Chapter 10 When the Truth Hunts You Down by. Sam Tinnez #2
I watched as he stood and grabbed a shoe box from one of his office chairs.
He handed me the box and urged me to take a look.
As I opened the box, I saw what I assumed were the pictures of Joey he took from his home.
They seemed relatively normal. It showed birthday parties, Christmas mornings, first days of school.
The typical photos you would take of your child.
However, upon further inspection there was something…
odd. In every picture there was a faint shadow.
It looked to be a man, a tall man. It was barely noticeable, but it was in every single photo within the box.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Why did you come here?” Carter asked, evading my question. “You never actually told me.”
The tension in the room had shifted from antagonistic to curious. “Your wife reached out to a friend of mine to investigate your son’s disappearance. I’m helping out.”
Carter nodded as he thought to himself, probably considering how much he should tell me. “You met with my wife and kids?”
I nodded in response.
“Are they okay?” He asked.
“Relatively, yeah. Janice seems exhausted, Joey seems traumatized, but Nancy is doing well,” I responded.
Carter looked visibly relieved. “Good, that’s good. I didn’t want to leave them. I would do anything to be back with them, but this was the only way.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused what he was going on about.
Carter sighed and called the receptionist to let her know he would be busy for the next few hours. He proceeded to tell me what could only be a made up story, but a story backed up with photographic evidence.
Apparently all of his childhood photos were like Joey’s. They were plagued with this shadow figure. It was shown in every picture of him up until Joey was born. It was as if the figure had transferred from him to his son. So did his dreams and nightmares about the figure.
He used to have nightmares that the figure was taking him nearly every night.
Initially he would scream and his mother would comfort him, but eventually he got used to them.
They were the same every night. It was the figure taking him away.
Joey began to have these dreams as well.
Once Joey’s started, Carter’s stopped. It made no sense how this happened.
He had never told Joey about these dreams, in fact the only person who knew about them was his mother, who passed away when he was sixteen.
Joey would wake up screaming just like he did and described the same circumstances every time.
Carter initially assumed someday the figure would disappear from the photos and the dream would stop like it did for him.
Then the nightmares came back, with one change.
Joey was being taken and he watched. Carter panicked.
He felt like he brought this on his family.
He didn’t know what the figure was, but he did know he was terrified. It felt so real.
Carter ultimately decided he needed to try and take the figure away from Joey.
He assumed he gave it to him, and that maybe if he left then maybe it would leave Joey alone.
Except, in his mind it didn’t. The dreams came true and Joey disappeared.
Carter blamed himself. He felt like he brought this…
thing into his family’s life. He felt so guilty.
That is why he never went back to his family.
We sat there in silence for a moment as I digested his words. In front of me on the desk were two photos. One of Carter as a kid with the figure and one of Joey. It was remarkable the similarities in the photos despite the decades that separated them.
“I know it sounds crazy,” said Carter as he leaned back in his chair.
I sighed. “Yeah, it really does.”
“There is one more thing,” Carter stated as he fished a specific photo out of the box. “It’s not just the figure, but there is one more similarity.”
Carter handed me a photo of what looked like young him standing in front of a tree trunk. What was carved into the tree trunk is what dumbfounded me.
“That sigil appeared on four different trees in my childhood backyard one day. I don’t remember when, or how, but they were just there. I went by the house when Joey was gone. I-I thought maybe I could help. I saw that same sigil in his closet,” Carter stated.
There it was, another tie to the Cult of Creatio. On each tree, the sigil that was popping up all over this case now was the symbol of the Cult of Creatio. It was exactly the same as the drawing in the textbook and in Joey’s closet. It was impossible, yet I was staring right at it.
“You have no idea how this happened?”
Carter shook his head, defeated. He blamed himself for all the pain Joey was experiencing. He loved his son so deeply, it was obvious. “I wish I did.”
“Can I keep these? I can return them when we’re done.” I asked as I gestured towards the now three photos in front of me.
Carter nodded and began to speak when Ashley, his receptionist, came into the office. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your two o’clock meeting is here.”
“Thanks, Ashley,” Carter sighed as she left and turned to me. “Thank you for coming here and listening. Please, if you find anything about what happened to my son let me know. I just need to know if he is safe. That’s all that matters to me.”
I stood and shook his hand. “Of course. Thank you for your time, and Carter? Go home to them, they need you.”
With that I turned and left. As I got in the rental car, I took a pit stop at the beach to contemplate everything I had heard.
The story Carter told me was… well, it was fucking insane. He believed he was being stalked by some shadow figure that kidnapped his son. It was impossible, yet I had the photos in my hand that proved it.
Then there was the sigil. The sigil that was once again exactly the same and once again impossible.
This story was growing and becoming more convoluted with each day.
I was becoming worried about what we had stumbled into.
I wasn’t sure if there were some sort of supernatural happenings, or if there was a cult pulling the strings.
Maybe it was all just a bunch of coincidences.
I just knew that it made me worried, worried about my safety, but mostly Jackie’s.
By the time I made my way back to Theo’s house it was around nine o’clock.
I hadn’t realized how much of the day I wasted away at the beach.
I entered in quietly, hoping to not wake Vi who was most likely asleep by this point.
I stopped in my tracks as I looked at Jackie, who was asleep on the couch.
She was truly one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
“How was your meeting?” I jumped at Theo’s words and saw her standing in the doorway. My eyes widened, hoping she wouldn’t wake Jackie. “Oh don’t worry, she could sleep through a hurricane. Come here, I have some wine I broke out after she passed out.”
I followed Theo into the kitchen. When she offered me the glass, I declined, choosing water instead. “Did she fall asleep recently?” I asked as we sat and drank our respective drinks as we sat at her kitchen table.
“Maybe an hour ago. My meeting ran late and Vi wiped her out. She was exhausted,” Theo stated.
I nodded, not knowing how to respond and feeling oddly tongue-tied.
“Find out anything from Carter?” Theo asked, continuing the conversation.
“You could say that,” I stated, exhaustingly.
“Tell me,” she said as she leaned forward.
“What?” I asked.
“Tell me about what he said. You seem clearly concerned about what you heard,” Theo stated and pointed towards her sister. “She already told me everything so I know what’s going on. It’ll help to get it off your chest.”
I did just that, I spilled everything I learned from Carter to Theo. I needed to tell someone and my thoughts were going crazy considering all of the possibilities. We sat there for maybe an hour as I spilled my guts to her. After I finished, we sat there for a moment.
“Will, do you have feelings for my sister?” Theo asked, breaking the silence.
I sighed, too tired to lie. I told her the truth and said the words out loud for the first time.
“Yeah, I do. But she deserves better than me.”
Theo tilted her head, urging me to continue.
“Jackie is so full of life and joy and brightness. She is all the good things in the world. Yeah, her life has had some impossible moments, but she is still so full of light. I’m the opposite. I have nothing but darkness in me. She deserves more than that.”
Theo nodded. Not arguing with me, but not agreeing. “Well, I am going to head to bed. But Will? Don’t sell yourself short. You deserve some joy in your life.”
With that Theo walked away, presumably towards her room to go to bed.
I did the same as I entered the room I had been staying in.
I stripped off my clothes and put on a pair of sweats and settled into my bed.
Telling Theo what I learned helped calm my mind in regards to the Cult of Creatio, but it was still running with thoughts of Jackie.
Slowly I began to drift asleep when I was awoken abruptly by screaming.
Jackie’s screaming.