*a newspaper clipping shows a picture a local boy, aged 15, who vanished walking home during a heavy storm-along with his Mother. The story is buried on page 26*
Jimmy Root...Cute kid. I got this case because, quite frankly, everyone else had given up on it. Father had an airtight alibi, no motive to get rid of them. Popular idea, was that the Mother had run off with him, maybe with another man. I believed it to...until I met the Father-Timothy Root.
Just looking at him, he was the cliche come true-the broken man. He had been happy-more or less. I could tell, by the pictures on the mantle, the toys scattered about. The home was lived in, loved in. Now...gone, empty. And, he had no peace of mind, no idea what happened to them-and, delusion or not, he didn't buy for one minute his wife left him. I could tell he'd been drinking pretty heavily, but had managed a shaky sobriety to meet with me. It convinced me he wasn't totally full of shit.
I promised him, I would find his wife and kid-well, I was a rookie.
Back then, I thought I could save everyone. Yeah.
...
I spent most of the next few days searching up and down the route they were last seen on-questioning people. Most of them were annoyed to have the answer the same questions again, or developed new and interesting parts.
No dice. 'Sure, I saw A kid, maybe not that kid.' 'IF I saw something, why would I tell you?' 'I didn't see anything officer, I was three sheets to the wind'
Etc, etc. Later, when I got a little more street wise, I realized they had all been terrified of talking to me.
So, I went off track-off duty. It had been raining pretty heavily that day...I thought it might be connected. The department wasn't looking into it anymore. It was only me.
It was the sewer drains. Their not quite average-alot larger, for one. This place is a natural runoff point. Whenever it rains hard, all the stuff gets washed down here. It's like what you'd expect a sewer to be, based on the movies. Big, ugly, dark. I checked with the maintenance guys. They say these sewers underneath are old...really old. For some reason, there's been no renovations scheduled here. Ever.
Stonewalled at City Hall. I know to hang up when they ask for your badge number.
I'd have liked to think, back then, I had more balls than brains (metaphorically speaking, being a woman)-so, I did what anyone stupid young hotshot would do. I strapped my gun on, put on heavy rubber boots and a slick coat, and climbed right down into the muck.
...
Lucky me. I went down into the sewers, alone. At night, because I was such a hotshot. Realistically? I expected to find a body or two down there. Bring some closure to the poor man.
Well, I'll tell you right off. I felt something. It was like...darkness, alive, sticking onto me. Crazy, yeah. I thought I was losing it-panicking because of all the stuff I'd heard about in the last few days. I took a moment, thinking, calming.
When I began to move again, I knew I was being followed-watched-toyed with. Well, in retrospect-at the time, I had my head in the sand.
Surely, that tiny tapping sound I'm hearing, was just some rats. Tap, tap. Like claws on stone? It only happened right after I would stop, and listen. It was very delicate, amost like someone using a tool. Just quiet enough I could never quite decide if it was in my head or not.
Tap, tap. Always from a different direction, but it always seemed closer, you know? Tap. Tap.
I kept going. At this point, I was keeping up a healthy jog. I had a feeling if I slowed down-if I curled up in a ball and cried-whatever, whoever was shadowing me would get tired of toying with me, like a cat with a mouse. Again-at the time, none of this was congnizant. Only upon reflection-and, learning the wider truth-did I actually begin to accept any of this.
So, you keep moving. Your hearts pounding. Dripping, flowing water-the occasionally bubble that could be a gasp-and the tapping. There's no lillumination except the flickering beam of a flashlight-you see things in your peripheral vision, but when you shine the light there's nothing there. You have to fight the urge to bolt-it gets a hold of you, tells you to run, flee, hide. You hold onto that flashlight tighter than your first love.
I'm not sure how much time passed. My watch stopped at dead midnight. Which was odd. I had entered at 6 pm. I would have sworn in court there was no way 6 hours could have passed. No way in Hell. Things are not right, down there. Nothings right down there
At this point, things get fuzzy...and Thank God for small favors...
I recall passing by what seemed to me, a natual tunnel carved right into the nasty bricks of the sewer wall. It looked like a yawning maw. I stepped in, walked down a palely lit corridor-one that seemed to have been chewed, rather than carved. Then, I remember... at the end, there was a circular room (for some reason, I thought of it as a mauseloum) In the center, a pool of deep, scummy water. At the bottom?
Bones.
Hundreds of them. Piled up deep, so even through the water, I could see them. Empty skulls-cracked open like eggs. Femurs split in two, and drained of marrow. Gnawed on rib bones.
I could identify some-not all. Some of the bones didn't look like anything I'd ever seen. There were animals sure-dogs and cats and birds. People. Kids. Older folks. My first thought was...how long has this been here? Why hasn't anyone found this?
Scraps of clothing, toys, little innocuous things were spread around. This was a den. Something lived here. I bent down to pick up something shiny-my mind was almost gone at this point-and when I realized it was Police Badge, the sort they used back in the 20's (Recently Added~How long has this been going on? The badge number I saw, was from a beat cop who vanished sometimes circa WW1.), I started screaming.
I ran.
It was following me. Waiting for me to just...give up. Then it would take me to the pit. I fought against this...tide of despair. Rationally, I knew it was an animal-of some sort-that, it used Fear as a weapon. So, I looked at it, or tried.
You can only see the thing from the corner of your eye...it was invisible, if you looked at it directly. All the warning you got was a pair of slitted green eyes, like a cat. And a chesire smile to go with it. It's true form, maybe it looked like a child itself. But with long, skinny arms-and claws that seemed longer than it's body. Does that make sense? Probably not. It had webbed feet, like duck. I got the feeling it hid under the water-or in a sewer drain-and whispered up. If you got too close...it seemed to fly after me-sometimes it would swim, making no noise. Other times, it would be scratching along the walls like a cockroach, seemingly with no effort.
I remember tripping-or maybe it tripped me. I remember the smile. Something made me pull my gun. I shot at where I hoped it was. I recall the look on it's face, more amused than angry. Either I missed or I hit it and did nothing, since I emptied the gun in a moment or so.
It said something to me. It's voice was bizzare, compared to how it looked-it was delicate, refined, even dignifed-and arrogant. It didn't fear me. I got the distinct feeling, it was an ancient thing, that had been hunting and killing when Humanity was still hitting each over the head with stone clubs. To the span of such a life, I was nothing to it, a passing meal, to be enjoyed-and nothing more.
Recorded the words here, as best I can remember. I have not yet found any translation for it.
"Ai tas o, Vaeria. Oli pae, thol o Eindral. Shi'jh cali ei shylaeser sosti syndraes."
At that point, I black out. Cliched, but true. It was almost a relief-my minds final defense against insanity and death. Even if it...did whatever it was going to do, at least, I wouldn't be awake to feel it.
...
I woke up in the arms of my sometimes partner, Detective Miles West. He was pulling me up into the scant morning light-which had never looked sweeter, even if the rain clouds had cast a gloom on everything. We weren't official (at that point, romantically or otherwise), but it seems he usually had my back. I hadn't even called him that night, but he said he had a feeling. True enough, when screams were reported echoing up through the sewer drains, he put two and two together, went down there and got me. I couldn't have asked for a better friend, really. Miles got me out. I'm not sure what would have happened otherwise-did it let me go? I don't know, I don't know. The maths says I spent almost 15 hours down there. It felt like one hour.
West was worried. He said I was white as a ghost.
I asked him about tapping, bones-I was fairly delirious at this time-and all he gave me was a haunted look. It said, without words "Let's save it for later, okay? Or maybe never".
He took me home, we took turns cleaning the sewer off us, trying to process it. We couldn't. We never did.
...
Officially, the case was never solved. I told Mr. Root...his family was at peace. He seemed to understand. He didn't inquire much, but I think he always knew. Root went down into the sewers himself, not long after. Neighbors told me he took a shotgun, and went down into the dark. He shot himself down there. That's the official story. Yeah.
Miles didn't spread around the story around the station about how he found me wondering in the sewers, terrified out of my mind. We kept that between us. Afterwards, we got a little closer. Horrible stuff like this, you need to share it with someone. He was mine.
In the years to come, me and him we're going to share alot more secrets.
[ ((recently added)) The more I look on this case, the worse it seems.
These disappearances, always coinciding with the heavy rains are actually an annual occurrence-very localized, to that part of the city. I went back, once more. Locals call it 'Bad Waters', or 'Malo Agua'-they'll tell things to a PI they won't to a cop, it seems. Most of them keep their kids away from school that week. The Roots had just moved in from up-town, didn't know. No one told them. I can understand why.
One day, I'm going to have to go back and face it. I'm going to stop it.
For Jimmy and his Mom and Dad, if nothing else.]
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Topic: @)~~}~ Magia Exquisitis! ~{~~(@ (Read 119844 times)