THE THING IN THE WOODS

DÉATH-JÀ VU

She has been looking the whole morning, and there hasn’t been any success in her search, she found Matt’ jeep next to the road in the woods, but there is nothing, no clue of where he might be, she has been trying to reach him through his phone but as usual the little bastard won’t answer the calls. After a couple of hours she has been able to slow down her heartbeat, she is still scared, and confused there are so many things that she still can’t get and that don’t make any sense in her theory, but now she can breathe, and think with a clear mind.

The night was swallowed by the gold sunrays, it is a cloudless and bright morning, the reflection of the sun in the snowed streets is beautiful and soothing. Something is about to happen, she can’t tell what or explain it even to herself but she feels trapped, haunted by a big dark shadow, something horrible is about to happen and this beautiful morning is the way the universe mocks at her with mischief.

When she gets inside home, she almost drifts away in the porch, she so tired and exhausted, this situation overwhelms her, she can’t even believe that she hadn’t tell sheriff what she found out about her son and probably Matt, and at the same time she can’t actually believe that she really considered on telling the sheriff about it, what anyone else would do in this kind of situation? Who she must be right now? An officer? A mother? A good citizen? She must tell the sheriff the truth about Carlson and Patrick, she needs to protect her son, they must pay for what they have done! She gasps as she gets inside the house, her eyelids are too heavy, she can’t keep them open, this is it, she needs to get some rest.

She needs to recover some energy, and maybe some sleep hours will give her the answers that she needs so desperately, it doesn’t matter if Seth is missing isn’t like he’s going to die, he’s the town’s murderer after all, she can’t believe she raised a serial killer, this is her fault, all her fault, for neglect him for not being around, for being focused on her work instead of her son, after all the pain they came thought she had to take care of him, take care of  his wounds hug him even if he was almost a grown up, children no matter of which age will never be old enough to feel safe on their mother’s arm, and she let her boy alone with an abusive father, that ruined their lives.

She stumbles on her way to the stairs, tears climb to her eyes to the thought of what she has done, she takes the first step and the world spins around, she’s broken and tired if she could only…get…some…slee, there is blood in the steps… she stops short, that is the unmistakable dark crimson of blood staining the first step of the stairs, she hesitantly touches the splotch with the tip of her fingers, it is warm, for a second she thinks she might be wounded, but when she is about to inspect her body gets sight of the snaky red line that climbs to the upper floor.

Clarisse takes her gun out of its holster and slowly climbs up the stairs, a thud upstairs makes her jump on her place and almost fall back down, she quickly gets up following the blood trace that guides her to Seth room.

 She kicks the door open and aims with her gun.

“What are you doing?” She asks sharply staring at Seth who suddenly freezes carrying some clothes in his arms, there is a backpack half-opened on the bed.

Seth looks at her as if she was an stranger, his eyes have an eerie light on them as if they could glow, his look isn’t rounded and warm as it always have been, instead it is sharp and cold, she can feel a dark void growing in his chest, the anger scorching him from inside with every breath, he’s not a boy anymore, but a criminal, the blood trickling down his forehead damping his cheek and neckline confirms it to her, yet…