Sixteen (ON HOLD)

1.3 The Long Walk

"I want to take her to the hospital to get checked out," Kate's mother said, "Is my husband here?"

"He was out in the field; I just called him back in. Why don't you and Kate and go sit in my office?" The Chief motioned towards his office door and stepped aside.

Kate stood still; everyone in the room stared at her. She lifted her pretty blue eyes to meet the Chief's. They were much bluer than he remembered, almost electric looking. Just like Cole's, they revealed nothing. The young girl's mother pushed her gently forward, retreating to the privacy of the Chief's office.

Before joining them, Tanner pulled a plain looking white business card out of his wallet and placed a call he had been avoiding to Special Agent Randal Briggs of the FBI. "Two of them are back," was all he said when the call was picked up. He didn't feel the need to introduce nor elaborate, at this point it just was what it was.

Like it or not, sixteen missing kids had warranted the bureau's involvement. Identically dressed agents in black SUVs arrived in the small Midwestern town just hours after the phenomenon had been discovered. The first missing person's call had been for Kate Sellers, but they came in a steady wave after that. For days they had thought they were dealing with fifteen missing person's cases but eventually Cole Parks had been added to that list, as both a victim and a potential suspect.

Sixteen teenagers from the same small, close knit town, all turning up missing at once had to be a hoax, the townspeople had thought, a sick elaborate prank. Days turned into weeks that blurred into months, and the "hoax theory" was pretty much abandoned. The parents mourned and locals held several useless candlelight vigils.

The FBI, under the tight control of Agent Briggs, conducted a full scale investigation that included interrogating every living being they could round up. They had harbored in the town for weeks like an infestation but in the end, they found exactly what the local PD had found, nothing. There was not one shred of evidence left behind, nothing to offer any explanation for so many eerie disappearances. Did they all just leave town or were they taken? If they were taken then by whom and for what reason? No answers, only questions. 

Kate looked between the slats of the half closed blinds out the office window. Her steady deep gaze fixed on Cole. Her brain struggled to remember why her heart had started racing while she observed him. The other men and women in the room meant nothing to her when she looked at them. There was something particular about this boy. His shoulders were pulled forward in exhaustion. His plain white t-shirt smudged with dirt was wrinkled and worn looking. Black hair fell gracefully along his brow. Oh, Kate thought, he is attractive, that must be it. Maybe we know each other.

At that exact moment, Cole turned his head, looking over his shoulder. He looked directly at Kate, and smiled. The smile transformed his tired face which, at least briefly, filled with brightness. It caused a stir in the room since this was the one and only sign of life Cole had shown so far.

Kate started to look away, some distant sense of embarrassment quickly passing through her body, but curiosity kept her engaged. How had he known she was thinking about him just then? Or had it merely been a coincidence? Stand up, she thought, keeping her eyes locked on his.

Tilting his chair back with the sole of one heavy boot, Cole stood up. The Chief, sensing this sudden movement was heightening the tension in the room, placed his palm firmly on the boy's shoulder as if to warn him not to move again. The room was full of men with guns who still had at least a suspicion that Cole was somehow to blame for the disappearances, and most of the kids were still unaccounted for.

Kate pulled her gaze from the window and sat down next to the petite woman who claimed to be her mother. She knew that the events unfolding in front of her were somehow of great significance but she couldn't concentrate on the thought long enough to care. It had been like this since she first found herself standing in the cold night air outside the white house. Thoughts, feelings and memories were all fleeting images that only mildly caught her attention. 

Half a mile from the station, Officer Sellers was driving smoothly along, listening to the static chirping of the police radio, without the slightest idea that his daughter had just inexplicably returned. He reached over to the passenger seat where he had thrown a pack of Marlboro's. His wife had nagged at him the whole first five years of their marriage to quit the nasty habit and he eventually was successful although the urge came back to him in times of great stress.

These were certainly times of great stress. He promised himself that he would buy only this one pack, just to get him through the cravings, but this was the last one and he was already envisioning stopping by the Quick Mart just outside the station. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and the empty pack crumpled in his fist. He felt his front pocket to find his lighter and turned his attention back to driving just in time to slam on his breaks to avoid hitting something in the road.

The police cruiser jerked violently off the side off the road causing dust and gravel to spew up into the air. It came to a halt almost instantly but Sellers just sat rigid in place, hands firmly on the steering wheel and foot hard-pressed at the break. What the hell was that, he wondered. His rapid breathing refused to slow down. Shakily he opened the car door and stepped out into the stone silence of the early morning. The object he had almost hit was in fact a person, a young man. Almost being run over hadn't jarred him a bit; he steadily walked down the center of the road without hesitation. Sellers grabbed his flashlight and ran after him.

"Hey! Wait up!" he yelled. The boy didn't turn around, didn't stop walking. He didn't even seem to be startled by the shouting. Sellers jumped in front of him, placing his hands out between the two of them.

"Stop!" he yelled.

Now the boy stopped. No wonder he had thought of the boy as an object when he first caught sight of him standing in the harsh glare of the car's headlights. This kid was enormous. Well over six feet tall with a strong solid build. Sellers immediately recognized him as the high school Viking's linebacker, and good friend of his daughter, Kate.

"Troy?" Sellers' heart beat wildly against his chest. Troy was one of the sixteen missing kids. If he was still alive then maybe Kate was too. His celebratory thoughts didn't last long though as he soon noticed something was terribly wrong with the boy. Troy stared blankly ahead with dead expressionless eyes.

"Troy?" Sellers tried again.

Slowly the young man's large hands stretched out and wrapped around Seller's shoulders. His grip was solid, almost painful. He abruptly lifted Sellers a foot off the ground, turned, and set him back down in one fluid easy movement as if Sellers were no more than a child in his way. He then resumed walking and Sellers had no choice but to follow along behind him. He used his radio to call the station.

"You're never going to believe who I just found, Troy Harrison! Can you believe it? Over."

After several long moments of radio silence, the channel came to life with a crisp static crackle. "How do I . . . just like this?" a woman's timid voice trickled over the line. "David? Are you there?"

Sellers stopped; the same frigid feeling of dread washing over him that he felt every time his phone rang or someone knocked on his door these days. He braced himself for bad news. Why else would his wife be at the station?

"I'm here," he answered.

"She's back David. Our little girl is back . . ." There was more but he couldn't make it out over the sobbing which he suddenly realized was coming not from the radio but from himself.

Another voice broke through on the radio, the Chief's. "Like I said officer, get the hell back to the station. Bring the boy with you. Over."

Easier said than done Chief, Sellars thought as he watched Troy trudge down the road in front of him. Something told him that very little was going to stop this kid from reaching his destination, wherever that may be.