The Missing Ones

They had begun to disappear one by one. No one knew exactly when the event had started, only that the children in the community started to vanish one summer evening. It started with the Thorton's eight-year old daughter, Theresa, only just down the street. I was awoken by the flash of blue and red lights outside my bedroom window. The next day the local news reported that her estranged father had kidnapped her. Oddly enough, however, was that no one had seen the man eight years after he had been stationed in Kuwait. Ten-year old Liam was next, not even a day later. They said he had been playing down at the park with a group of friends from school and then he was gone. No one had witnessed any other people acting strange that day. Two days later a little straw doll was found close to where they had been playing. They found a similar doll near Theresa's home, right under her playroom window.

The parents were in a state of shock. The streets became silent and the shouts of playful children stopped. Children were brought into their homes early in the evening and no one was left to go out alone. A curfew was put into effect by the sheriff's office and posters littered the utility poles. Signs went up on the store front windows. "Have you seen me?" with pictures of the little boy and girl were everywhere. People speculated that a serial kidnapper had struck our small town. No one could explain the strangeness of the straw dolls left in their places, but they bore a striking resemblance to the children taken. I sat in the silence of my home and wrote down everything that occurred. I dated each page and clipped out the sections found in the newspapers. I silently thanked the powers that be that I had no children of my own.

The days slowly crept by. Two more children went missing and the town was now pretty well shut down. No answers could be found, and no one really spoke to their neighbor any longer. Things had pretty much spiraled from that first disappearance. People pointed fingers at each other, and voices were raised in anger. There was a darkness creeping across the neighborhood. The children no longer laughed or played as their friends were vanishing around them. All that could be found in their places were the strange little dolls. I jumped out of my seat as the phone rang. No one had called me in a very long time, so the sound startled me out of my thoughts. “Hello?” I asked tentatively. “Jacob, it’s happening here too.” “Marcus? Why are you calling me now?” “The disappearances…They have to be linked to what we were studying all of those years ago up in the Dublin Mountains.” I would not think about that now. “No, Marcus, it has nothing to do with that.” “I think you know. Jacob, you have to get rid of it.” I hung up the phone a little too harshly, causing my cat to hiss in distaste. I would not think about Dublin.

Two weeks later, another straw doll was found, not far from the McKenneth’s place. They came to the door ashen in color, no life to be found in their eyes. Their four-year old, Toby, had vanished while playing outside with the family dog. The next day, a little girl, not much older than Toby disappeared while simply walking across the road to visit her aunt. Too many children were vanishing, and no one knew who, or what, was responsible. They were disappearing in broad daylight now, spirited away into the mists, never to be seen again. I opened the curtain just a fraction to peer outside. Marcus knew, or at least, had an idea. Marcus was a fool.