The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  I’d slid the photo beside my wallet, turned the keys, pressed the gas, and the car lurched forward. The engine died immediately. Even with Marcus’s truck gunning past and Dr. Roberts motioning at me wildly to drive on, I forced myself to calmly turn on the car once more, and drifted out onto the dirt drive.

  I turned left, even used the blinker, and was once more on the road. In the rearview mirror, just as the corn hid the house from view, I saw the boy from the field point in my direction to a large woman with similar dark circles under her eyes who came out to stand on the dilapidated front porch.

  As Dr. Roberts had instructed, I kept my speed at the limit. What is it, exactly, we’re running from?

  As my pulse started to slow, I saw the lights from the police cruisers. I tapped the brakes to go at an even more casual pace, even giving a friendly, gentle wave to one of the officers stationed at the perimeter of the missing boy’s property. He tilted his hat.

  I almost didn’t see the man in the black suit until he was right in front of me.

  He stepped out so casually from beside the squad car, it was as if he was perturbed that a car had chosen to drive in his path. I hit the brakes, but I was already going so slowly that the car only took a moment to stop. The man rounded the hood and came over to the window. I rolled it down slowly.

  “Sorry if I startled you there, ma’am.”

  Everything on him, except for his crisp white shirt, was black. I imagined his eyes black as well, hidden beneath his dark sunglasses.

  “I saw you drive down the road here a bit ago, I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said, leaning his arm on the door. “There’s a boy missing around here.”

  I saw another shadow. Another man in a black suit was even more jarring, given the contrast to his white-blond hair. He leaned on the driver’s side door, peering in.

  “That’s terrible.” I felt the sweat on my upper lip. “I’m actually such a fool; I think I took the wrong turn to my aunt’s house. I have to take the next exit on the interstate, apparently.”

  “You’re quite a ways from the interstate,” the blond-haired man’s voice was muffled through the glass. “You’ve taken quite the wrong turn.”

  I knew they could see me sweating now. “How long has the boy been missing?” I blurted out. “His poor parents must be devastated—”

  “They are,” the first black suit said, looking out down the road from which I came. “Not sure what happened to him. You didn’t see anyone strange on your wrong turn, did you?”

  “Nothing but a lot of corn.” I attempted to laugh.

  “Not much to take pictures of.”

  I glanced at the camera in the passenger seat.

  “Because the last thing the boy’s family needs is to make this situation worse, with anyone trying to document all this,” he said, still looking down the road. His hand, however, had drifted into the car, his long fingertips brushing the handle of the purse I’d hurriedly sandwiched between my hip and the door. “Doesn’t feel right … a woman by herself driving around with all this … strangeness going on. Maybe you should step out of the car.”

  The blond-haired man rapped on the window. “Why don’t you step on out, ma’am.”

  If you encounter anyone in a black suit, remember my sexist comment about Steven sending a woman, Dr. Roberts had warned. I heard the door handle lift.

  “Oh, you’re right about that,” I leaned back casually in the seat. “I do wish my husband was here to drive, he knows I can’t find my way around anywhere except for my kitchen. And my sister can’t even make pancakes to save her life! If I don’t get there soon, my little niece Amy, who’s turning three this month—I can’t believe how big she’s getting—won’t even have a birthday cake! I don’t understand why we couldn’t have the party at my sister’s house—”

  “Just be careful,” the man quickly withdrew his hand, continuing to walk across the road. The blond stared at me for a good minute before slowly walking away.

  I lazily rolled up the window and gently eased the car forward.

  When I finally approached the interstate entrance, I took off the head scarf and rolled down the window. The hot wind on my face was hardly refreshing, but I needed as much air as I could take. I wished desperately for some water or a Coke, something to quench my desperately dry throat.

  The dark car pulled up on the shoulder of the road so quickly that I almost gasped in surprise. Theirs was a rolling stop, just enough time for me to see another man in a black suit and sunglasses at the wheel. I caught a glimpse of the teenager from the cornfield in the backseat, and a heavyset woman with her arm around him. Even though she had been far away when I saw her at the ruined house, I knew she was the teenager’s mother. Were those tears on her cheeks?

  When she slammed her hand against the glass and cried out something to me, and the car sped away up onto the entrance ramp towards Springfield, all I could do was watch in horror. I saw her turn around, and then the car was gone.

  I was on the interstate a moment later, breathing in and out as if I had finished a marathon. Even though it had never happened to me, I knew I was close to hyperventilating. Where were they taking them? If they’d looked at that photo, would I ever have been seen again? Should I call the police?

  I knew I wouldn’t, and I hated myself a little bit more every mile I sped away. What could I do for them? I didn’t even know why the black suits had them. Of course you do. They took her because of what her son saw, and what he told her of how the missing boy went into the sky. The black suits paid her son money, and in return came and collected them all.

  I’d spent the next two hours in a fog, repeatedly replaying the entire encounter in my mind. I was surprised when the sign with the population of Champaign came into view, and how near my tank was to empty. I exited the highway, gassed up, and headed straight for the university.

  I wanted to rush into Steven’s office and breathlessly describe what had happened. But I knew there was no room in his world for anyone who couldn’t emotionally handle the work. So I sat in the parking lot, collected myself, and reapplied my lipstick.

  Steven answered the door to his office, and I did my best to walk in calmly. I sat, smoothed out the wrinkles in my skirt, and produced the photograph.

  “Dr. Roberts and his friend explained to me the theory of the crop circles.”

  Steven had stared for a long time at the photograph without speaking.

  “I’m very sorry to hear about your sister.”

  He looked up. “He told you?”

  “You should have told me.”

  “Yes.” He looked back at the photograph. “I should have.”

  “You know, if you shared your sister’s story with more people, then all this,” I motioned around the room, “wouldn’t seem as…”

  “You know I’m not a great communicator. Thank you, Lynn. I’ll put in a call to Dr. Roberts tomorrow.”

  “Tell him I did encounter a man in a black suit. Actually two. But I got away without them realizing anything.”

  His astonished reaction was exactly what I’d hoped for. I crossed my legs.

  “Jesus!” he said, dropping the photograph on his desk. “Lynn, what happened?”

  “Who are they? The mention of these black suits by a boy in the field made both your colleagues run off like the corn was on fire. And then I saw the mother of that boy being driven away, and she looked terrified.”

  “Wait, what happened?” Steven kneeled before me. “Start from the beginning.”

  I’m certain he rubbed his forehead seventeen times before I finished.

  “You … actually encountered men in a black suits? You’re certain?” he said.

  “I’m quite sure I know the color black.”

  “If I had any idea, I would have never sent you. I would never, ever have sent you.” He then took my hand in his. “I’d never forgive myself if something had happened to you.”

  Somehow I remained calm, although I wanted to
profess how terrified I was as well. “What would have happened to me? What happened to that mother and her son? Who are these men?”

  Steven took off his glasses. “We aren’t exactly sure. They show up sometimes when people go missing. The arrival of the men in black is a clear indication that an abduction has occurred. They are the reason we have to be so secretive about our files, our findings. We know … they know about us.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Because when people vanish, sometimes our investigators go missing, too.”

  * * *

  “Miss?”

  I looked up from the microfilm machine to see a college-age girl with a Bettie Page haircut and a polka-dot shirt smiling at me. “Are you finding everything you need? I’m assigned to archives and a few other sections, and I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Most people don’t even know how to operate these anymore,” she said with a smile. “They think Google can find everything. One day, hopefully, we’ll even have these old papers online.”

  “I used to do a lot of research.” I used to be brave, too. “I’m a bit rusty on the microfilm, but it’s slowly coming back.”

  “Holler if you need anything.”

  I smiled back and returned my attention to the glowing square screen. I read once more through the death notices of the day, the next day’s obits, and then the day prior. As I prepared to fast forward to read the rest for the entire week, the black-and-white face of a girl whirled by.

  I slowly rewound, finding the girl’s photo on the front page of the August 2 issue. She was smiling, with a left front tooth missing and straight-cut bangs. It was obviously her family’s picture, provided to the newspaper.

  GIRL GOES MISSING IN MILLER’S WOODS

  By Clark Bass Sr.

  The search continues for a three-year-old West Nashville girl missing since early Friday morning.

  The parents of Amelia Shrank report they fear she had somehow wandered out of the house.

  “They think she went looking for the family’s missing dog in the middle of the night,” said detective Ralph Fulton.

  Shrank is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Mark Shrank, who described their daughter as being three feet five inches, wearing a black-and-white nightgown and her hair in a long braid.

  The Shranks’ home backs up to the woods off Woodmont Avenue.

  Woodmont Avenue was just a few streets away from my home. And just like that, I remembered how I knew Amelia Shrank.

  I knew I was starting to sweat. I popped out the canister, making sure to keep it close by, and inserted August 5, 1945. Instead of going directly to the obituaries, I slid to the front page. But it was page three news that told of missing hunter, Josh Stone.

  HUNTER PRESUMED DEAD IN CREEK

  By William Buck

  A 32-year-old father of twins is believed to be dead somewhere in Richland Creek, Nashville police report.

  Josh Stone was last seen by his wife, Janet, heading out to squirrel hunt in the early morning hours Friday.

  Janet Stone found her husband’s shotgun several yards away from Richland Creek late yesterday evening, according to police.

  “We can only surmise that he walked too close to the edge and fell into the creek,” said Captain Kris Kemper.

  Police said Stone wasn’t a good swimmer, and are focusing on searching the waters for his body.

  The location of the gun is well known to locals in that area, due to the grave marker placed there by the Shrank family ten years ago, to mark the last spot their daughter, Amelia, was seen.

  “He may have stopped to pay his respects, and that’s why he left the gun there—because he thought he’d be right back,” Kemper said.

  Police said they will resume their search of the banks of river Sunday morning.

  “Because of all that rain we’ve been having, we’ve had a lot of erosion, and on top of that, the creek is fast-moving and swollen,” Kemper said. “If somebody who couldn’t swim good fell in, it could be a real bad deal. It’s been so hot this August, maybe he thought he could get a quick drink and the ground collapsed under him.”

  Next to a photo of Stone and his wife was another picture of a child-sized gravestone with Amelia Shrank’s name engraved upon it. A gravestone I had discovered as a child, when I followed my father and those strange men into the woods.

  I sat forward. Amelia Shrank had disappeared in August, as had Josh Stone.

  Eighty years later, in the same month, William would vanish from the same woods.

  ELEVEN

  I could see the yellow from the edge of the trees. In those first terrible weeks, the crime-scene tape, marking the spot where Chris found Brian in a state of shock, had been hidden by the dense foliage. Now, with the leaves fallen and the branches covered in a thin layer of snow, the garish yellow was easily seen.

  The realization of what afforded me the view brought bile to the back of my throat. I stood under the bell on the back of the shop, and I could feel its weight bearing down on me like a wicked headache. It was here, nearly fifty-five years ago, that I watched my father and those men enter the woods. From here, the place where William disappeared was only a short walk away.

  Moving through the burr oaks was easier now than in the summer; low hanging branches easily snapped away in the gray afternoon light. The winter winds, or perhaps a confused and panicked deer, had torn one section of the tape apart.

  Chris could be out here. He was known to wander with everything from rakes to hoes, clawing at the ground, desperate to find some sign of his youngest son, something to indicate what had happened to him.

  I’d also seen Detective Strombino a few times in the woods. Once, I had gone out to ask him for an update. He only shook his head.

  I doubted either would be out here today, for the conditions were miserable. Sleet spit from the sky, and the thin layer of icy snow crunched beneath my feet. I felt confident no one would see what I was about to do.

  I set the cloth grocery bag on a flat stone and lifted out the glass terrarium. I had several of them in the house and in the shop. Even in the deepest of winter, I could have moss and ferns growing inside with just a little water and maintenance. The empty terrarium I carried was my smallest, but what it contained needed little space.

  Taking one more look around, I walked through the cordoned-off area, holding the terrarium over my head. I looked up through the bottom to see the ten or so ladybugs I’d collected from inside the house crawling erratically.

  I’d fully understood, then, why Daddy had dropped his glass lantern when he saw that his little girl had discovered him and those other men. If anyone now came up on me suddenly, I would be unable to explain what I was doing. The glass container certainly would have slipped from my fingers as well.

  You’d warned—no, threatened—me not to come in these woods. What did you know? Were those strange men some of the first Researchers, who had come to these trees investigating the disappearance of Amelia Shrank and Josh Stone? Had they needed your permission to come out here? Had they explained what they were doing with those ladybugs? You weren’t a suspicious person, and you always wanted to help people. Did you think they were a bit eccentric? Why did you help them? What did you think you would find—

  The popping sound came from above.

  I lifted the terrarium even higher, and the beetles inside responded with even more ferocious swarming, slamming against the glass like little rocks, just as the ladybugs had done in the sconces on the front porch the night William disappeared.

  I lowered the terrarium to my waist, and almost immediately, the ladybugs stopped their furious dance. I thought of Barbara’s words the night before: “That’s what ladybugs do when they arrive. We don’t know why. But it’s been documented in so many cases. Sometimes the beetles cover entire walls, crawling, like they’ve been driven insane.”

  The terrarium was out of my hands and smashed against the groun
d before I could even comprehend what I’d done. The sound of the shattering echoed for a moment through the lonely trees. The anger and the irrationality felt addictive and I wished for more things to break. I thought, for a wild moment, I might run into the house to gather more of the glass canisters and then return to break them all around the site, like a christening of a cursed ship.

  I wanted to scream to the heavens, curse whatever crossed the skies to hover here, taking my William and leaving behind some kind of lingering force that enraged the beetles. A ruthless calling card that no one would ever understand. I imagined trying to explain it to the police, to the FBI, to my husband, to Anne and Chris. You see, they obviously come close to the earth, and whatever they use to entrap people leaves behind an aura that also happens to aggravate beetles at a certain height, like a radio frequency that only insects can pick up. What’s that? No, I don’t take antipsychotics.

  Instead, I knelt and started to pick up the glass. What would happen if Chris came back out here and wondered why the glass was everywhere? He might call the police—

  The police.

  I ran then to the house, not caring at that moment if anyone found the glass. I rushed into house, rummaging through the utility drawer to find the business card.

  I dialed, brought my cell to my ear, and listened to four rings before Detective Strombino answered.

  “Mrs. Roseworth? Is everything all right?” he asked in his thick Boston accent.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you. I have a quick question.”

  “Of course. I wish I had some new news for you.“

  I took a deep breath. “Detective, do you know if anything was found in the woods where William went missing?”

  “No, ma’am. Nothing. As I’ve told you, there is no trace of who took him.”

  “I’m not talking about something someone left behind. I mean something on the ground.”

  His silence told me everything I suspected. “I’m not sure—”

  “I want to know if you found a gravestone. A small marker for a girl named Amelia Shrank.”