Rick Mofina - Last Seen - A gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller that you won’t be able to put down

“He’s not with us, sir,” a young woman—one of the “damned”—said.

Cal, Faith and King kept going, coming to another exit door, tripping the alarm. At this one, Faith exited and took the stairs, which landed tight to a chain-link fence. Trailers were backed against it. An empty lot stood on the other side of the fence, earthen, muddied and pot-holed with discarded tires, a stove and a filthy sofa—a menacing patch of misery.

“Gage! It’s Mom, honey! Gage!”

The fear that had seeped into her voice was unmistakable, Cal thought, joining her and searching the confined area for several minutes before returning inside. Once more they’d activated the alarm, underscoring their desperation on their way to the next set.

The air smelled as if a gas stove had been switched off when they got to where the burning witch queen had cursed them. The room’s temperature had dropped a little from the oven-level it had been during the act. The actress had left her stake and was still searching the edges of the prop wood pile.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The witch shook her head. “He’s not here but I’m sure you’ll find him, don’t worry.”

Moving quickly to the next set they were greeted by the insane butcher still clad in his bloodstained apron and surrounded by props of limbs. Faith was thankful they’d stopped twitching. Still, the scene sent a shiver coiling up her spine. She dropped to her hands and knees, looking under the table and around the suspended torsos. Cal crawled on the floor from the opposite side, the chains creaking as they brushed against the props, which marked them with streaks of stage blood.

“Gage! Gage, come out, son!” Cal called as the butcher and King exchanged a look.

They’d found nothing here.

The butcher shook his hideous face, telling the Hudsons, “We looked everywhere in this section, folks. He’s not with us.”

Cal and Faith hurried ahead with King, stopping to inspect the areas surrounding every exit that they came to. They didn’t find Gage with the fanged clown, who’d hefted the organ from a wall in order to look behind and under it. There was nothing to search at the river of snakes and the cavern of bats and spiders. Those areas had been filled with computer-generated images. Under the lights, these sets were void of anything searchable.

Gage was not among the tombstones in the graveyard. There, the wretched zombie woman offered a sympathetic smile, shaking her head—“He’s not here”—but with her makeup she came off looking like the possessed girl in The Exorcist.

In the spinner, the large round floor was motionless. At the six curtained exits leading to the slides, they saw the chain-saw executioner. He’d pushed his mask up to the top of his head, revealing the face of a handsome man in his thirties.

“I’m so sorry if I scared your little boy.” He offered the Hudsons a small, warm smile. “He’s not here but I’m sure you’ll find him.”

They didn’t.

Cal and Faith’s search of the Chambers had proven to be fruitless.

“This way.” King led them to one of the exits, and the outside stairs down, returning them to the chutes to where a small group of Ultra-Fun staff had gathered.

Amid the chattering walkie-talkies, some of the staff cast looks of awkward pity at the Hudsons standing helplessly at the slides—their faces bearing small smears of stage blood. It had now been nearly half an hour since Cal and Faith had last seen Gage, yet all around them the fair kept going, people kept squealing with joy, the thrill rides kept spinning and twirling, the music kept rocking, as if nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

Faith’s breaths started coming in gasps; her hands started shaking. “Cal, this can’t be happening, not to us!”

“Take it easy.”

“Maybe, maybe Marshall’s and Colton’s families are here and this is a big joke to scare us? That’s got to be it, right?”

“Faith, I don’t think so.”

“No. No!” Faith’s knees buckled and Cal caught her. “Gage!”

Gage couldn’t be missing, Cal thought. It couldn’t be true. Maybe it was part of some pranking TV show? He struggled to grasp it all but their futile search of the Chambers with its grotesque faces and sets was a descent into Dante’s circles of hell.

Cal felt something monstrous had raked a claw across their lives while the screams of the midway grew louder and he reached for his phone. His fingers were trembling when he pressed the numbers for 911.

“River Ridge Emergency Dispatch, what’s your emergency?”

“My son is—” Cal started but his heart was hammering in his chest and his mind was swirling with disbelief. He glanced at Faith, her anguish piercing him. He couldn’t believe this was happening. What kind of parents lose their kid? He had to stop thinking that way and stay in control.

“Sir, what’s your emergency?”

Cal gripped his cell phone with such force he nearly cracked the casing. “My son is missing.” He resumed reporting Gage’s disappearance, but for one burning instant he felt trapped in a dream.

Wake up, go to Gage’s room—you’ll see he’s there. Wake up!

But Cal didn’t wake up because he wasn’t dreaming.

5

Four minutes after Cal’s call, River Ridge police officers Angie Berg and Erik Ripkowski arrived at the chutes. Already briefed by their dispatcher, they wasted no time and followed procedure.

“We need to talk to you separately, folks,” said Berg, reaching for her notebook before taking Cal aside while her partner stayed with Faith.

The two officers had been close by. Today was their third shift on midway patrol, which was considered a semivacation usually involving nothing more than community relations duty. Berg had become partial to the fudge, while Ripkowski loved the Polish dogs. Up to now, their most serious call had been a woman who’d attempted to steal a fifteen-year-old girl’s phone. Turned out the woman was the intoxicated mother of the boy the girl had dumped. The woman’s husband, who was embarrassed, apologized and took his wife home.

But the Hudson call was different.

It went well beyond a midway nuisance, and of all the young officers on the River Ridge force, Berg and Ripkowski were two of the brightest.

“Take a breath, sir, start at the beginning,” Berg, her sandy hair pulled up in small bun, told Cal, her pen poised.

At this point Gage had been missing for almost forty-five minutes.

Nearby, Ripkowski, whose bodybuilder arms strained his uniform, was taking careful notes as Faith recounted to him what had taken place. At the same time the officers had requested that Vaughn King, who was watching from the distance, keep the Chambers of Dread closed and keep all staff on hand.

“We mean everybody.” Ripkowski pointed his pen. “Nobody leaves.”

After obtaining the Hudsons’ initial statements, details on Gage’s height, weight, hair and eye color, Berg and Ripkowski moved fast, making a number of transmissions on their shoulder microphones and calls on their phones, to their sergeant, and to the River Ridge Fairgrounds security and operations people.

“Do you have a recent photo of your son?” Ripkowski asked. “We need to get it circulated as soon as possible.”

Faith rummaged through her bag, seizing her phone. “Last Saturday—no, sorry, it was Sunday—Gage went to his friend Ethan Clark’s birthday party. I’ve got a picture.” She swiped through images, stopping at Gage smiling for the camera while behind him some joker, likely Marshall, was holding up two fingers bunny-ear-style above his head. “See, he’s wearing the same blue Cubs shirt. It’s got the mustard stain from his hot dog at the party. I told him to put it in the wash.” Faith was almost embarrassed. “I wanted to get the stain out but it’s his favorite shirt.”