"Amen."
I quickly end my prayer as I continue down this rotten path. It's not like I'm scared. I've been through this path many times since I was a young lad. After all, it was my choice to respond to this missing person call.
We've been chasing this sun-uf-a-bitch for some time now. Clue, after clue, after clue. This boy is nowhere to be found. Even the best officers in our squad haven't gotten an idea where this little guy is. I feel bad for the mother.
I continue down the path as I observe my surroundings. There's not much to see anyway. It's been decades, and everything is rotten. Damn, this stench. My radio crackles.
"494, What's your status?"
I sigh. Not dispatch again. They were always on my ass ever since I started walking down from where I parked my car. It's just a house.
"Dispatch, everything's alright so far, over."
I let go of my radio, and I focus on the path again. I know I have said I've been through here many times, but I can't shake this odd feeling.
Why is it so quiet? This smell is awful. Is that a corpse?
My delusional thoughts are fortunately interrupted by the sound of my radio.
"Understood. Stay frosty out there."
The dispatcher quits the yapping and goes off. I finally reached the house after 10 minutes of walking in almost total darkness. It wasn't usually this long when I was a boy.
I go up to the run-down house, and I knock on the door knowing damn well that not a soul is going to answer. I looked undeniably silly.
"Marshland police department! Is anybody home?"
No answer. It's not surprising. Who would live in this ruined house? Not even if I was a desperate hobo would want to live here. I go through the door and look around the house for the missing child. It was said he was last seen here, but let's be honest; he is probably either dead and buried or worse.
As I walk through the rooms with my trusty old flashlight in hand and, of course, my other hand on my gun. I'm brave, but I'm not stupid. It might seem dumb but I believed in ghosts when I was a kid. The other children always made up some bullshit. And yet, I still almost believe it.
I reach the top floor, and I see only one door at the end of a dusty wooden hallway. It's the last room in this big ass house. I just want to get this over with. I slowly open the door, and I see a children's bedroom. It was a nice bedroom. However, the sight of wallpaper peeling off and rats gathered in the corner of the room really did let it down.
Not to mention the rotting corpse of a small boy on the bed.
Wait.
As soon as I notice the corpse, I hear the door shut behind me. I frantically whip out my pistol with ease. I pathetically shout at the door, knowing it most likely won't work.
"What the hell are you doing!? Let me out now! There will be some fuckin' hell to pay!"
Hearing no answer, I place my hand on my radio and call it in for backup. I repeat again and again for minutes straight, but dispatch seemingly didn't want to talk. The static in the radio burned in my brain. The sweat on my face and body drenched my leather hat and my uniform.
I make a smart choice to bust open the door with my foot and kick it open. I was always a strong guy. I train my firearm at the end of the wooden hallway from before looking for a suspect or some silly bastard to shoot. I didn't really care anymore. It was all just a shitty nightmare.
"Who's there?! Come out now!"
I'm starting to get annoyed but mostly terrified. It's probably a good idea to get out of here. I rush downstairs and exit the building with surprising ease. As I'm standing outside the house, I look around the perimeter for some motherfucker to shoot. I go back out front, and I look at the windows. My eyes wander to the top floor window of the bedroom I was in.
Surely it wasn't the kid. The kid I saw in the bed. The kid I saw was clearly dead. The rotting corpse that wasn't moving one bit. Surely. Surely he wasn't standing through the window.
My body begins to shake as I stare at him, and he stares at me. Although he's all the way up there behind a window on the top floor, I almost shit myself. But once he begins spreading the widest, most glistening white grin that i can clearly see from here? Might as well have pissed myself too.
I sprint down the path back to my car. Fuck that kid, fuck whoever was playing with me, fuck everything. I just want to go home. I reach my patrol car and rush inside, slamming the car door behind me as I sit in the drivers seat. I turn on the engine and start the car. I speed away as I look in the rear view mirror.
The little bitch was at the entrance gate just staring back at me. But it didn't matter. I just want to go home. The guys won't even believe it back at the station. What feels like an hour goes by, I reach the station. However, when I enter it. It doesn't seem the same way I left it. Blood all over the walls, bodies everywhere. The once white clean walls are painted with dark red and pieces of brain and guts and whatever a human body can be made of.
And in the middle of that waiting room, that little boy was there. Same wide grin as before. Body rotten. Hair falling out. Eyes white as snow.
"John, I think that's all that should be said. We will continue tomorrow."
The interrogator talks and i start thinking straight. The one way mirror behind him, I know damn well there's 5 cops behind it. The guy begins talking again.
"It's sad how this turned out, John. All you had to do was search the house. It turns out that killing a boy in cold blood was on your agenda too."
He leaves the room and I'm just left there. Sitting. Dying. Almost crying. I'm haunted everyday by this. I want it to end. I just keep telling them the same shit again and again.
As I am taken away to my padded cell in this massive asylum. I hear the dreadful laugh of a young boy.
