Fatal Attraction: Chapter Two

"Alright kid, really what happened? I don't understand what you're telling us," Officer Williams said a little angry that he had no clue what to do. Seth was sitting in the police station now. The room the two men were in was kind of unexpected for a police department. It had tall ceilings and bright walls; not very Hollywood movie type at all. Seth was unable to stand; he was cuffed to the desk, the officer's orders. Williams looks down at him as Seth gave him a look of desperation to see Danny. "You know I can't let you go right now, not until we get things cleared up." He took a step back when he saw Seth strike the desk with his fist. "Come on now! Really just tell me what happened, if you didn't do anything like you claimed then you'll be fine."

Seth sat up, from his slouching position. "Do you know what it's like not being able to not help someone you care about?"  His voice sounded lower than before. "You want to know what happened, then ask Danny." He had never been angrier than now. His eyes were a bright yellow-gold color as he spoke, "I don't KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER…." He trailed off with "if I would have known what was wrong, I would have saved her." He said, now crying. He didn't cry like a child would, but as if he was the one to hurt Danny. He cried tears of regret.

"You can't change what happened kid," he said with empathy.

"NO, no I can't. Stop calling me kid, you know my name so call me by it," a hint of sarcasm hit his voice. Seth felt a bit better when he insulted or belittled people. "And I am very sure that I'm not much younger than you if at all. So calling me 'kid' isn't going to cut it 'KID'".  

"Alright Seth, I am sorry." Williams came back around to lean on the desk in front of Seth.

The door opened with a loud bang as it hit the door stopper on the wall and swung shut after a tall man walked in. Judd was standing there with wide eyes in shock. "Judd, what is it? What is so important that you couldn't wait out in the waiting room?" Williams looked a little frightened by the man's disturbance. "Judd," he asked once more.

"I-I thought you should hear this NOW; Hear this from ME." He looked from the officer to Seth with eyes of worry and thoughts of sadness. Seth knew what was coming; he didn't even look up to see any bit of worry that Judd was showing. He just sat there with his head buried in his hands. "She's, I mean Danny, Danny is dead." The room was silent. Judd walked over slowly to Seth and put a hand on his shoulder. He then saw he was cuffed to the desk. "What the hell is this about? This boy didn't do anything to hurt that girl. He tried saving her," Judd was in shock yet again.

A moment later Williams stood up, "No I don't, this is my job to make sure we have a full understanding of what has happened and he is the only one that was there, so how do you think she was… killed?" he almost didn't know what to call it, so he said killed instead of murdered.

"I am sure he as a good explanation to as of what happened, right Seth," he looked over at Seth. "Right Seth," Judd was getting a bit impatient.

"It was our month off of school before the next semester began. All of us wanted to go on a road trip since we all had time off work and school. We live just outside of the city. And well we wanted to make this town one of our stops, the most haunted city in America she told me, Topeka. Huh, maybe it's true, maybe not. We were only going to pass through. But Danny wanted to get out and stretch her legs, I wouldn't let her go alone, I went with. We weren't far from the city, we would tell her just a few more minutes. But no she wouldn't listen. Lily, John and Damon dropped us off there to walk and said they would be back soon. They were only going to a gas station down the street; they must have gotten lost. I haven't heard from them. We thought we would go ahead and take a longer trail; so we could do something while we waited for them to return. We lapped the trial twice. No sign of them; around half way I was goofing off with Danny, chasing after her." He laughed a little as he recalled that memory in his mind. "God the smile on her face was so beautiful. Until, well, the look on her face turned to a look of fear. It got dark, as we were running. It all happened so fast I lost her. And found her a moment later lying there on the ground. I sat her up and found she was bleeding, ran to the road and found him," Seth gestured to Judd. Judd tossed Seth a small black beat up camera. "What, where did you find this?" he said surprised.

"My car, it was still on, under the seat, I was trying to see if I could pick up some of the blood in my car, but that did nothing. I found it, I tried playing it back, but I don't know how to work that kind of crap," Judd gave him an old man kind of look.

"Even if you did know how you would need a computer for this one, if you just play it on here, with the screen like this, you won't get anything but sound; that is if the sound even works," Seth turned back to officer Williams, "Got a computer 'kid'." Seth managed to slide the SD card out of the cheap video camera. "Here, you want more then my word, watch this." From the sound of his voice it seemed like he was satisfied.

He walked around to his desk and pulled out a small laptop out of a drawer and set it on his desk facing Seth and Judd; who was now sitting in a chair he had pulled up next to Seth. Williams walked up beside them and opened the files that were last on the list of clips in order from the beginning of their trip to the time of the arrival of Williams in his cop car.  He clicked on the first one and  the next and so forth through about ten files; asking Seth what each of them were of after the first few seconds of each. This continued until the last file was up playing on the screen.

Seth's voice on camera was off. It had a static quality to the sound of his voice. Danny's voice was heard very clearly. "Come on Seth, are you going to play with that thing all month? Let's just record this in our memory and not on your silly camera. You'll have plenty of time to tape all of us later." The sound of her voice started to make Seth cry again. The screen got darker as the video continued.
"Danny really I just want to see how this thing works out here, with it getting darker and sound wise." The camera faced the ground as he said that and tilted back up to show Danny's disapproving face.  She smiled and looked away. She started running and laughing.

"Well then tape this…." She ran off laughing. "Come on, I don't run that fast…Keep up," she ran into the woods now, darker yet.

"Danny, slow down." Seth was not a good cameraman for the camera was bouncing every direction.  A light turned on and the camera showed blurs of grass and trees as Seth ran with the camera strapped to his wrist. Danny's loud laughter faded to nothing. Seth stopped, talking to himself he said into the camera almost blinding himself, "well hey there's a light on this thing." He ran again holding the camera like a flash light. "Danny?" he said finally seeing her in the distance. He ran after her. She ran faster. "Danny! Wait up, Danny!" he yelled out into the woods. His yelling sounded like nails on a chalkboard, being able to understand very little of what he was saying. What he was yelling was, "Danny!" The loud scream that Seth wished he didn't remember sounded so much more real on that little camera than it had in real life. The camera fell to the ground; so did Seth. He got back up quickly looking around. He ran and tripped shortly after getting back up. He looked down and lying on the ground was the girl. His camera showed a huge distortion when pointed at the girl. The light flickered when it was suddenly pointed upwards toward the surrounding trees. He set the camera on the ground nearby pointing the light toward them. His feet and her disfigured legs were all that was seen in this shot, but only her body was turning different colors. Then the camera went to static and all that could be heard was Seth's heavy breathing and heavy footsteps in the woods.  This went on for about 20 minutes. "Hey," Seth managed to kind of yell at a passing car sound. And all of a sudden the video jumped to Judd yelling at him to get into the car.  The phone call to 911 was recorded and the arrival of Officer Williams was all vocally recorded on the tape, but nothing worth watching; it was just the underside of Judd's driver's seat.

"I can't hold you for what you did…you clearly did nothing wrong, it's all here. But I don't understand why it's so distorted," officer Williams unlocked the handcuffs that had bound Seth to the desk. "And what happened to that girl?" he asked that for the three of them.

"I'll answer that one, the same thing that has happened to all the other kids around here back in the 1800s," an older man said, walking in. They had had an audience the whole time watching from the door way.
"Ghost stories Charlie, that's all they are," Williams walked over to the man and asked him to leave.

"Sorry about that.  He's been working here for too long. He's lost it," he closed the door and walked over to the two men. "Well, seems like we're done here. Let's look for your friends and call home for you. Oh and we'll need to get a hold of Danny's family…I'm sure they'll want her home not out here."
"Yes, sir," Seth buried his head back into his hands and wept.