there, as well as a couple for roofers and some homemade cards for lawn care. She’d been collecting them for some time.

  “There.” Max grabbed a card that looked like his. It had the name Janice Burlington. A few seconds later, he found Michelle Hurley’s card. Both of the workers paid her visits, both had left cards on her door, and neither had gotten in to speak with Mrs. Soptik. After a few more seconds of searching, he found a second card from Janice. She’d made two visits, both fruitless. Neither was documented in the record, but she’d taken a photograph of the trailer.

  “Do you want them?” She tapped the counter next to the cards.

  Max nodded and gathered them up. They didn’t prove anything, since as soon as they left this trailer they could have come from anywhere. But Max wanted to seal this up tight. If the other two workers suspected Abbie was the anonymous reporter, anyone finding these cards would think that, too.

  “Are you afraid of them?” He nodded towards the door as they returned to their seats.

  “No. They all think I’m crazy. They know no one listens to me. They’ll see you leave and assume you think I’m senile, too. Which I am…but I’m not making this up—these children disappearing. I don’t know if they’re doing it or what….”

  Donald was probably getting bored with this so he jumped in, “Have you ever seen them talking to the children?”

  “I don’t pay too much attention, but I don’t think so. They stay behind that fence they put up. And they don’t let anyone go into the woods.”

  “What happens to the families?” asked Donald. Max and Abbie looked at him. “After the children are gone, the families…do they just stay around and have more kids?”

  “Within a month or so of the kid disappearing, the parents go, too.”

  “Do they disappear?” Max wrote that down in his notebook.

  “No, they move. I see the moving trucks. They pack up and go somewhere else, and a new family moves in. They usually have a child too…and it usually goes missing a few months later.” Max stopped writing.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  She tilted back her head and put a hand on the back of her hip. After rolling her eyes and counting in silence, she gave Max an answer, “Sixteen years.”

  He almost dropped his pen.

&
nbsp; “Children have been going missing from this park for almost two decades?”

  “See, now you think I’m crazy.” She waved a finger at him and walked back to her chair. “I knew if you heard enough, you’d eventually reach a tipping point.”

  “It’s just…that’s a very long time, Mrs. Soptik.” Max shook his head and walked back to the couch. “You have to understand why I’d have a hard time believing it. Sixteen years…that would be a lot of children.”

  “I know it’s a lot! I don’t even count them anymore.”

  “But that many children, Abbie….” Donald leaned forward and laced his fingers together. “Someone would notice, wouldn’t they? Someone other than you?”

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” She laughed. “I’m not afraid of those creeps, Mr. Hollings…Max. Two months ago one of them tried to break into my trailer, and I shot him in the head!”

  Donald almost choked. “You…you shot someone? In the head?”

  “Sure did! I have an old twenty-two revolver in my dresser. I don’t sleep so good at night, but I guess they thought I’d be out because they tried to get in.” She nodded. “One of them poked his bald white head into the bathroom window, and I shot him. Pow!” She made a pistol gesture with her fingers. “I got him right in the head. He squealed like a little pig and fell out of the window. I haven’t had any trouble from them since.”

  “Abbie, you killed someone?”

  “He’s not dead,” she said, shaking her head. “I saw him just the next day, and I’ve seen him several days since. He’s the one named Skyler. Sometimes, I hear them talking at night and I get their names. I’ve written them down.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Max said.

  She smiled and got up from her chair with Max’s help. After she disappeared in the hall, Donald covered his mouth and shook his head. Max had to play along. This woman sounded crazy, but she wasn’t. Max couldn’t let on to that without looking crazy, too. A few minutes later, Abbie returned with a small black notebook.