Page 33 of Diluted Truths
I was perplexed.
Itsname?
Not their name?
“What is it?” I asked, hoping he could clarify what he meant.
“I-I don’t know,” Carter sighed. “It would be easier to show you.”
I watched as he stood and grabbed a shoe box from one of his office chairs. He handed me the box and urged me to take a look. As I opened the box, I saw what I assumed were the pictures of Joey he took from his home. They seemed relatively normal. It showed birthday parties, Christmas mornings, first days of school. The typical photos you would take of your child. However, upon further inspection there was something… odd. In every picture there was a faint shadow. It looked to be a man, a tall man. It was barely noticeable, but it was in every single photo within the box.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Why did you come here?” Carter asked, evading my question. “You never actually told me.”
The tension in the room had shifted from antagonistic to curious. “Your wife reached out to a friend of mine to investigate your son’s disappearance. I’m helping out.”
Carter nodded as he thought to himself, probably considering how much he should tell me. “You met with my wife and kids?”
I nodded in response.
“Are they okay?” He asked.
“Relatively, yeah. Janice seems exhausted, Joey seems traumatized, but Nancy is doing well,” I responded.
Carter looked visibly relieved. “Good, that’s good. I didn’t want to leave them. I would do anything to be back with them, but this was the only way.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused what he was going on about.
Carter sighed and called the receptionist to let her know he would be busy for the next few hours. He proceeded to tell me what could only be a made up story, but a story backed up with photographic evidence.
Apparently all of his childhood photos were like Joey’s. They were plagued with this shadow figure. It was shown in every picture of himup until Joey was born. It was as if the figure had transferred from him to his son. So did his dreams and nightmares about the figure.
He used to have nightmares that the figure was taking him nearly every night. Initially he would scream and his mother would comfort him, but eventually he got used to them. They were the same every night. It was the figure taking him away. Joey began to have these dreams as well. Once Joey’s started, Carter’s stopped. It made no sense how this happened. He had never told Joey about these dreams, in fact the only person who knew about them was his mother, who passed away when he was sixteen. Joey would wake up screaming just like he did and described the same circumstances every time.
Carter initially assumed someday the figure would disappear from the photos and the dream would stop like it did for him. Then the nightmares came back, with one change. Joey was being taken and he watched. Carter panicked. He felt like he brought this on his family. He didn’t know what the figure was, but he did know he was terrified. It felt so real.
Carter ultimately decided he needed to try and take the figure away from Joey. He assumed he gave it to him, and that maybe if he left then maybe it would leave Joey alone. Except, in his mind it didn’t. The dreams came true and Joey disappeared. Carter blamed himself. He felt like he brought this… thing into his family’s life. He felt so guilty. That is why he never went back to his family.
We sat there in silence for a moment as I digested his words. In front of me on the desk were two photos. One of Carter as a kid with the figure and one of Joey. It was remarkable the similarities in the photos despite the decades that separated them.
“I know it sounds crazy,” said Carter as he leaned back in his chair.
I sighed. “Yeah, it really does.”
“There is one more thing,” Carter stated as he fished a specific photo out of the box. “It’s not just the figure, but there is one more similarity.”
Carter handed me a photo of what looked like young him standing in front of a tree trunk. What was carved into the tree trunk is what dumbfounded me.
“That sigil appeared on four different trees in my childhood backyard one day. I don’t remember when, or how, but they were just there. I went by the house when Joey was gone. I-I thought maybe I could help. I saw that same sigil in his closet,” Carter stated.
There it was, another tie to the Cult of Creatio. On each tree, the sigil that was popping up all over this case now was the symbol of the Cult of Creatio. It was exactly the same as the drawing in the textbook and in Joey’s closet. It was impossible, yet I was staring right at it.
“You have no idea how this happened?”
Carter shook his head, defeated. He blamed himself for all the pain Joey was experiencing. He loved his son so deeply, it was obvious. “I wish I did.”
“Can I keep these? I can return them when we’re done.” I asked as I gestured towards the now three photos in front of me.
