The Shadow Man (Part 13)

Having to deal with the police twice in one day was exhausting. And, at this point, terrifying and confusing. How do you explain something to the authorities when you don’t even know what happened? Izzy was asleep in bed when everyone left the house. But, when they came back he was…gone.

Jesse sat on the couch in the living room, absentmindedly massaging his left arm. When he saw his father covered in blood Jesse jumped out of fright, smashing into the curio just outside of the kitchen door at full force. Now, the floor was covered in pieces of broken china and glass, while his arm had potentially suffered further damage. Jesse barely noticed. His mind was very far off, at the moment. He was in shock; eyes staring out of the window toward the moon, hand rubbing his arm, mind blank. Jesse might as well have been asleep.

Standing only about six feet away at the base of the stairs, Officer Perez wrote notes as she took Jesse’s father’s statement. Although, it was hard to make sense of the hysterical man was saying. No one blamed him, though. While she wrote down Martin’s recount of how he found Izzy in his closet, Perez made a note in the margin of her notepad the last time she glanced over at Jesse: Glassy eyes, refuses to talk, possibly in shock. She also made sure to write in her notes that all three of Izzy’s family members were with the police earlier in the evening when the boy was potentially killed. They all had an alibi.

‘Complicated circumstances. Good thing I like a challenge…’ Perez thought to herself. ‘But, they’re kind of an unlucky family. I feel bad for them. One kid survives getting hit by a truck and passes out on the sidewalk looking for his missing friend. Then the other son is found…like that.’ The officer had a flashback to twenty minutes earlier when she saw the young teenager sitting disemboweled in his closet with a petrified look on his face, while everyone did their best not to step in the puddle of blood surrounding Izzy. Many of the other officers called to the scene couldn’t stand being in the room, much less looking at a victim as young as Izzy who had been murdered so violently. It was all just too much.

Perez finished taking Martin’s statement and he went to sit with his wife. This time, she was the one who couldn’t stop crying. Her face was buried in her hands as she sobbed. Officer Perez and her captain glanced over at the broken family.

“You’re not supposed to bury your kids,” Captain Mercer said quietly so the family didn’t overhear something they already knew.

“Yeah, I’m guessing they’re thinking something similar, right about now.”

“It seems everything’s getting wrapped up here. The family’s going to spend a few nights in a hotel until we get the scene cleaned up. You wanna head back to the precinct and write your report so you can go home?”

“Uh, sure. Just give me a minute. I need to ask the brother a few more questions.”

Captain Mercer glanced over at the teenager sitting on the couch seemingly lost in thought. “Okay. But, I’m not sure you’ll get anything out of him while he’s in shock.”

Officer Perez and Mercer nodded at each other as the Captain walked out of the house, presumably to write his own report. After tonight, he felt the need to spend time with his own children when he left work. He’d instructed many of the other officers whom had children to go home and do the same. Perez walked over to Jesse, sitting down on the couch next to him.

“I’m sorry about your brother…” she said softly. “Losing a family member is difficult, but, it gets easier to cope with after a while.”

The officer watched Jesse, waiting for him to respond. He didn’t, and Perez was expecting that. Out of everyone, he’s been the most traumatized by everything that had happened since his return from the hospital.

“I know that you’re probably in shock, but if you can hear me…” she put a hand on Jesse’s should squeezing gently. “…you can call me if you need to talk.”

She sat there next to Jesse for a bit noticing that his eyes were still glazed over. Captain Mercer was right; there was no getting through to him in this state. However, Officer Perez had an idea about what was going through Jesse’s mind. She recalled the last time they had met, only about an hour and a half earlier. Jesse mentioned something about shadows.

“You think it was them, don’t you? The shadow…creatures?”

For the first time since he had seen his father covered in his little brother’s blood, Jesse seemed to be focused; his mind clearing of the fog that weighed almost as heavily as his brother’s passing. He looked into Officer Perez’s eyes, not sure if he heard hear correctly.

“How…did you know?” Jesse asked her. ‘What, can she read minds, now?’

“Because you told me about them, earlier,” Perez smiled at the teenager. “No, it wouldn’t make sense, but I can see why you’d think that. If these things have been bothering you for a while. Did Izzy know about them?”

Jesse wasn’t sure if he really wanted to have this conversation. But, she knew it wasn’t his fault. She also knew that in situations such as this many victims’ minds replace what really happened with something that would be much easier to comprehend or deal with: a defense mechanism.

“Yeah…he’s seen one of them, before. It creeped him out. Olivia…saw it, too.”