Feeding Time

April 4, 2023, 11:13 PM

Empty empty empty empty. Same word repeated for page after tear-stained page. Journal tucked beneath loose floorboard, begging to be found. Caked with dust. Covered in rodent bones.

1121 Lexington Avenue, Boise. Corner property. Quiet part of town. Five houses each side of block.

Right side neighbors hear screams. Twice monthly, like clockwork. The 7^th and the 17^th. Place abandoned 20 years, maybe more. Ask Old Man Hubbard. Really? How quaint.

Local cops stumped. Said screams always correspond with disappearances. Both people and pets. Never anyone or anything inside, though. Just the journal in the floor.

Empty empty empty empty. Repetition. Incantation. A kind of spell?

More on the witch. Name scrawled inside front cover. Red marker. Big letters. Unsteady hand. Lucy. Just plain Lucy.

Entry # 1 8/03/1991

Sixteen empties fill half of page. Scrawled in pencil. Feint, jagged script of the barely literate. Tremor maybe. Or broken fingers.

Entry # 2 8/11/1991

Eighteen empties, larger than first, fill three-quarters of page. Bolder. A bit neater, too.

Entry # 3 8/27/1991.

Odd. Handwriting improves each entry. No slow descent to madness. Gradual illumination, increasing certainty. Chicken-scratch steadily refined.

Entry #4 9/17/1991

Every third empty missing first line. Every fourth empty missing second line. And so on. Sequence? Code to crack? Not this detective. Slept through math. Ask Henry.

Entry #4 10/1/1991

Every fifth empty red. Handwriting immaculate. Machine-made. Almost—

*low gasp*

Creak from somewhere. Up or down?

*footsteps, several minutes*

House empty, unfurnished. Two floors and no basement. No evidence of squatters. Just the mice.

April 5, 2023, 4:04 PM

Asked Henry. No code here. At least no code MIT wizards can crack. Something older, maybe. Something ancient. Runes. Symbols. Druid shit.

Toward back of journal, empties make shapes. Increasingly disturbing. Ladder of empties leading out of hole. Heart made of empties with pieces missing. Empties in shape of winged beast, negative space forms wicked grin.

The house. Talked to Old Man Hubbard, block captain. Creased face, kind eyes. Resident since ’62.

Said last family at 1121 left August 1993. The Hendricks. Young couple with one daughter, kept to themselves. Lots of fighting at night though. Had to call cops once when they didn’t answer door.

The daughter? Barely came out but for school. Biked the block every now and again. Always alone, looping slow. Smiled when he waved.

Stopped seeing girl around ’89, school trips or otherwise. Always wondered. Never asked.

April 6, 2023, 11:17 AM

Questioned staff of nearby Knox Elementary. No one knows but the secretary, been around for thirty years. Checked records: Lucy Hendrick. Girl got sick Spring 1989. Did not return following Fall.

April 7, 2023, 2:03 AM

Have read journal front, back, sideways, upside-down. 27 entries altogether. Entries #1-13 between August ’91 and September ’93, then dates repeat in descending order. Time loop. Everything empty. Last six pages blank. Mostly pencil, some red pen.

Sending to lab.

Called city about house. Strange record of ownership. After Hendricks, never sold. Clean record on property taxes all the way back to ‘91. Paid on-time every year.

April 8, 2023, 9:07 AM

Slept little. 3 hours less than usual 5. Feeling empty empty empty empty.

Could solve case, maybe, but don’t care to. Thrill is gone. Another missing child, probably murdered, likely raped.

Missing mine. Just received video message from Troy. Alice’s first gymnastics meet. Not the last I will miss.

Sweet, powerful Alice. Flawless aerials, perfect back handsprings along the beam. A regular Simone Biles in the making.

Dear, abiding Troy. Goofy smile and thumbs up to the camera. “Come home soon.”

Used to love this job. Justice, adventure, solving the impossible. How quickly love turns to hate.

World’s Best Detective. Ha. Put it on a coffee mug, bash my skull in.

Anything to turn down the noise.

April 9, 2023, 9:04 AM

Got journal back from lab. Name Lucy written in blood. Same blood. Same family. No DNA match.

All red empties, blood. Different blood. Sixteen types matched to missing persons reports.

Last six pages full.

Last six pages full?

Entries dateless. Out of time.

New Entry #1

Empty empty empty empty. Neil. Neil Stokely. Oh god.

April 9, 2023, 11:14 AM

Called lab. Should not have yelled. No idea about new pages. Never saw them. No sick joke.

New Entries #2

Empty empty empty empty. My name. My name. My name.

New Entries #3-6

Rest empties, mostly red. One new shape, second page from back. Winged creature, wicked grin. Shark teeth.

Lamb clutched in razor claws.

April 8, 2023, 11:17 PM

Returned to house. Screams again. One neighbor missing.

Wife on front lawn, distraught. Woke to find husband gone. Followed blood trail from bedroom to porch next door. Ran from smell like rotting meat. Acrid, debilitating odor. Could’ve killed her.

Called cops right away. Saw three enter, none returned.

Told her to leave the block, dial 911 again on the way out. Call neighbors, too. Hubbard, all the others. Get them gone.

*soft footsteps*

House silent, still. Nothing off but the smell. Not rotting meat, though. Floral. Lavender maybe. Roses, too.

Should wait for back up. Think of Alice, Troy.

But my name. My fucking name.

*crunching gravel*

Smell intensifies with each step toward the porch.

*creaking door*

Blood trail disappears on threshold. Nothing new, nothing missing. Obvious trap.

*cocks shotgun*

Smell overpowering. Sickly sweet.

*Several minutes light footsteps, heavy breathing*

Back on ground floor. No dead cops, no dead neighbor. Everything empty. Everything the same.

Neeiiillllll

*shallow gasp*

Voice from floorboard. Wet crunching sound.

Should leave. Can’t.

Inching closer. Strange… current underneath. Floor… rippling. Pulsing. Releasing heat.

Odor thick, almost asphyxiating.

*Grunts, snapping wood*

The floor--Jesus. Hard to explain. No dust, no rodent bones, no foundation. Loose board opens to bottomless void. Bright speck at the center of the dark. Growing, approaching quick.

A star. A pale figure. A little girl with arms outstretched.

Scent softening. Milk and honey. Baby’s breath.

Neil.

Voice like music. Lucy?

Empty empty empty empty

Levitating up from nothing like an angel on a string. Some Christmas pageant prop. Reaching, grasping, singing sweet.  

Daaaaaddy

Alice?

Empty

                 empty

                                            empty

                                                                                        empty

Slender porcelain fingers. Most beautiful violet eyes. And the teeth—

*Heavy thump* *wet crunching sound* *static*

Boise Courier, April 9, 2023

Legendary Detective Disappeared

Voice recorder left at scene