Spellbound Façade

chapter 19

/graphic violence warning

When Karen had arrived home late that last night, she was met with a sharp smell. It was foul, even rotten to her nose. She decided to brush it aside, and resolved to search for her son instead. But pulling open her bedroom door, a horrid sight greeted her. She shrieked, trembling back away in terror. Blood seeped down in lines from its pale walls and humid corpses tumbled, frozen in time in liquid seeping from their skins. Guns left stewed in gooey crimson, far from hold. Fingers, left trembled, stretched, grasping.

"Oh, Andy." She sobbed and further shrinked away into the doorway in horror. Suddenly, her eyes met the detective's she'd grown to care for. They widened in disdain. She could feel tears forming at the lip of her eyelids, yet she did not dare blink them away.

"Mike?" She whispered with a weak strained voice, fear grasping up her throat. His dark hair and stained features were the only response, and she turned sharply away. "Oh god... please..." The mother whimpered. Precipitous adrenalin caught her veins at the thought of her poor boy.

Where's Andy..! She stewed.

She leapt from the room and yelled for her son throughout the apartment. Karen's legs ached from her long day at work, yet she pushed on, searching his closet, bathroom- anywhere she could think of.

Karen collapsed onto her sofa with a groan, racked with pain and guilt. "Oh Andy, my sweet boy, where are you?" She moaned, clutching a pillow from her side. She had cried for a moment, in bitter taste, before jerking herself up from off the sofa with a frown. Resolve settled in her gut as she strode to the kitchen.

She yanked her phone from its cradle, almost pulling the cord itself out, and feverishly pressed numbers into its buttons.

"Yes, sheriff's department? There's been a- a murder in my apartment and my son is missing!" She had cried. Hours had passed before the screams of police sirens filled the streets of her apartment complex. Karen had leapt to her windows in agitation, and ran back to her front door to throw it open.

She could hardly remember the rush of running down the building's stairs, only thinking of her son's well being and whereabouts. The officers' disposition was rather calm despite her own agitation. She had difficulty telling them about the situation and her fears with a strained voice, to which they brushed aside reassuringly.

"Your son is fine, Ma'am,"

"He's probably with someone he trusts right now,"

"Kiddo's just hiding somewhere in this building. We'll find 'im."

She had scoffed at their foolishness and followed them up the stairs. As they walked, she noticed a figure standing by the starwell on the top floor. The man's long black hair was what caught her eyes. Not many did she know with that hair, and certainly not in this building. His deep stare pierced her skin, and she couldn't hold back a shudder. He took a drag from his cigarette, puffing the smoke down at her.

Karen snapped her eyes forward as the police left the stairwell. She paused, giving the figure a frown and returned guiding the men to her apartment. Inside, the officers scourged every room, leaving nothing unturned. Once they reached the bedroom, a few leaned back from shock. She heard one gag.