Who the f**k was beating him, who was he hiding from and why?
These questions were strangely exclusive at the same time inclusive. Somehow, whoever got hold of him got the chance to do it.
But they didn’t know about this place. He kept this a secret.
So how did he keep getting beaten?
Terry looked to Chace. “You want lights brought up?”
Chace looked at his watch then his gaze went to Terry. “Not tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll come back up, get a better look around in the daylight, follow that blood, see if we can get anywhere with that.”
Dave and Terry nodded.
Chace reluctantly turned to the shed.
“Bad shit, man,” Dave murmured. “Popped Terry’s cherry, steppin’ into that.”
Terrific.
“Won’t sleep tonight,” Terry mumbled, glancing at the shed then back at Chace. “How old was he?”
“He is nine, maybe ten,” Chace replied.
“Is, right, is,” Terry mumbled again, this time quickly then he asked, “He good?”
“No,” Chace answered.
“Right,” Terry muttered.
Chace studied Terry a moment and decided not to tell him there’d be other sleepless nights. Memories of this and new memories. Traffic accidents. Domestic disturbances. Child abuse. Suicide. Overdoses. Small town didn’t mean small crime. Even with a clean Department. He stayed the course, made it his career, he’d have enough to haunt his sleep for the rest of his life.
Unless he found a good woman to sleep beside him.
On that thought, Chace turned to the shed to create the next ghost that would haunt his, a ghost only the likes of Faye Goodknight could beat away.
He felt Deck move with him and they both trained their flashlights on the door. Rickety, planks warped. Lots of space in between and not only on the door. There was a wind, snow, it’d rush through and settle inside.
It wasn’t much but for a desperate kid, it was better than nothing.
The door hung drunkenly and it was a miracle it held. The shed wasn’t built in this decade or the last. It was, like the trap, unused and long-forgotten. A great hiding place in the summer. A desperate one in the winter.
He carefully pulled open the door, stepped inside and held his body tight as he swung the flashlight around and tried not to breathe in.
“Remember, kid was here awhile, man,” Deck whispered behind him.
The smell eloquently stated that. So did the state of the sleeping bag. Malachi had been unable to move so a week’s worth of bodily mess was visible to the eye and reeking in the small space. The sleeping bag had been zipped open and thrown wide to get him out so the inside was visible and stained with not a small amount of excrement, urine and copious amounts of dried blood.
Chace moved the flashlight around the area and his eyes followed the beam. Malachi had set up his sleeping area against one side of the shed. Under the sleeping bag were some thin, torn pieces of fabric. They looked heavy, they were definitely discarded. Likely from someone’s trash. These were under his sleeping bag which meant, until Chace and Faye gave him that bag, they were all he had. Chace couldn’t even make out if they were blankets or rags. What they were were definitely not enough to shield him from the cold.
At the top of this mess, a small, round cushion, definitely a castoff, stuffing coming out, soiled, dirty.
His pillow.
By the pillow, a bag of bread torn open as if by fumbling hands, blood on the plastic, blood stark on the scattered white of pieces of bred. Eight bottles of water, empty. Six energy drink bottles, empty. The shampoo bottle sitting on its side, blood on it, top not on, shampoo leaking out. The tube of Neosporin, no cap, squeezed dry. Two apple cores. An empty bag of baby carrots with blood smears. Four banana peels, not peeled off, ripped open, teeth marks visible on the inside skins now brown. He’d gnawed the meat out. The bottle of ibuprofen, blood on its sides, unopened. Possibly too difficult to get the cap off with torn up hands and a broken arm but the pain was bad enough, he’d tried. A milk jug opened and on its side, milk still in it, its sour smell mingling with the foul odor. The flashlight Faye got him was amongst this mess, on its side, the light pointed toward the sleeping area, no beam coming from it now.
He moved his light across the back wall and felt his gut get tight.
Six milk crates, plastic, probably stolen from behind the grocery store. Three upended and against the dirt and snow at the floor of the shed. Three sitting on top holding their precious contents away from the dirt and wet. One held the carefully packed remnants of food and drink Chace and Faye had given him. One held his sparse collection of clothing, folded precisely, organized carefully. One held the other bits and pieces, the stacks of paper plates and bowls, his camp cutlery, bottle of vitamins, toothpaste, toothbrush, the packs of batteries Chace bought him to go with his flashlight.