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Unsolved Mysteries

A brown paper box mystery

By Sarah MajewskiPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
1

The air was thick with humidity. It was the type of heat that hung in the air and didn't move once it settled, leaving a trail of sweat on the people it touched.

Pat and George sat under a crystal blue sky, hunched forward in lawn chairs, a dew across their foreheads.

"Well," Pat started, her mouth twisting in exaggeration as she formed the words. "I suppose it started six days ago."

"Seven," George cut in, correcting her.

Pat's dark brown eyes slowly slid over to George and back before she answered.

"Seven. It started seven days ago."

Pat bobbed her head up and down, seemingly lost in the words she had spoken. Words that hung between them, heavy and ripe with tension.

Amy sat across from the couple, her crisp pantsuit a stark difference from their loose-fitting cotton shirts that each held their own story of stains on them. Even with the stains and the sweat marks that lined the arms of their shirts, they were probably more comfortable than Amy. The pantsuit had long since been too hot, the fabric sticking to her thighs and making her legs itch, but she hadn't had time to change. This was her chance to be the first to break a big story, a break Amy desperately needed to push her career forward.

"What started seven days ago, Mrs. Everett?" Amy asked, her tone prodding.

Pat's mouth moved as if she were chewing before she spoke.

"We got a box seven days ago. Not a pretty box, mind you. It was… plain," she said, looking to her husband for assistance.

"She means it didn't have no markings, nothing," George said. "It was a plain brown box, probably about the size of a shoebox."

He lifted his weather-wrinkled hands to demonstrate the size of a shoebox.

"It was wrapped in this brown paper. Plain though, nothing on it."

"I dunno why someone would leave a box like that on someone's doorstep," Pat said, shaking her head back and forth slowly.

A mix of irritation and fascination coiled inside Amy, as she stared at the couple trying to keep her face neutral. How someone could be concerned about the appearance of a box, especially given the circumstances, was beyond her. But that was her job, to figure out the things that were beyond her and put them into words. She loved a mystery, loved the moment of knowing the truth behind that mystery more than anything. And this whole situation was a mystery if ever there was one.

"And what was in the box?" Amy asked.

Pat's eyes shifted, going far away to a memory in her head. George glanced at his wife a moment, before turning back to Amy.

“You see, our daughter was light to everyone. Just a real bright girl,” George said, leaning forward. “Before we got that box, things were normal. Emmie was just her normal smiling self. She wandered off, yeah, but what 6 year old doesn’t?”

Pat looked glanced over as if waking up from a stupor.

“Emmie was always getting into something, that’s for sure,” Pat mumbled. “We’re not bad parents though. I watch my daughter.”

“But seven days ago, something happened?” Amy asked again.

George licked his lips, his tongue flicking as he shifted awkwardly. His shoulders were suddenly hunched as if his words were a physical weight tied around his neck.

“We got the box and we didn’t think nothing was wrong. Just that it was weird. So I brought it in the house and I opened it,” he said, glancing at his wife.

Pat was staring laser-focused at the ground in front of her. George swallowed hard before continuing.

"Well, it was a picture of our Emmie. She was on those swings right over there," he said, pointing. "Whoever took her took that picture."

Pat was nodding emphatically, her tangled hair bouncing at her shoulders. She didn’t look up from the spot in the grass in front of her.

"Was she in distress?"

George shook his head slowly.

"No, she was smiling and pumping her little legs. She didn't know she was being watched, see. But I seen that picture and I yelled for Pat to bring her in. It didn't sit right with me."

Pat crossed her thick arms across her chest, tightly as if hugging herself. Her lips trembled as she formed the words.

"I went out to the yard and I called her," Pat said. Each word came out slowly as if she were assembling them like a puzzle. "Emmie comes when she's called, ya see? She's a good girl."

"But this time was different?" Amy asked.

"Emmie was gone."

Amy leaned forward, the hard plastic straps on her chair squeaking against its metal frame.

"When you realized she was gone, what did you do?"

"Pat called the police and I grabbed my gun. I went out into them woods looking for her," George said. He sucked his teeth slowly. "If I had found the monster who took her, I'd have killed him."

"But he didn't find nothing," Pat said softly. "Not him or the police. We had all them nice people come out looking too, but it was like nothing had ever happened."

Pat paused and looked Amy up and down.

"That is until we got the next box."

Amy sat back in surprise. She hadn't heard about another box. If she was the first person to break that news, it could be huge.

"And what was in that one?"

Pat nodded at George. He slowly pulled himself up from his chair without a word. He limped towards the house like someone who was feeling the full weight of his age.

Amy and Pat sat in silence as they waited for him. The sun beat down and cicadas buzzed in the heat, but Amy suddenly felt cold.

George returned with a small box, wrapped in plain brown paper. The paper had been torn where they opened it but otherwise was still tightly secured to the box.

He stopped in front of Amy and held the box down to her.

"Open it."

Gingerly, Amy pulled off the lid. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, whether it was from the excitement of being the first to break the news or because of the dread of what she might see, she didn't know.

In the center of the box was a Polaroid that was face down. Sloppy handwriting sprawled against the back of its smooth white surface. Curiously, Amy picked it up to read the words and then stopped as if she'd been punched.

It was her address.

Nausea bubbled inside her as she flipped the picture over. The box fell from her knees onto the grass as she looked at the picture.

It was an image of Amy in her home a thousand miles away. She was sitting on the couch with her arms wrapped around her daughter, Julie. They had been snuggling and watching a movie before bed.

Julie had her eyes glued to the screen. Amy was looking down at Julie with a small smile on her tired face. It should have been a peaceful picture, a captured moment of their precious nightly routine. Instead, the picture brought cold dread as she realized it must have been taken by a lurker watching from the back window of her house.

"I don't understand," Amy whispered, tears filling her eyes.

The couple sat watching her closely, taking in her reaction.

"Well, I suppose you should go now," George said slowly. "It seems like you'll be wanting to check on that little girl of yours."

Bile rose to the back of her throat as Amy jumped from her seat, knocking the chair over behind her.

She glanced back and forth between the couple, like a panicked animal caught in a trap, before sprinting to her car.

Once safely in her car, stiflingly hot from the warm sun, she frantically dialed her babysitter's number. The line rang out from her car radio, a chorus of rings that went unanswered. She disconnected the call and dialed 9-1-1 instead.

As it rang, she shifted her car in reverse, her tires crunching in the gravel beneath them. Amy gripped the wheel with shaking hands as she realized that not all mysteries could be solved. With her foot on the pedal and tears in her eyes, Amy prayed that her family would be one of the lucky ones.

Short Story
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