Oak Ridge

by Edward Mullen

  “Conor, sweetie, I told you, no cellphones at the dinner table,” Julie said. “You get one warning. If I see it again, I’m taking it away.”

  “Fine,” Conor grumbled, shoving his phone into his pocket.

  “So what made your day so interesting?” Julie asked.

  Letting out a deep breath, the Sheriff began with the most perplexing mystery he had experienced in all his years on the force. He wasn’t really sure what to make of these strange events, and was equally unprepared to put it into words. In the past week, four people who were presumed dead had returned. They showed no signs of aging and did not seem to be aware they had ever died.

  “Another one returned,” he said.

  “Who?” his wife asked with keen interest.

  “The Brills boy.”

  “Charlie?” Conor asked.

  The Sheriff looked at his son and nodded.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, you know, about where he was. I mean, his disappearance was a mystery, right?”

  “The boy was in shock, didn’t even say a word. He didn’t seem scared though, just… I don’t know how to explain it. I was probably more anxious about the situation than he was. Thought I was seeing a ghost.”

  “Maybe he didn’t die and he’s just been living in the woods this whole time,” Conor suggested.

  “Doubtful,” the Sheriff responded. “He was clean, clothes and all. And if I’m not mistaken, his family moved here from the big city. I doubt a boy his age could survive on his own in the woods, especially considering the time of year he disappeared. We had an unusually harsh winter last year.”

  “Maybe he’s been living in someone’s house here in town. They were keeping him prisoner until he managed to escape.”

  “Again, I think those are very logical conclusions to draw, but considering the others who’ve come back this week, I think we’re dealing with something entirely else.”

  “Surely you have your theories?” Julie asked.

  The Sheriff took a spoonful of soup and shoved it into his mouth before answering. His family eagerly awaited his response.

  “I think it’s one of those supernatural occurrences that happens to be affecting our community.”

  “What do you mean?” his wife asked. Meanwhile, Conor was on his phone, texting. He was holding the device under the table, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. His mother saw what he was doing, but turned a blind eye as she wanted to hear what her husband had to say.

  “I did a search on the Internet and the only results that came up regarding people coming back from the dead were in fiction. So whatever’s happening here doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere else… unless people are not reporting on it.”

  “I don’t blame them, but it would be a hard thing to keep under wraps, especially in this day and age with all the stuff that comes out in the news… and with people constantly on their cellphones! I imagine someone would have leaked the story by now, either by writing a blog about it or posting a video online.”

  “While I respect the family’s right to privacy, people have a right to know what’s going on in their community. I met with Fred down at the journal to let him know that another one has returned.”

  Conor’s mother snatched her son’s arm to catch him in the act. It nearly caused Conor to hit the ceiling.

  “Give it here,” his mum said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Conor. Give me the phone.”

  “But I was only—”

  “Dinner is for family time,” his mother interrupted, “not for you to be playing on your phone.”

  Conor reluctantly handed his phone to his mother and she set it aside. “Now finish your soup before it gets cold.”

  Feeling sick to his stomach about the news of Charlie Brills’ return, Conor hardly touched his dinner. His face was flush and his posture suggested he was worried about something. He twirled his spoon in his soup and on occasion took small sips. George took notice of his son’s peculiar behaviour. Just moments before, he was acting normal, and now suddenly he was acting strange.

  “Is everything alright with you, Conor,” his dad asked. “You’re looking a little pale.”

  “I’m not feeling well and don’t have much of an appetite. May I please be excused from the table?”

  “You may, but you’re not getting your phone back,” his mother said.

  Without saying a word, Conor rose from his chair and went up to his room.

  Chapter Four

  Arriving at the hospital, Charlie’s parents burst through the front door and approached the receptionist.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked.

  “Our son, Charlie Brills, has just been admitted. Can you please tell us what room he’s in?”

  Typing in the name, the receptionist pulled up the relevant information. Her eyes scanned the screen to confirm the name and age of the patient, then looked at what ward he was on.

  “Your son is on the second floor, room 210. The elevators are on your right; stairs are at the end of the hall.”

  Overjoyed with happiness, the couple immediately took off towards the elevator. As soon as the elevator doors opened on the second floor of the small hospital, Jerry and Linda sprinted down the hall. Counting down the numbers on the doors, the couple located room 210. When they arrived, they saw their little boy resting in an upright hospital bed. It was the first time they had laid eyes on their boy in a very long time and he looked exactly as they remembered him. He seemed content, sipping from his juice box with a half-eaten sandwich in front of him on a tray. A nurse was in the room accompanied by a doctor. They were at the end of the bed, discussing the boy’s chart.

  “Charlie!” Linda screamed out, startling both the nurse and the doctor. Charlie turned his head, but offered no verbal response. Without wasting a moment, Linda and her husband charged toward the boy and wrapped their arms around him. Crying profusely, they thanked God that their boy had returned.

  More than a minute passed before the doctor introduced himself. He had been briefed on the situation by the Sheriff and was working on a medical explanation for how someone could come back from the dead without so much as a scratch. The boy had a pulse and was most certainly alive. All his vital signs were fine and perhaps the only damage sustained from his disappearance was psychological.

  Pulling away from their son for the first time since they had arrived, they checked him for damage. Their boy was noticeably shaken up, but otherwise appeared to be unscathed.

  “According to our preliminary tests, Mr. and Mrs. Brills, Charlie is a perfectly healthy thirteen year old. We’re waiting for his blood results now, but all the scans have come back normal. A week ago I would have said I haven’t seen anything like it, but as you know… I have.”

  Charlie was wearing the same clothes he was last seen in, which were still in pristine condition. That alone was puzzling. If somehow he had survived the winter, or if he had been abducted, surely his clothes would have been soiled and tattered. As there had been no evidence of Charlie actually dying, they were left with the logical conclusion that he had been abducted. Following that thought through to conclusion suggested the likely reason a young boy would be abducted — to satisfy a sex offender’s demented thrills.

  “Has he been… touched in any way, doctor?” Linda asked with apprehension.

  “We have given Charlie a full examination and found no evidence of foul play.”

  “How’re you doing, Charlie?” Jerry asked with teary eyes. “You okay, bud?”

  Reaching down for his sandwich, Charlie acted as if he hadn’t heard the question. Worried, and still reeling in confusion about the situation, the parents once again turned to the doctor and his support staff.

  “Did you perform a CT scan, doc?” Jerry asked. “He hasn’t said a word since we got here.”

  “We did,” the doctor confirmed, “and everything appears to
be normal. Until his blood work comes back, we won’t know for sure if he’s sustained any lasting damage. But if he’s like the others, I don’t expect to find anything unusual. Perhaps the most unusual part about this whole situation is his unexpected return.”

  “Him not speaking,” Linda said, “was that common with the others?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss the condition of any other patients, but I can assure you that his apparent reluctance to speak will pass with time. I’m not a psychologist, but from what I know, this type of behaviour is common when someone experiences a similar instance of trauma. If you want, I can make a few calls and set up an appointment with a child psychologist in the city.”

  “We would appreciate that very much, doctor,” Jerry said. “Thank you.”

  “It’s not a problem,” the doctor replied. “I’ll give you guys a call tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll have the results from the blood test as well. As for Charlie, he’s free to go.

  Chapter Five

  After George and his wife Julie finished their dinner and cleaned up, George went upstairs to check on his son.

  “Conor?” he announced with a knock. “May I come in?”

  Sheriff Jameson tried again, listening intently on the other side. Again, there was no answer. Quietly twisting the door handle, the Sheriff pushed his way in, being careful not to wake his presumed-to-be sleeping son. Upon opening the door, the Sheriff was alarmed to find Conor’s bed empty and the window ajar. Closing the window, he glanced outside at the empty suburban street below. He did not expect his son to have run away, but the thought crossed his mind. Conor was likely in the bathroom so the Sheriff closed the window and exited the room to check. When Conor was not in the bathroom, he became concerned.

  “Conor?” he called out. There was no answer. “Julie, have you seen Conor?”

  “He’s not down here!” Julie shouted back. “Is everything okay?”

  “He’s not in his room or the bathroom. I think he snuck out,” the Sheriff said.

  Julie saw her son’s cellphone on the kitchen counter and thought it would be unlike him to leave the house without it. Nevertheless, she thought he was likely texting his girlfriend at dinner and then made an excuse to sneak out and see her.

  Just then, her husband came racing down the stairs.

  “Honey, is everything, okay?” Julie asked.

  Before bolting out the door, the Sheriff informed Julie that Conor was missing and he needed to go find him and bring him back. Still in uniform, the Sheriff left the house with a hurried pace. While the community was safe, the streets late at night were no place for a thirteen year old. The police cruiser backed out of the driveway forcefully and accelerated down the residential street. The siren was off, but the twirling red and blue lights lit up the quiet neighbourhood.

  A million thoughts ran through the Sheriff’s mind as he drove around looking for his son. The last thought he had lingered in his mind longer than the rest. As the town Sheriff who had arrested and locked away his fair share of hardened criminals over the years, there was no shortage of people looking to enact revenge. He was always watching his back for the day when someone would get out of jail and attempt to harm him or his family. He wondered if that day had finally arrived.

  “Sheriff Jameson, this is dispatch,” the radio squawked. “We’ve got a problem down here at the station, you’d better come quickly.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The powerful engine of the Ford Interceptor police car revved aggressively as the Sheriff slammed his foot on the gas pedal. When he arrived at the police station, a small crowd of people who were clearly distraught were gathered outside, demanding action. Exiting the vehicle, the Sheriff pushed his way through the screaming locals and made his way into the office. Whatever had happened to his son seemed to have happened to others.

  Chapter Six

  With her arm over Charlie’s shoulder, Linda and her husband left the hospital. Jerry walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle to open their doors. Once they were inside, he walked back around, unable to take his eyes off his son. Jerry was just glad to be able to take him home.

  On the drive back, the recently united family noticed a small gathering outside of the Sheriff’s station. As a lawyer and a counsellor, Jerry and Linda figured they may be able to offer some assistance. Besides, with a town so small, any issue that had a dozen people riled up was likely to be a cause for concern. The couple and their son pulled up to inquire about the situation. Jerry left the car running, but exited the vehicle to see what all the fuss was about. Through the shouting, he was able to pick out one man’s voice.

  “It’s those damn walking dead!” the man shouted adamantly. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  Arriving late to the scene, Jerry found a lady at the back of the crowd and asked her what was going on.

  “People are missing,” she said.

  “I say we hunt ‘em down and kill ‘em!” the man shouted.

  “Kill who?” Jerry asked.

  “Those damn zombies who’ve been coming back from the dead. They’re taking our women and children.”

  “I’m sorry, I just got here and I have no idea what’s going on,” Jerry confessed. “Can you please enlighten me? What zombies?”

  “The returned,” the woman answered. “Each of us have had someone we love disappear without warning.”

  As a lawyer, Jerry was an expert in logic and reasoning, but he failed to make the connection the lady was trying to make. “Okay, but what does that have to do with the returned?”

  “We think they’re behind all this. They’re evil.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jerry mumbled to himself, still confused.

  “There’s one of them!” one of the main instigators shouted. It didn’t quite register with Jerry who the man was referring to as his head was still feeling a whirlwind of emotions. When the crowd started to turn on him, he wised up to the situation that was unfolding. “You got one of them zombies in the backseat of your car!”

  “That’s my son,” Jerry said, unsure what words were appropriate in diffusing an angry mob. “I assure you, he has nothing to do with your loved ones going missing.”

  Mob mentality was in the preliminary stages, on the cusp of boiling into an ignorant, adrenaline-filled hysteria. Before a full-on frenzy broke out, Jerry wanted to get his family out of there and somewhere safe.

  Linda could hear the commotion and was growing more curious by the minute. Stepping out of the car, she asked what was going on. She saw Jerry running toward the vehicle, telling her to get back inside. Slamming the door shut, Jerry put the car in gear and sped off, leaving behind a belligerent congregation of town folk.

  “What was that all about?” Linda asked.

  “Apparently some people have gone missing and they’re blaming it on the returned.”

  “I don’t understand, why would they think that?”

  One of the townspeople continued to rile up the crowd, convincing some that in order to bring back their missing loved ones, those that had returned must be killed. While the suggestion was harsh, there was just enough rationality behind it to make sense to the small-towners. Fueled with emotions and armed with the dubious justification that killing something that is already dead is not a crime, the small lynch mob set out to kill all those who had returned.

  They grew in size as they stampeded through the streets. Most of them were just scared, freaked out by the unusual situation. In their helpless frustration, they became aggressive, chanting and waving flaming torches. The leader of the pack yelled out a classic call-and-response technique, often used to unify a group toward a common cause.

  “WHAT DO WE WANT?”

  JUSTICE!”

  “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”

  “NOW!”

  The Sheriff had his own problems to deal with and having an angry mob chanting through the streets was the last thing he wanted to deal with after a long day. Grabbing all t
he help he could, he set off after the group in attempt to break it up.

  “This could turn ugly, boss,” Deputy Marcus warned, looking out the passenger window of the police cruiser. “We’re vastly outnumbered.”

  “The strength of any mob is not in their numbers, David,” the Sheriff advised, “it’s in their leader. We take him down, and the situation should diffuse.”

  “There’s got to be a good analogy for that, but I can’t think of one.”

  “House of cards?” the Sheriff offered.

  “It’s not perfect, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

  The Sheriff and the Deputy pulled up to a house that the mob had singled out.

  “COME ON, BRING ‘EM OUTSIDE!” the leader demanded. The crowd cheered, showing their approval.

  The owner of the house was more confused than anything. Unaware of what was going on, the family of the returned willingly opened their door to the angry mob. The gathering was now close to twenty people, many of whom were there just to see a spectacle unfold and had no intention of endorsing any form of threat or violence.

  “WE KNOW SHE’S IN THERE! YOUR WIFE IS THE REASON MY SON IS MISSING!”

  Thinking the mob could be reasoned with, the man stepped onto his front porch, blocking the entrance to his house. Inside was his wife, the third person to have returned. Her death was one of the more tragic in the town’s history; she died weeks before she was expected to give birth to the couple’s first child. Four months had passed since she had been struck and killed by a drunk driver. Now she was standing in the window, peeking through the peeled back curtain, still pregnant as the day she died. For some, the revenge didn’t seem right, but it was late and they were not thinking rationally.

  The shouting continued and the hostility escalated as people attempted to push their way into the house. The Sheriff engaged the siren for a few seconds and left the lights flashing. This seemed to stun the crowd, snapping some out of their trance-like states.

  “Everyone, break it up, go home!” the Sheriff called out as he made his way up the front lawn. He didn’t expect there to be any problems, but kept one hand on his holster just in case. The Deputy trailed closely behind the Sheriff, following his lead. “I want everyone to go back to wherever you came from.”