Mangled Fingers

Chapter One: Awakening

Cold, brittle, and dark could only explain that day. Detective Jay releasing to the public of the tragic disappearance of his only daughter, Harriet. As he explains on the news, his voice cracked and softens throughout his broadcast. As many watch it on their own dial televisions listening to this tragedy, Forest Jay knew one person wasn't and that was his daughter. His mind slips into a trance, one that is replacing reality with dreams, imagining his daughter running through the crowd to give him a hug, but she wasn't really there. Detective Jay devoted himself to find his daughter and make sure she came out alive, but that doesn't mean he will too.

--1 Day Before Hand--

"Dad! Get up! You got to get to work!", a voice of a female shrieked in the tiny apartment. "Yea... five more minutes Harriet.", Forest says as he rolls himself back into a blanket cocoon. Harriet walked to his room and started to rip the covers off and open the blinds. They've both agreed that Harriet was always the parent, getting a good laugh out of it. "Dad, seriously, I have to get to work and I need to make sure you are leaving for work too!", Harriet said acutely, typically laughing at this point. Something was off, but Forest didn't catch on to it as he was blinded by the harsh rays bouncing off the fresh fallen snow. Harriet's temper got to a point of her just leaving him, "If you are late, I don't care.", Harriet exclaimed. Stretching his body as he heard the door slam, Forest was up and ready to go. Grabbing is coffee and making sure it had 2 creams and 1 sugar, the way he liked it, he was off to work. Forest was a detective and worked for Portland Detective Agency, or better known as PDA. The first sound he hears as he rips open the front doors was chaos. Phones ringing, papers shuffling, people talking on their phones and the boss, known as Fairchild, stomping his way around the office making sure everyone was working. Fairchild looks up at the front doors to see Forest Jay, who was late at this time. Furious and disappointed at Forest for being late, Fairchild comes over to Forest, who was ready to be yelled at, and starts to scream,"Are you kidding me!? I have you on a loose thread! One more mistake and you are gone! Out of here! Got it?!". After getting a nice earful of the boss, Forest just slightly nods and follows Fairchild back to his office. "Anything new? Another call from Ms. Anderson complaining about her missing cat with brown fur and green eyes?", Forest chuckles, as he has been over to her house multiple for a missing cat she has never had. As his eyes narrow, Fairchild wasn't amused with the joke Forest has told. "No, and I would appreciate it if you would take this job seriously. Fingers were found once again, by the Portland Diner in their newspaper rack. We have Godfrey examining  them for fingerprints to scan into the system.", sounding as serious as he can, Fairchild attempts to make Forest understand the task at hand. With an expression of surprise, Forest continues with,"So do you want me to head over to the Diner or talk to Godfrey? If anything--". Fairchild rudely cuts Forest off in the middle of the sentence and lashes out, "I need you to head to the scene, Godfrey is a grown adult, she can do her own job. So how about you do yours?!" As Fairchild finishes he sees Forest already out the door, sighing, Fairchild just sits down at his desk and takes an Advil. Reffing up his engine, Forest's radio turns on to his cassette tape about relaxation. Telling him steps about breathing in deeply, Forest ejects the tape and throws it on his dash broad. Riding downtown to the diner, he pulls into their parking lot and just sits there for a moment. Forest was never a fan on crime scenes, but he was always great at finding clues and the motives of crimes, so instead of letting him advance to forensics, where Godfrey works, Fairchild kept him in the detective business. Opening the door and slamming it as hard as possible to make a grand entrance, Forest walks onto the scene. Revealing his badge to local cops, he ducks under the 'Do Not Cross' tape and looks at the scene. Little blood spots from the dismantled fingers on this Sunday's post, Forest slides gloves on so his fingerprints don't tamper with the crime scene. First flipping through the pages of the newspaper just to find nothing, Forest continues searching. He knew going to the boss with nothing is not an option, so Forest spent two hours searching and searching to soon give up and leave the scene. Driving back to the PDA he notices a crumbled piece of paper on his dashboard. Starting to wonder it was he just shrugged it off due to his car being a total mess in the first place. Forest was the only one able to get in the car, no passengers in the front or back, it was just a 'trash can on wheels' as his colleagues would say. Arriving at the PDA, Forest starts to take out some trash, including the paper, to his trash can by his desk. Throwing it all out from notes to empty soda bottles, his trash was filled, but Forest knew he wasn't going to make another trip to the dumpster out back, so he just left it. As he lounges on his chair, Forest hears his computer dinging to show that he has received an email. Opening it to see it is from fellow Godfrey, he reads it.

Detective Jay,

I finished examining the fingers. We have the name of the victim. Here is her information and any extra information given by others about her. Go to her parent's house to get any other details about their daughter and her usual whereabouts.

Catherine Anderson

12 Harlem Road, Portland, Maine, 11942

Brown hair with Emerald Green eyes

Last Seen: 5 days ago, Hardware Store in town, wearing a read plaid shirt, black beanie, dark denim jeans with high tops.

Hope you can find anything about her. Good luck.

-R. Godfrey

After reading this, Forest releases a loud groan. Worst part of the day, going to the parents of a dead child and hearing them sob. Forest gets up slowly and returns to his car. Driving up to 12 Harlem Road, Forest pulls into their narrow driveway that leads up a hill. Forest exits his car to walk up the steps of their porch, knocking on the door and waits for the moisture in between the door and wall to break. As the door creaks open, Forest looks up to see a women. Noticing it was Ms. Anderson, it hits him that this was her house, but just the roller coaster of the day was already filling his mind quick enough he didn't realize the address. "Hello Ms. Anderson.", Forest says while sighing. "Did you find my missing Cat...? She hasn't been home for five days. Where is she?", Ms. Anderson questions with a worrisome voice. As Forest's head rush with the connecting clues he realizes that she wasn't talking about an animal, but her daughter named Catherine, nicknamed Cat. Flushed with the feeling of remorse, he notices that if he paid more attention to what Ms. Anderson was saying, he would've found Catherine and not have to be up here giving the worse news of a parent's life. After the words of "She is gone" slips out of Forest's mouth, Ms. Anderson slips and falls down into tears. Forest attempts to calm her down, but she closes the door on him. Used to having this happen to him, Forest walked to his car, but he felt guilty about this whole situation. Pulling out of the narrow driveway he decides to go home to the comforts of his tiny apartment and daughter, who would be home at this time. Arriving to the complex, Forest opens the door to find nothing. On a typical Sunday night, Forest would open the door to a hot steaming pizza pie from the local pizzeria down the block and Harriet welcoming him home. That wasn't the case here. Thinking about how she was this morning, he feels as if she was mad at him for not getting up. Forest reaches his cell phone to give her a call, but instead of ringing on his end, he heard a ringtone in his daughter's room. Walking into her room to see it was ransacked and destroyed, Forest drops his phone. Searching around the room in horror, while Harriet's playful ringtone was playing in the background, all he finds weird is a crumbled piece of paper laying on her desk. For how dirty Forest was, Harriet was the total opposite. She always found it fun to clean and make sure her space is clean. So for seeing a piece of garbage on her desk, he knew something wasn't right. Opening it up to reveal it is half a note. Thinking to himself, Forest tries to imagine where he could've found something similar. Bolting out of his apartment with his keys, he races to the PDA to search his trash. Running in and ripping through his garbage he finds the crumbled paper and combines the two with tape, Forest reads quickly.

(Writer's Note: This letter is suppose to have misspellings. Please don't fill comments with the spelling errors. Thank you!)

Dear Dad,

I'm the new Katherine. The Mangle has gotten me. He told me to write this note so you have something to remember me bye before you find my body. He tells me to write about a funny story. Remember that time when Enika and I got stuck in the tree house and you had to grap us out of the window and you fell down the tree and got a big cut. We had to go to the hospetal, but before that we needed to drop Anika off at her house. You were bleeding so much, but you didn't rush because you wanted me safe. We arrived and as soon as the murses saw you they had to rush you to the emergency room. I was super worried and I remember talking to a group of elderly ladees im the lobby. When I ran into your room to give you a hug, I remembered I touched the new stitches and you _hined a bit. This wh_le situation was just funny because we couldn't get _ut of a tree house. I luve you so much and I hope you won't forget me.

Fille_ with Love, Harriet.

Forest's tears stream down his face and hits the paper. Not noticing the plethora of misspellings, he slams the paper down and made it his mission to get his daughter back.