Bloody Skeleton Series #1 The Monster in the neighborhood

7-Small Things

He was on google the moment he hit the carpet of Harry's room. The bid square room was too full of things, even had a bunk bed, even though Harry was the only one using it. It used to be for him and his older brother, but Nate's gone to college and would probably be moving out after, so it was Harry's now.

One of the worse things about living in a town like Hidgeway was that sometimes the things happening there was only known by the people living there. Only yesterday, Old Man Jones' niece found him missing with a pool of blood in his backyard, and already, everybody was talking about it.

Yet he couldn't find anything about it online. He decided to find other cases of people that just suddenly disappeared from towns. It didn't make sense if it was a kidnapping.

First, because Old Man jones was not a kid. Second, because how would they even ransom him? In exchange for his worn shorts? Plus, there was no way kidnappers wouldn't return him after the first day, not with all the crazy things he said and the grumpy way he said them.

They'd probably pay to make have him taken from them instead.

So, definitely not a kidnapping.

There were still other things, like psycho criminal running with knives, or him just deciding to fake his death, being eaten by a wild animal, or being taken by scientists for secret experiments, but none of them made any sense.

Nothing seemed like it to Mikey.

'We got here as quickly as we could!' Jake kicked the door open, panting. Ned stepped in from behind him.

'What's up?' he asked, settling on the carpet near the bunk. Harry was down bunk, hanging upside down and reading a comic, he gave them a grunt of acknowledgement and flipped the page.

'Old Man Jones.'

Everybody looked at Mikey. 'What?' he looked around. 'Didn't you guys hear about it?'

'Of course, we heard about it, it's all my mom's been talking about all day,' Ned said.

Jake went to sit on the swirling chair by the table. 'I heard he got attacked by bears. My dad's getting bear traps and setting them up.'

'I heard he probably fought with a racoon and tried to barbecue it or something.' Harry sat up, folding his page in the book.

'How does that explain him going missing?' Ned tilted his head back to look at him.

Harry shrugged. 'Don't know, maybe he got chased by the racoon's friends.'

Ned shook his head. 'Both of you guys are unbelievable.'

'Why?' Jake asked, twirling in the chair. 'Bears are a perfectly reasonable explanation.'

'No, they're not,' Ned countered. 'First of all, there's no way a bear would attack, and the noise wouldn't draw anybody. Second, there are no bears in the forest.'

'You can't prove that.'

'I can! It's in the records, bears don't just sprout up from nowhere you know. This place had no bears. The most we probably have to worry about is probably wild cats.'

Mikey pressed his phone. 'Woah. It says exactly that online, look!' He showed everybody.

'See?' Ned said, satisfied with himself.

Jake dismissed it all with a wave of his hands. 'So what? You memorized a few things off the internet, and suddenly you're an expert on stuff?'

'That's how it works, actually,' Harry pointed out.

Ned reached for Harry's comic and started to flip through the pages. 'Besides, what's so interesting about a missing old man? I don't get why everybody's so worked up.'

They all stared at him in disbelief for a moment, each of them having to remind themselves that even though they've been friends with him since they were like eight, he was still the "new kid" in the group.

'It's not something that happens very often you know,' Mikey started. 'Plus, if it's some rampaging psycho, there aren't a million people in town to distract him while the police get on his case. There's just us, Hidgeway folks, and the chances of the next person being somebody we know is very high.'

'Yeah. My mom said I had to be home by four,' Jake added. 'You guys?'

'Five.'

'Six.' Everybody looked at Ned again. He shrugged. 'I'm very responsible.'

'Yeah, right,' Jake teased, 'I think I should tell your mom some of the things you make us do.'

Even though Ned sometimes suggested what they did, Mikey didn't think he'd ever heard him get in trouble for anything before. It was almost unfair. They started to tease him about it.

Mikey didn't bring up Old Man Jones. He didn't bring up the naggin gin his head that somehow, for some reason—even though there was absolutely no evidence to support him—Jerry was involved in it.

After all, this only happened a few weeks after he moved in.

The internet didn't help, and Mikey wasn't convinced.