The Collectors - III

Chris Webbley lived outside of Pattersby, in a cottage in the middle of a field.

His mother loved old buildings. When she had seen Woole Cottage in all its rural glory, she had bought it immediately.

She would do this every year. Always moving from one place to the next.

Chris didn’t mind. He didn’t care that he never had time to make friends, because he didn’t like people that much anyway.

He liked the houses his mother picked, too. He felt he needed the change of scenery every year.

But because of Woole Cottage being so far from civilisation, groceries had to be bought at the nearest town.

The nearest town was Pattersby.

Chris walked through the fields just outside of the seaside town, coming closer to the opening of a street. The muddy ground turned to cobblestoned floor.

The salty air made Chris’s throat sting. He breathed heavily with exhaustion. It was a long walk. Chris was sure the air was colder in Pattersby than anywhere else. He was sure the grey sky was becoming darker as he moved deeper and deeper into the town.

Usually, the walls of streets would be covered in posters for bake sales and charity events. Sometimes even little plays they might put on in the town hall.

This week, when Chris passed the walls, he dismissed the new similar-looking posters for advertisements of some kind. But as he got closer to the main shopping street, he saw more and more of them. They covered walls and concealed windows. They screamed silently to be read, to be noticed. They fluttered in the wind, so many of them, the wings of angels glued onto greying brick.

Chris glanced at a small collection of them.

‘Help!’ they read, ‘Help find my child!’

They called out of their paper prisons; help me, help us, help! Jessica, Lucas, Mandy, Annie, Joshua, Francis, Tim, Joseph, Caroline. GONE. LOST. ALONE.

HELP.

Every single one was a cry for help. Every single one begged for a child to be found.

And this was not just one child.

This was every child in town, it must have been.

Chris glanced around him. The town was deserted. And if there were people there, not one stirred.

The always-harmonious town had frozen.