Lonely Nightmare VI: Light and Shade
by Justin Glasser
Notes and dedication in section 0
***
“C’mon show me all the light and shade that made your name.”
***
The police station, like everything else in Onowani, was on Main Street, and after breakfast at the diner he and Scully walked over. The snow was just deep enough to creep over the tops of his shoes, and the news was predicting more for “Madison and points west” tonight, but that meant it was warmer. His snot wasn’t freezing when he breathed, so Mulder supposed he should be grateful.
The station was a small tan brick building with the word “Police” in metal letters over the door, just like a thousand other civil service buildings built in the 1950s. The fifties seemed to have been a banner year for old Onowani. Inside the station, three men sat at office chairs around a big desk, drinking coffee and listening to the radio. One of them had a newspaper in his hand: another had his feet up on the desk. They looked up when the sleigh bells hanging from the door handle jangled.
“Hi,” Mulder said. “I’m Fox Mulder, FBI.” He held out his I.D. “This is my partner, Dana Scully. We’re looking for Chief Henry Austin.”
The oldest man stood up. “Yeah, that’s me.” He glanced at the I.D., leaning over the table. “You want some coffee?”
“No, no thank you,” Mulder said. “We’re here about some disappearances reported in the area over the last year. We were wondering if you could tell us some of the circumstances surrounding the cases.”
“Disappearances?” One of the other men smiled. “What disappearances?”
“We’ve had reports that a number of teenagers have gone missing over the last year. Is that true?”
The Chief stepped from behind the table, and leaned back on it, crossing his arms across his chest. “You mean the runaways.”
“You think that ten kids ran away in one year?” Mulder asked.
Chief Austin shrugged. “Onowani’s a small place, Agent Mulder.”
Mulder nodded. “I wonder how many children you have that you can afford to lose ten and not blink,” he said.
“I wonder if you’ve ever lived in a really small town, Agent Mulder. I wonder if you’ve ever been a teenager in a place so small that everyone knows your name, and who you’re going out with, and whether or not you have a pimple. I wonder if you understand just how close a small town can be. How much pressure a town small like Onowani can exert on a teenager. A kid feels that, he might want to run away, do you think?”
“I wonder,” Scully said in a voice that might have been relaying facts about the weather, “if you know that hampering an FBI investigation is a federal offense?”
Chief Austin looked at her. Then he smiled. “She’s a smart girl, huh?” he said to Mulder. Mulder pretended to smile back.
“Listen,” Chief Austin said. “We’re not hampering anyone. You go and talk to whoever you want. Investigate.” He waved his hands at the street outside. “Just don’t come running back to me when you find out those kids took off for Milwaukee and Chicago to live the glamorous lives of hookers and drug dealers. Pleasure to meet you, agents.” He went back around the desk and sat back, putting his feet up again.
“Thank you, Chief.” Mulder opened the door.
“Excuse me, Chief Austin?” Scully asked.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Is this your whole police force?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve got three more men who come in and do the night shift.”
Scully nodded. “Do you just cover the township here, or are you shared with some other towns?”
“We’re Onowani police, Agent Scully. Can I ask why you’re so interested in the workings of my force?”
“No reason.” She shrugged and gave him the wide pleasant smile that Mulder knew meant trouble. Scully’s real smile didn’t have nearly so many teeth in it. “I was just wondering how a hundred and seventy one people managed to pay the salaries of six policemen.”
Chief Austin’s smile grew wider. “I see,” he said. “Again, it was a pleasure.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Scully said.
“Jesus, Scully,” Mulder said, when they got down near the diner. “Rip his throat out. What was that all about?”
“Something I picked up living in a small town, Mulder. Onowani is a township. It’s barely incorporated. You want to tell me how this town can support a police force of its own without the help of neighboring communities? I’d love to know.”
“You think that means anything?”
She shook her head, opening the passenger side door. “Not anything we’re here to investigate.”
“So you just brought up the fact that the Chief of Police might be embezzling, or taking blackmail money, or be involved in the black market or the drug trade for cash because . . . ”
“He called me a little girl, Mulder.”
“He called you a smart girl, Scully.” She gave him the Lisa Nelson look that said he was being stupid and should shut up while he was still ahead.
“Things like this are good to know about you, Scully.”
“Shut up and drive.”
***
The principal of Onowani High, Mrs. Johnson, didn’t give them any trouble. She had a student body of just under a hundred (unlike the police station, the high school did share its services with the surrounding communities) and the disappearance of ten percent of her student body had disturbed her greatly. She set them up in a classroom across from her office, and called Lisa Nelson to the office of the p.a. to speak to them.
Lisa showed up in jeans and a sweater, her hair held back by a headband. Jesus, Mulder thought, and then felt like a dirty old man. He caught Scully looking at him, and felt even dirtier and older.
“Hi!” Lisa said. “Alan said you all might be coming. Okay, so, what can I do for you?”
“You knew most of the people who were . . . the kids who are gone, right?” Mulder asked. She nodded. “We’ll need their names, and the names of their friends.”
“Basically,” Scully said, “we need to talk to anyone who has any idea what’s going on here. Anyone you can think of.”
“Sheesh, that’s, like, the whole student body. You’re only going to need the important ones, though,” she said. “And the ones who’ll talk. Okay, so, do you have something for me to write on?”
Mulder handed her his pen and notebook.
“Cool!” she said, turning it over in her hands, feeling the leather cover. “Do you, like, get one of these when you join the FBI?”
“It was a gift,” he said, glancing at Scully, who had been the giver of that particular gift. Scully seemed not to be paying attention.
“Wow. She must like you. This is, like, calf’s leather, or something, and I used to work at the mall in Lamona, so I know. Your girlfriend gave you this, right?”
“If you could just write down the names, Lisa,” he said. His face felt hot. Scully was looking at the bulletin board displays.
“Okay, sure.” She began to write in that looping bubbly handwriting that was on the letter. Mulder went over to stand next to Scully in front of the countries of Europe display.
“Remember when all of this was just U.S.S.R.?” he asked, pointing. She smiled.
“I’m still not sure what we’re expecting to find, Mulder. We don’t have any leads.”
“Velly true, comrade,” he said.
“So what happens if we talk to all these kids and we don’t get anything?”
“We haf vays of making them talk, Scully.”
“Seriously, Mulder.”
“Seriously?” He shrugged. “We talk to them and see if we get anything interesting out of them. These kids are the only contact we have with the phenomenon, if there even is one. If we don’t get anything, then we go back to your friend Chief Austin, and ask to see his files on the ‘runaways.’ There might be something in there we can follow-up.”
“And if there’s not?”
“That’s what I love about you, Scully, your sunny outlook.”
“I’m just trying to be realistic, Mulder. I know you want to help these kids. I do, too. Alan Nelson is scared out of his mind, and I’m not sure he shouldn’t be, but there doesn’t seem to be anything here. You don’t even have a theory.” She was staring up at him, her voice a harsh whisper so Lisa couldn’t hear.
“Well, actually . . . ”
“What, Mulder?”
“A demonic beast comes and kidnaps kids in pairs at night, and the Police Chief calls the disappearances runaways because he serves the beast?”
Scully hung her head, shaking it slowly back and forth as if to clear it.
“Unbelievable,” she said, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “You are unbelievable.”
“I aim to please,” he said, and went over to see how Lisa’s list was coming along.
***end 6/13***
I’m talking for free: