Vanish by Tom Pawlik

the stairs.
    The upstairs hallway was wide and carpeted. Four doors opened off the hall, two on each side. One of them was closed. The last one on the left. The door to his father’s bedroom.
    He inched his way down the hall. Mitch’s old bedroom looked tidy and untouched. His father had converted the second bedroom into an office.
    Mitch paused and listened at the door to his father’s bedroom. Then, with the gun held steady, he turned the knob and opened the door.
     
     
     

Chapter 10
     
     
    CONNER SAT ON THE front stoop of Marta’s house. His gaze was unfixed.
    He had spent the last fifteen minutes searching the house from top to bottom but found nothing. No sign of his son. No sign of any explanation for his ghostly hallucination. He was at a loss for what to do next.
    And as perplexing as everything else was the seizure he had experienced. The pain had been excruciating. It had most likely triggered the hallucination of Matthew. But what had caused the seizure? Was this some act of terrorism? Had there been some biological or chemical weapon released? Or was his convulsion merely a symptom of something worse yet to come?
    Several minutes later, Conner stood up. He had to find some answers, though he had no idea where to look. He returned to his car and backed out of the driveway.
    He decided he would return home. Maybe a solution would present itself. Maybe he would find someone else along the way. But before going home, he had to make a stop.
    Fifteen minutes later, Conner pulled into the Forest Hills Cemetery. A narrow gravel road wound through the maze of granite monuments and headstones. After several turns, he came to a stop near a small mausoleum. A miniature statue of Jesus stood at the front. It was weathered and cracked. Above it, seven words were etched into the stone.
     
     
I am the Resurrection and the Life.
     
     
    Conner sneered at the statue. It wasn’t what he had come here to see.
    Beyond it, he spotted a small headstone, barely visible in the grass. Three rows back, second stone to the left. Under the shade of an old ash tree.
    But Conner just sat in the car, his hand clutching the door handle. The last time he had actually stood at the grave was five years earlier, at the funeral.
    Five years. One month. Thirteen days.
    He had not seen it since. He couldn’t muster the courage to see Matthew’s name again, engraved in stone with two dates only four years apart.
    At length, he forced himself out of the car. After his hallucination at the house, he needed to see it. If for no other reason than to be sure the grave was still there.
    It was. Just as he remembered it. Small red flowers sprouted from fresh dirt on either side of the headstone. Probably Marta’s doing. Conner bent down and ran his hand over the smooth granite. His fingers traced the letters.
    “Matthew.” Conner’s voice was barely a whisper. His eyes stung as tears welled up and dripped down his cheeks. He had worked so hard to forget. To detach himself from those memories. To sever all the strings, all the chains that bound him to it.
    From the corner of his eye, Conner glimpsed something move. A dark shape slipped behind a tree. Conner gasped and lurched backward. He thought he could see the crest of someone’s arm and shoulder around the tree trunk.
    “Who are you?”
    Conner stood, frozen, chest pounding, not sure of what to do. Maybe it was someone who had answers. Or, more likely, it was someone out looking for them, just as he was.
    Or… could it be Matthew?
    After a moment, Conner’s curiosity won out and he took a few cautious steps. A diminutive shape darted out from the tree and dashed behind a row of gravestones.
    Conner lunged after it, sprinting along a parallel course.
    “Wait!”
    He caught only fleeting glimpses of the figure as it raced behind the headstones. It was fairly small, more the size of a boy than an adult.
    Conner pursued it to the end of the row, where it dove behind a mausoleum. He