March 12th, 2007
1
It was getting late. Well, it was already late when they got there, now it was so late it was actually starting to get early. The clock on Quinton’s mom’s minivan read 2:30, and Savannah looked at it with disgust as she lamented on the fruitless endeavor that had been that evening’s search for Miss T, or the Green man or whatever the hell you wanted to call him. They hadn’t seen a single sign of Miss T, or the Green Man, and ever since dinner Quinton had been strangely moody. Or maybe it was her that was acting weird. Ever since she had realized Quinton’s father was dead, she had been struggling to make conversation, almost afraid of her own words, untrusting of herself to say anything even remotely related to fathers, or war, or well, a whole lot of things actually. That was really the problem, wasn’t it? Every time she tried to speak she found herself stumbling into a subject that could be related back to the issue. So instead, they sat in silence, as Quinton trolled the neighborhood like he was the captain of a cursed fishing vessel on the shores of some Edgar Allen Poe story that she only half skimmed in high school.
After they passed out of one subdivision called Palm Shores and crossed into another one called Palm’s Landing, Quinton pulled over the car and put it in park.
“C’mon, were getting out. We’re not gonna find him making so much noise in the car, and besides my legs are starting to get sore anyways. Let’s get out and walk for a bit.”
Savannah, half asleep, gave a woozy nod and an okay, but as she went to get out of the car, her brain sparked with a single coherent thought.
“Wait, what if we find him?” she asked. Yes, what if they found him. Right now they were hunting down a possible deep fried mental patient who had a penchant for stealing cats, if they found him, what would they do? Would they run? Would they tackle him? She was pretty sure that they spoke about this before, that it had been a part of their plan, but now, in her tired state, she can’t remember what was said.
“Don’ worry.” Quinton said. Then he reached over into the glove box and pulled out a small black pistol. Savannah didn’t know much about guns, but it looked like the kind cops used on TV. Maybe it was a 10mm or something like that, either way it scared the living shit out of her.
“A gun? I just want to get my cat back, I never signed on to shoot anybody.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on using it, I just plan on scaring him a little.” Quinton double checked the safety then slid the gun into his back pocket. He proceeded to take the key out of the ignition then close the door, calling to Savannah to follow him.
Not sure what else to do, she went right along with him.
They were slower on foot, covering considerably less ground, and yet in the cool night air, with the breeze blowing softly through her denim jacket, she felt they were closer than ever to finding Miss T. She would, however, be very wrong about that. Another hour or so later, they were sweaty, a little achy and, dog tired.
“Can you take me home now?” Savannah said, too tired to hide the whine in her voice.
Quinton seemed to ponder for a second, as if he wasn’t ready to give up. Then he nodded his head and said okay.
Another ten minute walk took them back to the van and, at 3:43 Am, they turned onto Seashell Lane, the lane where she had seen the Green man the night before. Savannah half expected him to be there again, waiting for her, with his missing face and tattered green hospital gown. Had he been wearing a hospital gown? She couldn’t remember, but in her mind he did. He stood there underneath the streetlight, statuesque, like he was made out of the same material gargoyles are made of. The real streetlight though showed nothing but concrete, and even though she spent her whole night looking for him, his absence relaxed her. She breathed out, a little bit, letting out some of her fear. Only her next breath brought all the fear right back into her.
Something moved in front of the car. A small shadow danced across the road. Then another. Then another. They were cats. Most likely some of the cats who had gotten away the night before.
Savannah reached over to steer the car to the side, but Quinton already stomped on the brakes. Both of them lurched forward, the seatbelt dug into Savannah’s neck, as they came to a halt.
She didn’t even wait for Quinton to park, she hopped out of the car and started after the cats. Once she was out there, she noticed what had to be a dozen more. In all directions, every time she looked she saw the speck of their eyes glowing in the shadow.
“Miss T!” She called, only half expecting it to work.
Quinton finally parked and then got out to join her. He brought out his flashlight and shone it down the alley way between houses. Dozens of cats scattered, running from the light. All the cats seemed to be coming from the same house. It was a house Savannah had driven by a thousand times before and never really stopped to notice. It was not a remarkably creepy house, in fact it was excessively normal, maybe a little outdated, or could use a fresh coat of paint, but not creepy. No the creepy thing about the house was that the door was cracked open. The front door was wooden, with a middle pane of oval shaped glass, and the door was bent in such a way so that a glint of what must have been the tv or a fishtank or something cast an ominous blue glow onto the street. Two more cats ran out the front door, neither of which looked like Miss T.
Savannah looked at Quinton, who had his hand resting on the gun in his back pocket.
“Should we go in?” She asked.
Quinton nodded. He walked up the driveway and to the half open door. He knocked twice then entered.
“Hello? Is anyone home?” he called.
He pushed the door open and it creaked to reveal a dark walkway illuminated by the flickering light of the TV. On the ground was a body. It was the body of a man who had his face seemingly peeled off. The only trace of skin was around the temples and anything other than bone had been picked clean.
Savannah stifled a scream, as Quinton drew his gun. She pulled out her cell phone and started to dial 911, but her hands were too shaky to hit the buttons. She dialed 811, then 91111 and then she looked up. Quinton must have gasped, or said something, or she heard a noise, or something. She wasn’t sure the reason, she just knew she needed to look up. Then she noticed him. There was a man standing over the body. As her eyes traced up from the floor, from the body, up the long legs and torso, her mind already knew what her eyes were going to see. Just like the body on the ground, the man in the doorway was missing his face.
“Don’t move, asshole. We got you dead to rights.” Quinton said, leveling his gun at him, and clicking off the safety with his thumb. “Savannah, call 911.”
This time her fingers somehow hit the right buttons, and she pressed the phone to her face, as she did that the man with no face spoke.
“Are you the one who called me here?”
Are you the one who called me here? As the dispatcher picked up her call, Savannah was at a loss for words. Of all the things she expected to hear out of the faceless man, are you the one who called me here? Was not on the list. His voice was wrong too. It was normal, and not just normal, it was boyish, his voice still not fully deepened to its final resting place.
“Hey man, please don’t shoot. That is a gun I heard right? the faceless man continued.
Hello is anyone there? Hello? said the dispatcher on the other side of her phone.
The sound of that shook her awake. “Yes, I need you to send the police right away.” her voice was frantic, distracted. She told the dispatcher her address and was told the cops were already on the way, apparently someone had already called.
“Police? Oh shit, my mom’s gonna be so pissed. I can’t get arrested again?” he said.
Again? Savannah thought.
“Yeah well you should have thought of that before you killed that man.” Quinton said pointing with his gun down at the body. It may have been a stupid thing not to notice sooner, but she was pretty sure the man was blind. There was something else too, she was pretty sure he wasn’t a man at all, and rather he was a boy maybe a few years younger than she was.
“I didn’t murder anybody. I just…” he trailed off.
“You just what?” Quinton growled.
“I just—well, I heard a funny noise, that’s all. A noise that I heard before, and I was just investigating.”
“Bullshit.” Quinton said.
“No it’s the truth, I swear.”
Savannah’s brain skipped like a CD player on a bumpy road, and went from the death metal of fight or flight, to the smooth piano of curiosity. “What kind of noise?”
“Who said that?”
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“You don’t need to know my name, just answer the question.” She said, doing her best to sound firm.
“It was like a laugh. a really scary laugh, and it made me…” he trailed off again, but Savannah had more than enough for her skin to crawl. He had described the noise that made Miss T go crazy, the same thing that she heard in her room, alone late at night, when no one else was around. A noise that until now had remained rooted in the back of her mind, and locked away behind a door marked “Things I want to forget.” Only, when the faceless man spoke of those things, the door was thrust open, and Savanna’s mind was filled with dread.
Suddenly, the sound of a police siren whooped behind her, growing closer by the second.
“Finish what you were about to say about the noise, what did it make you do?”
But the faceless man had gone quiet. He leaned against the wall, and resigned to his fate. That’s when Savannah noticed that in his right hand was a small thin metal rod, kind of like a fishing pole, and was the unmistakable tool of a person who was visually impaired.
The police siren grew louder.
“Oh man. Oh shit, oh man.” Said the faceless man taking a step towards them.
“Don’t move!” Quinton said holding the gun, and then, finally picking up on the fact that he was blind, and added “I have a fucking gun pointed right at you. Take another step and I’ll shoot.”
“Okay. Okay. Shit. It’s just that there happens to be a dead body right next to me, and I may not be able to see it very well, but shit, I can still smell it. And let me tell you I don’t wanna keep smelling it no more, especially if I’m gonna get arrested again.”
The strangeness of the situation made her brain short circuit, and Quinton seemed to be experiencing the same disconnect. Before they could continue the conversation, two police cruisers pulled into the driveway. Everything after that was a blur. Two nights of no sleep, and a run in with a man with no face, and a dead body had left her feeling spread thin. On top of all that, once the police discovered the bodies (not one but two), everything seemed to get a whole lot blurrier.
The faceless man was led away in cuffs, and Savannah and Quinton were put in back of a cruiser and driven to the police department, where they were questioned for so long she completely lost track of time. They separated her and Quinton and questioned them separately. Once it became clear that their stories matched up, and they were the ones who called 911, they were finally released back into the lobby where their parents were called to come pick them up.
The lobby of the Niceville police station was a utilitarian government building like any other. The washed out lights bathed the dirty linoleum, and the only furniture in the room were uncomfortable metal chairs which were bolted to the ground. Savannah rested her head on her hand, fighting off the urge to fall asleep, while Quinton looked at her with a smug look in his face, like he just caught the Unabomber.
“I can’t believe we actually caught him. It’s a shame we weren’t able to find Miss T, though. Do you think the cops will let us question him, see if he can remember where he put her?”
Savannah mumbled a response, but her heart was not in the conversation. Not only was she sad that none of the seemingly hundreds of cats they found turned out to be Miss T, but she was also starting to question if the faceless man really was the one who took her in the first. She didn’t want to rain on Quinton’s parade, so she kept quiet and didn’t express her inner doubts.
The door to the police station swung open, and with a gust of wind, and the confidence of an overbearing mother, a woman strode into the room. Her hair was poofy and whispy, and colored a honey brown, and she was built short and thin. Her fury however, was ten feet tall.
“How dare you accuse my Mikey of such horrible things. He is a nice boy.” She said shouting at the policeman manning the desk at the front of the room.
“You bring Lieutenant Pullough out here right now, I want to have a word with him!” she said.
“M’am you need to calm down. “You–” his words were drowned out by more shouting, more erratic, angry yelling, from a mother whose child had just been accused of a double homicide. Just as the officer reached for his cuffs, the door behind the desk burst open and policeman with thinned out gray hair and clean-shaven face, put his hand out to stop his officer from tazing the poor woman.
“Judy, there’s no need to yell. Your son is being rightfully detained. This isn’t just some trespassing charge, or scaring some little kids on Halloween, for Christ’s sake, he was found in a house with two dead bodies. You can’t just expect us to let him go because you made a big fuss.”
“Well, no, but…” Judy trailed off. “You know him, you know he could never do something like this.”
“That’s why I’m not the one questioning him. I can’t afford to let that influence the investigation. Now you’re welcome to wait here until he’s free to leave, but if you’re gonna do that you’re gonna act right or I’ll have officer Keldon here put you in a cell until you’re ready to calm down.”
The woman regarded officer Keldon for a moment as if she was considering the offer, as if maybe it might get her closer to her son, then she huffed and plopped herself onto the metal chairs at the far end of the row from Savannah and Quinton.
Quinton waited a few minutes, waited long enough for the vibe of the room to settle back down and then he turned to the mother of the faceless man and asked a question.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you, but are you the Green Man’s mother?”
“What did you just say to me?” said Judy, cocking her head to the side, looking ready to punch Quinton in the eye.
Savannah put her hand out in front of Quinton. “What he meant to say was, are you the mother of the kid we found at the crime scene?”
She narrowed her eyes at Quinton. “I don’t appreciate you calling my son that nasty little nickname. His name is Mikey. He’s a sweet little boy who would never hurt a fly.”
“Your little boy killed two people.” Quinton said.
“You take that back!” Judy shouted.
Officer Keldon stood up from behind the desk and made a move like he was going to come over and arrest them both.
“Quinton leave her alone.” Savannah said pushing him back a bit. “M’am, I’m sorry about my friend. He can be really insensitive sometimes. It’s just, we were the ones who found your son at the crime scene, and, well, we saw some things there that were pretty concerning. Things I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget.”
In her mind she saw the image of the body with its face torn to shreds, revealing the bone mask that lay beneath the skin, and she shuddered.
“What did you see? Did you see Mikey? Is he alright?” she said, suddenly seeming frantic.
“He’s fine.” Quinton said. Savannah cut him off before he could say anything else.
“He’s right. Mikeys gonna be fine. And I’ll tell you something else too, I don’t believe he was the one who killed those people.”
“You don’t?” Quinton and Judy said in unison, though for two different reasons and with two different tones.
“No I don’t.” She said at first to convince herself and then she repeated it convince everyone else. “He doesn’t seem like the type, he barely seemed to know where he was, how could he have overpowered two people."
“Thank you! Finally, someone with some sense.” Judy said, holding out her palms in a righteous exaltation.
“He’s seventeen.” Judy said. “He’s seventeen and he’s blind, and he’s frail. He could never over power anyone. The fact that anyone could think he killed anyone is outright moronic.” She spoke loud enough so that Officer Keldon was forced to hear her reasoning, as if she was saying it not only for Quinton’s benefit, but for the officer’s too.
“It’s okay. I Believe you. I don’t think your son is the one who killed those people.” Savannah said. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know something that could help us find out who did. Tell me, did Mikey mention why he was out of the house?”
Judy frowned and looked away. “Well, no, he didn’t tell me anything. I was asleep when he left. He always likes to take walks at night though, you may not understand but someone like Mikey doesn’t like going out during the day. He’s a little embarrassed of the way he looks. I always tell him he shouldn’t be, but you know teenagers, they obsess over their appearance, even the blind ones. He wasn’t doing anything wrong though, he usually just walks to the park and hangs out on the swing sets. He probably heard someone shouting and got curious. Knowing Mikey, he was probably trying to help save the person who got killed. He probably scared the killer off.”
Quinton rolled his eyes, and Savannah gave him a warning look to not refute anything Judy was saying.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened to your son?” Savannah said.
Judy’s hand went to the silver cross that hung around her neck, and she started to rub her thumb nervously down the charm. “He was in an accident. He was only about 8 years old when it happened. Someone, or some thing, attacked him. We don’t really know what it was, some of the doctors thought it was a coyote, or a racoon, or something, but whatever it was it nearly killed him.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“yeah well, if you’re really sorry, you’ll go tell the police that Mikey’s innocent. You’ll help get my boy out of jail.”
Savannah turned and looked at office Keldon, who was busy doing some paperwork at the front desk and walked over to him. At that moment, her parents, and Quinton’s mom, burst into the police station with near the same energy Judy had a few minutes ago.
“Savannah, oh thank god, are you okay? Are you hurt?” her mother rushed over to her and pulled her into an oppressive hug and started kissing the top of her head. Savannah wanted to pull away, wanted to be embarrassed, but in the end she melted into her mother’s arms, letting the warmth of her body fill her with comfort.
“Before you go Sargent Pullough wants to talk to you both again.” he said.
“You’ve got to be kiddin me, you’ve held our babies long enough.” Quinton’s mom said.
“It’ll only take a moment.” Then the officer radioed for his superior, who popped out from the back room and held a small clipboard in his hand.
“Sorry to hold you all any longer, but I wanted to run something by you, by all of you actually. Do any of you recognize this woman?”
He turned his clipboard and showed a printout picture of old woman with an atrophied right arm. She was not familiar to Savannah, to her she looked like any old woman. The only strange thing about the photo was that the woman was wearing a blue hospital gown, and it was framed as if it were a mugshot.
Savannah shook her head.
“I don’t recognize her.” Said her father.
The Sargent wrinkled his nose and frowned down at the photo.
“She’s the woman who lives in the house where we found the bodies. Seems like no one has seen or heard from her in quite some time. We’ve put out a Silver Alert for a 2005 Saturn Ion, but if any of y’all see this woman, you call us right away. Her name is Rita Emerson. Here take this printout, we have copies.”
He took the photo off his clipboard and held it out for someone to take. Quinton was the only one who seemed interested in what the officer had to say, and he took the photo, folded it, and put it in his pocket.
After that, the Sargent thanked them and showed them to the door. On her way out, Savannah looked back inside the police station, momentarily catching the eye of the Faceless man’s mother. Her words from earlier flashed across her mind. Someone, or some thing, attacked him. We don’t really know what it was, some of the doctors thought it was a coyote, or a racoon, or… Then a horrible image came to her, an image of Miss T doing something so unspeakably evil that she immediately put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes until the image was gone. But it never truly left her, and even after she went home and showered and got into bed, she was still plagued with thoughts of Miss T feasting on the face of a little boy.