Author's Note: Hey. This is a response to the-b00k-was-better's type 2 challenge. It is going to be about how Reynie's parents died. I obviously don't own the Mysterious Benedict Society, otherwise I wouldn't be on this website and if anyone made money from writing a story on this website, we would all be very rich by now, wouldn't we? Warnings: Character deaths and language that is probably not appropriate for people ten and below. By the way, I have this weird thing where I keep picturing McCracken as being British so in this story at least, he is. If it bugs you, I apologize but it's one of my odd quirks.
McCracken stood on the street corner, looking up at the house that belonged to the Muldoons. Mr. Curtain had sent him and Crawlings to go into the house and take the little boy, Reynard, to him.
Why Mr. Curtain wanted him, McCracken could only guess. It probably had something to do with what had happened in the park the other day. All he knew was that this was most likely the easiest child to catch, because on top of Reynard only being two, he and his parents were asleep right now; all he and Crawlings would have to do would be to slip in, get Reynard and get out again.
The parents would most likely forget Reynard as soon as one of the Messengers had their next session with Mr. Curtain and "the Whisperer."
"Crawlings, what are you doing?" he said sharply as Crawlings was about to destroy the window.
"Trying to get into the house," Crawlings said. McCracken pulled Crawlings away from the window. Crawlings was an idiot. Mr. Curtain should have sent Hertz to go with him. He would have been a lot more quiet.
"We have to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible," snarled McCracken. "If you break the window, the police will come and we will be in serious trouble."
"Well, how are we getting in the house then?"
McCracken took a safety pin out of his pocket, bent it and inserted the pin into the keyhole. After about five seconds, the lock clicked and he opened the door.
"Like that," McCracken answered coolly. Quietly, they slipped inside the house.
"Wow, I need to get a house like this someday," said Crawlings, looking up at the chandelier.
"Focus, Crawlings, and please shut up." McCracken started going up the stairs carefully, in case the parents were stilll awake. But he needn't have worried because from the first door he passed all he heard were the gentle snores and soft breathing from the parents.
He found the child's room at the end of the hall and quietly opened the door. There was Reynard, fast asleep in his bed, under the blanket. He didn't look very remarkable to McCracken, in fact he looked like a very average child of two with brown hair and a face lightly dusted with freckles. But Mr. Curtain wanted him, for some reason and McCracken intended to bring the boy to him.
He had just taken another step toward the boy when his eyes flew open. The boy stood up in his bed and looked at McCracken.
"Who are you?" he asked. He didn't sound like he was afraid which was a surprise to McCracken, who was quite used to children trembling in fear when they saw him by this point. This child, however, just sounded curious and the fact that he could talk very clearly at this young age instead of just crying and laughing intrigued McCracken a little. But he knew that there was no time to waste, he knew that he had to outsmart the child and bring him to Mr. Curtain.
"What is that to you, ducky?" he asked, keeping himself totally composed and smiling at him.
Reynard frowned. "I do have a name, you know. It's Reynie and you didn't answer my question."
"Well, if you must know, it's McCracken," he said gently, knowing that Reynard, or Reynie, as he seemed to like being called, wouldn't remember anything after tonight.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
Damn, McCracken thought. I can see why Curtain wants him now, he's very clever, a bit too clever for my liking. Before McCracken could think of a lie to tell Reynie, he heard something shatter downstairs.
McCracken swore under his breath and went down stairs to see what Crawlings had broken. To his horror, he saw that the object that smashed was an old fashioned kerosene filled lamp and he saw the liquid trickle toward the fire place, touch a hot coal and then a fire started that engulfed half of the living room.
"Crawlings, you moron!" McCracken shouted. Crawlings was about to retaliate when a piece of burning ash suddenly floated toward his face and landed on one of his eyebrows, where it remained, looking like a firefly. Crawlings impatiently tried getting rid of the burning ash, realizing too late that when he had tripped over the table and broke the lamp, some of the spilled kerosene had gotten on his hand and the second it touched the ash, it ignited. Crawlings cried out and ran around like a maniac, knocking over a few more things which immediately fed the rappidly spreading fire.
McCracken ran to the little kitchen, grabbed the nearest fillable object, filled that half way to the top with water and dumped it on Crawlings' head when he ran into the kitchen. Crawlings spluttered but McCracken had no time to stand around. He ran up the stairs, that was rappidly becoming more and hazardous as the flames crept up the stairs, where even now he could hear the Muldoons waking up, trying to find out what was going on. Without a warning, the grandfather clock by the Muldoon's door caught on fire and fell over, blocking their only chance at escape.
McCracken could hear the man on the other side of the door grunt as he tried to throw his weight against the door but it was no use. McCracken was silently cursing Crawlings for being so careless. Not only were they not going to succeed on their mission but word would get out to the police that a fire had started and killed one of the most well known families in Stonetown.
"Reynie!" a woman's voice screamed. "Reynie, get out of this house right now! Save yourself!"
McCracken stormed into Reynard's room, where the child was standing in the middle of the room, looking terribly frightened.
"What's going on?" he said, horrified.
"There's no time to explain. You have to come with me, NOW!" And without waiting for an answer, he picked him up and carried him out of the room and down the stairs. "Crawlings, we have to get out of here!" Crawlings didn't need to be told twice. He ran as fast as he possibly could out of the unlocked door and McCracken followed him, still trying to keep the struggling Reynie in his arms.
"C'mon! We've got the kid, we've got to get him to Curtain ASAP!" Crawlings shouted as he headed towards the car they took. The left side of his face was badly burned and the eyebrow that the ash had been on was burnt away completely and would probably never grow back.
It was very obvious that he just wanted to go home and forget this night ever happened and McCracken, too, wanted to return to his wife and daughter, to the other life he lived when he wasn't on duty.
But McCracken shook his head.
"The police will be here at any given moment and they will find it suspicious if they find two dead bodies but not the child. We can't hand him over to Curtain right now and at this point, I don't think we ever will." McCracken walked down the street and turned the corner. There was an orphanage nearby and there was most likely other Muldoons in Stonetown that weren't as well known as the ones who had their life extinguished, no pun intended, where the child could stay hidden and, hopefully, forget what happened tonight.
But Reynie, who had been suspicious from the very moment his mother had screamed, was still trying to get away from McCracken and he was putting up a good fight, despite being a toddler.
"Let me go!" he shouted, wriggling in McCracken's arms. "Let me go or I'll call the police!"
McCracken was losing his patience with the child. My God, he thought, he's worse than Jamie when she has a splinter in her foot and won't let either me or Claire take it out. He put the child down but kept a firm grip on his shoulder so he couldn't run away. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a large decorated cigarette case. He had fixed the box a couple of weeks ago out of boredom and it was time for him to see if it had any purposes that would help him.
He shook the box and a horrible clicking and scraping sound started and Reynie stared at the box in utter terror. McCracken, smiling triumphantly, stopped shaking the box. It was just like with Jamie and the splinter, tell her that something bad will happen if she doesn't let him take it out and she will comply with his wishes immediately.
"Now, listen to me, ducky. I'm taking you to an orphanage where you will be looked after by other people since your parents are in no fit state to do that anymore. You are to pretend to be my nephew and not tell anyone about tonight. If you decide to listen to me, you will never see me again. If you do not, well, I will take you to a very dark room and you will have to put up with Pandora here. Understand?"
The boy nodded quickly, his eyes still on the box.
"Good boy," McCracken said, putting the case back in his pocket. Still gripping Reynie's shoulder, he continued on his way to the orphanage.
Leaving the orphanage some minutes later, McCracken found Crawlings waiting for him in the car. Crawlings was touching the place where his eyebrow used to be while McCracken started the car.
"Damn it, Crawlings. All you had to do was keep watch, make sure no police officers were on the streets or that any unwanted visitors decide to make a visit. Not a very difficult task. And what do you do? You set the bloody house on fire-"
"For the love of God, don't remind me!"
"-and killed the parents, who were very well known in this town," McCracken continued to speak over him, his voice becoming eerily calmer with every word that left his lips. "'Proper caution.' That's what I've been telling you this whole god damned time. You-How do you put it?- 'screwed up' and it is now time for you to face the consequences."
They reached the Institute and got out of the car, Crawlings still complaining about his eyebrow, and walked up to the school. A young boy that McCracken had captured two months before, who was now under the name of S.Q. Pedalian, was in Mr. Curtain's office when they arrived.
Curtain looked up as they entered, frowning when he saw no evidence that they had Reynard with them.
"Well?" he asked calmly, a bit too calmly for McCracken's taste. Thank God he wasn't the one who was going to feel the full brunt of it.
Before leaving the room, McCracken said, "Ask Crawlings." Then McCracken went home, knowing that Claire and Jamie were waiting for him.
Author's Note: Sorry that it's been forever since I published anything, I hope you can forgive me. Well, the-b00k-was-better, I hope you liked this, as well as anyone else out there and if you're wondering who Jamie and Claire are, they are a couple of OCs of mine that in this particular universe, if you were paying attention, McCracken's daughter and wife respectively. (Hey, it's possible, Mr. Stewart never said McCracken didn't have a child of his own {or a wide} so it's not technically an alternate universe here.) Well, good night and Merry Christmas to-
*banging can be heard from downstairs and Freddy Krueger is suddenly thrown up the stairs and into the bunk bed*
Freddy: You son of a bitch! I'll kill ya, Pinhead!
Pinhead: *coming up the stairs* And I will tear your soul apart!
*they continue to fight*
Me: *facepalm* They'll never give me a break, even at Christmas.
(Yeah, last bit of insanity there. Freddy comes from the Nightmare on Elm Street series, originally created by Wes Craven and portrayed by Robert Englund, and Pinhead comes from the Hellraiser franchise, from the mind of Clive Barker and being played by Doug Bradley. They hate eachother, apparently. =/ )
Merry Christmas! (And if you're Jewish, happy Hanukkah!) =)