3
Nov
The Kidnapper’s Guilt a Ghost Story
“What are you going to do to me?” The question hung in the air like a noxious cloud.
Nick didn’t answer- he didn’t know. It wasn’t supposed to go this far- they never call the cops, they just pay the ransom and get their kids back. They have an exciting story for the country club, and Nick can feed his various addictions; everybody wins. After a few days of watching, he had found the perfect opportunity while she played a few blocks from her home; they were miles away before anyone knew she was missing. It was never personal, so he didn’t know much about her- she was maybe ten years old, and wore a slightly oversized Disney t-shirt. Her long, dark hair was held in place by a butterfly clip and had started to tangle from the days without bathing. Her eyes were still red from tears, but maintained that rare mix of innocence and intelligence. He’d kept a bandana on his face the entire time, so she had no idea what he looked like; but if given the chance, she would have guessed correctly- he was ugly, down to his unshaved half-beard and missing teeth.
As time passed, Nick began to feel the noose tighten around him. He watched the local news religiously, which had been following the story to a minor degree; but to him, every mention of the story reminded him that they were still looking- and if they were still looking, eventually they’d find him. He’d been smart, he had chosen a burned out factory in the decimated industrial district; lots of places to hide, and the other inhabitants kept to themselves- he wasn’t the only addict with a kid hiding in the empty rooms.
The sky was just starting to darken when a lone patrol car wove slowly among the burnt-out wreckages of cars between the buildings. It didn’t stop, but shone the bright spotlight in the doorways and windows of each building as it passed. The rational side of Nick knew that they would bring more than one car if they knew he was there, but his paranoia continued to fester just below the surface. The girl had fallen into a fitful sleep, but Nick could not; instead he paced up and down the room in a nervous fit, cursing at the stubbornness of her parents. Finally, he faced his own reality- she had to die. They’d spent too much time together already; she knew his voice and mannerisms, and could probably pick him out of a lineup if given the chance. And with rich parents, she’d someday get that opportunity.
It had never come to this before, so Nick wasn’t sure how to do it. The gun was too loud- even in this day and age, people sometimes called the cops- and even he didn’t have the heart to smother her, knowing she’d wake up before it was finished. Instead, he found a heavy cement block and carried it to where she lay. As he raised the block, he was surprised to find that he was crying, especially since he had long-since thought that he had grown past an emotion like sadness or regret. He held the block high above his head and brought it down in a mercifully quick motion. He thought, briefly, that he saw her eyes open before he finished the descent, but it was too late to be sure.
He left the body where it lay- by the time they found it, it would be nothing more than a skeleton.
The walk to his hole of a home took several hours, but was made even longer by the weight of what he had done. In his shaken mind, the rising wind carried with it a haunting sound- the sound of a child crying. At first, he thought that someone was nearby, but the barely-perceptible sound followed him for several minutes before fading away as though it was never there. Eventually, he reached his home and poured himself into the stained bed sheets, quickly forgetting the events of the day as he drifted into sleep.
After a brief dreamless sleep, he woke with a start, vaguely aware of the feeling that something was wrong. He couldn’t name it, and certainly couldn’t see it in the oppressive darkness, but he distinctly felt a presence in the room. He fumbled at the lamp until he found the oversized switch and thumbed it on. It didn’t light. It was then that he noticed that his usually-bright digital clock was dark as well. “Power outage,” he consoled himself, hoping to explain the fear that he felt; fear of the dark hadn’t been a part of his life since he was very young, but he felt it now.
Fumbling in the pocket of his faded jeans, he pulled out his lighter and flicked the flame to life, casting uneven shadows over the small room, barely providing enough light to see. As his eyes adjusted, he saw her- the girl that he had killed, except that she was once again intact. She crouched in the corner with her head to the side and began to sob with the same sound that he had heard earlier.
Nick cursed and dropped the lighter, which extinguished before hitting the fabric. Robbed of his sight and afraid to move, he listened, hoping that what he saw was only the fading memories of a dream. There was no sound; even the crying had stopped when the flame went out. Cautiously, he felt for the lighter and brought it to eye level before flicking the thumbwheel to light the flame. She was there, closer this time. His hand had nearly touched her, and the flame was reflected in her angry eyes. He saw that her hair was slick with blood, and the butterfly clip that she still wore was now mangled and flattened. He bolted from the room and locked himself in the dark bathroom, vainly trying the useless light switch before giving up and wedging himself between the toilet and the bathtub. The room was still; there was no noise from outside the door or within the room, except for his own ragged breathing.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness, enabled by the soft moonlight streaming through the narrow window. Cautiously, he rose and crossed to the door. As he reached for the knob, it started to turn on its own- first one way and then the other. The lock held and the knob was once again still. After a moment, he heard a soft knock at the door. He didn’t answer. Another knock, louder this time. Again, he didn’t answer. The third knock was loud, angry and persistent, shaking the door in its frame. He pushed against it, desperate that it would hold. Abruptly, the pounding stopped and silence descended on the room. He pressed his ear against the door and heard nothing.
Until the sound of a muffled giggle reached his ears.
Not from past the door, but from behind him. He whipped around to find the young girl standing in the bathtub, her wide grin reflecting the small amount of light. She stepped from the tub and moved towards him as Nick struggled against sweating hands to pull the door free. Before she could reach him, he tore the door open and ran through the house to the front door. As he opened the reinforced wooden door, he stole a glance back. The girl was still patiently advancing, exiting the bathroom without a trace of hurry. He slammed the door behind him and ran into the cool night air; not going anywhere in particular, just away from her.
Nick didn’t know if the guilt had driven him insane, or if he was at the mercy of a vengeful spirit, but either way the solution was the same. By the time he arrived at the local police station, he was drenched in sweat and out of breath. The desk sergeant sprang to his feet as the wretch of a man ran into the lobby, but before he could speak, Nick was already at the desk telling the story. He told the officer everything about this particular kidnapping, feeling the others weren’t relevant to any ghost, real or imagined. The officer listened with his mouth agape as he described where to find the body and what he had done before roughly escorting him to a holding cell. Nick was alone in the cell, left to dart panicked eyes from wall to wall and jump with every creak and groan of the aged building. She didn’t appear and Nick began to relax, not yet questioning the life-altering decision that he had made.
He had begun to nod off when he heard soft footsteps approach, startling him awake. To his relief, it was the officer that had processed him, with a younger clean-cut man in tow.
“Did you find her?” Nick asked simply.
“No,” the man answered in a thick southern drawl. Nick’s mind reeled with the implications. “We looked where you told us, but there was no girl. Found this, but that’s it.” He held a large plastic evidence bag at chest level- it held the Disney shirt that the girl had been wearing.
Nick pushed the lump in his throat down far enough to speak. “Where did you find that?”
“It was folded, sitting on some loose block. Listen, you’re not the first nut to come in here confessing to something they didn’t do. You may be the first to go through the effort to stage something, I’ll give you that, but I’ve had three other guys confess to the same thing already, and you haven’t told us nothin’ we didn’t already know. In the morning, we’ll run the traps, ask you some of the questions that I don’t think you’ll know the answer to. If you don’t pan out, then you’ve wasted my time. And I hate it when people waste my time.” He turned sharply on his heel and headed for the door, the desk officer trailing behind.
“Wait!” Nick called before the pair reached the door. “Wasn’t there blood?”
The man turned. “Clean as a whistle. Sleep it off.” And then he was gone.
But that opportunity wouldn’t come. In the morning, the man returned to find nick face-down in a pool of blood. They could tell that he had been dead for hours, and ruled it as a suicide due to the deep gashes running down the length of his forearms. What they couldn’t answer is where he had gotten the flattened butterfly clip that he had used to do it.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 at 11:01 am and is filed under Ghost Stories. Follow the comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or leave a trackback.
