Chapter 10

AFTER

2013

She wanted to sleep. That’s all she had wanted to do since she reached home, even when her lost twin stood dormant in her bedroom doorway as if he hadn't been missing for two years, even before she had watched him eat the hearts of their parents.

Angel wanted to sleep.

The metallic smell in the air hadn’t come from the walls of the interrogation room she was in, nor had it come from the metal table she was sitting by. The smell was from the taste in her mouth, the blood on her lips, and the blood on her clothes.

She was supposed to be in a hockey uniform but now she looked like she had dipped herself in ketchup or tried to play out Carrie before the Halloween season had even begun.

Her hands shook violently, along with her body, as she tried to push the images from last night out of her mind, out of focus.

Nothing would work, she knew. Her mind had been contaminated and it would be for the rest of her life.

Angel wanted to scream.

Angel didn’t feel alive, she didn’t feel real. Sounds were like fading sirens, the buzz from the door as it opened, the conversation amongst the cops outside the door, even the sound of her tapping her sneakers as she continuously shook her left leg.

She was barely breathing, mostly because she would remember her mother’s eyes with every breath she took. Eyes that had been ripped out of their sockets and placed on the swelled up blue tongue of her twin brother.

No. That hadn’t been Julian.

Julian had been kind, loving, he was smart and fair. He had been so different from her. So different.

And it was her fault, yes- yes! – it was all her fault. That kid, that tall African American kid- what was his name again? – Azban, he had tried to trick her first but she didn’t follow him to the Wishing Well because she was afraid of the dark.

That stupid, stupid boy. He had done this to her. He had done this to them.

∆∆∆

Jesus. Again?

What was with this fucking town and cannibalistic family members?

It was definitely different this time. The girl was only 13 or so, she shook violently in her seat, and she was too small to even crush the little bug that was creeping and crawling down her blood-stained leg.

Officer Dax put his coffee on the table in front of her and realized he hadn’t ordered a cup for her. He took a few seconds of the time he did not have to feel bad and then shrugged the feeling away.

He sat down and looked over whatever he could see through the red of her appearance.

Angel Valerio, was it?

She was in a hockey uniform, he thought, one of those fancy ass private schools down town. Her face was covered in blood but you could tell that she hadn’t been the one who had eaten her family members hearts.

Jesus.

Just saying that in his mind made him feel all jittery and jumpy inside.

This kind of shit didn’t happen in Greytown, Massachusetts. It was supposed to be- like its name suggested- fucking grey.

No black and no white, just grey and dull and ordinary but there was nothing ordinary about this.

Absolutely nothing.

“You Mexican?” he asked.

She didn’t speak. She just sat there blinking fast, blink- blink- fucking- blink. He wasn’t racist, or at least he thought he wasn’t, he had asked because sometimes the Mexs would get into some demonic shit even he couldn’t understand.

“Angel?” He hoped he was pronouncing it correct. He wasn’t in the mood to be called a ‘miho de puta’ like some Mexs would say to the ‘gringos’.

He blinked.

Okay, so maybe he was a bit racist.

“I’d like you to tell me who did it because we sure as hell know it wasn’t you,” Dax took a seat across from her and smiled. “Can you help us out?”

Angel only nodded.

Dax patiently, somehow, waited for her to speak.

And it took a long while.

He thought of the figure skater girl he had a date with that evening, he thought of how much he hated the sight of the blood on the girl, he thought of counting sheep and then once again grimaced as he stared at the blood that had now dried to scaly patches of red on her brown skin.

He couldn’t ignore it. It was fucking gross. If he were her- and thank G O D he wasn’t- he would have demanded a bath a long time ago. All his thoughts and all his wonderings blocked her voice out. She had spoken, said the answer, but he hadn’t registered.

Dax started to fidget as he cleared his throat.

“Could you- uh- could you say that again.”

Her brown eyes, pretty eyes, blinked up at him. He couldn’t read her expression. Her eyes were full of tears but they had gone dark- almost blank.

“It was Julian.”

Dax raised a brow.

“My brother.”

He frowned.

He thought to the file he had received and cursed the idiot who had convinced him not to carry it inside.

He searched his brain for the answer, the way those smart kids at his aunt’s house sometimes did when they forget equations, and he could only recall the photos. The gruesome photos.

Two parents with their hearts out. They had been chewed on by somebody who must have had to be fucking hungry to eat a heart. Eyes missing from the mother. Fingers gone on both hands from Papa Mex. Somebody had walked in, ripped their chests open, took some eyes and fingers, and made Angel watch the whole show.

Gruesome didn’t seem like the right word anymore.

But there had been no other child.

Only the memory of a lost boy. Some kid who had been kidnapped by a black kid. He didn’t understand how that was even possible. How does one kid kidnap another kid? How stupid can you be?

But her brown eyes were so focused, this Angel girl, and he could tell that she was telling the truth- or some part of it. It didn’t make any sense to him but that wasn’t the first time it hadn’t.

“Your lost brother, the one who’s been missing for like two years?”

She nodded.

Dax ran a hand over his hair and grabbed his coffee. He wanted to sleep, maybe read the paper, check out some suits before his date. Anything but be here in the room with this fucking kid. He felt bad for her, yeah- who wouldn’t- but that didn’t mean he had to tolerate her being so mysterious and strange when all she had to was tell them what they already knew.

“Your brother have a reason for doing this?”

Yeah, Dax thought to himself.

He was fucking hungry.

He stifled his laugh at the joke. It was cruel. It was bad. He could see his mama glaring at him just from the thought.

He cleared his throat and focused as she spoke.

“He was being controlled,” she said, dully.

Dax almost leapt for joy. He was getting there, to the truth, to what was already suspected. He wanted to pace things out though, just like those cops in the films.

They always made them so attractive but Dax was nothing like-

The door buzzed and then clicked open.

Officer Jenkins walked in, scowling as usual, and shut the door behind her. Other than her normally tight pinstripe shirt and grey pants Dax was hungrily looking over at, he noticed the brown envelope she had in her hand.

Jenkins made his heart skip beats that should have been illegal. There was just something so amazing, furiously enticing, about her. It wasn’t her plump mouth or her pretty shoulder length blond hair, or that she was so kind and yet tough as nails at the same time. Dax just really appreciated her as a woman, as a strong woman.

And also, she reminded him of his mother.

Jenkins scowled at him, as usual, and then smiled when she met eyes with Angel.

Fuck. He wished she could smile at him that way.

He watched her walk confidently towards them. She leaned on the table and fished out two photographs from the envelope in her hand.

Dax was a cop, not a by stander, yet he perched his ass in the air and tried to peek over her shoulder. His eyes were wide.

Was she doing it? Was she gonna make that final move and blame their suspect?

He was so excited, he couldn’t stop smiling.

Angel rocked back and forth and stared as the female officer slid a photograph of a man towards her. She paused once to stare at it right.

“Who’s this?” Angel asked.

In the photo, a man has been caught on camera walking down the street in the middle of the day. It didn’t look like he was in Massachusetts, she couldn’t identify the street. He wore a grey hoodie over his full head of brown hair and black jeans with faded brown boots. He looked sad, drunk, maybe both. She didn’t know. All she knew, though, was that she had never seen him before.

“Was it this man who walked in, sweetie?”

Angel blinked at the photo again but then she shook her head.

Dax patiently watched the show like a spectator. This was the highlight of his day, maybe his entire year. He wished he had a snack and then was reminded of the cup of coffee he had so rudely disregarded. He reached over and picked it up as his live cop show played out before him.

“We’re you drugged?” Officer Jenkins asked.

She was so patient. So kind. Nothing like he was.

Angel only shook her head no.

“It wasn’t that man,” she said, her voice broke heavily with each uttered word. “It was my brother.”

Dax sighed.

This again.

“Your brother?” Jenkins sent him a sharp look, one that mirrored his mama whenever he cursed at the dinner table, and Dax shrunk into his seat.

Angel nodded slowly.

“Honey, your brother went missing,” Jenkins said, nice and steady, “two years ago.”

The girl only shook her head again.

“Say we agree,” Jenkins said quickly, “was your brother…alone?”

A string of tears immediately cascaded down her cheeks and she shook her head.

Dax watched Jenkins face brighten. They were getting somewhere, they really were going to nail that Hughes fucker down for good!

“Sweetie, who was with your brother? Was it this man-,” Jenkins tapped her index finger on the picture on the table, “-you can tell us. You’re safe now.”

Angel didn’t even glance at the photo on the table. She had already looked and she already knew that nobody would be able to identity the man she had seen. That thing that had been with Julian hadn’t been a person, hadn’t been a man.

It was something else altogether. The worst of the worst.

“It was the devil,” Angel let herself say it, shocked at how calmly she spoke, “it was The Mist.”