The First Victim: Part 1

The year was 1986.

The month, July.

The specific day, I don't remember.

I had only recently become sheriff and had already seen my fair share of disturbing shit, but none of that could have prepared me for the nightmarish hell that would be the next two years. It was a calm summers day, when I got the first, of several calls.

I was at the town park enjoying the week long barbecue, when I got a call on my radio.

"Chief Winslow, something serious just came up," A concerned voice said over the radio. I quickly started heading to my vehicle. I've heard this operator speak so much, I could tell just how severe something was just by the tone of her voice, and her tone suggested tragic.

"What is it?" I asked as I got into my car.

"A child's been taken sir...one of Cindy and Loo's kids. The kids younger brother and parents are at the Diner right now,"

"I'm on my way,"

"Roger that, I'll let you know if anything new comes up,"

What were their kids' names again, Charles is the younger one and...Grotto, is the older one. After a few minutes I park in the parking lot in front of the diner, it's owners standing out by the entrance with tear filled eyes.

"I just got a call about a child abduction," I say as I exit the vehicle, "What exactly happened?"

"G-Grotto is...no where, to be seen!" Cindy mutters between sobs before breaking into tears.

"We were just planting some flowers in the beds and...we heard Charles scream," Loo answers, "When we turned to him his brother was nowhere to be found, and he was so scared," He rubs his son's shoulder, who has a look of fear and concern on his face.

"Is it alright if I ask him some questions inside?" Cindy and Loo nod in response. I squat down in front of Charles so I'm at his eye level.

"Is it okay to ask you some questions?" He nods, "Let's go have a seat inside than, alright?" We head inside and sit down at the closest booth. I pull out a notepad and pen, thinking about how to ask my questions. After the case of the Balloon Clown that was supposedly a clown made of balloons that strangled people with lollipop snakes, we decided that it's best to ask straight to the point, but partly vague questions so we don't get too much information that's merely made up. It turned out someone had eaten something they were allergic too cause someone had dared them and choked to death.

"Could you tell me what you, Grotto and your parents were doing?"

"Um..." He said in his high-pitched, seven year old voice, he still talks with a bit of a fumble. He seems to have trouble making eye contact with me, or looking in my general direction at all, "We wur, pwanting sum flowers and...Grotto wanted to pway tag, so we walked to the frunt and started chasing each other..."

Watching his eyes while he answered, I realize that he's not avoiding looking at me, he's staring at something. I turn my head around in the direction he's looking, and find myself staring at the woods. Something about them seem...different. Maybe it's a bit more cloudy than usual, but the shade under all the branches seems to be darker, and the rays of light that manage to get through seem dimmer and smaller. Turning back, Charles is still staring at the woods as if the sight of them is making him freeze in fear.

"Charles," I say to get his attention. He manages to tear his eyes away from the woods and finally look at me, "What happened after you two were playing tag?"

"...That's when the woof came..."

"Woof?" I ask, righting down wolf on my notes.

"Yeah, a real big, woof. It was, weary big, and bwack, with scary red eyes," He looks down at the table. As I'm writing down the description, I put question marks on both ends as it seems like I'm already losing the truth and entering his world of make believe, "It tawked to us, and said it wanted to pway with us too. Since Grotto was it, he went over to tag it. Then it gwabbed his arm with it's giant sharp teeth and ran off into the woods. S-so, I screamed...and that's when mommy and daddy came..." As I finished scribbling notes, I realized how odd this all sounded, but, something in my gut told me maybe something like this really happened.

"Are you sure it was a wolf, and not a bear?" He nods his head.

"It was a woof,"

"And you said it talked to you?" He nods again

"It had a very deep voice,"

"How big would you say this wolf was?"

"Very big, it wooked tawur than dad," His dad's five foot five, so that would make it nearly six feet tall. Then again, everything seems bigger when you're a kid. After I finish scribbling down my notes I take him back to his parents and tell them it's best to stay inside the diner and lock the doors as whoever took Grotto might be nearby.

"Helen, ya there?" I ask the radio.

"Yes chief,"

"Got anything new?"

"No sir,"

"Well I do, but make sure to begin and end this all with question marks, in case we end up just having to throw this all away," I say as I start walking over to the garden beds on the side of the diner.

"Got it, I'm ready when you are,"

"Cindy and Loo were working on their garden beds outside their diner when Charles screamed and they found Grotto missing. I asked Charles what happened, and he said that a black wolf over five feet and five inches tall, talked to him and his brother, and then grabbed Grotto by the arm and took off with him into the forest," The sound of keys on a keyboard being pressed slows down, and there,s a silence before Helen speaks.

"...A wolf?"

"Yup, I asked him if it was a bear, and he said no, kid's sure it was a wolf," As more typing can be heard I notice something odd. A rather large patch of grass not far from the parking lot looks like it had been stepped on recently by something large. The shape is rather round, and putting my foot next to it, I know it can't be a footprint. The indent is a little longer than my shoe, and twice as wide. Looking rather farther I see more indents. The spacing is oddly wide, much further than anyone can step.

I look off into the forest where they lead, half expecting to see the giant wolf the kid described. I was about to turn back and head to the station, when I notice something. Far off, a small, shadow. It's much darker than the shade around it.

"What the fuck..?" I mutter to myself as I slowly approach the edge of the forest. That's when I hear, something. It sounds like someone smacking their lips when eating, only much louder, and there's an occasional crunch that makes my hairs stand on end. Out of Instinct, I draw my gun and pull out my flashlight. I've had my fair share of wolf and coyote attacks, and if this thing really is six feet, I'd rather pull the trigger than get it's teeth and claws in me.

Getting closer, the smell of something rotten starts to infect the once fresh air. As I get about forty feet from it, I turn on my flashlight. I stand in shock, when the large shadow, is a large creature, covered in pitch black fur. The noise of my flashlight turning on alerted it, and it rears its giant head to face me, its blood red eyes staring into me, filling me with chills.

It's snout is covered in blood. Dear god, the fucking thing was eating the poor kid! As it starts to snarl, showing it's knife sized teeth, I shoot. Managing to get it in the eye the creature screams in pain before running off. Within seconds, the thing is out of sight. Gun still at the ready, I approach where it had stood moments earlier. The sight nearly made me barf.

Surrounded by bushes splattered with blood, lay the torn open body of Grotto. His partly eaten organs lay ripped out from his body, blood oozing out, staining the nearby dirt and grass red. The fowl smell of his rotting corpse only adding to the disturbing sight. He was only a ten year old kid, why would something so large go after just a fucking, kid? I quickly look up and around at the sound of a something moving.

Aiming my gun, I'm relieved to see it's nothing more than a squirrel coming out from its tree burrow.

"Chief Wilson?!" I hear someone call off in the distance, "I heard a gunshot, everything alright?!" I look back and see it's Loo. How the hell am I suppose to tell them what happened, or let them see what that, thing, did to their son?