The rain poured down, a suitable background to such a dismal event.

Sheriff Richard Lyons tipped the brim of his hat back. Raindrops dripped down onto the already muddy earth. Richard had been on the force for about 35 years. No longer a bright-eyed newbie, he’d grown into the usual trope of elderly policemen: scraggly beard, a ‘who the hell cares’ attitude, and always offering a beer to whoever caught him at the bar.

He wasn’t long until retirement, something he looked forward to and dreaded in equal respects. Doing nothing all day every day?

...doing nothing all day every day?

He’d probably do some side jobs, who knew.

All the same, today’s case was fairly simple if not depressing. A concerned family member had called in a well being checkup. Their cousin, they said, had started to frighten everyone online. They started ranting about aliens and something like that, and then one day they uploaded a video of nothing but their living room. Nothing happened, but it had been a week since then, and such an expressive person wouldn’t have left social media so fast without saying something.

They admitted a neighbor had knocked on the door, and claimed the cousin was in an armchair that they could see from the window, but no matter how hard they knocked, the cousin would not rise.

So, they were looking at body recovery.

Richard let out another sigh, one hand finding his belt and adjusting it, despite it never having moved. He didn’t much like these. He liked the ones where you had just a little hope that someone was just ignoring phone calls for a little while. “Alright, we all ready?”

Officer Lydia Hawkins was his coworker. She had springy curls and the single brightest lipstick that one could probably see from outer space. She once kissed his cheek in a playful way, and the image had been fairly comical for a little while. On his other side, Officer Makar (last name just J., he had said, saying it was too long to fit on his badge with a laugh). Makar had short blonde hair and the most genial attitude he’d ever seen. No one could deny him and sometimes they got confessions out of people who were drawn in by his friendly demeanor.

“Yessir.”

“Aye.”

Richard nodded. “Okay kids. Stay close to Papa.” He heard them snickering behind them as he started up the small walkway. It was a going joke he was the ‘dad’ of the department, but look. They were just babies in his view. Young ones who barely had lived their lives. He’d be foolish to let them be cut down before their time.

Two squad cars were lit up behind them. He’d driven with Lydia, while Makar’s partner was at home ill with a pretty bad case of the flu. She had caught it from a chase in the rain. They had written a nice card to her, hoping she would be better soon.

The house was nice, in its own way. The front yard was overgrown in that way that it does during storms. There was a tree, and a small garden, and a stone pathway that led to the porch. No lights were on, and the windows were all covered by blinds. He grunted as he stepped up the porch, huffing.

“Storm’s got you, sir?” Lydia tapped her way up the stairs with ease, a flash of her easy manner springing up in his belly but he pushed it away.

“I’m not that old,” he muttered, hefting himself up the last step, Makar right behind him.

“You know, my grandmother, she had an easy remedy. Rub some le-”

“Lemon on the knee, you’ve told me. Something about rosemary?”

Makar grinned. “Yessir, rosemary to distract the faeries ya might be temptin’.”

“Right right, got it,” he muttered. Makar’s grandmother sounded like that one elderly lady they had gone to visit. She’d been having break-ins and was worried they would steal something. Not the TV, not the keys to her car. No, the jars of dried sage and silver bells blessed by some saint or another was what she worried over.

Richard wasn’t sure that should’ve been her priority but who was he to judge.

He cleared his throat, adjusting his belt again. “Be ready.” With their nods, he rapped harshly on the door. “Yohima Police Department! Sir, are you in!”

...no answer, but the thrum of rain on the tin roof above them echoed. He rapped again. “We are with the police, if you do not answer we may be forced to get a warrant!”

No answer.

He scowled, and slammed his hand on the door, a stray feeling of nerves and uneasiness pouring into him. “Is anybody in-?!”

The door, having enough of his brutish force, seemed to finally give way. It swung open with a clatter, bouncing off the wall as if someone had run to unlock it and ran away. Lydia sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face. “They said to check on them, sir, not give them nightmares.”

“Well excuse me,” he muttered, slipping a tactical flashlight from his belt and clicking it a few times. It had the fun strobing effect but it was annoying if he needed a constant light. There. “Okay...let’s go.”

They nodded, and in they went.

It wasn’t, as he suspected, pitch dark as he assumed. It was darker than he’d like, sure, but not so much that he couldn’t see a little bit without the light. The lightning outside helped as well. He nodded to the left. “Check that way, Lyds. Makar, to the right.”

“On it, sir.” She took out her own light, stepping away. On the left was a kitchen. A small island with a bowl of fruit sat on it, but the fruit had long since molded, curled up and fresh for the flies to gather. Weirdly, it didn’t smell, but small favors.

She shone her light slowly around. A fridge, stainless steel, much like her own. Oven, a teapot, cabinets, stools, so on…

Makar took the right. Outside, lightning crackled through the air, lighting up the room through what seemed to be the only window to the outside world. In here, at least.

A braided rug with a bit of mud on it. A coffee table with ‘1001 Useful Tips to Learn in the Bathroom’ laid downwards and open, the most hated of ways to save one’s place in a book. An armchair with a simple blanket folded in the seat of it, what looked like a lever on the side, but it was dangling off. Broken, huh?

A couch, stains on the arms of some kind of juice or wine, a pillow with a faded image of a rooster on it. The walls were devoid of much, but on a small table laid a photo, which Makar bent to look at.

Two people, a woman with blonde hair and a man with short blond curls, stood with their arms around each other, facing the camera. Both had large wide grins, and in the background was a beach, although neither wore the appropriate attire. He could hardly make out the rest of the details through the dim of his flashlight beyond a twirly carving in the photo that read ‘Jimmy’, so he put it down with a shrug.

A bookcase to the side with a few rock statues of animals decorating the shelves. Some were simple poem books, the likes of which Makar would be pleased to sit and read one day, and some were...just plain odd.

‘Shapeshifters And You’

‘How to Summon: A Beginner’s Guide’

‘Breaking Curses’

‘Wards and Hexes’

Perhaps the cousin was onto something with being concerned…

Richard, meanwhile, took the stairs ahead. The floor creaked under his steps, truly an invention of the times to ward off prowlers (or rather, get some unsuspecting victim to come out and see what all the ruckus was about). He cleared his throat, flashlight lighting the way. “Yohima Police Department! We just want to know you’re okay, sir!”

No answer but the pattering of rain on windows and thunder booming its way through. He was slowly starting to feel like a badly cast horror movie main character cliche in all the wrong ways.

Three doors. Okay. He could do this. He’d been through so much worse, what was a silent house compared to his decades of service?

First door: bathroom.

Thankfully nothing in the tub, except a rubber duck perched on the edge, staring at him incredulously. “Yeah, you and me both,” he muttered, backing out. Nothing even indicated that someone lived here. There was a toothbrush, but the toothpaste looked like it had never been touched, and the toilet...well, he could only guess.

Second room: a bedroom.

...nothing. Nothing in the bed. Nothing under the bed. Nothing on the bedside table beyond a lamp and a journal, nothing waiting for him in the corners like a lurking vampire.

Nothing.

He even opened the closet to check.

Nothing.

He rubbed at his face, squeezing at the bridge of his nose. Dang blast it all, this was a fool’s errand through and through. “Guys, pack it up,” he hollered, leaving the room and shutting it behind him. He grabbed the handle of the third door, opening it, and slamming it back shut once the image of a washer faced him. No one would fit in there. “Find anything?”

“Negatory, ghost rider,” Lydia’s voice echoed as she circled back around, waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “Everything’s been cleaned, like how you do when you’re going out of town, but some things got left behind. Like the fruit.” She wrinkled her nose with a scowl as Makar appeared, nodding.

“Nothing in there either, sir. Is quite odd.”

“No it ain’t,” Richard rumbled, flicking his flashlight off as he went down the stairs to meet them. “Just another family member who ain’t checked in and everyone’s gone off their rocker. I seen it too many times. It’s either a parent who calls their kid a million and twenty times a day and loses it when they don’t get a text in an hour, or someone who just failed to remind everyone they’re on vacation. That’s it.”

“You sure?” Lydia asked, even as they turned to go through the door. The rain had lessened a bit, but still poured angrily down.

“Sure as shootin’. Go on, before we get struck by lightning.”

Makar and Lydia seemed to find that funny, hiding smiles as they ducked away from the safety of the porch and rushing to their respective vehicles.

Richard stayed for a moment, a hand cupping over his heart. He took a deep breath...and-

“Sir?”

“Gah!” he screamed-NOT shrieked, thank you very much-whirling around and slamming into the post holding up the edging of the porch. “Almighty above, don’t ya know not to go scarin’ us oldies like that!”

“Sorry, sir.” The officer was prim and proper in their uniform, an obvious newbie. On their badge, it read ‘Officer J. Smith’, and their cap could hardly contain the curling blond hair. “Just another boring call, eh?”

“Look,” Richard clapped a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “Lemme tell ya, sport. When you get to my age, you beg for these ‘boring calls’, okay? You don’t want a shootout and ya certainly don’t wanna meet something horrible, yeah?”

“You can say that again, sir,” the man smiled and Richard couldn’t help a chuckle. Oh these new officers, all bright and eager to prove the world of their heroism. “But ah, call me Jimmy, sir. If you could.”

He squeezed Jimmy’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get on back, let the family know that their cousin is probably vacationing in the Bahamas or something like that.”

“Something like that, yessir.”

Richard climbed down the few steps of the porch, Jimmy hot on his heels, the door shutting behind them.

Another boring case, indeed…

He’d have to remind Jimmy of protocol, however. They didn’t allow colored lenses in the force, much less red ones. He was surprised no one had brought it up to him before, but no matter.

Richard always looked out for the new ones.