The Shadowy Figure

As Red reaches the bottom of the stairs she sees Jerard coming back inside from the garage, several pairs of gloves in his hands.

"I'm not sure if any of these will fit you," He says looking at all the gloves in his hands, "But I have a lot of them," Red looks at all the different gloves, then picks up a well-worn pair of gloves.

"These sim to fit," She says as she puts her hands in the gloves, wiggling her fingers, "A bit loose, but they'll work,"

"Well," Jerard looks down at all the gloves in his hands, "Guess I brought these all out for no one reason, let me go put them back real quick,"

He comes back out with black and red gloves which he puts on as they walk to the front door. Heading outside, Red and Jerard are attacked by the cold morning air, their clothes shielding them with their warmth. They head to the side of the house to the plant boxes, which are filled with weeds.

"Are there any plants in these?" Red asks as she looks at all the pokey plants.

"Um...I have no idea. I'm so busy working at the saw mill that when I come home I just eat and go to bed,"

Red walks up to the nearest planter box and grabs one of the smaller weeds. With a hearty tug, she's able to pull it out of the ground. The two of them get about halfway done cleaning out the first box when a orange van drives up.

"That's the repairman, I'll be right back," Jerard says as he gets up and heads over to the person as they're exiting their vehicle.

With the sounds of talking in the background alongside the chatter of the forest animals, Red plucks away at the weeds one by one. Cleaning up a large bundle of weeds, she uncovers a single red flower.

"Oh, hello," Red says, happy to see something not covered in some sort of spikes. The vibrant red almost matches that of her hoodie. Carefully she pulls out the surrounding weeds, doing her best not to disturb the soil the flower sits in, "Looks like we have a lot in common," She says to herself. She manages to clear out the rest of the planter box by the time her dad gets back.

"Look at that," He says admiring her hard work, "Seems like at least one plant survived in this one. Let's see if this one has any," He says walking over to the one next to it," The two finish another box and almost finish the third one when they hear a shout from the garage. They quickly head over where the repairman is laying on top of a creeper, looking at his hand.

"Are you okay?" Red asks.

"Yeah, just got a nasty cut from my hand slipping," The man says as he sits up, blood starting to crawl down his arm. "Mind if I use your bathroom to clean this up real quick?" He asks looking up at Red and Jerard.

Red looks up at Jerard whose eyes are fixed on the blood, his expression a bit distraught.

"Go ahead mister, it's to the right of the kitchen, I think," Red answers for him.

"Thanks," The man says as he gets up and heads for inside the house. As Red watches him leave the garage she sees the faintest outline of a shadowy figure by a tree. In the blink of an eye it's gone and she's left there trying to figure out if she's just seeing things. Shaking herself out of her thoughts she looks at her dad whose glancing off at the front door.

"Dad, are you, alright?"

"Uh..." He replies as he looks at the creeper, "Yeah, I'm just, not that big a fan of blood," He says looking at her, trying to cover his uneasiness.

"But, you were bleeding earlier when you cut yourself,"

"I'm fine when it's my own, it's just seeing other people bleed, it makes my skin crawl," He rubs his right arm as he says this, "Let's go make sure the guy found the bathroom alright,"

They head inside, the sound of a running sink turning off can be heard. A door to the right of the kitchen opens up, the repairman walking out of it.

"Let me just get some gauze from my van to wrap this sucker up and I'll get right back to your truck. I should be done in no more than maybe ten minutes or so,"

"Alright, let us know if you need anything," Jerard replies as they head back outside. Red and Jerard head back to the planter boxes. While they're plucking Jerard notices Red occasionally glancing off in the distance.

"Everything alright?"

"Hm?"

"You seem distracted," He turns in the direction Red kept glancing at and sees nothing but trees, "Was there a deer or something?'

"Yeah, something like that," Red replies, trying to avoid talking about it. Jerard let's the conversation end there, but tries to keep an eye on that part of the woods to try and see what she saw. After the repairman finishes with the truck, Jerard pays him and the guy leaves. Red and him spend another half hour cleaning the last planter box and head inside for lunch.

Tired from all the work, Jerard takes a shower after finishing lunch he takes a shower before heading downstairs to watch TV while Red showers.

"We can go to town and get some seeds for the planter boxes tomorrow if you'd like," Jerard says as Red comes downstairs, the sun already starting to set.

"Yeah, we can get some fruit, and some flowers, and maybe a tree for one of them," Red says as she sits down on the couch.

"Let's just stick to a couple for now. Don't want to get too many at once now," He replies, the thought of all those plants already tiring him.

Before they know it it's night time. After being tucked into bed Red lays in bed, having a hard time falling asleep, due to images of what the shadowy figure could have been, but after some time finally gets some rest.

...

Examining the morgue for the fifth time that day, Pierre finds himself still completely stumped as to how Gerald's body seemingly disappeared. Not a single trace of someone breaking in can be found in the room, with the only thing to go off of. The videos don't show any sign of being tampered and the door to the cell where his body was is completely still, not being opened until Lisa had gone and discovered his body was gone.

Heading back to his office he checks the tapes once more. His radio suddenly goes off.

"Chief, we got a call,"

"God dammit!" He mutters under his breath as he pounds his fist on the desk, "What is it?" He asks, pressing the speak button on his radio.

"Someone called suspecting a robbery happening at their neighbors, we're on our way now,"

"Got it, I'm heading over there as soon as I can," He says, rushing out of his office and through the main lobby, "Helen, I need the address from the call, asap,"

"On it sir," She says, "I sent you the address,"

"Thanks," He replies as he bursts through the front doors. Getting into his car he heads off to the place. By the time he gets there the officer that had radio'd him is standing outside, disturbed.

"You look like you've seen a ghost Brant, what's wrong?" Pierre asks worryingly as he hurries over to him.

"I-I...I heard him...but when I opened the door...there was no one except for..." He rambles.

"Brant," Pierre puts his hands on Brant's shoulders, "Calm down officer. Deep breaths," After a couple breaths Brant calms down enough to speak properly.

...

As I walk up to the house that we got a call about, I see the neighbor looking through their window. Before I go to knock, I see the door knob's been busted off. That's when I hear a scream coming from inside. Drawing my gun I quickly open up the door, ready to pull up my gun if I need to. The screaming seems to be coming from further inside. Walking into the living room, the air feels heavy and dark, despite all the lights that are on.

I can see shadows moving from under a doorway on the other side down a hall. Quickly making my way to the door I bang on the door. Nearing the door the air seems to get colder.

"This is the police, open up!" I shout, trying to keep myself from shaking.

"You're too late," A deep cold voice says before there's another scream that gets cut off. I kick open the door, gun at the ready, only to have a body fall to my feet. I quickly scan the room, and no one else seems to be there. I put away my gun and examine the person, their throats been slit and there body is covered in all kinds of cuts. These are nothing like the ones on Granny and the other guy, these all look like they were made by a knife or something, similar only to the cut on Granny's neck.

I do a more thorough search of the room and no one else is in here. The windows in this all have their locks in place, so there's no way however that voice belonged to could have gone through them. As I look through the window I see a large figure far off in the distance. My spine shivers when they look at me with glowing red eyes before seemingly disappearing into the dark.

I quickly make my way out of the house, I can't stand to be in there a second longer.

...

"Go home and get some rest," Pierre tells Brant, "I'll take it from here," Brant nods with a relieved look before heading to his car. Pierre walks up to the front door, closely examining the door. Flung to the side of the walkway lays the doorknob, the wood it's attached severely splintered. Kneeling down and pulling out his flashlight he takes a closer look at the damage on the door. Though the wood looks to severely splintered, it's much different than the markings that had been on Red's door.

Taking a picture, he sends it to Randy, knowing he's always up at this hour, usually drinking coffee and cussing at the whatever game show he's watching.

What do you make of this? Any idea what could have caused this?

Pierre sends alongside the picture. Putting his phone away, he heads inside the house to check inside while he waits for a response. Everything looks perfectly normal, like it's been untouched, except for the door on the other side of the living room down the hall. Approaching the door he sees the body covered in cuts, the carpet around them stained red. He sees that the wood where the door sits against when closed has been badly damaged. Must have been when Brant kicked the door in.

Walking into the room he checks the back part of the door, where small blood trails are splattered across it. Following one of the trails up he notices the doorknob seems to be, crushed. Before he can go to take a closer look his phone vibrates. Pulling it out he reads the message from Randy.

Looks like someone used an axe of some sort and went to town on the door. Looks to be from a felling hatchet if I had to be specific, a rather large one at that.

Looking back to the body he notes that the wounds are clean cuts, not jagged and wild like the ones found covering Gerald. Whatever killed this person, it was something else, something new.

Pierre exits the house, radioing for forensics to come to take pictures and try to find anything of any use to them.