A lost child

A small boy wandered the street of a small street on the outset of New Jersey. He held his stuffed rabbit tightly softly calling out for his mother. The boy wore a night childish nightgown and the street surrounding him was filled with 1960s technology.

"Mommy? Mommy where are you?" the boy sobbed as he sat on a bus bench under a flickering street lamp.

*sob* *sob*

There was a cold mist that filled the air, and soft whispers came and went in the surroundings, one could think that they might be a trick of the wind. A small rustle came from the trashcan near the bus bench. Aluminum cans and plastic wrappers churned from the creature inside it. The small boy clutched his stuffed rabbit tighter and quieted his sobbing in fear. He huddled in the corner of the bus stop, staring wide-eyed at the trash bin.

The creature inside tossed and turned as small cans were thrown out left and right from inside the bin. It rummaged and rummaged through the trash noisily.

The boy scrunched his legs closer to his chest, knocking a can nearby, and making the can aluminum can echo into the night. The rummaging stopped from inside the trashbin and the boy could see two pairs of yellow eyes focus on him from inside the bin. They were lighting two bright yellow lanterns in the night.

The small boy shivered and was paralyzed in fear. The eyes inside the trashbin blinked, the eyelids sliding horizontally across like a reptile.

"Mommy" the boy cried in soft fear.

The creature slithered out of the trashbin and its figure was revealed under the flickering streetlamp. It was an ordinary-looking rabbit, it cocked its head to the side, looking at the small boy. It hopped over near him fearlessly, a human-like smile stretched across its face, and rows of teeth made of metallic-looking razor blades were seen in the smile. A black viscous liquid oozed in between the razor blades in its mouth, like a sludge.

Its jaw unhinged and its skin lowly flipped inside out, the rabbit's entire being changed as veins, muscle, bone, and folded outward and was made visible. Its eyes changed to yellow and were visible inside the hole of its mouth and its teeth now lined the outside of its mouth in a ring.

Its legs bent in abnormal shapes like a humanoid arm and began to poke and prod the small child's leg. The boy felt pee run down his leg in pure terror. He began screaming for his mother.

"NO! MOMMY HELP ME!! NO GET AWAY" he kicked furiously at the creature.

The creature made a few clicking noises before the rows of razor-bladed teeth with black sludge for gums, rotated inward again. It sucked in the boy's leg to its open maw.

"AAAAAH" the boy screamed and kicked until the creature pulled back from the kicks.

Suddenly a small squishing noise sounded and the creature whimpered before collapsing to the ground. There was a small shard of glass sticking out behind its back and a man in a maroon trench coat was standing there. The top half of his face couldn't be seen from the dim flickering lighting. He made a shushing motion with his hands to the little boy to remain quiet before motioning to the street.

The boy followed where the mysterious man pointed and he covered his mouth from fear. Hundreds of yellow eyes were moving about in the darkness, like small lights of horror. They were looking through trash bins, cars, and houses.

The man sat down next to the little boy and took out a cigarette from his trench coat's inner pocket. He leisurely lit it up and the smell of tobacco filled the small bus stop. The boy peaked at the man's face in between sobs. He could catch a few glimpses of the face each time the lamplight flickered brightly. The man had a serious-looking face and he had a small amount of brown stubble on his chin in an even manner. His eyes looked brown and simple, but they looked very tired. He had bags under his eyes and what looked like a permanent scowl on his lips.

The two sat this way as the man savored his cigarette. The time seemed to pass so slowly for the boy, but he was relieved that this man was here with him in the scary place. Sometimes the boy would glance at the corpse of the creature with the glass shard in it curiously, but he didn't dare move to touch it with the man here. An hour passed before the yellow eyes of the creatures around them had disappeared. The man slowly got up from where he sat and dusted off his maroon trench coat.

The small boy glanced at the man anxiously as he was about to leave.

"Don't go! " the boy glommed onto the man as he was leaving. The man glanced at the small boy, his pants still were wet from his pee. He patted the boy's shoulder lightly with his hand.

"Time to wake up." He spoke for the first time. It was a deep and raspy voice with a tough accent reminiscent of the 1950s new yorker. His voice seemed soothing like the sound of traveling a gravel road on a moonlight night.

Before the boy could reply, he woke up.

...

"Mom I missed you so much! " The small boy was sobbing into the arms of his mother early on this Saturday morning. A middle-aged woman was confusedly holding her son as he cried into her nightgown.

"What's wrong sweetie? Did you have a nightmare?" the mother coo'd gently. She rubbed the back of her child back comforting him. They stayed like this for a good 30 minutes and the mother couldn't help but be alarmed. It must have been some scary dream for her baby to cry for so long.

"Don't worry Mikey, nobody can hurt you. It was just a dream and it isn't real." She said for the 5th time.

Mikey, the little boy, nodded his head again obediently. He thought of the nice man in the trench coat from his dream. He didn't have to be too scared of the rabbits anymore.

"Mommy, I don't want Wanwan and more." The boy glanced at the stuffed rabbit toy he had thrown into a corner of the room.

"What?! But he's been your friend since you were a baby. You love Wanwan!" the mother said sadly.

Mikey shook his head in fervent denial of keeping it, before. hiding his face back into his mother's arms.

The mother and boy continued to hold each other throughout that Saturday morning.

...

"Officer Clark, take Detective Andrew to the basement scene at 113 Northwest Builders Ave." A tall man with an upright posture and brilliant pencil-thin mustache handed a few documents to a police officer named Clark Davis in the local police precinct.

They had been swamped with missing children cases since bright and early in the morning. Nearly every other family along Northwest Builders Ave called in about their children being abducted during the night. Police Captain Mars was beyond busy sorting through all these cases and the anxious parents in the waiting room of the precinct.

The skinny detective, Andrew McCarrick, was fiddling with a toothpick in his mouth from his breakfast. He had bright curly red hair and his eyes were droopy. He wore the standard detective uniform at the time and had his own special Detective badge laid over his uniform.

"Right away sir." Clark waved his hand in a low salute and left the precinct with the detective in tow. They climbed into the 1960s police car and drove through the small amount of traffic towards 113 NorthWest Builders Ave.

"Now that's a dame." Detective Andrew commented as he saw a womanly mother holding a small boy's hand as they got their mail. It was the small boy's mother from last night. Clark glanced at the woman, but then ignored her. He was a married man after all and had no business window shopping for other women.

Detective Andrew continued to watch the small boy fiddle with his fingers. He continued to stare across the street at a bus stop station. There was a faint outline of some black sludge on the ground he could just barely make out.

"Stop the car. " Detective Andrew said as he sat up and pointed over at the bus stop booth.

They stopped the car and the detective removed the toothpick from his mouth and flung it into the trash bin at the edge of the bus stop booth. He motioned to Clark to gather some of this black sludge into a small evidence jar. There was a faint outline of some creature, reminiscent of a blood splatter for a victim.

"Something died here." Detective Andrew lifted some of the sludge Clark was collecting and smelled it, but it was odorless.

'Or did it?' Andrew was confused. The patterns were consistent with a blood splatter of some animal, but there was no blood only an odorless sludge. It couldn't be that graffiti artwork that has been appearing on the city walls right?

His gaze lifted and looked back at the boy and the mother who was walking slowly back inside. But he caught the small boy staring back at him. The boy hurriedly looked away.

"Well well," Detective Andrew smirked and stood up.

"Continue to collect this substance, I will go have a talk with some of the local witnesses," He said as he licked his lips quickly.

Officer Clark followed the detective's gaze to the dame that he thought was beautiful a short while ago. He rolled his eyes. This detective would always find time to mingle with women while on the job.

"Yes, detective," He said as he continued scooping the sludge into a small jar.

Detective Andrew swaggered over to the house and smelled his breath in his hand. He fixed his curly red hair from out of his eyes, before knocking on the door gently but powerfully.

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

"Detective Andrew McCarrick with the New Jersey North Police Precinct. Please let me have a moment of your time for an investigation." Andrew said as clearly as he could.

The motherly woman opened the door a crack to check if the man was not lying. She saw the man's detective badge and unlatched the lock on the door, pulling it open. The woman was young and looked to be about 27-29 years old. She had a beautiful set of hazel eyes and she wore a morning nightgown.