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  Closed at Dark (A Novella)

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  Give the Devil His Due (Book Three)

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  Copyright 2014 by Rob Blackwell

  Cover by Travis Pennington

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This work is entirely fictional. Any similarity between characters and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and pretty much all in your head.

  Closed at Dark

  Rob Blackwell

  For Maia, who makes this all possible

  Chapter One

  Sara Ignatius scanned the playground looking for her son.

  He wasn’t by the swings, slides or merry-go-round, stirring a spark of panic within her. Even now that he was seven years old, she worried she could look up one day to find him suddenly gone. She’d taught Alex to be wary of strangers and she knew kidnappings were statistically unlikely, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that she might one day lose him.

  She finally found him up in “the net,” a pyramid of brightly colored ropes designed to let kids climb in a safe environment. That was the idea anyway. A pole stretched twenty feet into the sky with a web of ropes attached all around it. Sara thought it was still theoretically possible for a kid to fall to his death. Alex had climbed almost as high as he could go and was looking down. He spotted her and waved.

  “Hi, mom!” he shouted.

  Sara waved back and repressed the urge to tell him to come down. She hated the idea of becoming one of those overprotective mothers who never let her child do anything remotely risky.

  “Makes you nervous, doesn’t it?” a voice next to her said.

  Sara jumped momentarily. She looked over to see a man standing next to her.

  “Good God, you startled me,” Sara said.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She recognized him, but it took a minute to remember how. He was the father of a kid on Alex’s soccer team. She thought the boy’s name was Chris, but couldn’t recall the parent’s.

  “And yes, it does worry me,” Sara said. “I’m not quite sure why this contraption is better than just letting them climb a tree.”

  The man chuckled.

  “The tree might have branches that could break,” he said. “Of course, I suppose those ropes could too, but it’s safer because the county designed it to be.”

  He said the last part with a smirk on his face to let her know he was kidding. He was short and stocky, but looked like he kept himself in good shape. His black hair was cut short so that parts of it stood up in the back. It gave him a charmingly boyish look that paired well with his easy manner.

  Sara spotted Chris climbing near Alex and noticed that the two boys were now happily chatting with each other. She didn’t know if the boys were friends at school. Alex rarely gave her much information and her attempts to pry anything loose were usually met with monosyllabic responses.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Sara,” Chris’ father said.

  Sara smiled apologetically.

  “Likewise,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall your name. I feel awkward calling you ‘Chris’ dad.’”

  “Richard Frye,” he said, and laughed. “But you can call me that if you like. All of Chris’ friends do.”

  “I think I’ll stick with Richard,” she said.

  “Looking forward to the first game tomorrow?” he asked.

  She grimaced and he laughed again.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” he said.

  “Not sure why we need to have games on Sundays now,” Sara said. “I thought that was supposed to be our day of rest. To be honest, I was also hoping he’d go out for baseball this year. He may believe he’s the next Beckham, but I’m not sure soccer is his thing.”

  “Has he tried basketball?” Richard asked.

  Sara arched an eyebrow and heard her mother’s voice in her head saying something sarcastic about white people. Several friends of hers had asked a similar question and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was because Alex was black — or biracial, if she was being technical.

  She avoided giving a caustic reply and shrugged instead.

  “Nah,” she said. “We’ll get to that one day, but if he’s too uncoordinated for soccer, I don’t think basketball is the way to go.”

  She didn’t add that with all the money she was spending on activities for Alex, basketball just felt like too much of a stretch. She had a decent salary, but it was relatively low for Arlington, Virginia. It wasn’t like basketball was insanely expensive, but every activity added up, and her pay was all they had to live on.

  “Has Chris considered anything else?”

  “No, he’s just obsessed with soccer,” Richard said. “He wants to do the travel team when it opens up for his age bracket next year. I kind of dread it to be honest. I find it annoying enough to have to go to a different field each week. It feels like the schedule purposely has you driving halfway across the county.”

  “I hear you,” she replied.

  They were joined by Maxine, another parent of a child in Alex’s class. Sara hadn’t even noticed she was standing behind them, but she broke in as if she was already part of the conversation.

  “Well, there are some fields in this county I would never go to,” she said, sounding vaguely conspiratorial.

  Richard appeared surprised to find her there as well. Sara always had to look away when she talked with Maxine. She was attractive enough, thin with brown, curly hair, but she had unusually large front teeth. Sara found it hard not to stare.

  “Hi, Maxine,” Sara said. “How are you?”

  “Well enough,” she said and sighed dramatically. “As well as I can be, at any rate.”

  Sara wondered what that was supposed to mean, but was determined not to follow up. Maxine seemed to gravitate toward Sara whenever they saw each other at a playground or school event. Sara had tried to subtly discourage it by following her son’s example and giving only short responses to Maxine’s apparently endless stream of questions. So far, however, the tactic hadn’t worked.

  “What do you mean?” Richard asked.

  With what felt like immense self-restraint, Sara stopped herself from rolling her eyes. With Maxine, there was always some litany of complaints. If it wasn’t bad health, it was inept contractors working in her home or the crummy weather on her recent vacation. The worst was when she complained about the school. Maxine could find fault with anyone, from the teachers to the principal, even the janitor. Sara worried what it would be this time.

  “Well, it’s this stalker of course,” Maxine said. “It’s only a matter of time before he successfully steals a kid.”

  That won Sara’s full attention and she looked directly at Maxine. As usual, her hair looked like it had taken at least an hour to prepare and sh
e was wearing too much makeup. Who put on foundation to go to a playground?

  “What are you talking about?” Sara asked.

  This was apparently the reaction Maxine was hoping for.

  “You haven’t heard?” she asked.

  Both Richard and Sara shook their heads.

  “It’s all over the listserv,” Maxine said. “There have been sightings of him in McLean, Falls Church and several playgrounds in Arlington.”

  “Sightings of whom?” Sara asked.

  “A suspicious man with white hair,” Maxine said. “He’s supposedly trying to kidnap kids. There was a posting about it just this morning. A woman caught a man with white hair attempting to lead her son away.”

  Sara felt goose-bumps break out on her skin. Maxine was describing every parent’s worst nightmare.

  “What did she do?” she asked.

  “She yelled at him and called the police, but the man ran off,” Maxine said. “By the time they arrived, he was gone.”

  “Jesus,” Richard said. “That’s worrying.”

  “He’s been seen all over the place,” Maxine said. “The police say they’re looking into it, but you know how they are.”

  Sara thought the Arlington police were highly competent, but clearly Maxine disagreed.

  “What does he look like? What else are they saying about him?” Sara asked.

  “He’s apparently tall and thin, with white hair. He lurks on the edge of playgrounds and tries to interact with kids,” Maxine said. “He’s usually trying to convince them to come away with him. Supposedly he even yelled at a nanny who tried to stop him. But every story is the same. By the time the cops show, he’s gone.”

  Sara immediately started looking for Alex again. He wasn’t on the net anymore, and he wasn’t by the slides or swings either.

  “It could just be an urban legend,” Richard said. “You know how these rumors get out of hand.”

  Sara was no longer paying attention. She looked all around the playground — and didn’t see Alex anywhere. She put her hand on Richard’s arm.

  “Do you see Alex?” she asked.

  “I saw him just a second ago,” he said. “He was talking with Chris.”

  But he was no longer near Chris on the ropes. Sara scanned the playground several more times and started to look under the play sets. Sometimes Alex liked to go beneath a particular platform where there was a series of bells he could ring. But she didn’t hear any music this time.

  Richard appeared to catch her panic.

  “I’ll ask Chris where he went,” he said.

  “I’m sure he’s here somewhere,” Maxine said.

  The three of them walked over to Chris, who was still on the net, while Sara started to call Alex’s name. Her voice became steadily louder as she failed to find him. At first she thought she was being paranoid, but it was becoming harder to keep the alarm at bay.

  “Chris, come here buddy,” Richard said.

  The boy climbed down the ropes as Sara got down on her hands and knees to look underneath another one of the slides. There was nobody there.

  “Chris, did you see where Alex went?” Richard asked. “His mother is looking for him.”

  “Yeah, he went to find his father,” Chris said.

  Sara stared at him in alarm.

  “What did you say?”

  “He wanted to go see his dad,” Chris repeated.

  Richard must have registered the horrified look on Sara’s face.

  “Is there some kind of custody issue?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “His father’s dead,” she said.

  Richard’s eyes widened and he looked back at his son.

  “Chris, I need you to listen to me very closely,” he said. “Did he leave with anyone? Was there anybody nearby?”

  “Yeah,” Chris replied, looking from his father to Sara with an expression that said he didn’t understand what the big deal was. “It was a tall guy with white hair.”

  Maxine audibly gasped and immediately started shouting for her son.

  “Which way did he go?” Sara asked, fighting to keep herself calm. She had to keep it together while there was still time.

  Chris pointed to a pathway through a small copse of trees by the playground. Sara made a move to start running into it, but Richard grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t go in there alone,” he said.

  “My son’s back there!” she shouted. “You call the police and follow me if you can.”

  She tore herself from his grip and didn’t wait to hear a response. She started running down the path. She was hampered at first by her sandals, but she kicked them off, letting them fly into the nearby mud. She sprinted in her bare feet. With each step, she heard the same words echo in her mind, “You’re going to lose him. You’re going to lose him.”

  Sara rounded a bend and caught sight of Alex forty feet away from her. He was turned away from her, walking alongside a tall man with white hair. Sara started screaming for Alex, but he didn’t appear to hear her. Instead, he just keep walking. The two were off the path now, heading deeper into the woods.

  “Alex!” she shouted again, but he didn’t turn.

  She ran as fast as she ever had in her life, desperate to catch up to them. She closed the distance remarkably quickly. Just as she was almost on top of them, the man turned to look back at her.

  The first thing she noticed about him was his skin, which was so pale it almost seemed to glow white. It stood out starkly against the black suit he was wearing. Sara thought he looked like an undertaker who had hadn’t seen the sun in years.

  His unruly white hair was thick and unkempt. It gave him a demented air. But it was his eyes that demanded the most attention. They weren’t a normal color; they were silver. She’d never seen eyes that color before. His irises appeared like two round shields. The expression in his eyes seemed hateful and angry.

  Sara ignored him and grabbed Alex by the arm, yanking him toward her. He reacted in alarm.

  “Hey, mom, that hurt!” he said.

  She pushed Alex behind her and faced off against the white-haired man. She didn’t have a weapon, but she had some self-defense training and a surge of adrenaline so powerful she thought she could tear his limbs off if she had to.

  “Get the hell away from my son!” she said.

  The man seemed to tower over her.

  “Your son is next,” he said in a deep voice.

  Then he did the last thing Sara expected: he seemed to pop out of existence, vanishing in front of her eyes. One minute she was staring at him, taking in his weird eyes and tall frame, and the next moment he was gone. Instinctively she looked around for any trace of him, but he had disappeared entirely.

  “Where’d he go?” Alex asked.

  Sara didn’t wait to find out. She turned and grabbed Alex, hoisting him into her arms like she had when he was only two years old, and began sprinting out of the trees. She saw Richard and several other parents running down the nearby path and was grateful she was no longer alone. If the white-haired man showed up again, she would have help.

  She waited until she was on the path before putting Alex down and looking at him head to toe. He appeared unharmed, but confused. He had the same expression that he wore when he woke up in the middle of the night. He seemed groggy.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, paying no attention to the questions that Richard was throwing at her.

  Alex looked around him.

  “How did I end up here?” he asked.

  Sara pulled him toward her and hugged him fiercely. She looked up at Richard.

  “I saw him,” she said. “I saw the man with white hair. He was trying to take Alex.”

  “The police are on their way,” Richard replied. “They’ll find him. They can help.”

  But she thought of the way the man had disappeared and knew Richard was wrong. She remembered those silver eyes staring back at her and knew she wasn’
t dealing with anything human. The police wouldn’t be able to help.

  But she knew one man who could.

  Chapter Two