Charlie and the cops showed up at about the same time. After some basic conversation about what two kids were doing in the forest, et cetera, we started to head out. There were a couple of parental freakouts and things, but, other than that, things went rather smoothly. When everything was cleared up, we got in the back of the police car and left.
When we got to the woods, I was happy. There was nothing left to indicate that it was us. It was really nice to no longer feel guilty, especially after riding in the back of a cop car. Anyway, we soon got to that tree with the weird symbol on it. The officers we really interested in this. "Is this some sort of call sign?" One asked the other.
"Could be..." The other answered, "But, before we go over what it could mean, we need to see this body."
Charlie walked to the bush behind the tree, where we had found the little boy. "Here it is." He said with confidence. The police joined him. They glanced down at the corpse, and gave each other shocked expressions. "Is this exactly where you found it?" One cop asked.
"Yes, sir." I said.
Once again, the police turned to one another. "Are you sure?" The other questioned. I nodded.
"There are streaks of blood behind the cadaver, suggesting that it was dragged." He added, "They seem to start about fifty feet back, in that grove of trees." They walked over to investigate. We followed closely behind.
In the middle of the clearing was a large puddle of blood. There was still snow in the area, but the only foot prints were the boy's. There weren't even any deer tracks.
"How is that possible?" One man asked. Charlie and I shrugged. The other officer remained completely still. After recovering from the seeming implausibility of this situation, the two police began to track the child's prints back to the source. After about ten minutes, we came to what we thought was his entry point. We could not be sure, however, because the snow had faded or disappeared in many areas. But we could reasonably assume that this was where he came in.
We then walked back through what we estimated was his path. At first his tracks were evenly spaced. Then, they got closer together and more erratic. From this, it was easy to conclude that he started running about halfway through. This thing that killed him, the one that didn't leave footprints when it walked... He must have seen it and become frightened.
There were skid marks in the snow, as if he had fallen. That was it. He had run from this entity, but he tripped before he could get away. Then, before he could get up, it attacked him.
The cops looked at the body again. "You know," one said to the other, "That woman who lost her child two days ago... This is her son." He pulled out a photo. The other cop nodded.
"Because we can't look for missing persons until three days have passed, if you boys wouldn't have called us, we wouldn't have found this kid for weeks. Thank you."
On that note, they started walking off. We came behind them. Suddenly, I discovered something. "There's another set of footprints." I pointed out. The cops looked astonished.
I gestured to the left of me. The tracks went through some shrubbery, so they were mostly hidden from view. According to the cops, they had been made my an adult male. And, by the style of shoes that he wore, he was likely in his mid 20s. At first, it seemed odd that these prints didn't show up near the blood. But, upon closer examination, they did. To the left of the puddle, on the edge of the patch of snow, was a fragment of a shoe print. Because most of the snow had melted, the rest of the prints had vanished. Those that had not were covered in smears of blood, and were no longer visible.
At first, this seemed to indicate that this person was the killer. However, there was a significant problem with this. All wounds on the body were on the right. This man had come from the left.
But if he wasn't the killer, why did he move the body? It didn't make any sense. So, we walked back to the tree. Since the corpse was so close by, and since there was a symbol carved in the trunk, it initially seemed like the killer had put him up for display. But since the body was dragged by a second person, and he didn't seem to be an accomplice, it meant something else.
It wasn't a grave. The body hadn't been buried. It had been deliberately placed near the tree. That only left one logical conclusion. The symbol was a warning.
No comments:
Post a Comment