More from that dark place in my mind...
Beware of mixed tenses and shifting POV.
*BOS*
It's freezing and she's alone but Cupcake doesn't care. Her father was finally paying attention to her. They'd gone to a movie in Old Fordge Valley and even got ice cream after! He never takes her anywhere. For the longest time, she thought he didn't love her.
No matter how many pretty things she had, or what she wore...she wasn't pretty. Or little. Or graceful. She looked like a boy in a dress. She was big, her voice all wrong for a girl. Maybe that's why he didn't want to be seen with her. But now she was starting to look different. Her hair was longer, her clothes were fitting better. Now he would look at her and smile, not frown. Today being her 13th birthday made it even better!
It was late when they headed home. And, as luck would have it, when the car broke down. This stretch of road also happened to have notoriously bad cell reception. Town was a short walk but he said she'd be safer in the car, walking in the road was dangerous.
"Open your present, be back before you know it."
Richard Demarco returned with a tow truck to discover the passenger door open, his daughter gone. He calls out for her but gets no answer. Funny, it's the driver that catches the clue.
By slipping on a patch of ice over the guardrail and landing on it.
In an otherwise pristine field of snow, lies a crushed pink cell covered in unicorn stickers. Beside it a pink sparkly diary. Open with something strange scrawled inside.
/So sweet. So...delicious./
Nearby was a book mark with a name the same crimson color as the words in the book, dark spots splattered on it.
A thin trail of it leading deep into the woods. Where something with glowing blue eyes is watching.
The man lets out a horrified shriek.
*BS*
Don't go to the lake.
That's been drilled into their heads since birth. It'd been a week since that night and Cupcake was still missing. The field the separated the road from the forest. The beyond the forest stood Burgess Lake, the very one they were always told to avoid. It wasn't official but everyone knew the girl was dead. If he takes a child, they're never seen again. All they ever find is the blood.
Story goes the lake used to be a gathering place for cultists who fled to the new world like the pilgrims. One particularly harsh winter it was thought their god had been angered. A pair of settler children were kidnapped as sacrifices to the god that lived in the lake. That got the Burgess villagers to hunt them down. After the slaughter, the girl was discovered to be spared but her older brother's body was never found, only blood leading out to the frozen lake center.
That's just a legend. There's no legit record anything of the sort took place. No child has gone missing there since. Unfortunately the alternative was no less disturbing. Some psycho using the legend to cover his tracks. Taking children and leaving only some of their blood behind.
Jaime had chased Abby there once when she got wind of a squirrel and his mother went ballistic.
"Jaime, never do that again!"
"But why? Why is everyone so scared of that lake. It's water. Does some maniac live out there? Then why is it okay for adults to be there?!" That was the last straw. You can only tell a child no so many times without giving a reason why. The answer was no since he was little. Now he's too old for 'because I said so'.
"Jaime...please. It's not safe." she sobbed. "Do as you're told. Please."
Why won't they talk about it?
A few days later, he finds Pippa crying on the playground. She's hiding in the tubes, eyes red and puffy from tears. She gives him the first real clue.
"Dad and Mom are fighting. She said he's going to jail."
"I'm sorry Pip-"
"No! It's my fault!" She bawls. "He...he said if he just took me the lake then he wouldn't have had to steal."
Huh?
"Momma hit him when he said that." She drew her knees up to her chest. "She that he'll get me if they do that. Then he said that's fine with him."
"Who'll get you Pip?"
"They won't say his name. My cousin said if you say his name he'll come to you. That's how he got Cupcake; her dad left her there knowing he'd get her."
That seemed to be the popular opinion among the children but the cops leaned towards a more selfish, less supernatural explanation. The Demarcos barely acknowledged having a daughter p til then but were supposedly so distraught after the incident. Giving heartfelt pleas to her kidnapper for her safe return. Offering large rewards for information. Lavishing in the attention from the media.
But never once showing any real emotion.
The handwriting in the diary wasn't a match for anyone the police tested, not even the victim. That wasn't the case for the bookmark with the name on it. It matched her father's writing. A detail the paper published but omitted what was actually on it. Only hint that 'he' might be being used to cover the unthinkable.
No one will say who this 'he' is. So Jaimee starts to listen when others think he's not. Eavesdropping on older kids too. One day he finds a scrap of paper two 8th grade girls were passing in an assembly on the floor.
-My mom thinks he's coming for her. That Pippi girl.-
-Yeah. He lives in the lake and eats unwanted children.-
-That's stupid. Lots of folks don't want their kids and he doesn't take them.-
-You have to be near the lake and speak his name so he can get you.-
-Really? What's his name?-
-Jac- there's a slanted line right after that. One of the girls must have snatched it away when a teacher walked by.
Jaime throws it away as he files out with his class. But now more curious than ever.
*BS*
His mother worked late at her office that night, barely awake on the drive back. She's snapped to waking when she arrives home to find her yard swarming with police. The back of the house had been charred, fire fighters just disconnecting the hose from a nearby hydrant. Panicked, she hardly remembers to put it in park before leaping out.
"Oh god! My children!" She tries to run inside but is stopped by an officer.
"Mrs Bennett?"
"Yes goddammit! Let me go my kids are in there!"
"Ma'am, you cannot enter. Not yet."
"Are they hurt?! Where are Jamie and Sophie?!"
"Ma'am...we respond to a call about a fire. We broke down the door to put it out, house was locked up tight. The stove top was on but-"
"WHERE ARE MY KIDS?!"
"...we don't know."
The hysterical woman broke away from him. Driven by a force to mighty to be held back. Before anyone can react, there's a blood curdling scream from inside and the first policeman knows she's seen it.
There's writing on the wall of the living room. Writing in blood still wet to the touch.
/This town has such sweet children. And now they're mine to have./
Anita Bennett passes out just as authorities rush in after her.
She doesn't know until the next day the true scope of the horror. It's not until she talks to her friend Lisa that it sinks in. That she becomes aware the whole thing wasn't some fever dream. Because Lisa's Claude and Caleb were gone too. So were their friends Pippa and Monty. Vanished with only those chilling words on the living room, bedroom or bathroom walls. The only other common thread even more unsettling. Abandoned cellphones all displaying the same text.
/Who's Jack Frost?/
It had come from Cupcakes' phone moments after her father left the car over a week before.
*BOS*
Yeah, I have no explanation. Siren just felt like it so I was obligated to write it down. See more of her influence in my other works if you'd like.