The curious case of Ted Valentine.
Logan Porter went through his papers. He always did stakeouts alone. Some people believed it best to have two people on the job, as the other person might notice something you didn’t. It was best to have more than one person in case other circumstances arose. Logan Porter thought it a distraction.
He'd been a PI for twenty years, and in that time, he'd seen a bit of everything. Every case he'd ever worked on had ended up with a conviction or the case solved, but his new case was different, somehow…offbeat.
Ted Valentine had mysteriously disappeared from his home without anyone noticing. The only lead to go on was that his wife’s nephews and friends had shown up a few hours later, taking the wife with them. The only real witness—the mailman—had seen the kids leave the house alongside the wife, Vickie Valentine.
There was no doubt Ted Valentine was a prick and a terrible husband, but his parents were worried, and they paid well. The case had also proved to be a challenge, and Porter never walked away from a challenge.
The nephew, Sal, had been slick as an eel in anticipating his every move. He knew more than he was telling. Sal was a popular kid, to be sure: handsome, athletic, and sweet-talking. He'd left his house with some dreamy guy. Porter wasn’t gay, nor was he known to look at guys, but the guy with the dark eyes was something to write home about. Together, the two of them were taller than most people, and it was their appearance that had rung the alarm inside of him.
It had been almost ridiculously easy to follow them. He'd put a tracking device on the minibus in the driveway which the kid, Sal, was driving. He wanted to keep an eye on the boy, but he'd never have believed he'd lead him where he had: a mysterious mansion called Giant Hill, located in a deserted area.
He'd heard the stories of Wallowdale before, but believed it to be a myth; he didn’t have time for ghost stories.
Porter sat in a rental car with tinted windows in the pouring rain, It was pretty draining, sitting in a car for hours. He'd driven past the location once to get a perspective of the area before permanently setting up his position. The country roads he was on made it difficult because there was nobody else around but the freaks in the mansion, which only served to make him stand out that much more.
Luckily, he was able to have parked the car behind some bushes. The bushes reminded him he felt something pressing on his bladder; he had to go. He had a wee bottle—a used coke bottle—but he preferred not to use it.
Porter stepped outside to pee in the bushes only a few feet away from the car, so he could still monitor the situation. He was wearing dark clothing and a baseball cap, which helped him to blend in well with the dark surroundings. He stiffened as he zipped up his pants—there was activity on the perimeter.
One of the freaks had come outside to have a smoke. Porter wouldn’t have known he was there if it hadn't been for his loud cursing.
“Fuck you, Mack. You think you’re so clever. What the fuck do you know, anyway?” Then there was silence.
Porter crawled back into his car and pulled out a set of binoculars. The freak was a kid, not much older than Sal. He was wearing a worn-out green sweatshirt, jeans with holes in them, and hair cut into a Mohawk. Other than the hair, he looked like the others: tall, and with piercing black eyes.
This was big, really big.
There was more to this case than just Ted.
Out of the blue, Sal came running out of the house. He looked like a horse scared out of its wits. Sal didn’t stop running until he literally hit the gate, splitting his eyebrow open. He shook the gate wildly, like a prisoner who had been locked in to serve a life sentence in prison. An umbrella followed soon after. It some guy with scars.
They spoke for a couple of minutes and then went back into the house. The kid with the Mohawk stayed outside for another smoke before stepping on his cigarette and going inside.
Every cell in Porter’s body screamed for him to leave, to go away to a safe place, but for once in his life, Mr. Porter ignored his voice of reason.
What could possibly happen? He had the perfect view to see anyone coming and going.
There was a tapping on the window.
What the hell?
There was no one in sight.
It must have been a bird.
The tapping seemed to form icy drips on his skin.
How could he have been so stupid, so arrogant?
He pulled out his cellphone to call the office when he saw a face grinning at him at the front of the car—the kid with the Mohawk.
Another face was glaring at him from the side window. Porter sucked at the air which had become suddenly thick and almost too difficult to draw in. There was no point in reaching for his gun. Instead, he locked the car doors.
These were no ordinary people—there was something almost supernatural about them. He put the car into drive and brought his foot down hard on the gas pedal, hoping he'd bump them out of the way with his car. Engine noises—similar to those which usually meant trouble for a car—cut through Porter like glass; the wheels spun like crazy, but the car hadn't moved an inch. It was as if the car had been lifted by something.
The kid at the front of the car was laughing maniacally, clearly enjoying the situation. The air sounded with the shatter of breaking glass as the window next to him exploded into a million pieces.
Porter closed his eyes knowing well that he was utterly fucked.
There was no use in screaming.
He'd been arrogant and incautious, and now he would pay the price.
Porter's body was pulled from the car by a couple of hands that possessed a force unlike anything he'd ever experienced and then tossed down on the ground…hard. Something broke inside of him. When he finally allowed his eyelids to flutter open, he saw the ground had been stained red. A wave of pain washed over him as if someone was poking him with a hot branding iron.
Before he fell unconscious, he heard angry voices around him. “God knows who he's been calling, who he'd dragged into this," one of them said. "How could we have been so sloppy?”
"We need to clean this mess up and fast. For that, we need the mind-hacker," another one said.
Then someone ordered, “Stuff him into the barn until we figure out what to do!”
Everything about the place and its people had told Porter’s intuition it had been a trap, yet he'd walked right in and let the door swing shut behind him.