They found the two kids slumped over the side of the road, tired and barely clinging on to life. The couple who found them picked them up and began to drive back to civilization, back to a hospital when one of the two kids woke up and started screaming.
He started to scream about how they had to leave. How they had to go faster. That there were things in the desert. Things that took Daniel.
A moment later the kid passed out.
I don’t really know why I’m writing this now. It isn’t really my story to tell. If anything, it should be Amy and Clarke- Daniel’s friends, who should be writing this. I never knew Daniel personally.
Hell, I hadn’t ever seen him until seeing his image in the news. A boy my age, smiling, with a dog out in the sun.
Again, it’s not my story to tell. But I’ll tell it anyway. There are things in the desert people need to be careful with. And Daniel’s story is one of them. I may have only been there in the beginning, but I’ve managed to piece together as many details as I could from everyone who was there at the time.
“Do you think they’ll find him?” my boss asked. I worked at a gas station on the outskirts of town. It was a small place. We all knew each other.
“I dunno,” I replied. I don’t remember being interested in the case. I think I was more interested in finally having a job. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I heard Mills is looking for volunteers,” he continued. Mills was the head policeman. Something like that, at least. “He doesn’t have enough men to search the desert.”
I don’t know why, but I felt a tug there. A sort of curiosity washed over me. What had happened to Daniel? As I continued working, I continued puzzling over it all. Amy, Clarke, and Daniel were good kids. They weren’t the type to run off into the desert and vanish.
Maybe it was my curiosity. Maybe it was my need for more student volunteer hours. Either way, I marched myself all the way to Mills’ office and signed myself up for the search.
By then it had been one and a half days since Daniel had vanished, and the chances of finding him alive were already low.
A little over three in the afternoon, Mills gathered all the volunteers, paired us all into duos and we set off into the desert, looking for answers. Amy and Clarke were a city away, but they’d managed to tell the authorities what had happened- at least, from their point of view.
That was one of the weirdest things about the case. Throughout it all, the two never once said they were heading to the desert.
Amy insisted she was walking to the gas station to get some snacks. Clarke offered to come with, and the two met Daniel on the way.
And suddenly, as they walked, they realized that the gas station was nowhere to be seen. It had been in front of them one moment- and the other- it was gone. Clarke testified to looking back and hoping to see the town behind him and seeing an empty patch of desert. There was nothing behind them.
Then Daniel was gone. There wasn’t a scream. There wasn’t even a sound. He was just gone. Suddenly, there was nothing but shoes, pants, and a cheap t-shirt next to them.
Daniel was just gone.
Mills paired me up with someone I’d seen at school, Quint. He was a bit eccentric; he had dark dyed purple hair which matched his purple eyes. Contacts, I assumed.
We’d all been given squares to search, and me and him were there. It had been an hours, and we hadn’t found anything. So we just talked there, talked about jobs, school, colleges-
That’s when I felt something shift behind me, and I screamed.
I fell through a hole, and suddenly, I found myself in complete darkness. Above me was the small sliver of daylight.
“Are you okay?!” Quint shouted.
“I’m,” I began, wincing, “I’m good!”
“I’ll get help!” he shouted. And with that, I was alone.
Being alone in the dark was almost soothing, at first. But soon, I wondered if Quint was coming back. It had already been late, and within moments, the skies began to darken, and I was left in truly toal darkness.
I moved around, trying to find my phone. Instead, I tripped over something and fell. I moved my hands around, at last finding a shape in the darkness.
I clutched it. It felt odd and smooth, although there were dents. It wasn’t like any rock I’d ever seen. In the dark, I could only use my hands to see. I felt it, feeling the odd holes and bumps all across the object.
I found my phone, and flicked it open, and turned on the flashlight. I took one look at the shape in my hands-
and screamed.
It was a skull. And around me were more bones. Small bones. Big bones. Bones of all sizes lay in a pit around me. They were all bare and had little teeth marks engraved into them.
I heard something growl somewhere behind. I screamed a second time, hoping someone would hear me. I felt the vibrations of something moving behind me and then-
That’s when Mills came. Officer Mills and a crew of search and rescue officers. Quint was there too, apologizing to me and telling me he was so sorry and that they had gotten lost in the sands.
I didn’t care. I just gripped the rope they tossed down there and started climbing, before the thing in the pit could get to me.
And that’s the end of my part in the story.
The news was broken the following day: Daniel Hawthorne had been found. The skull and bones in the pit belonged to him- although nobody could explain how he had rotted away so quickly.
The desert mummifies people. What happened to Daniel Hawthorne was the opposite of mummification. Something had ripped off all his skin, all his meat and had left behind no trace.
Not even a speck of blood.
His parents held his funeral the following week. I never could find out why I decided to come. It wasn’t like I knew him- but as it turned out, everyone came to his funeral.
To see the life of someone young, smart and full of potential just vanish. Well, it shook our community. Things were never the same after the funeral. We all kind of grew distant.
Things got even worse when Daniel came back.
A month to the day of his disappearance, Daniel returned. He returned on the same patch of road Amy and Clarke had been found. But Daniel was different.
He was standing, walking the road back towards our town. He walked with intent, although covered in sweat and blood. A teacher, Mrs. Zall was the one to find him.
At first, Mrs. Zall thought he was a ghost. But as Daniel continued walking, she realized he was alive. He had returned.
She drove up to him and immediately took him in to drive back to town. She assumed Mills would know what to do- Mills was the only thing holding the community together since the funeral.
When I talked to Mrs. Zall about Daniel she told me that there was something bizarre about the boy that was never covered in the official reports.
She said that Daniel was covered in jelly. A thick red coating of jelly, like algae, dripping off of him. That, and the fact that he didn’t speak. All throughout the journey he silent, and she remembered not even hearing him breathe.
When they got to town, we found out why he was silent.
His tongue was missing, cut out- gone.
At first, only his parents were notified that Daniel had returned. As the days passed, everybody knew.
Daniel was sent over to the hospital to be treated, but besides the fact that his tongue was missing, the doctors couldn’t find anything else wrong with him. By then, the red jelly was gone, evaporated into the desert sun.
Amy and Clarke met with Daniel as soon as he returned to town. He wouldn’t say a word to them- not just because his tongue was gone. Daniel wouldn’t write- it was almost as if he knew nothing at all.
Daniel would only observe. Eyes unblinking, face unchanging. He had become something else. It was like he could not read nor write.
He only witnessed.
Amy and Clarke swore that Daniel- the one who had returned was not Daniel, but something else. The thing in the desert they had sworn was there. The thing they claimed was responsible for his disappearance.
And they had a point. Who’s skeleton had I found? Its dental records matched Daniel’s, and yet here he was, back in town. Genetically, he was Daniel. Other than that, he was a statue.
I only saw him once when he returned. It was like he wasn’t even human. There was something uncanny about the way he watched and titled his head.
He would move jerkily as if something was puppeting him. And though his parents kept him indoors, people kept seeing him outside, on the streets. Often, people caught him watching through the windows of their houses with two unblinking eyes.
And there was yet another strange detail. The day he returned was the day my cat went missing.
The days and weeks following, more started to disappear. Cats and dogs- even a bird began to vanish from the safety of a house. Parents started to petition for a curfer. Kids started to stop playing outside.
And here’s the last part to the story.
A year to the day after Daniel went missing, three people wandered into the desert and never came back.
This time, it was Malcolm and Eliza Hawthorne, as well as their returned son, Daniel.
It was twelve noon when they opened the doors of the Hawthorne house and walked outside. I remember the day being hot, and not a single soul dared wander outside for fear of burning.
Mills swore the three were covered in that strange red jelly Mrs. Zall had seen on Daniel as he saw them walk straight out of town. Mills called after them, telling to come back- that the sun was fierce and dangerous.
They didn’t respond.
Mills also swore that the three looked back at him in unison and opened their mouths as if to speak- and saw that they had no tongues. Mills ran after them, but when he got there- there wasn’t anything but a pile of clothes and shoes.
The Hawthorne house was searched a day later. The news reported that bones had been found, bones of cats, dogs, and a single bird.
The town fell apart shortly after. One day, Mills walked out into the desert and didn’t come back. Then the families left, and after them, everyone else. It’s been years now since the town disappeared into the sands- there’s probably nothing left there but ruins.
A family of three went into the desert. That time, nobody came back. Sometimes, people just go missing there.