About Last Night

Prattville, Alabama

The grandfather clock in the hall clanged again.

Midnight, and still no sign of her son.

Sheryl stared down at the phone clutched in her hands, scrolling her brain for any other names she could call.

She’d been reluctant to allow Aiden to go out with his friends tonight, especially after what happened last week at his school. A sharp pang gripped her every time she thought about those poor students and teachers. And though he insisted he was fine now, surely Aiden still harbored distress over losing two close friends and several of his peers.

But when he approached her at dinner with a pleading gaze, begging her to let him go to the movies with Lucas and Rory . . . well, she was a sucker for those big brown eyes. And Rory was his best friend, he’d argued, and they hadn’t gotten to do anything for his birthday last Wednesday. So she’d relented and let him take her car on the condition he return home at ten o’ clock sharp.

When ten-thirty rolled around with no sign of Aiden, Sheryl began a campaign of fruitless phone calls. Fear crept in and lodged in her chest as call after call went to his automatic voice mail. The pumpkin spice latte she’d downed earlier in the day turned sour in her stomach. She tried both Lucas and Rory, to no avail. At that point she realized she didn’t have their parents’ numbers.

She’d combed through her list of contacts. No one knew where the boys were, but her neighbor Eric offered to go search for them. Good guy, that Eric.

Desperate, she’d even caved and called Aiden’s father, though Richard was thousands of miles away. He’d relocated from Prattville to Chicago after the divorce and, of course, had no clue where their son could be. However, in typical Richard fashion, he lambasted her for her parenting style that he claimed led to the “disintegration” of their son’s character.

Her phone pinged with an incoming text.

Relief flooded her until she saw the message from Eric. Sorry, no luck.

Her shoulders slumped. She’d given him a list of all the possible places the boys could have gone. If he hadn’t found them . . .

Panic set her nerves on edge. She’d chewed fingernails down to ragged nubs. Jumping to her feet, she paced the length of her living room. There had to be a reasonable explanation. Maybe they’d decided to watch a double feature at the theater. Maybe they were back at Rory’s, playing video games.

Well, she hoped Aiden was enjoying himself wherever he was, because once he got home, he’d be grounded for life.

▪▪▪

A faint ringing pulled Sheryl from restless slumber. She blinked several times, staring mindlessly at her phone alarm.

Seven a.m.

She shot up from the couch and looked around for evidence of Aiden’s return. No dirty shoes by the door. No backpack slumped by the staircase.

She reached for her phone but froze at the thud of footsteps outside. Heart leaping in her chest, she raced to the door and fumbled to turn the lock. The door jerked open.

Aiden stumbled in.

Sheryl gasped at his disheveled appearance. “What happened to you? Where have you been?” His blonde hair was matted and crusted with something dark. A baggy shirt she didn’t recognize hung on his skinny frame. When he turned his head, she caught sight of his swollen cheek and distorted jaw. A strange, patterned imprint marked his jawline. Jagged cuts scored the skin near his clavicle. “Aiden! What’s going on?”

“Mom, stop.” He groaned, raising weak hands in front of his face, as if fending off an attack. He dropped his backpack onto the ground and teetered toward the stairs. “It’s been a long night. We went to hang out at the old cotton mill after the movie. We were goofing around, that’s all. I slipped and fell into the creek.”

“Are you okay? Why didn’t you call? Where were you all night?” Her questions burst out, rapid-fire bullets.

“Mom, Mom, just chill.” He rested his forehead on the staircase bannister. “My phone got smashed up on some rocks when I fell. We crashed at Luke’s place.” He let out another pitiful moan. “Please, let me get some sleep.”

“Aiden, you know I don’t like you going around that old mill at night.” She glared. “I heard the cops caught some kids selling pot there a few weeks ago.”

“Mom, please.” He lifted his head, desperation in his bloodshot eyes.

Knowing her son, he probably hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep.

Then again, neither had she.

But Aiden was here now. Dirty and reeking of creek water, but safe.

A wave of relief doused some of her anger and indignation, and she expelled a sigh. “Fine. Get some sleep. But don’t think that you’re going to wiggle your way out of this one.”

With a grunt of acknowledgment, he clutched the bannister and plodded up the stairs. His bedroom door closed with a loud whump.

Sheryl clucked her tongue as she picked up his muddy backpack. Brand new and already filthy. She headed to the laundry room, where she dumped the ruined bag onto the washing machine. A strange odor emanated from its interior. Creek water wouldn’t smell that . . . rancid, would it?

Frowning, she unzipped the main pocket and pulled out Aiden’s ruined shirt. Large dark blotches stained the torn fabric. A sickening metallic scent lifted into the air.

Blood.

“Aiden?” she called. Had he scraped against some rocks? Was he injured?

As the shirt unfurled, a tiny object fell from it and bounced across the floor. Sheryl bent down, retrieved the item, held it up to the light. She swallowed. Convulsed.

A molar.

“Aiden!” she yelled. His jaw was swollen, his speech slurred. The tooth had to be his. How did he lose a tooth? “Aiden!”

The stench from the bag overpowered the laundry room. Awash with dread, Sheryl pulled the opening wider. Her throat closed as she gaped at the bottom.

Lying next to a crushed cell phone was . . . a severed human hand.

And wrapped around the index finger of that hand was a twisted copper ring.

The ring that Aiden’s best friend Rory always wore.

 

Did you enjoy this story? Read more by downloading our free novella, Unbound: Origins, here.

Photo courtesy of Christopher B. Lugenbeal

For more of his work, visit http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/christopher-lugenbeal.html