The cold hit me hard when I stepped outside; it always did. As I went down the porch steps, I noticed that snow was falling now, coating the street in a white, fluffy blanket. The sun was setting, so that meant that the night would soon shroud me in its darkness.
I stood in front of my house, a few feet away, staring at the old houses, far off in the distance, amongst the white nothingness that overtook us all in my little corner of town.
I was so still that I could hear the soft rhythm of my heartbeat—and then, somewhere at the edge of the yard to the left, there was movement. A dark figure—motionless, watching me.
I slowly turned my head to see it properly. “Hello?” my voice cracked in the winds that suddenlypicked up. “Who’s there?”
I took a step forward, and the figure shifted, slipping deeper into the white blur beyond the tree line, near the forest behind my house. I was terrified of who it was, but I needed to find Angela.
I’m not afraid of you, Xmas Day Butcher, if you’re even real.
I walked after it, my snow boots crunching in the snow—it started to move deeper into the woods. I walked faster and decided to run, but my foot got caught on something buried in the snow, causing me to fall. I hit the ground hard, the snow breaking my fall. By the time I scrambled back up, the dark figure was gone.
It either escaped, or it was never there at all, and I was losing it.
I felt like I was suffocating as my breath became short and irregular. I was cracking under the pressure of Angela’s disappearance. I needed to get my mind off it, just for a few hours, to feel sane again.
I then remembered that I had work to do. George’s bathroom cabinets weren’t going to fix themselves, and keeping my hands busy was better than chasing dark figures in the distance and thinking about horrific possibilities—possibilities that involved Angela with a person named “The Xmas Day Butcher.”
I had searched through the entire town with Detective Castillo and no one had seen anything. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a ghost had taken her.
George was probably irate with me, and undoubtedly, I had thirty missed calls from him. He wanted to know if I had found Angela yet. I knew he sympathized with me, especially with his own daughter still missing.
Who knows if they’ll ever find that poor girl…ifshe’s still alive.
Whisper’s Creek looked like something out of a Christmas postcard as I walked down Lochlear Lane, gloved hands in my pockets, nearing the town square. I saw snow falling on the rooftops of the town’s shops, and garlands were draped over every door I passed. Kids from the local school laughed as they played in the snow in a fenced-in playground. It was situated in a far corner of the plaza, adjacent to the path I walked to get to the center of town.
I even heard the faint sound of a choir singing inside some faraway church; their voices were soothing—angelic. I tried to listen to it to calm myself down. I wanted to embrace the Christmas spirit, but I had a hard time doing so. Even more so, now that Angela was gone.
The choir only served to remind me of the white, abandoned church that sat on the opposite side of the forest near my home. Lincoln and I had seen it once, when we lived in Mercy’s Light, the orphanage. It reminded him of that dreadful place. He always fantasized about burning it to the ground.
I couldn’t blame him.
Everything felt hollow in Whisper’s Creek, and the Christmas joy that used to subtly hum through me because of Angela had been sucked out of me, leaving me to hate the town even more. I promised myself that when I found her, I’d convince her to leave this dreadful town, once and for all.
The entire time I walked to George’s, I hoped that Detective Castillo would be able to find something on Angela’s deranged abductor—a fingerprint, a strand of hair—any trace of DNAthat could point us in the right direction.
Hopefully the roads would clear out so that she’d be able to take that to a forensics lab.
By the time I reached George’s place on the outskirts of town, my fingers were numb, despite wearing gloves, and my thoughts were darker than the blackening sky above.
His farmhouse looked like it had risen from the snow, like a haunted house. It had a sagging porch, fading paint, and a barn that leaned to one side.
George was waiting on the porch, shaking in the cold, an angry scowl carved deep into his face.
“Lenny! Where the hell have you been?!” he barked.
I waved at him innocently as I walked up his porch steps. “I know, I’m sorry.” I made it to the top and rubbed my hands together for warmth as he stared at me like I was a gremlin. “Angela’s still missing.”
He scoffed, looking away in disgust. “How can this be…” he grumbled. “Why is she gone, Lenny? What the heck is going on?”
I took in a deep breath and looked at him straight in the eye. “I don’t know, George, it’s freaking me out. I’ve searched the whole town. I don’t know where she could’ve gone.”
George stared past me, out at the snowfall. “Clara,” he said quietly. “It’s just like Clara all over again. My goodness gracious. Damn police never found her either. Useless…completely useless! Mayor Hamonte’s lap dogs.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remainedquiet. I didn’t want it to be another case similar to Clara’s. I couldn’t live without Angela.
I didn’t understand what I had done to deserve this cruel punishment, and with Christmas around the corner as well. I thought my childhood had been punishment enough—that I had already gone through all the suffering a single human being could endure. What I learned later is that it never really ends—suffering, that is.
