Flash Freeze [ON HOLD]

VI

The girl stands a good ways from us, just on the edge of the light. I speak her name again to coo her closer, "Angie..."

She doesn't move, yet she wiggles erratically in place like a one-legged air dancer, "No no... don't speak my name."

Her mannerisms are... unsettling. She sounds timid and afraid, yet she bobs lightly on her toes and swings her arms by her sides. I try to approach her, but my companion squeezes my hand before I can let go of theirs. I call out to her:

"Why shouldn't I? It's me, Vi-"

A gloved hand seals my lips before I can finish my words. I try to resist, but there is no weakness in their hold on me.

Why are they doing this to me?

"Don't speak my name.", she eerily repeats, "How you know?"

My mouth is slowly uncovered and I am released. "Don't you recognize me?", I ask. She dodges my question as her limbs begin to tremble, "What's wrong?"

She sits down with her legs crossed, gripping her knees with her fragile hands. Her upper body sways like a buoy on the water, "Scahvenga.", she vaguely states, "Scahvenga."

"Scahvenga...", I look back at the stranger, hoping to see any signs of recognition. They only fold their arms and keep their head low. "Do you mean...Scavenger? What do you mean by Scavenger?"

Her lips turn upward, revealing a mouthful of cracked teeth embedded in grayish gums, "He like you." She points her finger at me and giggles, "You're pretty...like flowers!"

I try to walk to Angie again, but the stranger yanks me back again. "Let go of me!"

In spite of my outburst, his hold only strengthens in intensity. I go to deal an uppercut punch with my free hand, but they halt my fist by clamping onto my wrist, making the veins in my hand pop out. I vehemently breathe through my teeth, watching as the lenses in their mask fog up. We're locked in a standstill, neither one of us willing to budge.

Angie claps her hands together as if to applaud our performance.

She chants that word again:

SCAHVENGA

SCAHVENGA

SCAHVENGA

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~

I am alone on a night like this. No one has barged into my office today, and it seems as the pattern will continue as such. Everything is tranquil as if Crime has taken a few hours off to let all of the kids celebrate the holidays. Too bad law enforcement can't ever take a break...

I'm stuck here for another 3 hours until I can go to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. She would be fussing as usual, making sure everyone was comfortable and stuffed to the rafters with her honey glazed turkey...

All I have to keep me company are the manilla folders that are scattered on my desk. A subtle sense of pride swells in my chest as I review the successes of my career. Dozens of examples lay before my eyes, proving that I certainly had many glorious days.

"God, what good times..."

Then I see it, the cursed folder, the one that waits for me after the other jesters have already delighted my senses. I cautiously flip it open and stare at an innocent girl's face trapped inside a scratched prison. Luscious locks of copper hair curl to the edges of the picture. The lightning in her eyes shine brilliantly in the midst of the angel kisses that surrounded them.

She was fairly young as her slightly chubby cheeks betrayed, the signs of a fifth grader. On the day of the girl's disappearance, Mrs.Miller had frantically sprinted into the CPD, sputtering out her daughter's name:

"Virginia is missing! She's just gone! My sweetheart! GONE!"

According to her mother, Virginia had stayed after school that day to work on an art project with her classmates. There had been interviews with the teachers and the principal, but none of them could account for the girl's presence that day.

In fact, none of them even knew about Virginia's enrollment at the elementary school.

"I swear to God that my little girl was there! I swear..."

We had found no records of Virginia Miller in the state or federal databases. It was as if the girl was a ghost of Mrs.Miller's imagination. Yet I knew that there was something about Virginia that always makes me come back to her file. She always made me question the final decision:

Why did I quit so soon?

The mother was heartbroken by the withdrawal of the investigation. It was a cold case with no leads, and at the moment, no hope.

"My God...", I pluck a cigarette and a lighter from my desk drawer. The cigarette is quickly lit, obscuring Virginia's face in a filmy smoke. "Six goddam years..."

The creak of the door alerts me to someone's presence. A pair of bold framed eyeglasses protrude from behind, followed by a meek query:

"Sergeant?"

I casually wave for him to enter, watching as the officer slinks into the room. His boney fingers twist into each other and the corner of his lips jerk on an invisible string from time to time. A strained pause presides over us as my patience grows thin, "Spit it out, Constable. If you've got something to say, then say it."

"There's been a missing person report filed."

The ash on the end of my cigarette becomes elongated, drooping onto my desk. I smush the ash into the wood with my thumb, observing the burned spot as it joins the other pre-existing marks. "You know I'm not the one that usually takes those cases."

"I think you'll be interested in this one, sir.", Constable Clark presumes.

I catch him eyeing the exposed contents on my desk, so I cover them up and swiftly push them to the side, "And what makes you say that?"

Clark begins to pace, from one wall to the other, then back to the first one, "Mrs.Lewis reported the disappearance of her daughter this morning from a local hospital. The faculty state that the daughter was never checked in and there are currently no documents to support Mrs.Lewis's claim. We're searching the databases now for more information, but there are no results yet..."

As Clark continues on with the report, I pull Virginia's picture from the file beside me. It's almost as if she's pleading for me to find her, as if she's calling across the chasm of time for a knight to save her from the sorcerer...as if it's not already too late...

How does one find a villain that leaves no trace, a villain that removes all notion of their existence from the face of the earth?

I gnash the cigarette butt in my mouth, then I spit the soggy lump into the waste bin, wiping the grimy residue from my lips. "All be damn. You better not be wasting my time."

"I'll go get the file, sir."

As the Constable leaves, I rise and go to the window behind me, lifting the blinds up. Chicago is dressed up in a white fur coat, sparkling in the radiance of the accumulated light pollution.

"Oh, how elegant you are, Chicago. If only there could be one day of silence."