Cold Thin Air Volume 1 Page 2

  The night the door was opened is the most vivid memory I have. I was at a friend's house when my mother called me and told me to come home immediately. This, in itself, was strange as my mother barely even acknowledged me and never, ever called me.

  I drove the 5 miles back to my neighborhood but I had a hard time getting in. I started to panic as I desperately weaved through all the media vans, police cars, and SWAT trucks. I had to park and walk the final three blocks to my house, tears rolling down my cheeks as I realized that my street was at the epicenter of it all. Because I knew. As soon as I saw my house, I realized it - my dad must be dead. It had finally gotten out and it had killed my dad.

  I took off at a dead run then, ignoring all the voices yelling at me to stop. I dodged in between the vehicles, pushing past dozens of people, ran through the crime scene tape and directly into my house - and there it was. Across from the living room, next to my bedroom, the hall closet stood with its door open. All the jackets and sweaters had been pulled out of it and on the back wall I saw it - another door.

  For whatever reason, no one stopped me. I stumbled into the closet, through the hidden door, and out into the room I'd always known was there. But it wasn't what I thought it'd be.

  The media called my dad The Skinner of Steerborn Street. And from what I saw in that room, it was a very fitting name. There were knives, all sorts really. And there were metal devices stacked along one wall, at least a hundred of them. Most I didn't recognize, but a few I had seen in history books. There were 4 set of manacles, a wall of chains and rolls of duct tape. In the middle of the room there was a flat table which was, very clearly, blood soaked. A tall stool sat at the head of the table.

  But the worst of it was the wall - my wall. Every inch of it was covered in carvings. But the carvings weren't satanic or evil like I'd thought. The carvings were words.

  Jacob, I love you. -Diana Hobb

  Tell my father I forgive him. -Brian Woodlin

  Tara, I'm so sorry. -Michael Mcnulty

  Tell my daughters they were my world. -Angela Waterstone

  According to the evidence file there were over 60 of these messages. And I made myself read every single one. They haunt me every night. I had spent ten years tormenting them and they would now forever torment me.

  I live in a hospital now and I can still hear the scratching. Every time I close my eyes, I hear it. I haven't really slept in a year. My doctor says if I don’t sleep soon, I’ll die. I spend my days watching news coverage of my father's trial, and I spend my nights staring at the walls. The drugs don't work, but they keep giving them to me anyway. And though I try every night, I can never fall asleep. I always hear the scratching. And I always will.

  Who Killed Jacob Bennett?

  I live in a backwoods, crappy town in the Midwest. It's a boring, medium sized city carved out of the dense Ozarks of Southeast Missouri. Growing up here had been difficult. I come from a large, violent family and it was no secret that the Cooper kids got beaten. Of course, lots of kids around here get beaten. That's just the kind of town it is.

  Since I wasn't allowed to have any friends, I'd concentrated on my grades so that one day I could escape to a 4 year university on the other side of the state. I never thought that after graduating Magna Cum Laude from MSU I would end up back in Harrington, and I might have killed myself if I'd known it.

  I often wondered about where I had slipped up along the way. I'd had a bright, exciting future in front of me, far away from Harrington and the drunken, redneck family I'd left behind. But it didn't seem to be any one thing that brought me back. It was just a series of missteps and bad luck. There was no one thing to blame, which made it all the more frustrating.

  Teaching English at a community college was a far cry from the literary agent I'd dreamed of being. Every day that I woke up in Harrington felt like a failure. The only thing I enjoyed about the town was the crisp nature that surrounded it. My small home backed right up to the Ozarks and every weekend I went hiking in the woods to clear my mind; always taking the same path by the river and always coming home refreshed and content. I considered them my mini-vacations and they kept me sane.

  But it was this very practice of mine that lead to the single most horrific moment of my life. It could have been anyone in town who'd found her - hundreds of people go out into those woods- but it wasn't just anyone, it was me.

  I don't know what came over me that Sunday, but for some reason I didn't want to hike my usual trail. Maybe it was the difficult week I'd had, or the fact that my hand was feeling so very stiff (I'd broken it years before) or perhaps it was because my creepy stalker had been dancing on the fringes of his 100 yard legal restriction all week. Or maybe it was everything combined. For whatever reason, I decided on a change in my routine that day.

  Since I had brought my GPS I decided to let my thoughts and body drift where they may. I wandered lazily and mindlessly, letting the fresh, cool air purify my soul, as it always did. I thought about the exam I was giving the following week. I thought about taking my dog Clara to puppy training classes. I thought about calling in another complaint about Doug the Stalker. I thought about everything for awhile and then I thought about nothing.

  After about an hour I realized that I had stumbled onto a narrow, barely visible trail. The crisp, thin morning air was slowly giving way to it's warmer, heavier brother. I decided to follow the trail for a quarter mile or so and then turn around and head back. According to my GPS, I was only about 2 miles from home, which wasn't that far at all.

  I lost the trail twice, but was able to pick it up again after a few moments both times. Just as I lost the trail for a third time, the tree line broke and I was suddenly standing in a small clearing. I could tell immediately that there was something not right about this place, something ailing. The grass was yellowed and dead and an old, gnarled Burr Oak tree sat in the middle of the glade under thin, weak sunlight.

  This place was Creeps-town. I took out my phone and snapped a few photos hoping to somehow capture the eerie aura of the clearing. I walked around the burr oak, stepping over thick, low-hanging branches. I raised my camera to take another photo when something that shouldn't be caught my eye. There was color between the leaves that had no place in the sickly yellows and sullen browns. It was a blue shoe.

  I walked closer, curious, and wondering if maybe kids used this place to smoke weed or drink. But when I got closer, I saw the shoe was far too small for a teenager. It was the shoe of a young child - and there was a young child still in the shoe.

  I've felt many horrible things in my life - failure, disappointment, pain - but I have never felt anything so horrible as I did when finding the bones of a small child shoved into the alcove of a tree. He was curled up in the fetal position, his broken body much too large for the tiny little alcove. It was a wonder that he had fit there at all when he was more than just bones. His clothes were mostly gone, at least on the exposed side, and his skull had cracks and angry indentations. I vomited on the trunk of the tree and then I'm ashamed to say - I ran.

  I ran all 2 miles home, the need to share the burden of this knowledge with someone, anyone, was urgent in me to the point of hysteria. When I finally broke the tree line into my own backyard I fell onto the grass in exhaustion. I stared up at sun, trying to blind myself of the memory. But I could still see that broken little body.

  When I could breathe again, I took my phone from my pocket and dialed the police. They came within minutes and I somehow found the strength to stand and meet them in the driveway. I explained everything that had happened in short, choked sentences and handed them my GPS to show them where the body was.

  An officer wrapped a blanket around me and another brought me bottles of water. After that, everything happened pretty quickly. I sat in my kitchen and watched out the window as crowds gathered and media arrived. The sound of helicopters came and went from overhead, both police and news choppers alike, I'm sure. I stared out the window shade, praying that the
crowds couldn't see me inside.

  As dusk began to settle, I found Doug in the gathered crowd of news correspondents and neighbors. He was at the very front of the police tape and he watched both the spectacle and my window, evenly. It was the first time he had ever actually broken the restraining order. I tried to find an officer but I found my bed instead.

  The long, emotional day gave way to a deep and sound sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I saw that media vans from St. Louis had arrived and that the cops had set up roadblocks on my street. I called into work that day and the next and finally I told them I wouldn't be coming in the rest of the week. I stayed home and worked on my novel, trying to ignore the circus our town had become.

  Identifying the little boy took almost two weeks but the media was using the name "Jacob". I saw the headline "Who put Jacob in the Burr Oak tree?" land on my front porch one day. It seemed the media was drawing comparisons between our case and the case of Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? I never retrieved the paper.

  Finally, the coroner's office released a statement that the five year old boy had been identified - name withheld while they notified the family - and that the likely, though not conclusive, cause of death was blunt force trauma.

  Two days later I was asked to come in and give a recorded, official statement to the lead detective on the case. I went over everything I could remember from that day in extreme detail, even seeing Doug in the gathering crowd. The detective nodded his head throughout my testament and then, when I was finished, pressed stop on the recorder and left the room.

  I drummed my fingers on the table and absentmindedly stared up at the camera in the corner until he returned ten minutes later.

  The door opened and the lead detective walked back into the room with a stranger in tow. He was tall, tanned, and sported slicked back white hair. I instantly disliked him.

  "Ms. Cooper, this is Dr. Watner. Do you remember Dr. Watner?"

  "No. Should I?"

  "Not necessarily." The doctor replied.

  "Why am I still here?"

  "Because of Jacob." The detective sat down across from me.

  "Is Jacob the boy in the tree?"

  "Jacob is your son." The doctor answered.

  "I don't have a son." I said shaking my head.

  "Jessica," the doctor began, "we met several years ago when your son first disappeared. You blamed a man named Doug Ozinga for taking him, you were hysterical about it. Do you remember that?"

  "I know Doug Ozinga, I have a restraining order against him. But that's where my part in this ends, I don't have a son." I repeated, slowly.

  "Jessica, I'm going to show you some pictures now that might upset you."

  The doctor spread three large photos out in front of me. As soon as I saw their content my hands began to shake. But I wasn't afraid. I was confused.

  "I don't remember these pictures. I don't know who that is."

  The photos were of me with a young, blonde boy of about four. We were both smiling and hugging.

  "Do you agree that the person in this picture is you?"

  I continued to stare at the photos. There was no denying it, I still had some of the clothes I was wearing in the photo.

  "Yes."

  "And does the child in this picture look at all familiar to you?"

  The answer was no - and yes. He was a stranger but I felt like he was stranger who I'd seen somewhere before. Memories began to tug at the tips of my synapses but they were hazy and clouded.

  "Yes." I murmured, my eyes never leaving the page.

  The detective leaned forward in his chair. "I'm so sorry, Jessica. The body that was in the tree has been identified as your son Jacob."

  "What..." I was lost, and suddenly feeling terribly alone. "What do I do?"

  "I think you should take some more time talking to Dr. Watner, you're going to need support now."

  "I still don’t believe it, but what about the little boy? I saw Doug Ozinga on the day the body was found, he was at the crime scene!"

  "Yes, I expected that."

  The detective stood up then, and Dr. Watner followed.

  "We will return shortly. Would you like me to call your family?"

  But I had no family.

  "No,” I said quietly.

  "I understand," the detective said as he followed Dr Watner through the door.

  "Wait!" I yelled suddenly, rising from my chair. The detective stopped and turned around. "When are you going to arrest Doug Ozinga? Do you have any evidence on him yet?"

  "Jessica...Doug Ozinga doesn't exist. He never has."

  He closed the door behind him and I fell back into my chair. It's been almost two hours and they haven't come back. And it makes me wonder why I'm still here.

  But I think I know. My 6 year old son disappeared. Doug Ozinga doesn't exist. And I found a body in the woods.

  Paradise Pine

  About five years ago my husband and I decided to spend Thanksgiving at a cabin up north. We planned on starting a family the following year and so we wanted one last romantic holiday with just the two of us. We found the place online through a website we’ve used in the past and booked it for a week. The cabin was located outside of Pinetop, Arizona and the owner warned us that it can be hard to get back to in the winter because of the snow. The property was 13 miles from the nearest town and 4 miles from the nearest paved road. Aaron and I weren’t worried, however, since our jeep had snow tires and we were also bringing tire chains.

  We arrived on a Friday afternoon. We had made excellent time on the drive as there was actually very little snow on the ground. We decided to take a tour of the cabin before we unloaded the car. The cabin, named Paradise Pine, was three stories tall and built into the side of a mountain. The top floor was simply the master bedroom, which was connected to a second story patio-balcony via a sliding glass door. The front door was located on the ground floor, along with the kitchen and living room, and the basement housed a washer, a dryer and a wood furnace that heated the cabin through a large pipe that extended up through all three floors.

  Even though the views through the bay windows were beautiful, the first thing we noticed when we walked in was that the cabin hadn’t been cleaned. Often times with very rural properties, the owner will offer to waive the $150 cleaning fee if you are willing to clean the place yourself before you depart. Most guests opt to do this, but in the rare occurrence they don’t, the owner sends a cleaning crew. The previous tenants in this cabin had clearly decided not to clean, and also not to inform the owner that they were leaving it dirty. Since it was a holiday and a snowstorm was forecasted for early next week, we decided to clean the cabin ourselves and ask the owner to reduce our bill when we left the following Friday. We brought everything in from the jeep and got to work with dishes and laundry. Afterwards, we made an easy dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and played a few games of billiards on the pool table in the living room.

  The temperature started to plummet at around six in the evening and I asked my husband, Aaron, to go down and light the furnace in the basement. I went up to the bedroom to wash my face and change into warmer clothes. The bathroom connected to our bedroom was oddly door-less, had a broken mirror and a torn-down shower curtain. Wow, there’s been some cowboys in here. They hadn’t even bothered to pick the glass up off the floor before they left. I did so carefully, regretting the stupidity of the drunken idiots who must have stayed here the week before. I took a few photos with my phone and planned to send them to the owner when we got back to town on Monday. I certainly didn’t want to be charged for damage inflicted by the previous tenants.

  I met Aaron on the ground level and told him about the bathroom.

  “Well, that’s not the only thing that’s broken. The light’s out in the basement and I couldn’t find a flashlight. I did manage to find the furnace though. I squirted some of that cheap vodka your sister sent in there, threw in a match and hoped for the best.”

  “Seems to be working,” I stammer
ed through now chattering teeth, “I can feel the heat coming through.” I held my hands up to the metal pipe that wound its way around the house. “Keep the basement door closed. It’s freezing down there.”

  One of our favorite things to do when staying at a cabin is to read through all the journal entries of the previous guests. Usually, it was just things like “Went fishing with the kids, caught a bass” or “had a BBQ, played cards with the family”, but occasionally you found something more interesting, like “got drunk, set a tree on fire.”

  We found the Paradise Pine diary and snuggled up on the couch. Aaron read aloud the first four or five entries before I decided to take over. We were about halfway through the book when we called it a night and went to bed.

  The following evening we stayed up late as we had had a long nap that day. The plan had been to go on a hike but it had been too cold out. Luckily, the furnace in the basement was, to our amazement, still burning. We spent the whole day lazing around the living room. After dinner, Aaron practiced pool while I read aloud from the journal, starting where we had left off. I read for an hour before finally arriving at the journal entry of the guests who had stayed before us. I was very interested in this one; these people had to have a good story. The writer had chosen to format his entries into dates with time stamps. There were over 6 pages and I could already tell the handwriting sort of disintegrated as the days wore on.

  “Wow, they must have been drunk ALL weekend, look at how messy this handwriting gets!” I held the book up to Aaron.

  “Can you read it?” He asked, spinning the 8 ball into a corner pocket.

  “Of course! I’m great at reading other people’s shitty handwriting by now.” I sent him an impish grin and took another sip of wine before beginning to read.

  Sunday, Nov 4th 3:30pm

  Wow, what a beautiful cabin! My wife and I booked this place for two weeks on a whim and we can’t believe how lucky we got! Barely made it back here with the truck, there’s snow everywhere. At least a foot deep. And it’s below 40 degrees outside – thankfully the furnace in the basement is HUGE, as promised by Marissa, so all three floors are warm and cozy!