Trail Of Corpses

Sat in a dingey office was a greying woman around 60 or so. She sat reclined in her questionably stable chair, massaging her temples with vigour. Deep ravines marred the woman's forehead. Sunlight shone from the open window, illuminating the poor state of both the room and the woman.

Unsettling dark patches covered the room's walls. As to their cause, she couldn't be sure whether they were from rain damage, mould, or something else. Frankly, she had larger, more pressing concerns. Files sprawled carelessly across the rickety wooden desk, burying a simple laptop beneath a mountain of white. The woman's head peeked apprehensively over the top of the peak, eyes fixed on the door across from her.

Pinned to the door was a small metal plaque reading,

[Mrs Claudia Richards, Branch Manager Of Earnest Fostering]

Others, seeing the respectful plaque, might envy the position that Mrs Richards found herself in. A branch manager, a position of some small power and demanding subsequent respect. Others may even have ambitions for her position.

If she could hear their thoughts, in this moment, she may just hand her role over to them with open arms and bolt from the place as fast as she could.

But no, Mrs Richards was not others, and she knew all too well the burden of responsibility that fell on her shoulders today. One she wouldn't wish on anyone else.

The foreboding ticking of a small wall clock seemed to count down the seconds until her execution, a gloomy shadow falling over her face. When the woman had just about reached her limit, a figure appeared at the doorway to the room.

A boy of around 10 years, fairly tall and well-built for a boy his age. His skin was pale, his complexion gaunt, his clothes rugged. As Mrs Richards examined the boy, a shiver suddenly ran down her spine. Looking for the cause, she noticed the boy glaring straight into her eyes from across the room. Those deep, dark wells appeared to suck in the surrounding light, and the woman found herself momentarily paralysed in her seat.

Swallowing a lump in her throat and mustering the courage to speak, she began professionally,

"Mr Lawson, it's good to see you again. I hope you have been well. Please, do take a seat. And close the door behind you would you."

Mrs Richards felt like she had started strong. She had dreaded this meeting for a week now, imagining this scenario more than once. Usually, she would stumble and choke on her words long before she got to the point. She could do this. She was confident.

That confidence came crumbling down at the boy's actions.

He silently closed the door and, without removing his eyes from hers for even a second, stepped towards the seat and sat down at an agonisingly slow pace. The coldness behind the boy's eyes was chilling to the soul. Each second seemed to drag on in Mrs Richardson's mind, feeling as though the meeting had lasted half an hour already. She couldn't help but shift in her chair and adjust her posture in discomfort.

She wished to regain control of things and began to speak but the boy promptly cut her off,

"How long have I known you now Mrs Richards? 5 years? And in that time do you think I haven't come to understand you quite well? How you act, how you feel? I know as well as you do that you start no conversation like that unless it's to deliver bad news. Best not to delay things. Get on with it."

The woman's tongue was tied in her throat. It seemed any façade she could put up wouldn't get passed the boy. She had come to know while managing his situation that he was incisive, determined, and perceptive beneath his cold exterior. She had grown quite fond of him, in a strange way, although he certainly made it difficult.

In her job, she mostly dealt with angry, hormonal kids who were rude and disrespectful. Nox could often be those things as well, but none were as intelligent as him. And none came close to being as scary. With the news she had to deliver today, she felt she might just be tightening her noose with every second.

Immediately, any guise of calm and professionality dropped from the woman's face as she sighed,

"I'm sorry kid. You're right. I've looked over every file I can find. Talked to every contact I know. There's nothing I can do. The board of directors have decided to get rid of you. They think you're just too dangerous. It doesn't matter if things are just speculation or not. It's bad for morale and it's bad for business. I'm so sorry."

Mrs Richards felt tears forming at her eyes but tried to hold them to not appear weak in front of the boy.

Nox was to be abandoned. The foster agency wouldn't care for him anymore. This wasn't something that normally happened, and frankly, it was an off the books job to avoid any possible backlash. The company wouldn't just get away with abandoning children if anyone found out after all.

Mrs Richards had tried desperately to do something, but quickly realised her hands were tied. She knew from the start that going through the agency would get her nowhere. Instead, she could report things to the police. However, would the police, with their hugely overstretched workforce, have time to investigate the disappearance of one kid no-one cared about? With the directors making a generous donation to the local police department, and with a legion of lawyers ready to hinder any investigations at every step of the way, it just wasn't worth it.

Not to mention, by reporting them, the directors could very easily put Mrs Richards in a very compromising position and they made sure she was well aware. Quickly fired from her job, her home and livelihood on the line. The woman wasn't some youngster who could simply uproot their life and start a fresh. She had commitments, responsibilities. She had tried to be kind and do the right thing where possible, but against overwhelming odds, she could only concede. Justice came at a price, one she wasn't willing to pay.

Nox sat with his expression blank and ever-frozen. Silently, he recalled the last 5 years he had spent here.

After separating with his siblings, Nox was taken into his first foster family. The people were rather average and forgettable, little eventful happening in their lives. That was until they miraculously got into a car accident, and both died. The tragic events were plastered all over the news for a day or two, and then quickly forgotten. Coincidentally, an argument had happened just several days prior to the incident between Nox and the parents. Emotions and shouts flew wildly and without restraint, but the cause, boiled down to something trivial.

They wanted someone who would love and care for them, as their real son had. Unfortunately, he had died young from leukaemia and the hole he left in their hearts had led them to consider fostering.

Nox could never replace someone like that, and both he and the parents knew it.

There was no clash of fists or spewing blood as their had once been, just angry words slung about for a while before withdrawing to their rooms for the night, only to be glossed over the following day.

And yet, shortly after, Nox was in need of another home.

The unsavoury circumstances surrounding his last two homes had caused some tension within potential fosterers. Worries were raised about him perhaps being a troublemaker whilst some, thinking more irrationally, concluded that it must've been his doing that his carers had died.

After all, while to some, two is only a coincidence, to others, it's the beginning of a pattern.

In the end, Nox was handed to a barely acceptable family, who lived in poor conditions and had equally poor attitudes. Frankly, Mrs Richards was concerned anyone better wouldn't even look at the boy.

Things seemed to go fairly well and without incident for a while much to then elderly woman's relief until, after a couple years, yet another family had died. Subsequent heart attack and stroke. Worse still, this family had another young boy, only 4 years old. Briefly after the first of his parents' passing, the boy ended up going missing after not returning home from school one day. They found his body several weeks later; he had fallen into a canal on the way home, panicked, and drowned.

By this point, the agency practically had to beg people to take Nox, subtly glossing over his family history in the process to potential fosterers.

Nox changed hands frequently at this point, few families lasted more than a few months before winding up as corpses. It mattered not how many lived in the family, nor their age. Men, women, children, even some pets, abruptly died in often questionable circumstances.

By now, the pattern was wholly undeniable. Regardless of how absurd or fantastical it may of sounded, this boy was, in some manner, killing, either directly or indirectly, these families. And at his young age of nearly ten years, he had already racked up a pile of corpses more than most people would ever see in several lifetimes.

People were scared. The smarter fosterers knew well to avoid the boy like the plague. The directors were pulling out their hair day and night over the situation, desperately trying to cover up the situations. A headline like 'Earnest Fostering Racks Up An Impressive Bodycount' in the news spelled the doom for their business, and more likely their entire lives.

This left them with the only remaining choice: get rid of the boy. In fact, the directors didn't just plan to abandon him. On the contrary, to cover all their bases, they had much bigger, more nefarious plans in mind.

- - - - -

*2 Weeks Later*

As the last rays of sun vanished from the sky and night firmly took hold, a grimy alleyway was being plunged firmly into the dark. The alleyway graciously hosted one reluctant resident: Nox. Wreathed in shadows, and with a palpable stench, he sat on the ground, drowning in makeshift blankets desperately fending off the chill of the night. His accommodation was modest, but he had come to understand that he would not be happy even in a proper home, so the change of scenery made little difference.

Nox's new living arrangements had naturally raised a few eyebrows at school as he would show up every day in rugged clothes and with a thick stench. Previously, the boy had simply remained quiet and performed well on exams. Even if he was colder than normal, that was little to write home about. How many other kids were like that?

Many teachers privately investigated the situation but information on the boy seemed non-existent. When they went as far as trying to contact the police, they were merely met with the response that they were aware of the boy and were handling his complex situation. The answer was less than satisfactory but little else could be done, any efforts to communicate with the boy were efforts in vain as he remained steadfastly silent. The teachers could only accept the situation.

Regardless, some teachers still checked over him from concern from time to time; however, that quickly ceased entirely. The cause?

The pattern repeating.

Any teachers in prolonged contact with the boy wound up dead sooner or later, the causes appearing entirely natural. Despite the lack of substantial evidence, once the correlation was made, an eerie rumour spread around the school: that the cold boy of class A was to be avoided at all costs. When following this mantra led to the deaths stopping, the teachers suspicions were all but confirmed.

Nox's displeasing appearance and silence similarly sparked conflict with the fellow students. Bullies were numerous and eager to take a jab at the gross kid. Most stuck to simple remarks and childish insults, but for those who took things further and got physical, they came to quickly understand to leave Nox alone. A few bruises were an excellent teacher. Things were only compounded when one of the most severe bullies was found dead, crushed by a falling girder from a construction site where his father worked.

In these few weeks, everyone had come to understand: don't mess with the cold kid. Don't speak to him, don't look at him, and, whatever you do, don't upset him.

Nox was more than pleased with his new solitary lifestyle. He far preferred when people weren't dying around him constantly. It brought with it questions and question often came with more people. Nox was not oblivious to the suspicious happenings around him but rather painfully aware. After all, following the pattern, wasn't it possible that his parents' death was his fault? The mere thought of the only people to truly care for him dying at his behest was enough to churn his stomach, and fuel him with rage.

This rage was targeted at himself, but also largely at other people. In his ten years alive, he came to loathe people greatly. Besides his real parents, how many of them had treated him like a real human being? A number countable on one hand.

People were the surest guarantee of trouble.

Eventually, Nox nestled into his makeshift shelter, ready to finally rest for the night. His drooping eyelids closed, and he readied to slip into the embrace of sleep. Abruptly, however, his ears picked up the soft patter of footsteps. They were far, down at the end of the alley, but they were approaching him, and coming from his only exit.

It seemed trouble had arrived.