Hide and Go Seek

15. Alan

"What should we do?! Should we go to Jacob? He's going to need our help!" Max is frantic, pacing around our couch as we try to decide our next course of action.

"I just hope he has a plan." I say wringing my hands, "if he needed us he would have sent us his location directly, not to Thing as well."

"Yeah, he definitely has a plan. It's just a matter of if it will work Alan." Max says. I watch her walk around and around, making me dizzy just watching. We have very different ways to stimulate our thought process. I rub my temples trying to think of ways to help.

"The problem is we don't know when or where It will strike next." I sigh and slouch down farther into the cushion. "Well, at least just the 'when' now."

"I think we should go to Jacob." Max declares finally stopping her poor feet.

"And arrive at the same time Grim does? All that would accomplish is seeing Jacob's mangled corpse in person and serving ourselves to It on a silver platter. We need to come up with something else." I bite my knuckle. Think, think, think. There has to be some way.

"You're right." Max says defeated, "I have always sucked at plans. I'm just done watching all our friends get killed. We need to do something this time! But what? We're stuck here! We can't just go to Jacob, maybe the police will listen this time around?" Max sounds hopeful.

"Maybe," I relent, "I'll give them a call." I pause before I dial, remembering the last time we dealt with the police:

It was right after 'The Incident'. We were all in shock and in police custody. They separated us all into separate rooms, even me and Max. We each had a parent with us, though that didn't help much after what we had witnessed. The police grilled us with questions. I answered truthfully. Max did too, though I don't know for sure about the others. I think they did though, and our stories matched up enough that, even though no one believed us, we weren't sent to jail. Instead we were labeled insane by our relatives and community. One of the reasons we left. That and having to face Grim's family on a daily basis. Her sister moved back to stay with her parents and every time we saw one of them they would shoot glares our way. I didn't blame them. We were okay, Grim was not.

The next time we called the police ourselves. We tried calling in a tip, after Katie was found. We begged the police to believe us, that it was Grim, we even sent them photos of our text chain. Grim was faster though. A death certificate had already been confirmed for her. The police ultimately decided the texts were fabricated. All our call accomplished was feeding into the rumors that we were all cursed. I guess we could be considered cursed.

"Would you like me to call?" Max says gently. I nod. Even after all this time we still fell into our normal roles; Max taking the confrontation and me the planner.

She grabs her phone and dials the police. She puts them on speaker so I can listen.

"911 what's your emergency?" The dispatcher says on the other end.

"Yes, hi," Max replies, "We have reason to believe our friend is in danger. We think he might be a target of a homicide. His name is Jacob Winteine, and his last known location is XXXX." straight to the point as always. "We don't know when he might be targeted but we want to make sure he is safe and has protection."

"Okay, Ma'am. We will send someone out there to check up on him. May I ask why you think he is a target of homicide?" We both pause. Max looks at me nervous. She doesn't know how much to say.

"Check out the cases from the Homicide of Katie Bennet and Caleb Winteine. We tried calling in a tip for Katie's case, but they didn't take it. Those cases should have all the background info you need. Those two cases are connected and we have reason to believe Jacob is next." I say taking over.

After that we give them our names and how to reach us. Then we hung up.

"Why'd you tell them everything?" Max asks, curious.

"Might as well. If they have all the information they might take our tip seriously. After all, both Katie's and Caleb's cases are cold at the moment, if they have reason to worry about another homicide they will take action." Max nods.

"So then now we just wait?"

"I guess so."