Chapter 3

AFTER

2005

Jenarius had every gun he owned in his house, six on the ground and two secure in his lap. Two revolvers, one shotgun- laying right against his shivering shoulder-, three S&W J Frames, a Glock G17 he had received from his father and a 1911 Commander that was balanced securely on his tapping right leg.

This wasn’t something he normally did. He lived in a country where killers were always on the loose but this was different.

After he had spent almost 30 minutes gaping at the letter, he picked up the phone and called the police. The rest of his day had been spent trying to convince them that the picture had been real, but it didn’t make any sense.

You’re saying the photo just burnt out?

Yes!

And you didn’t try and put it in water, or anything?

No! It started too fast. I was too stunned. I didn’t know how it was even possible.

And this letter was just in the middle of your table?

Yes! Yes, I said this already. I explained this already. What do I have to do to make you go out there and find the sonofabitch!

You mean the one who sent you a picture that randomly burst into flames?

It isn’t a fucking joke!

The police were useless, but he knew that. It had been two years, two fucking years, and now he had proof- of some degree- that she was alive.

Phoebe was alive.

The police had left him alone and unwatched, after calling all backup off. They told him not to waste their time and he watched them go. In his mind, he had already started planning his next move.

Whoever ‘The Mist’ was, he knew where they lived. Phoebe must have told them because she hadn’t been taken from their house. But why would a kidnapper be so stupid? Why would he risk it?

Whatever trick he had used to burn the photo had been a good trick, indeed. Jenarius couldn’t help but commend the delinquent fucker for his creativity.

It had taken him two hours to locate all his guns, some had been purchased a year after Phoebe’s disappearance and the rest had belonged to his late relatives, the shotgun his first wife. He had placed a kitchen chair against the wall opposite the front door and locked the doors and the gates. He then sat down at 6pm and hadn’t moved since then, not even to take a piss, not even to smoke a cig and not even to rejoice that his daughter, his long-lost daughter, was still alive.

It was 10pm.

∆∆∆

Leane Richard Hughes missed being single. She missed the simplicity of walking into a bar and being looked at hungrily by various numbers of thirsty men, even if she wasn’t interested in any one of them, the pride of being told she looked younger than her 29 years of age, the worry-free life she had lived before marrying the most emotionally unstable man on Earth.

But she also, truly, loved her son. Christopher Hughes was the only good thing that came out of her first marriage. And what was she thinking, marrying some low life truck driver who was not over his dead wife and had a very odd emotional attachment to his child?

What the hell was she thinking?

It was probably his green eyes- definitely the eyes- the way they sparkled when he laughed and the way they crinkled on the sides when he didn’t understand something she was explaining. Jen had been sweet, a little distracted, but sweet for the one year of perfection they had shared together.

But then stupid little Phoebe had ruined everything.

She not only had the eyes and hair of her late mother but she was a reminder, every single day, that Leane was nothing but a replacement. A bed warmer. A lunch maker. A baby carrier. It hurt just being in the same room as her. Which is why she was excited when she went missing.

Finally. Finally! Peace.

Except there wasn’t any.

Phoebe had left, ran away from school- apparently- and had gotten her dumb self-taken, but she had taken the laughter and love in Jen along with her stupid bouncy red hair.

She was the most selfish child Leane had ever met.

Leane peered at herself in the bathroom mirror.

She looked so wrinkly and old. She had been invited to a girl’s night out, that included babies, by the most beautiful mother in the neighborhood. Tracey Malone, the mother of a beautiful Jessica Malone- a friend of Phoebe’s- was 40, a mother of 4, and yet she looked younger than all the first-time mothers present.

Leane scowled at her dry lips reflected in the mirror and reached for her chap stick. There was no point, her brown eyes told her, she wasn’t beautiful anymore.

Her baby bump was still visible, even though it was buried under the most expensive spandex stomach hider in the state. She looked like a retired prostitute in her old Versace dress, one she had always kept for special occasions; her brown skin was scaly and dry, her breasts were droopy, her eyes were sunken, she had bags she knew would never go away.

Her new haircut, one the hairdresser had told her to do, only made her look a thousand times worse. The once long and smooth black curls were now a heap of dangling strings atop her head.

Leane groaned and decided to get it over with. She was too tipsy to care, anyway.

She grabbed her glass of wine, almost dropping it onto the white tiled flooring of the Malone guest toilet, and turned around to join the party.

She plastered on a smile, sucked in a breath to help flatten her globe sized stomach, and she pushed open the door.

BEFORE

2003

It was getting too easy.

Too easy, too easy, too easy.

These people were different from the ones before.

Before, before, before.

The places had changed, there was color and something called an ’ice cream sundae’, even their blood tasted better.

Better, better, better.

Azban. That was his name. Azban like the raccoon in that cartoon about the Native Princess, like the spirit, like the trickster. He looked at his bare toes, his wobbly pink knees that he knew were numbing due to the cold, his skin that was turning a pale blue. He was literally a walking corpse.

He couldn’t feel pain or hunger or anything close to those emotions that reminded the stupid human beings that they were alive. He was a demon, after all.

He skipped, trotted, after the red head. He couldn’t stop himself from feeling the gust of joy that burst in his heart whenever he realized what was going on. He would finally free the master. He would finally be rewarded.

He watched the girl with his demon eyes, the black consuming the blue of the boy whose body he had been in for- what? – a decade.

Who cared?

It was finally time to level up.

Azban recalled the master, his wonderful master, eating away at the yummy flesh of that old man. The shadows of the earth whispered that his name was Carl and he grinned at the memory.

It had been unfair, yes, poor Azban had to watch the master eat. Eat on that yummy flesh. Devour that fat man. Blood of a man who died in fear; his favorite flavor- more than the strawberries and the nuts and the chocolate sauce of his sundae- more than anything he had ever eaten down beneath in the Underworld. The man had meaty organs and a heart that smelt like fear. He had wanted to claw at it, rip it apart at the swells, have the blood ooze out of the pipes and all over his clothes. But no, his master had to eat. His master always had to eat.

He came to a stop as the girl neared the kill zone. What did these people call it? A well. Yes. A wishing well.

He bit at his lower lip in anticipation and wasn’t surprised when the flesh gashed open. A drip of maroon liquid trickled out of the new wound. It was not the color of good blood. This boy, the one he had taken, was no longer dying. He was just dead.

He looked at the girl and approached her slowly. He titled his head to the side and tried to appear harmless, knew he would do a good job. It was his life’s mission.

The shadows whispered that her name was Phoebe. Phoebe Hughes. He beamed.

It was almost time.

Time, time, time.

She wasn’t anything like the last three kids he had tried to lure to the well. They knew of the legends, they knew the tricks. He had realized, a little too late, that it was because of their age. It had only been a year but he had finally found her. The perfect barrier. The perfect victim.

And here she was, obedient little rat, standing with tears in her eyes beside the red brick wishing well. She watched it keenly, watched it with fascination, and Azban knew that he had done it.

He had found the one.

Azban skipped heartily towards Phoebe and the mist followed patiently behind.