The Children of the Lost Read online

  He nodded, taking off his cowboy hat and smiling a warm, genuine smile. “Call me Rich,” he said, stepping aside to gesture to a blue-and-white Misty Falls police car. “I’m so glad y’all are here. I hope with your help, we might finally be able to get some answers for these parents.”

  We both nodded. “We’d really love to help you do that,” Frank agreed. “They all deserve some closure. ATAC told us they would send our gear to you?”

  Rich nodded. “It’s all waiting for you at the station,” he said. “In fact, let’s head there now. I’d like to fill you two in on the story as it stands right now.”

  Frank and I tossed our small knapsacks of essentials into the trunk and slipped into the car for the ride to town. It only took forty-five minutes, but we must have gone fifty miles down the highway easily, before turning off at a stoplight where a tiny sign promised MISTY FALLS BUSINESS DISTRICT, LEFT.”

  “Was that the closest airport?” I asked Rich. “We’d hate to have made you drive out of your way.”

  Rich laughed—a deep, throaty laugh. “Now I know y’all are city folk,” he said. “For us westerners, fifty miles is just a hop, skip, and jump down the road.”

  We drove down the street we’d turned onto, which looked to be Misty Falls’s main street—blink and you’d miss it! A modest general store stood alongside a hardware store, a tiny diner-type place called Jack’s, and the police station.

  “Wow,” I said. “This is . . . homey.”

  Rich chuckled. “It ain’t New York City, that’s for sure.”

  Frank was looking around the town center with his eyebrows furrowed. “You guys don’t have a post office, even? I thought every town had a post office.”

  Rich laughed again. “Oh, you city kids. We have a P.O.—Flo runs it out of the general store. In fact, they can’t seem to find a driver who wants to cover a fifty-square-mile territory, so everybody comes into Flo’s a couple times a week to pick up their mail. Nobody’s missing much, far as I can tell.”

  He’d pulled into a tiny parking lot that hugged the side of the old brick police station. Once he parked, we all stepped out into the bright sunlight, and then Rich ushered us inside.

  “Hey there, Rich!” a young uniformed cop with a red buzz cut and lots of freckles called as we walked inside.

  “Hey there, Kurt,” Rich replied, smiling as he led us down the hall toward an unmarked door. “I’m gonna have a little talk with these young students, Frank and Joe. They’re down from the university, wanting to ask me some questions about a paper they’re writing on those poor eight kids.”

  Kurt’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, I see,” he said, nodding slowly. “You boys are wasting your time, y’know—I don’t know what happened to that poor boy at the hospital, but those kids were attacked by bears, sure as I’m sittin’ here.”

  I looked back at him, not sure what to say. Thanks? I think you’re not looking at this objectively? But before I could say anything, Rich took my arm and pulled me into a small interview room. Once Frank and I were inside, he shut the door firmly behind me.

  “That’s a pretty common opinion around here, I think you’ll find,” Rich told us, giving us a warning look. “People don’t want to believe a horrendous crime like the abduction of eight children could have happened in their town. It’s much easier to believe it was an accident—unfortunate but natural.”

  Frank looked confused. “But after everything—it’s happened so many times now—don’t they want the criminal caught, if there is one? Aren’t they worried about the safety of their children?”

  Rich sighed. “Well, it’s like this. Most of the children who have disappeared so far have been from outside—tourists, summer vacationers.” He paused. “As tough as it is to understand, I think folks in town think they know better than those tourists. You know, we know the land here—and if you know what you’re doing, you won’t get in trouble.”

  I nodded. “And the families who lost children didn’t know what they were doing?”

  Rich took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to make the locals sound heartless,” he said. “Everyone here felt terrible for those poor folks. Nobody wants to see a parent lose a child,” he added. “I think you’ll find, though—given a choice between worrying about something and not worrying, people will always choose the option that allows them to not worry. In this case, believing those were bear attacks makes the townsfolk feel secure. It allows them to sleep at night.”

  I glanced at my brother and nodded. “That makes sense,” I said.

  Rich nodded slowly, then looked off into the distance, seeming to deflate a little. “As for me, I sleep terribly at night, especially lately.” He paused and looked me right in the eye. “Because I think I may have helped cover up the biggest crime around here in decades.”

  • • •

  Over the course of a couple hours, Rich told us everything we needed to know about the Misty Falls Lost, as the media had crowned the missing eight children. Eight kids, all between the ages of four and eight, all missing from the same park within a span of twelve years. Very little evidence found at each campsite, no footprints, no fingerprints, no DNA. For a long time, no evidence of the children was found . . . until five years ago. Park rangers were removing a sick grizzly bear from the park, and in the cave where it had been hibernating, they found bones that, after DNA testing, turned out to belong to one of the little girls who disappeared. It was a heartbreaking discovery—especially for the parents who’d held out hope of finding their child alive someday—but it also gave credence to the “it was just a bear” theory. If this poor little girl had been the victim of a bear attack, chances were the others had, too.

  As the disappearances continued, though, the story took on a life of its own. Gradually, the tone of the news coverage became less, “Another tragedy in Misty Falls” and more, “What the heck is going on?” Rumors and legends began circling about the disappearances. A ghost story sprang up about a hiker who’d gotten dangerously lost in the park and ended up starving to death. He—local kids referred to him as “Nathan,” though whether an actual Nathan existed was never verified—was claimed to have taken the children as revenge for his own miserable death. Rich thought the story came from an actual piece of evidence in the case; police had photographed the word “lost” written in the dirt with a stick at one of the missing children’s campsites, and several eyewitnesses claimed that the word was scrawled in the dirt at the other abduction sites, too. Those who spread the ghost story claimed that Nathan was lamenting his own fate with the word scrawled in the mud. If he had never become lost, he would have lived—and now, to share his misery, he was making these poor children “lost,” as well.

  “It’s total bunk,” Rich told us, not mincing words. “There was never a body found of any lost hiker fitting Nathan’s description. This is just kids telling stories—people trying to make sense of the unexplainable.”

  Frank nodded slowly. He’s a logical guy, so of course that made sense to him. I, on the other hand, had to admit that my stomach felt a little funny at the thought of the park where we were planning to spend the next seven nights being haunted.

  “Can you tell us more about Justin?” Frank asked.

  “Of course,” said Rich. “He’s the reason you’re here, really. Before he showed up, it was just accepted that all of these poor kids became some nasty animal’s dinner. But now that Justin’s returned—well, it puts a whole new face on the abductions.”

  “You said abductions,” I observed, raising an eyebrow. “Not disappearances.”

  Rich sighed. “Well, boys, if you want to know the truth, maybe I never believed they were ‘disappearances.’ To me, it seemed clear that these children were being taken. To where and for what purpose, I don’t know. But . . .” He paused, his eyes wet with emotion. “Boys, the last little girl we lost, someone cut a flap in the tent where she was sleeping and just pulled her out like a loaf of bread.” He sig
hed, wiping at his eyes. “Does that sound like a bear? Or a mountain lion? Or anything besides the most dangerous animal in the forest—man?”

  Frank frowned and nodded. “Well, it definitely sounds like there’s a lot to be explained.”

  Rich nodded, looking away. After a moment, he seemed to collect himself and turned back to us. “Anyway,” he said, “Justin. I can’t imagine where he’s been or what he’s seen. If he could just tell us, we’d be so much closer to understanding what really happened.” He sighed. “But he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember where he’s been, what his name is—he doesn’t remember anything.”

  I nodded slowly. “Can you tell us—what have his doctors said about his memory loss? Is there a reason for it? Do they think it’s permanent?”

  Rich looked thoughtful, then suddenly sprang up from the desk he’d been sitting on. “I can do better than tell you,” he said. “I can take you to the hospital. Come on, boys—it’s time for you to meet Justin Greer.”

  • • •

  Mercy Hospital was located about ten minutes outside the center of Misty Falls. It was a big compound off a smaller state highway, huge and strangely incongruous in the middle of the prairie.

  “This is the best hospital around for a hundred miles,” Rich explained, “and the best-kept secret. It’s staffed with top doctors and specialists, and when necessary, they bring in experts from the university hospital about two hours away.”

  Outside, the buildings looked rustic—split beams, rough wood, lots of big glass windows. But inside, I was almost dismayed to find that it looked (and smelled) just like any other hospital. Clean, tiled—antiseptic. All of the homey charm of the exterior was lost.

  Rich took us briskly up to the third floor. “Psych ward,” he explained. “That’s where they’re keeping Justin for now, since most of his problems are mental, not physical.”

  I nodded. “And how’s he taking to his care here?”

  Rich looked thoughtful. “He’s very polite,” he said after a moment. Right then, the elevator doors opened and he ushered us out. “Well, you’ll see.”

  Rich led us down the main corridor to a smaller corridor, and then three doors down to a large corner room. “Justin?” he called inside, sounding almost timid. “It’s me, Detective Richard Cole. I’ve brought some friends of mine to meet you.”

  Frank and I hesitantly entered the room behind Rich. I can’t speak for my brother, but I wasn’t sure what we’d find lying there in that hospital bed. A wild child? A foundling? But what confronted us when we looked up was a perfectly normal looking, almost bored teenage boy. His black hair was a little long and was pushed back from his face and behind his ears. He did, when I looked hard at his features, bear more than a passing resemblance to the young boy whose pictures had appeared on the news when Justin Greer disappeared. Otherwise, though, he looked like any kid we might have run across at Bayport High.

  Justin took us in quietly, and it was a few seconds before he seemed to realize he was supposed to say something. “Hello,” he said finally. “I’m . . . they tell me I’m Justin.”

  Frank stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, Justin,” he said, holding out his hand to be shaken. “I’m Frank, and this is my brother, Joe. We’re students down from the university, interested in your case.”

  If Justin understood why Frank was holding out his hand, he made no indication of it. Instead, he sniffed the air.

  “Dinner,” he said. “I smell chicken. It must be coming from down the hall.”

  I sniffed, but I couldn’t detect any hint of dinner smells in the air. Still, within thirty seconds or so, I heard it. The dinner cart rattled in the hall, and soon, a nurse in blue scrubs appeared in the doorway.

  “Good evening, Justin,” she said with a smile, hoisting a covered plate off the cart. “I have some baked chicken for you.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Justin.

  She placed the plate on a tray in front of him and raised the cover. Without even waiting for her to get the cover all the way off, Justin dug in. Even stranger, he didn’t bother to unwrap the silverware that was bunched in a napkin at the side of his plate. He dug in with his fingers, grabbing the chicken and tearing the flesh off the bone with his teeth. Then he dropped that and scooped up a clump of mashed potatoes and gravy with two arched fingers. I glanced at Detective Cole. He raised an eyebrow and gave a little shrug like, Well, what can you do?

  After a few minutes, Justin seemed to slow down and looked apologetically up at us. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it’s rude to eat in front of others. It’s just that I’m very hungry.”

  Frank looked surprised. “No, it’s—it’s totally fine, Justin. Go ahead.”

  Justin scooped up a couple green beans with his hand and ate them. “I suppose you’re wondering,” he said, “what I remember.”

  “We’re curious, yes,” I spoke up.

  Justin turned to look at me head-on. His dark eyes were completely serious; there was no element of irony or doubt in his expression at all. “I don’t remember anything,” he said slowly.

  Then he picked up his cup of pudding and began licking out the leftovers.

  Just then, a young, pretty brunette with curly hair pulled back in a ponytail walked in. She wore a red-and-white-striped outfit—the outfit of the candy-striper volunteers. At first, she seemed not to notice Frank or me, and she headed right for Justin.

  “Good evening, Justin!” she said cheerfully. “I’m glad to see you’re eating well; you still have a good appetite.”

  Justin eyed her quietly. “Thank you,” he said formally, and then pushed his empty plate away.

  The girl moved to take his tray, but then suddenly she seemed to realize that there were others in the room. She turned to face Frank and me with a startled expression. “Oh!” she cried.

  Rich moved forward. “Good evening, Chloe. We didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Oh,” Chloe said with an awkward shrug, “no worries. You didn’t.” It was pretty clear that we had, though. She turned to take in me, and then Frank. Her eyes lingered for a few seconds as she hurriedly adjusted her jumper. Frank just kept looking at her, too . . . like she was some exotic animal we’d happened upon.

  “Hi, Chloe,” I said pointedly, seeing that my brother was not going to introduce us. “I’m Joe, and this is my brother, Frank.”

  “They’re students from the university,” Justin added, his hands neatly folded under his tray. “They’ve come to research a paper on me.”

  Chloe finally tore her eyes away from Frank, smiling at Justin. “Is that right? I guess you’re quite the celebrity.”

  Justin just stared at her blankly.

  “Do you know what that means, Justin?” Rich asked after a moment. “To be a celebrity?”

  Justin shook his head neatly, staring at his empty tray. “I do not.”

  Chloe sighed, and her eyes welled with what seemed to be sympathetic tears. “Don’t worry, Justin,” she said, “you’ll remember everything soon.”

  She grabbed his tray, and Rich caught my eye and nodded, pointing toward the door. “We’ll be back, Justin. I just want to introduce these boys to your doctors,” he explained.

  A few minutes later, we were back in the hall, headed for the nurses’ station.

  “That was odd,” Frank observed, understated as always.

  “He’s so polite,” I added. “But there’s something—wild about him. Eating with his hands, not seeming to know how to talk to people.”

  Rich nodded. “That’s not the half of it,” he told us in a low voice. “Wherever or whatever he comes from, Justin isn’t used to being confined. In his first couple nights here, he slipped past the doctors and nurses several times. Once, they found him in the laundry room, asleep in a pile of clean linens. And one time a security guard found him outside—just sitting perfectly still in an azalea bush. Watching him.”

  I couldn’t help it—I whistled. “Whoa,” I said. “I’m sure h
e’s a nice kid, but . . . that is some creepy stuff.”

  “It’s not really that strange,” Frank insisted logically. “If he really has been living outside . . .”

  Detective Cole shrugged. “I think it’s safe to say, wherever he’s been for the last twelve years, it hasn’t been your typical upbringing in the suburbs.” He glanced up, spotting a tall gray-haired man with a short beard who was wearing a pair of green scrubs. “Aha! Doctor Hubert—just who I wanted to see.”

  The doctor looked up, his expression warming when he saw the detective. “Rich. What brings you here today? I thought the interrogations were done for now.”

  Rich nodded. “They are. I just wanted to bring by these two boys and introduce you. This is Frank and Joe, students from the university who are doing a paper on our Misty Falls Lost.”

  Was it just me, or did some of the warmth drain from Dr. Hubert’s face? “Isn’t that interesting?” He looked up suddenly, seeming to recognize a face behind us. “Doctor Carrini! Why don’t you come meet these boys.” He turned back to us, explaining, “Dr. Carrini is a memory expert down from the university as well—he’s consulting on Justin’s case.”

  We turned to welcome a medium-height dark-haired man in about his forties. He had dark, deep-set eyes, and he seemed to look at Frank and me with some degree of suspicion—or maybe that was just his natural expression. “Hello,” he said in a calm, low voice, holding out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Douglas Carrini. Pleased to meet you.”

  Frank and I said hellos and shook his hand, then Frank spoke. “Can you—either of you, Dr. Hubert or Dr. Carrini—tell us what you know about Justin’s condition?”

  Dr. Hubert spoke first. “Well, physically he’s fine—a bit dehydrated when he was first admitted, but we’ve taken care of that now. Other than that, nothing is wrong with him at all. No head trauma, brain damage—that sort of thing.” He glanced at Dr. Carrini, who nodded.

  “Memory-wise,” Dr. Carrini told us, “he is, as you know, completely lost. He has no memory of any part of his life before Thursday—not his name, not where he lives, not his age, nothing.”