This week's prompts are: "my kingdom for a horse" or "open wide for chunky" or "Singing in the rain" or "Damn me, but that's awfully large!" or use something stolen or have a miracle in your story or have a character who feels like he/she's getting ill or use: a condom, a wing, and a prayer.
The police had been called and statements given by Tom and
his co-workers, but Ben’s whereabouts still remained unknown.
“Ben, where are you?” Tom sat on the foot of their bed,
looking out at the woods behind their home.
A mountain could be seen in the distance. One of the reasons they’d bought
this home was because it backed onto a nature preserve; both he and Ben loved
nature. Bird feeders of all kinds hung in
their backyard. They kept binoculars
and a camera ready, along with a telescope to view the night sky.
Tom felt so alone. “Please,
Lord, held me find Ben. He’s a good man, he’s my heart. I can’t go on without
him.” A sob tore from Tom’s throat. “Please
don’t let him be taken away from me forever.” Tom’s head fell into his hands. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Who the hell had taken his man?
Ben’s car had been found, abandoned about a block from the
house on Elm Street. Ben’s work bag was
found inside, along with his cell phone.
The police took the car, and all of Ben’s belongings, as evidence. Now it was a waiting game to see if the
police could find anything in Ben’s car that might lead them to whoever took—no
stole—Ben from him.
He went to the police station. Freddy Micha, a friend of
theirs, was the lead detective in the investigation. Freddy met him at the station
door. “I wanted to bring you down here
to show you some things we found in Ben’s car.” Ben had his work bag, where he
kept all the real estate listings he was working on. There was something scribbled on his notepad.
“We couldn’t read it.
I was hoping you’d be able to decipher Ben’s handwriting.”
Ben’s writing was chicken scratch at best. If he hadn’t gone
into real estate, he would’ve been a good doctor, at least where writing
scripts was concerned.
Tom’s heart sank when he saw the symbol for the Westboro
Baptist Church on the yellow paper.
“We’ve had plenty of problems with that group. They have the nerve to picket military
funerals and spread their hatred of gays on their website. The problem is they hide behind the first
amendment.”
“Is that what they’re going to be able to do now? Use Ben as an example of what happens to gays
and then they’ll be able to hide behind the first amendment?” Tom was trying to
keep calm, but the thought that Ben was in the hands of those bastards made his
blood boil.
“No, we’ll get them on kidnapping, and whatever other
charges can be thrown at those SOB’s.
“Do you know where they’ve taken Ben?” Tom wasn’t a violent man by nature, but if
he owned a gun he’d be at that church right now, blowing some holes in whoever
took his man.
“They have a church on the outskirts of town. “
“Come on, what are we waiting for? Let’s go get Ben.”
“Hold on, Tom. I know
you do the hero thing all the time on the job, but I’m the cop here. Go on home and let the police handle it. I’ll call you when I have news.” Freddy escorted Tom back to his car.
Tom was never good at waiting, and he certainly wasn’t going
to just sit at home wondering if Ben was alive and well.
