My son is gone. I don’t know how else to say it or how else to
start this, and I don’t know what the point of any of this is at this
point, but I also feel like this is the only place I can actually talk
and not sound crazy, even if it’s just because everyone here thinks its
just a story I'm telling.
When I say he is gone, my beautiful, smart, funny boy Luke, that is what I mean. Not kidnapped, not run off, not missing. As far as I can tell, he has been obliterated from this world entirely.
Here is my first post with its brief update: Part 1
After my first post the other day, I took to heart some of the advice I received and decided I would try responding to the text messages. I was going to wait until Thursday because I knew my wife and son would be leaving to spend a few days with her parents. Not because of all this, you understand, just a visit that’s been planned for the past few months. The trip is five hours and to another state, so it doesn’t happen often but I saw no reason for them not to go this time, especially when no strangeness had seemed to touch them yet and I was about to do something that might provoke some unknown response.
So yesterday morning I woke up at 630, thinking I’d get up early and have breakfast with them before I went to work, as they would have already left before I got home that night and I wouldn’t see them again until Sunday. When I stepped out of our bedroom, I saw Luke’s door was closed. This was strange, because we never close that door so we can hear him and keep a better eye on him. But I figured he’d just shut it and was either playing or still asleep. I knocked and then opened the door, but it wasn’t his room.
It was the same room, but with no sign of Luke in it. Where his bed
had been there was an eliptical machine with clothes hanging off it.
Instead of a collection of army men and tanks on the floor there were
boxes of books and an old t.v. The room was not full, but there was no
sign of recent movement of objects to or from the room. I even thought
and looked at the walls for thumbtack holes where Luke’s posters had
been hung, but the walls were unmarked and covered with old, faded
paint.
You need to understand that two weeks ago I would have left the room immediately, assuming I had made a mistake or was going crazy, and would have sought the right room or some kind of help. But now, I am already fearful I’m going insane or that something large and terrible is coming for me. I take more care to look and consider, to see if reality is consistent with what I’m perceiving. So it was only after I went through the room thoroughly and found no sign of my boy that I checked the others. And it was only after I had searched everywhere upstairs that I began looking for my wife.
It seems odd to me in retrospect that I didn’t think she would be gone too. Maybe I had some dim, animal sense of her presence in the house, or maybe I was just too overwhelmed to process any more at the moment. In any case, there she was, eating a bowl of cereal at the bar that divides our kitchen and living room. She gave me a sleepy smile at first, but it quickly faded as she saw my expression and heard what I was saying.
“Where’s Luke?”
“Who? Luke?”
I tried to keep my voice even, but I could hear my fear and rage creeping in. “Luke. Our son.. Where is he. What happened to his room. Why are you looking confused?”
I swear she looked genuinely concerned as she stood up and came towards me. “Honey. You need to calm down. I think you had another weird dream. One where we had a child I guess? We don’t have any children, at least not yet.”
I was already shaking my head as she spoke. “No. No. You’re lying, or under someone’s control. We have a fucking child. His name is Luke. He’s going to be five in June. He’s…” I started crying some at that point, and when she reached out to hold me, I didn’t pull away. We kept talking for the next couple of hours, during which she showed me photo albums, social media, emails that all either contained no trace of Luke or actual references to us not having kids yet. I agreed to go to a psychologist immediately, and my wife began making calls, but the quickest I could be seen on a nonemergency basis was this coming Monday, and I got her to agree that making this an emergency was jumping the gun, especially with what it could do to my career or bar license.
She said she needed to go into town in the afternoon and I told her to go, that I was okay. That it was probably just stress and bad dreams. In truth, I needed her to go so I had time for what I needed to do. It may be that I’m crazy, but I’d like to be sure before I commit to that path. If I get medicated, or worse, committed, it may be too late.
So she leaves, me waving and assuring her I'll stay right there, and
ten minutes later I’m my car. I’d like to say that I lied to her to
protect her, and that is true. But it isn’t the whole truth. I also
didn’t trust her entirely, and I wanted to verify Luke’s existence
without her.
So I head to his school. I talk first to his teacher and then the administration. I do it in that order intentionally because I know I’ll likely never get to the teacher if I’ve already been asking strange questions at the office. I try to ask my questions calmly and with some subtlety, but that’s hard to pull off when you are asking about a child that has either been erased or never existed. Both the teacher and the office said Luke was never at that school. They also acted like they didn’t know me, when I have memories of going to open house, two conferences, and the Christmas program.
I sat out in my car afterward for a few minutes, crying and trying to reconcile what I knew and felt with the world I’d woken up in. I was close to giving up and going home before I was missed when something occurred to me. I knew that teacher.
Aside from related to Luke, I’d never been to that school or met that teacher. Yet I knew her name, her face, where her room was, and what it looked like. Whatever was happening, it really was happening, or I was so far gone that I was lying to myself and creating facts as needed to sustain the delusion. In either case, I made the decision to pursue it further.
I text my wife, apologizing for leaving, telling her not to worry and that I’ll be back the following day. I have a long trip ahead of me. Luke was born in the same county my wife is from, the same place I thought they would be heading to today to visit his grandparents. I’d already rejected trying to confirm his existence with my wife’s parents for several reasons, but I did want to check the birth records at the county probate court. It was one of the few official ways of verifying a young child’s existence, and my hope was if there was some kind of….manipulation going on, maybe it wouldn’t go that wide or deep. And yes, I know I sound paranoid and insane at this point, and will moreso later on.
After sending my wife a long text, I finally send a text to the unknown number. “What happened to my son?” I probably typed and erased ten different messages before settling on that one. Not too vague or specific, not overly emotional or confrontational. I waited for ten minutes for a response, but none came. Setting the phone down, I headed out.
There was no way I would make it to the probate court before it closed for the day, so I drove slowly, using the time to think. At one point I stopped and got something to eat at a fast food place, going inside just to be out of the car for a little while. I sat inside after forcing myself to eat a few bites of a burger I didn’t want when I had an idea. I had brought that strange coin with me. I didn’t really remember picking it up, but I was in a frenzied rush when I left the house. I went back up to the condiment bar in the restaurant and got five packs of sugar, emptying them on the table and spreading them in a thick but even circle a little bigger than the coin. My idea was that I could try pressing the coin into the sugar to see if I could tell anything from the imprint it left behind.
I did it on both sides, and on one side there were strange shapes and what might be words along one edge, but they were faint and nothing I recognized. On the other side it seemed like there was a picture of something. Possibly a whale? I tried to take pictures with my phone, but flash washed it out and no flash was too dark. I gave up and went on the road again.
By 1030 I was close to the area and was going to look for a place to park for the night, having found the idea of getting a room with my card somewhat terrifying, as though someone would find me and capture me in my sleep. I had already gotten money out of the ATM before heading out that afternoon, and it needed to last me for a while for food and gas. But speaking of gas, I needed some. I’d been so preoccupied that I let it get down to the fuel light, and the only gas station within the next thirty miles was lit up but closed.
The sign on the door said “Back by midnite”, and while I had no
guarantee it was true, my stupidity had left me with few other options.
So I sat and waited. The attendant did come back a few minutes before
midnight as promised, but something else happened before she got there.
I had gotten out of the car a second time to stretch my legs and wake myself up some, pacing the lit parking lot of the gas station and peering out into the surrounding dark. In the distance I could see the dim shadowy shapes of a couple of houses, partially lit by three amber street lights that seemed to have been haphazardly placed to poorly light this spot in the road. Everything was so still and quiet. It felt like I was the only thing living in some dead or frozen world. Then I saw movement in the distance.
It was at the edge of the pool of light thrown down by the farthest street light, dipping in and out of the dark. I couldn’t see much, and my first thought was that it was a large plastic bag of some sort being blown by the wind. Except it didn’t move right, and there was no wind. I would just catch glimpses of it, light and dark, shiny and rippling, several feet above the ground and bobbing like an obscene balloon tugged by an invisible child. I ran back to my car and locked myself inside, and was ready to leave gas or no gas, but when I looked again it was gone. When the girl came and unlocked the door, I thrust forty dollars at her and pumped the gas as quickly as possible, getting back out on the road too fast but maintaining control of the wheel.
I didn’t stop until I reached the courthouse, and I parked nearby
for the night. My plan had been to sleep in the car, but there was no
sleep to be had at this point. I kept watching for that shape and
writing this that you are reading. If I am able, I will post this
today, which is Friday. This has become a journal of sorts for me, and I
still hold out hope it may lead to help, but at least it will be a
record if nothing else.
Update: Apparently the lady that is in charge of birth and death records is at a funeral and won’t be back until after lunch, so I will post this now. I will try to post again soon with what I found and any other update. Thank you all again for listening and trying to help.
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Credits
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