There are a few places on Earth that are havens for abductees who have escaped their captivity. Although these places can change, they are found by following a specific sequence hidden in radio signals, songs, and TV shows. You just have to know what to look for. Luckily, I do.
-From the journals of Electra Kaye
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Ross peered in through the windows of the Kaye’s house, frowning. There was no sign of Electra: no car in the driveway, no pictures on the mantle, nothing that would identify the people who lived in the house. “That’s weird.”
“Maybe she went to the coffee shop?” Bobby said, peering in through another window.
“Maybe.” Ross straightened from the window as Theo opened the door, looking at her with a stern frown. “What are you doing?”
Theo looked at him with a smile and a shrug. “It was open, technically not breaking and entering, right Officer? Besides, you wouldn’t be doing your due diligence if you didn’t check out the house, right? To make sure nothing happened to the occupants?”
“That’s not how it works!”
“Oh, well then.” Theo pulled out her phone as she strode into the house, turning on the video camera. “I guess you better stop me then.”
“Theo! Don’t make me arrest you! Bobby!” Ross ran a frustrated hand across his head as Bobby hurried in after Theo, looking around the bare living room. With a groan, he followed the pair inside, looking around himself.
The house was deathly quiet, the furniture and floors pristinely clean. There wasn’t a speck of dust that Ross could see anywhere, no mail, no magazines, just the furniture set up as if a realtor was staging the house for a showing. Theo was already moving through the house, her camera scanning over the empty mantle. “Weren’t there a bunch of pictures up here?”
“Electra and Nora always had a ton of pictures, yeah.” Bobby said as he peeked into the kitchen. The cupboards were all wide open, all the food gone but the plates, pots and pans were left neatly put away just how Electra liked it.
Ross lightly touched his gun, reassuring himself that it was there as he looked around the empty house. He didn’t even have to check upstairs to know the house was empty, but he was going to do it anyways. They had already entered, he might as well do a round through the house. “I’m going to check upstairs, you two stay down here.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together? Safety in numbers.” Theo said innocently, already starting for the stairs. “We can check the upstairs first, and then the basement. Maybe we can find clues to where Ms. Kaye is, Mrs. Kaye was in the rehab facility out in the country, right? We should call and check on her status. Bobby, can you do that?”
“Uhm, sure. Okay, do you remember what it was called?”
“Starry Rest Rehab.” Ross said as he followed Theo upstairs. The girl was on a mission, take a whirlwind tour of the house, recording the empty bedrooms and attic, everything scrubbed clean and devoid of any sign of the people that had lived there. Ross was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as they started back downstairs and into the basement, catching a snippet of Bobby’s conversation.
"How can there be no record of Nora Kaye's visit? She was just there last week! She’s my friend’s Mom, you know, the girl that’s been on the news as missing?” Bobby followed them into the basement. Even down here it was bare, no signs of Nora’s canning, or the family’s laundry, nothing to signify anyone had ever lived there at all. Ross pulled out his flashlight, shining it into the dark corners of the basement.
“This is weird.” He said, turning to face the others. “Electra wouldn’t just up and leave without any word.”
Bobby tapped his phone, staring at Ross with a bewildered look on his face. “Starry Rest Rehab said Nora Kaye has never been to their facility. They said there haven’t been any new patients in months because they’re preparing to close down.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of that, they’ve been open for years, and I know Doctor Zimmerman is always sending people out there.” Ross shook his head, his mind flying through the occurrences of the past week or so. First Maggie had been approached by a stranger, that same stranger was assumed to be the one that kidnapped her. The RV flying into the sky, the government agent that looked like he had come out of some bad old TV show, his missing days, and now this? “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Where are we going?” Theo asked as she turned off her camera. At least now she followed him though, up from the basement and into the kitchen.
“My place, no, strike that. We need someplace that we know hasn’t been tampered with, and I can’t say that about my house right now.” Memories of old spy movies came to mind, bugs hidden in the lampshades, in the wall outlets. If he couldn’t remember what had happened, he had no way of knowing if someone had been in his house. And the whole place had just felt off when he woke up this morning.
“What about one of the study rooms on campus?” Bobby suggested as they headed out of the house. Ross took the time to close the door behind them, although he paused when he spotted something glimmering on the floor by the door, half hidden by leaves.
“Too public.” Ross knelt, picking up what looked like a small silver pocket watch, the outside inscribed in a language he didn’t recognize. He slid it into his pocket to inspect later and turned to hurry towards the car.
“Let’s go to my parents' place then, they’ve been out of town for a week. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us using the place to stage our investigation.” Theo grinned and pulled up a notebook app on her phone, starting to scribble notes into the phone. “This is going to be a great story! Family mysteriously disappears after daughter kidnapped, local police investigating.”
“We’re not putting that on the news, but we will go to your parent’s place. I doubt anyone would think of tampering with their house.” Ross climbed into his car, starting the engine as the other two climbed in the back. Theo’s dad worked in a factory in the next town over, and her mom was a stay-at-home mom, there was no way the government would have eyes on them.
But then he wouldn’t think that Electra and Nora would disappear, or that he’d lose three days, or that aliens existed. He shook his head, heading down the street to Theo’s parents’ place.
As they drove, he noticed other little odd things: a for sale sign up in front of Mr. Greene’s, who had lived in the town for as long as Ross could remember; a black sedan parked outside the police station, two men in black suits and sunglasses standing next to it; and the old bookstore with a closed sign up in front of it. None of it was that weird by itself, except that Mr. Greene had been in the town forever, and Ross had been sure he’d die in the town, and the men in black suits stood out like a sore thumb, and the bookstore had no reason to be closed this early in the day.
He pulled into Theo’s driveway and parked the car. Before getting out, he scanned the street for any suspicious vehicles. But all the cars were familiar, only some were missing. Maybe they had gone out of town for the weekend? He frowned, stepping out into the brisk fall air, and letting the pair out of the back. Theo led the way up to the door, letting them in. “Do either of you want something to drink? Let’s use the dining room table. I’ve got a whiteboard we can start piecing clues together on.”
“Why do you have a whiteboard?” Bobby asked, as if he didn’t have his own in his dorm room.
“Why wouldn’t I have a whiteboard?” Theo said. She ducked into the kitchen, only to return moments later with an entire case of soda and bag of cheesy corn chips. “We have to start with what we know, we’re assuming that aliens abducted Maggie now, what evidence do we have to back up that assumption?”
“Eye-witness reports, and some camera footage.” Ross sat down at the table, pulling out his own notebook. Bobby pulled out his notes and computer, shuffling through them to find the items specifically related to Maggie’s disappearance.
“I’ve got stills from Mr. O’Leary’s camera of both the RV and the man who was driving it, I haven’t been able to pull satellite footage, which is weird because normally I can ha-” Bobby paused, glancing at Ross. “Uhm.... legally access that.”
“We’re off the books right now Bobby. Besides, I’m not stupid.” Ross rolled his eyes. “Is your whiteboard magnetic Theo? And do you have any magnets?”
“Of course, and of course.” Theo disappeared into the kitchen again as Ross ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook, starting to write a list of people jhe knew were missing: Maggie, Electra, and Nora. The entire Kaye family. Maggie was the only one they knew to be kidnapped, but what had happened to Electra and Nora? And who else in the town had gone missing? Without doing a house-by-house check, there was no way to be sure. This was a small town, but not small enough to make that an easy task.
“We know Maggie was kidnapped, we don’t know what happened to Electra and Nora. We know that government agents are poking around, and they aren’t being discreet about it.” Ross stood up as Theo returned, putting a line of cat butt magnets down the left side of the board. He took one of the magnets and used it to pin his list of missing persons to the board. “We also know that I lost three days after talking to someone who claimed to be a government agent.”
“You lost three days? Like you don’t remember anything that happened during those days?” Bobby couldn’t mask the excitement in his voice. He leaned forward. “That’s classic of abductees! Maybe the government agent was an alien!”
Ross looked at Bobby with a frown. The thought of the agent being an alien had occurred to him, but he had dismissed the idea as paranoid. “At this point, I’m willing to believe almost anything. But is there a way to tell for sure if I was abducted?”
“Often abductees will have nightmares of the supposed event, and physical markings that weren’t there before, like new scars. Do you have any new scars?” Bobby asked eagerly.
“You are way too excited about this. I haven’t checked.” Ross said.
“You could be a first-hand witness to aliens, this is exciting! You should check for any marks.” Bobby said. “Theo, can he use your bathroom?”
“First door on the left down the hall, and it’s got a full-length mirror.” Theo smiled as she pointed down the hall. “Go check, or he’ll never shut up about it.”
“I told you aliens visit us in modern times! This could be evidence!”
“This could cost me my job too.” Ross sighed and headed for the bathroom. He might as well check though, if only to put his own mind at ease.
Unfortunately, he found two weird scars, still red around the edges: one was on his wrist, the other was at the base of his spine right above his pants line.
