In her room, she quickly turned on her bedside lamp. She climbed in bed and looked over at the window. A light breeze caused the curtains to wave slightly. She cursed her father for being too cheap to install air conditioning. It was too warm tonight to dare to close the window. But it was clearly one of those nights for Stephanie: a bad night. Every now and then, she had these. Her methods of muddling her way through the night varied. She glanced over at the lamp by her bed and the alarm clock that sat below it. It was now nearly eleven. There was still a lot of night ahead of her. Leaving the lamp on, Stephanie rolled over and forced herself to close her eyes. Just go to sleep. Everything will feel different tomorrow. It always does.
***
She had no recollection of when exactly she might have drifted off to sleep, but she must have been asleep. Now she was awake, suddenly. She looked around without stirring from her place in bed. She was still on her side. Her lamp was still on. But she faced away from the lamp and clock. So she had no way of knowing what time it was or how long she might have been out. But the air felt cooler. She must have been asleep for a while at least.
A faint tapping sound somewhere behind her caused her muscles to tighten and goose bumps to travel up her arms. There was that feeling again, that feeling of being watched. She turned herself over quickly, unsure of what she would see, but hoping to see nothing at all. Her room as it normally looked confronted her. Her stuffed animals were on the old dresser, her closet door securely closed, her mirror in the corner … she hated the mirror. Something about mirrors at night …
She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Laying back down in bed, she looked over at her alarm clock. It was now 2:58 AM. She had definitely been asleep, and for a while too. That was the good news. The bad news was that being only about three AM, there was a lot of night ahead of her still. And of course, this part of such nights was always the longest. Sometimes she would just lay awake unsure of what had unsettled her. Had she dreamed? Other times, she knew she’d heard things, felt things, seen things. She pushed all such thoughts from her head. Now was not the time to think about anything like that. She had to get her mind on something else, anything else. An old urge she hadn’t felt in years crept up. Should she say a prayer? Her parents, still being “church folk,” as she had once described them to her college roommate, had brought her up with some semblance of religious tradition. But she had let all of that drift away from her—or she away from it—some time ago. It wasn’t the first time the thought occurred to her on a night like this. But she never knew what to say. Instead she just stared at her clock. The minute digit changed from eight to nine.
Her lamp flickered! Faint tapping sounds emitted from the far corner of her room. Stephanie felt the cold flow of fear race through her body. They’re here! She laid on her back, trying to control her breathing. She gripped the sheets of her bed. More tapping. Her lamp flickered again. Then, it went out!
Darkness swallowed her. It couldn’t have been more than a split second, but in that time, Stephanie wondered if she should run. But as the thought occurred to her, a bright blue light suddenly shone through her window. The light travelled up the floor, over the bed, and across her body. A pressure crept over Stephanie’s entire body as she lay there. She couldn’t move!
She was lifted from her bed, head and shoulders first, her feet remaining on the bed for the moment. Her fingers were forced to open and release the sheets. Her arms remained stiff, still outstretched where her hands had been gripping her sheets. She was standing, arms out, facing the window now. Only, there was no weight on her feet. She floated forward, off the bed, and towards the window. Her heart raced; she desperately wanted to scream, to make this stop. Only her frantic eyes could move, searching left and right for any means to stop her slow approach to the window.
An oppressive hum droned now. The light grew brighter and the hum louder. It hurt her eyes, but she couldn’t close them. Tears streamed down her cheeks, yet brighter still the light grew as she was pulled closer to it by some unknown force, some invisible hand that both pulled her from her bed and slowly squeezed her body tighter in the process. She couldn’t breathe. The light grew brighter still, until there was nothing but the blinding light and the deafening hum.
***
Karen knew better, but she was so annoyed with her husband that she couldn’t help herself. She looked down at her cell phone screen even as she drove down the rural New Hampshire road, the familiar sight of trees and the White Mountains in the distance at the moment forgotten. Instead, she read the last text from her husband: “No time, had to give them money for lunch.”
She swore under her breath and glanced up at the road. Then she looked back down and began to type out her furious message. She doubted that her son would end up being able to have lunch at all with his gluten allergy. What would be available to buy at the day camp? Would they have accounted for food allergies? How many times had she told her husband to pack her son and daughter a lunch? She managed to tap out the words, “What will Devon eat?” and then she glanced up at the road.
She screamed and slammed on her breaks, jerking the steering wheel hard to the right. A person stood in the middle of the road! The tires screeched and her Jeep Grand Cherokee leaned forward and a little to the left with the force of fighting so much inertia. Her seatbelt held her in place. The SUV rocked back as it reached its sudden stop.
Karen looked out her window. She hadn't hit the person. They still stood a few yards back in the middle of the road. It was a girl, by the looks of it, maybe a teenager. Her dark hair blew in the breeze. Karen threw on her hazard lights and got out of her car, her sudden panic instantly exploding into rage.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she screamed at the girl. “I could have killed you!”
She marched up to the girl, but as she approached, she noticed that the girl wore only a tank top and shorts. Her feet were bare. Judging from how dirty they were, she’d been walking for a while. What’s more, it seemed the shorts and tank were inside-out. The tag on the back of her shorts fluttered in the light breeze as Karen approached her. The girl still faced away. She took a shaky step forward on her stained bare feet.
“Hey, are you okay?” Karen said, her tone now suddenly changed again, given her new shock and concern. She walked around the girl and found that she stared off into the distance, her eyes icy and vacant. “Are you on drugs?” she asked. But Karen got no response from the girl, so she reached out and touched her arm.
The girl’s eyes snapped to Karen’s hand and then up to her eyes with sharp focus. She opened her mouth and let out a deafening scream! Karen stumbled back, falling on the road. Pain shot through her elbow where it landed hard on the asphalt. The girl continued to scream with such primal ferocity that Karen forgot everything else. She scrambled away from the girl and back to her Jeep. Reaching inside, she found her cell phone. The girl’s scream ceased, but the echo of it bounced out through the woods and haunted Karen’s ears. It was as if the scream had silenced the surrounding world. Even the breeze seemed to die off. On her cell, she punched in three numbers she had not dialed in a long time: 911.
CHAPTER TWO
Nicole Mitchell pushed through the aches. Her feet struck the sidewalk, setting the rhythm to her run. To her right, the Charles River separated Boston from Cambridge. She glanced at the Boston skyline from her vantage point in Cambridge. The muscles in her legs burned. Thin lines of sweat traveled down her face. How long had she been running? It had to have been at least forty minutes if she was now by the river.
She slowed her pace to a walk as she breathed hard. She pulled out her headphones, the music suddenly vanishing and the sounds of the city flooded her. Other Sunday morning joggers ran past her. She pulled out her cell phone and stopped the music. Chopin … probably not what other joggers were listening to, she figured. But Mitchell found that vanishing into various flavors of classical music allowed her mind to focus on other things while she ran. She often
worked through details of a case this way.
Replacing her phone into the armband of her running shirt, she turned and started walking back the way she had come. Normally, she would not have run out this far. But these days, why not? She had nowhere to be just now, and being back in her apartment didn’t sound very appealing on a warm summer day. Maybe she would go back and shower and then go out again. But go do what? The real nagging question she desperately tried to keep her mind from fixating on was: When can I start working again?
Eventually, the slow pace of walking bothered her and she was back to running. Her headphones back in, she was now on Mozart. Within the hour, she was back to Somerville. Turning on to her street, she slowed again to a walk and pulled out her headphones again. Her lungs ached with the long and vigorous run, but she ignored them. As she approached her apartment, she spotted someone sitting on the front steps of the old three story red brick building. The man, dressed in a suit, dark skin and even darker curly hair, looked up from his phone.
“There you are,” Agent Brown smiled at her and stood.
“What are you doing here, Anthony?” She said, trying to keep her tone as matter of fact as possible, but wondered if subtle hints of excitement had shown through anyway.
“Thought I’d pay you a visit and see if you might make me one of those terrible milkshakes of yours,” Brown said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“I told you it was a protein shake,” she said, approaching. “But that’s what you get for taking what’s not yours.”
“Hey, whatever. It was there and it was …” he looked up in a mock gesture of deep thought as if searching for the right word. “… just awful! Seriously, what was in that?”
Mitchell shook her head, letting out a slight laugh. “How about water?”
***
The door to Mitchell’s apartment swung open and she and Brown walked in. Brown closed the door behind him. The apartment was small with hardwood floors. An island separated the kitchen from the small space designated as the dining room. A small table with four chairs sat there under a tiny gold chandelier. Mitchell pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat so she could remove her running shoes.
“Damn, girl,” Brown remarked, looking around. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place this clean before.”
Mitchell stood and set her shoes by the door. “Nothing better to do.”
“What if you had something better?” Brown asked.
Mitchell turned to him, trying to read his expression. He tried to maintain a blank face, but there was no point. Good, she thought. I can finally get back to work!
“Am I back on duty?” she played along.
Brown bobbed his head the way she’d seen him do before when he meant to say more or less. “Eh, sort of.” He said. “Remember that case last year with the missing kid up in New Hampshire?”
Stupid question. Mitchell grinned. “Like I’d forget.”
“Well, there might be something new for you to look into.”
This got Mitchell’s attention. What was going on? Her mind immediately jumped to the worse case scenario. “Another kid missing?”
“Well, not missing,” Brown shrugged. “Anymore. And not exactly a kid. College girl was snatched from her bedroom last night. Turned up about eleven miles from home hours later. She was totally disoriented.”
“Clothing on inside out?” Mitchell ventured.
Brown nodded, “Yep.”
“Did she remember anything?”
“Not a thing. Just a bright light,” he offered. He paused before saying the next words: “But it’s North Woodstock again.”
Sonofabitch! So it’s happening again. Mitchell looked off, lost in thought, too many questions racing through her head. Brown watched her, waiting. Finally, he spoke again.
“Little grey men from outer space?”
Brought back to the moment, Mitchell shook her head. “No such thing. But sounds an awful lot like the Tommy Ferguson case last year.” She locked in to Brown’s eyes, trying to work out what he was getting at. “So, the Bureau is sending us up?”
Brown smiled now. “As much as I would love nothing more than driving all over New Hampshire chasing UFOs with you, we can’t spare anyone. Lot of pressure on the FBI since Jeff’s …” His smile vanished. Suddenly, he couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. His eyes wandered down to the floor. “Shit! You know … I’m sorry. I should have asked you first how you’re even doing.”
Mitchell shrugged. He looked at her again, but his whole demeanor changed now. She could almost see him walking on the shards of eggshells scattered through his mind.
“Nicole, you know no one blames you,” he began. “So you shouldn’t blame yourself either.”
But the way he looked off made Mitchell wander what he knew that he wasn’t telling her. She didn’t want to push it right now, however. Best stick to the something she could actually deal with. And by the sound of it, something she was actually being asked to deal with.
“So what?” she carried on. “I’m going alone?”
“Just to check in on things,” Brown confirmed. “See if this has any possible connection to the missing boy last year. You feel up to it?”
Mitchell allowed herself a slight smile at the question. Feel up to it? She’d been itching to get back to work for a while now. Hell, she would have welcomed being called back into headquarters to sit at a desk and do paperwork at this point. But this … the potential for an actual investigation, and this of all cases too. She was going to do things differently this time. She needed a new approach, a different method of attack. She could sense Brown watching her, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah,” she said. “I just …”
“What’s up?”
She knew this was likely asking a lot—maybe even too much. “Can I hire an outside consultant?”
Brown’s lips parted, his right eyebrow coming down first in his usual mode of amusement. “What kind of consultant?”
“Just trust me.”
Brown pressed his lips together, thinking. But Mitchell already knew her plan of attack. She’d get her way. She was sure of it.
***
Diego Silva pulled up to the Clark residence in his pick-up. A North Woodstock Police cruiser was parked next to the sedan that belonged to Tim and Dorothy. Diego was careful to park his truck on the other side of the two cars so that the cruiser could leave at any time. Getting out of his truck, he checked his dress pants and dress shirt in case any dirt from his truck had gotten on him. As he did so, he heard the screen door slap shut on the house. Looking up, he found Officer Silvia O’Conner walking down the steps towards him. She was one of the newer officers on the North Woodstock police force, but Diego made a point of getting around town and getting to know as many people as possible. O’Conner had always struck him as kind and sincere. She was in her early thirties, relatively fit, and had an easy going way about her. But Diego had also seen her arrest a few unruly characters before, and knew that she knew how, when, and where to take off the gloves.
“Good morning, Pastor Diego,” she said with her usual warmth. “Sunday service over already?”
Diego approached her. He spoke in his accent that, along with his golden brown skin, revealed his Brazilian origin. “No no. Just wrapping up. I excused myself early so I could come be with the Clarks. How are they?”
“Positively freaked out,” O’Conner remarked. “What is this, third time this has happened?”
“Fourth,” Diego offered. “But it’s been a while.”
The front door of the Clark’s house swung open again and out came Chief of Police Harvey Wilson. Wilson had his own charm, but seemed a little gruffer with age. Now into his late fifties, his beard was more salt than pepper. His deep-set eyes looked out at the world more often than not with a twinge of hesitation. But most folks in town had nothing but good things to say about him—except those who Wilson had caught breaking laws who still refused to believe they’d done anything
wrong.
“O’Conner, what do you say we go visit Stephanie’s friends,” He called out as he walked down the steps before noticing Diego standing there. “Well, good morning, Pastor. Dorothy will be happy to see you.” He walked over to them.
“Why do you need to speak to Stephanie’s friends?” Diego probed.
“Just want to chat a little,” Wilson shrugged. “Stephanie was with some friends last night, but the girls dropped her off here before going to a movie.”
“Stephanie insists they had nothing to do with any of this,” O’Conner volunteered. “They dropped her off hours before this happened.”
Chief Wilson shot her a look. Diego figured while Wilson liked to keep as warm of a demeanor as possible, he hated offering up too much information. Diego recalled the first time he had met Wilson a few years ago. “The good thing about small towns,” Wilson had said to him, “is that everyone knows each other. It’s also the bad thing. News travels fast. Good or bad. True … or false.”
Wilson just scratched his beard and mumbled, “Yep, but gotta' talk to everyone. Just good police work. If you’ll excuse us, Pastor, we best be going.”
He headed for the police cruiser. O’Conner smiled and said goodbye and followed. Diego watched them go. Then turning to the house, he walked up the steps. As he did so, it seemed to him that a dark cloud passed by the sun. He thought the forecast had called for clear skies today. Looking around, he could see the sun shining still. But all the same, it was as if the world felt a little darker all of a sudden.
“Pastor Diego?” came Dorothy’s voice.
He turned and found the middle-aged woman standing at her door, both surprise and fatigue evident on her face. She wore no make-up nor a dress as Diego might have seen on any other Sunday morning. Instead, her face seemed pale and gaunt. She wore shorts and a faded shirt she probably only wore at home or in the garden.
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