Disturbed Lincoln

8

     My siblings watched the news simply because it mentioned our school, whereas meanwhile, I watched a headline describing the kidnapping of a friend. Well, a friend? Were we even that close? Who was likely to be most devastated by this situation was Clyde, so I broke my empty stare and bolted upstairs to grab my phone. I dialed his number, getting increasingly nervous with every button I pressed, and when typed out fully, I hit the giant "CALL" button. I swallowed hard like I had a large baseball lodged in my throat. I fidgeted with my other hand, trying to release the anxiety that shook my fingers. I hate these awkward moments, why did I have to make a friend? I should've stayed a loner all my life. That way I wouldn't have to call a friend after their friend was kidnapped.

Kidnapped.

I say it so plainly.

     "Lincoln..." the phone says. "Clyde, did you see the news?" I thought I lost connection, as he didn't respond for a while, but upon asking his name again, he spoke. "Yes." His voice was meek and small, barely audible and forcing me to push the phone against my ear despite setting it on speakerphone. "If you need to, you can come over for the night. We can go out or..." Thinking over my words, I didn't think I was saying the correct things, so I tried again. "If you need me, I'm always here. You know that, right?" His voice squeaked another time but was fading. His speech held a whole personality of its own, conveying grief, shock, and as a result, a level of taciturnity. "Thanks, I just... I need some time." For a second you might wonder why a friend is so ready to accept the despair rather than spontaneously jump into a search party, and the reason was—from my assumption—that if Stella's sister was still missing, then what hope does she have finding Stella? Whoever was the captor was exceptional at concealing their tracks, and the police must've realized this too since their investigation so far has come to naught. It hasn't been long, though, it's only been a single morning!

     I impulsively stuttered that to Clyde. "They still have time to find her. She might turn up faster than you think. She might've not even been taken!" I knew that was a foolish thing you suggested, and I was reminded of that foolishness when he replied, "She's gone. You don't have to comfort me, I can be realistic." The line hung dry for a minute, and then Clyde hung up. No goodbye or anything. I was sullen, smiling back under my covers and covering my face with my hands. To my surprise, my phone rang only seconds later, and checking it revealed it was Clyde. "Hello?" I said. His sad voice remained ridden with depression, but now an aggression came forth. "What did he look like? You told me that you saw a man when she visited you. What did it look like?"

"Clyde I-"

"Tell me."

"...Tall, black as coal clothing and skin, empty eyes, horns..."

"Are you going to help me look for her?"

"I'm sorry, are you planning something?"

"Are you or aren't you?"

I wasn't going to let this buffoon get himself hurt. Unlike Stella and Rusty, I actually have a semblance of a friendship with him

"I will."

"Then meet me down at the end of her street where the road curves. Be there in 20 minutes or less."

And he hung up. What did I just get myself into?

I didn't bother asking my mom to drive me. I ran there in maybe fifteen minutes, finding that my friend was already there waiting for me. I halted and bent over panting. He pulled a small photograph from his pocket and held it out for me to see. "If you're asking me what I think you are..." He hisses at me. "I'm not asking you to do anything except look at it." I go from his disgruntled eyes down to the shiny photo. Upon observation, I found I was looking at a house with graffiti on its side. What the graffiti was of, was a black figure circled by numerous symbols. Black, horns, empty eyes... "Where did you find that?" I asked him in disbelief. "After I hung up another news station started covering this: Some graffiti artist is going around town spraying portraits like this. I know you'll fight it no matter how many times I bring it up and how much evidence piles up in support of it, but you HAVE to believe it now. You have the ability to see things other people can't. That's why I wanted you here."

I try to stay logical, but even a cerebral person has the right to question something like this. Unless Clyde was pulling a prank on me, or something I'd seen had later reemerged from my subconscious, I don't know how it's possible that my vision was a reality somewhere. I could believe that it was merely a coincidence: Some odd man with internal demons spray-paints a monster emblematic of his problems. Happens all the time, I'd bet. I know I can't believe that, though, that's disingenuous. If I wanted to use logic, I have to be realistic, and realism tells me that seeing my exact hallucination painted on a wall inexplicably, is insanely incidental. So much so, that it's too hard to disbelieve at this point, that I do have some sort of ability. "What do you want me to do?" I ask Clyde. "Let's start at Stella's house. No one's allowed in because it's still under investigation. Her poor Mom... I guess she couldn't take losing another kid." All I did was silently agree and follow him up the street to the house. When we got in front of it, we stayed on the other side of the street to keep our distance. Police now and then would pass by the door and one would come out, smoke a cigarette, and go back in.

"We're here, now what do you want me to do?"

"I need you to use your... thing."

"I don't know how to do that."

"Well, how'd you do it the last few times?"

"I don't know, it just happened."

"You looked at the cards, you touched Rusty's photo and Stella's earring... I suppose it's just spontaneous. Maybe you have to want to see something?"

"Even if I wanted to find something, I don't want to convince myself of something when it's not true, so I need to be careful. If I want to see a dancing unicorn, it might just happen. Reality and fiction are closely tethered for me."

"Hmm."

We both stood there with dumb looks on our faces trying to piece together a way to will my... screw it, I'll just call it my "Sense." It's hard to make inferences in the absence of a pattern.

"Lincoln," I thought Clyde said.

Turning my head, I discovered that it was not Clyde, but another familiar figure who I was now seeing for the third time. After labeling my Sense, I probably should label him too. I'll call him Horns.