Encumbered by the incident, he forced his way down the path toward the cruisers. Stumbling down as the voices of his colleagues shouted his name, he wouldn't listen. He felt sick; as far as he knew, no amount of thinking or experience could rationalize what they saw. It was supernatural, demons, spells; he wanted no part in it.
He attempted to open the car, patting his pockets, looking for his keys, until he remembered he wasn't the one who drove. Finally, he stopped, leaning against the car while the rest caught up to him. Holding his stomach.
Wendy was the first to meet him.
"We're not done up there".
Allen looked up at her slowly, the image of her hands forcibly pushed down against the tortured woman on the ground, her strained cries, the horrid moans.
"You might not be, but I am."
"It had to be—"
"I know, I know. We couldn't leave her like that, I know damn it, I know that. But…" When they locked eyes, he noticed the lack of expression on her face. He'd always known her as someone who could bounce back from anything, but even now this seemed like a new extreme. It was unsettling.
"How the fuck are you so calm?". Before Wendy could respond, the sirens of a police cruiser blared behind them. Allen turned around,
"What's the point? More people aren't going to do anything. This isn't something we can solve".
"That's what I was getting to," He turned back toward Wendy. "The husband's missing; there's already a search party looking for him. Chief sent everyone out," Wendy said.
"Did he know about what happened before he sent it out?".
"No, none of us has seen him today."
"Did anyone tell him?"
"No, not that I know of".
Allen thought back to the text, "In the woods."
With or without the text, he would have gone to the police station. He'd always done it; everyone knew what time he would arrive, and just like today, sometimes they would meet him there. The text wasn't needed, and yet he sent it to him. Something wasn't right.
Brushing past Wendy, he charged back toward the house.
"Come on! Enough people are looking for him, let's search the house!" Wendy rushed to his side as they traveled back up the slope, arriving at the shack faster than before. The less he thought about it, the easier it would become; he repeated the "Don't look" until he stomped through the field of sunflowers and stopped at the door. Taking a deep breath, he swung it open and pinched his nose. A sickly warmth struck them both, beads of fire against their skin.
"Have you been inside yet?" Allen said, coughing.
"No, we were waiting for you." Of course.
A whiff of a potent scent pierced through to his nostrils. Taking his hand off his nose, he took another whiff. Woody, slightly sweet.
"It smells like pine sap," Wendy said.
"Yeah, it does".
Apart from the necessities, the little shack was bare of all personality. No pictures, no drawings, no books, no entertainment, only a stove and two beds in the corner. Unless one of them slept on the floor, that was the oddest part about this arrangement. This shack was suitable for one, maybe two if you squeezed them in, but three? And a kid at that. Didn't seem right.
Unlit candles aligned, the walls in a square. Allen was sure that if lit, they would burn the entire place down. He kneeled, noticing a path of cobwebs connecting them. These candles have never been lit before. What was the point then?
"What do you make of this?" Allen asked.
Wendy put on her gloves, separating the two beds; "I don't know." She pulled out a wrinkled Polaroid and showed it to him.
"Hey, that's Mr. Ennis!"
"Who?".
"He's a teacher at my son's school." Allen grabbed the picture. "Who knew he lived all the way out here?".
"Pretty far out to work at the school, don't you think?" Wendy asked.
"Not everyone can afford fast transportation. A job's a job in a small town like this; you'd take anything".
"Believe me, I know," Allen slipped the photo into his breast pocket.
Ultimately, besides the candles and the picture, there wasn't anything notable in the slightest. Still, they couldn't find the source of the heat or the origin of the sap smell, but that wasn't a matter of it being hidden; rather, it was a matter of saving the most obvious room for last. The last room they hadn't checked was a door painted bright green. He refrained from looking at it directly; something told him nothing good would come from it.
If possible, he wished it were someone else in his position. That someone else had their hand on the doorknob, and that someone else turned it and felt the full force of heat that he did. This was a responsibility that he had to bear as a father, to prevent what happened here from reaching his home. As much as he wanted to step back, he took one step forward, then another, breaching the wall of heat until, in his peripheral vision, he caught a large spot in the corner.
The floorboards of the room were completely gone; when he stepped inside, he pressed onto bare dirt. It was spongy; if he stood still for long enough, he could feel his shoes sink; it felt like the inside of a greenhouse. Still, he couldn't find the source of the heat, but, in reality, he'd seen it the moment he entered the room. That previously dark corner of the room was the last thing he had yet looked at.
Cautiously stepping toward the corner, he paused as the same sensation you'd feel when at the edge of a cliff struck him before he got close to it. Taking a step back, he stumbled with his belt, taking out his flashlight. A single click of the flashlight revealed the harrowing details of what this shack truly hid, enlarging the dark corner of the room. A hole with no discernible end, that shot out waves of hot air.
Before Allen had the chance to look into the gullet of the Earth, his name was shouted. Rushing inside, the man panted and, through labored breaths, managed to say,
"Something's happened at the School!".