Harry's mum rushed back to her car to get the flowers. As she walked with pace she re-wound Harry's texts back in her head; something about the flowers were 'significant' she thought. Harry seemed somewhat fixated about them, as though they were symbolic of something. She berated herself for forgetting them and wasting valuable time.
When she saw the dark outline of her car in the near distance, she picked up her pace until she was in a steady jog. She slowed as she neared her car and stretched out her arm towards it, thumbing down on her electronic unlocking device.
The spark of red light and ping from her device was followed by the most savage howl that jolted her, causing her to drop the device and attached keys. Panicked, she fell to her knees and traced her hands over the grassy ground in search of her keys. But the howling growl increased in intensity and Harry's mum had just enough time to furl into a foetal protective position when she realised she was about to be attacked– by a dog!
###
The off duty policewoman, Stella, sipped on her camomile tea and focussed on the screen of her laptop.
She first began scanning Ian's social media platforms using the passwords for access. She soon discovered that he had an interest in all things 'horror' which wasn't at all unusual. A great deal of his posts were his reviews about horror films series. She found these reviews to be extremely well written. It was obvious that Ian was very intelligent with a great command of language. She scrawled through some of his threads and noted that they all remained relatively friendly. But, she saw that when some threads began to get heated and verging towards adversarial, that Ian stepped into to calm things down and disperse any 'ugly fights.' In fact, she found him to be an adept and diplomatic young man.
She took another sip of soothing camomile tea and began to feel a little guilty, that she had judged Ian harshly and perhaps got him wrong. His online persona presented a really great kid. Regardless, she continued to surf. And as she did, something struck her– there was no interaction between Ian, Harry or Gwen Carter. In fact, when she looked, she saw that neither Harry nor Gwen were on his friends lists.
She found that odd. Her suspicions began to rouse again: was Ian one of those people who had multiple accounts, to accommodate multiple parts of their personalities? Was she looking at the 'nice' side of Ian? Was there a darker side to Ian that was hidden, available to only a selected few?
Stella suspected that 'yes' was the answer to those questions, so she went to replenish her teacup before she continued her digging.
###
Harry's mum ensured her face and throat were protected as much as could be, then braced herself for attack. The dog pounced on her, winding her with a heavy thud; it's paws scratching aggressively at her head and hands. She knew she was in trouble and couldn't remain passive, she had to attack back. The dog's snout burrowed with force into her head, and she readied herself to aim for its eyes, gouging them out if needs be.
"BERTIE– bad dog, come here, now." A man's voice rang out from somewhere in the near distance. Mercifully the dog immediately reacted and jumped off, of her, bounding toward its master.
Mum let out a relieved sigh and slowly sat up, checking her neck for any signs of bleeding, she found none. She turned on her phone and scanned the ground around her, eventually retrieving her locking device and car keys. Standing up, she felt unsteady on her feet and lent against the car to rest and recover for a moment.
Taking the flowers, she began the return journey into the woodland, burdened by a triumvirate of negative emotions: apprehension, extreme fear of further attack, and concern for her son, Harry.
###
Stella sipped her tea, and then returned to her online sleuthing. Although she'd checked out much of Ian's Internet search history already, she decided to have another look. Once again she found nothing really unusual; sure he did seek out some weird sites, but then most teenagers did. These sites were like the modern version of creepy urban legends that she and her friends shared when they was young.
She also noted that most of the sites he looked at were from the 'Surface of The Dark Web' and were mostly confirmed by authorities to be known hoaxes.
As a policewoman she was aware of the 'Deep Dark Web' and the dangers therein, but she found no evidence that Ian had gone there.
She saw that all of the sites he searched were in the public domain, with titles like:
The Human Experiment
The Joy of Satan
Cannibal Forums
Human Leather
The Slender man
Creepy Games
She scanned them all, looking for any evidence of Ian engaging with anyone on the sites. A sudden yawn reminded her it was way past her bedtime. Draining her teacup, she decided to put her Ian investigation to bed for the night– until something on a 'Live Burial Site'caught her eye.
It was a question on the sites message board which was aimed at a guy called Ian:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Stella's tiredness tumbled away when she noticed the time the link had been posted, 22 hours ago. She sat up, suddenly wide awake when she realised the implication– if this was legitimate and this correspondence really came from Ian, then the kid was still alive and they were looking at a case that was a whole lot darker than a couple of absconded teenagers from a Mental Health Institute.
She inhaled, exhaled and clicked on the link.
After a notification that announced: Preview expires in 2. Hrs, a home page loaded. The first thing that struck her was the overall look and feel of the page– she definitely felt it was designed and developed by a professional person or organisation.
When she read the brief HOME Page Content– her blood ran cold.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Stella had already made the decision to cross her professional line further, by calling Harry's mum. But before making that call, she had to look further into the preview site while there was still time.
She screen grabbed the home page, then put her cursor on the first option of the drop down menus: PRANKS...
