The stars absented themselves from the sky and Northridge was dark. Northridge was bleak. The woods were bleak, plunged with an eerie sense of isolation that overshadowed the presence of the police search and rescue team. Plunged with a wickedness that tore through the pits of hell and outshined the ever-present presence of God. It was haunting.
There was no blood, no body, no victim and no perpetrator in flesh, but something horrifying had been committed. Deep in the woods, on the trees, were Alisha Samson's missing person posters. Each poster was put up carefully, perfect enough to send the perfect message. Perfect enough for Tessa to ascertain that creativity was one of the devil's most frightening talents. No sane person could have done this. No sane person could have taken their time to scar sixteen trees with those posters. No sane person could have drawn a huge X over the word missing. No sane person could have written DEAD above the crossed out missing on one half of the posters, and ALIVE on the other half.
All of it was done in the colour red. The white page was the body, the black ink its features, and red was blood. Danger. Death. It was a warning. Tessa knew that red was simply the beginning of this; bigger things were coming. Perhaps Alisha's body. Perhaps another missing child. These patterns were familiar. They were too common.
Criminals – real, sick people had a twisted tendency of hibernating for years and resurfacing at a very specific time and on a very specific day that stood out. Alisha Samson disappeared on May 4th, 2006, in the middle of the night. It was May 4th, 2018, exactly twelve years since she was last seen, and the man who reported seeing the posters made his report at night. The timing was sickeningly perfect.
Tessa kept her gaze fixated on one of the trees where a poster with DEAD was hung. The word was hand-written with a certain elegance that called onto her. It was impossible to look away. Moreover, it was impossible to stop pondering on it, even when the conclusion was exactly the same after each analysis. She was dealing with a very intelligent individual whose aspiration was to be seen. And the media was surely going to eat this up, swallow it, and bring it back out for the pleasure of whoever was responsible for this. That was what they did; they saw glamor in the lives of devils and made certain to erase all traces of their empathy. They saw a story, and the victims were nothing – trifles unworthy of being seen. Plot devices aimed to shine a light on the people who destroyed them.
Tessa despised that Alisha was going to make it on the long list of those victims. Her story was going to begin and end here, on these trees. She was dead. She was alive simultaneously. Two contradicting messages, two options that felt equally as horrifying. If Alisha were alive, her life was most likely reduced to a tragedy. If Alisha were dead, her death was certainly a tragic end.
“Detective?” Tessa tore her gaze away from the poster. A police officer stood next to her with a file in his hand. The chaos all around the woods took prominence – the dogs, the flashlights and the numerous voices that only seemed to get lower and lower as they took their search further into the woods. “Detective Wilkins?”
“Yes, sorry.”
“Woods scare the shit out of you too?” Officer Ethan Terry asked as he handed Tessa the file.
“Not something neither of us should be open to admitting to, officer. Did they find anything?”
“Search and rescue? Yep. They found everything. These are the woods. Used condoms, cigarette buds – all sorts of useless junk. By the way, sergeant Lewis said he’ll meet you back at the station. They just brought in an assistant detective who’s busy with the man who reported finding all this.”
“I see,” Tessa responded.
“You reckon they’ll find a body?” the officer asked. Tessa had a gut feeling that a body was the last thing they would find. “We’ve been here for about three hours now,” he added.
“Can’t say. But if they do find a body, then case closed. Tell me, officer, why do the woods scare you so much?”
“I grew up here. I’ve heard a lot of crazy stuff that’ll keep you up at night.” The Officer’s response raised eyebrows. The most common thing that came out of towns that had wooded areas were rumours. Stories about rituals, hauntings, serial killers and kidnappers. Although it sounded absolutely ridiculous on the surface, there was always more to it. From Tessa’s experience, these myths were always started by someone who knew something they were too afraid to speak of in its raw nature. Or someone who was simply bored.
“You and I are going to have a little talk about this crazy stuff, officer.”
Tessa opened the first page of the file and the first thing she saw was Alisha's poster – clean of the devil's touch. And then there was Alisha's photo that Tessa had not looked at before. It spoke to her. Alisha's doe eyes and gleeful, brown irises clung onto Tessa's brain like the leaves clung onto the tress in the woods. Like the posters clung onto the trunks of those sixteen trees. Dangerously.
Alisha’s afro was combed neatly, and the smile she wore had a delicate kind of innocence that tore a piece from Tessa. A delicate kind of innocence that only existed on the face of a child who was only deserving of love and safety and absolutely nothing less. She looked clean of sin, just like any child would be. She looked so bright and joyful, naïve to all the atrocities human beings were capable of inflicting on little children like her.
Tessa continued onto the next page that gave a brief detail on Alisha’s disappearance. She scanned it enough to make out enough information such as her date, age and time of disappearance. There were two things that made her feel uneasy about how she disappeared. Two distinct phrases: Disappeared into thin air and Oakwood’s missing children. Tessa swallowed hard. She hesitated to proceed to the next page. She glanced over at Officer Terry, hoping her agitation went unnoticed. She appreciated that it did.
“What do you know about Oakwood?” Tessa asked abruptly. She could have sworn she saw the officer visibly tense. Ethan Terry was a largely built man with broad shoulders who looked intimidating. But one simple question made all of that falter. He was afraid.
“Two things that I wish I didn’t.”
“And what are those?” Tessa asked impatiently.
“The missing children and The Whistleman.”
