In his 13 years of investigative work, Detective Wilson had never encountered a case quite like this one...
His department had received a call earlier in the day from a very distraught neighbour in regards to some unusual circumstances. Dispatch had passed along the call to Wilson as "some guy is upset that his missing dog came home... Or he's upset about the guy that returned his missing dog? Some stuff got lost in translation, but hopefully the dog is okay..." It was now 2:48 PM on a Monday, September 25th, about an hour since the non-emergency call was first phoned in. Detective Wilson was just making his way over to the citizen's address in his cruiser.
The country drive was quiet and quaint. Wilson could always count on these roads being dead; it was one of the many perks to living in a smaller town. Lovely rows of maple, elm, and weeping willow trees were dotted along the sides of the street, and although it was still only late-September, some of the trees were already sporting their warm, colourful leaves. A large, white house with a wraparound porch was beginning to come into view, and Detective Wilson knew this would be the place; the next residence wouldn't be for another 5 miles.
Before arriving at his destination, Wilson could already observe a person -- a man -- sitting on the front steps of the house with his head in his hands.
(All images were created using an AI art generator on Night Cafe)
As he pulled into the long driveway, cut the engine and opened the car door, Detective Wilson was immediately greeted by a fierce gust of crisp autumn wind, the smell of sweet decaying foilage teasing his senses. Upon hearing the police cruiser drive up, the man finally looked up from his dreary daze, barely able to register the detective's presence.
"Are you the one who phoned in about a dog?" Wilson called out while walking over to the man. "Are you Samuel?"
The man gave a half-hearted nod at the mention of his name. "Yeah, I called you guys..."
Pen and pad were already in hand as Wilson began his investigation, asking, "So what was it that happened? The call said you got your missing dog back, somebody found him for you?..."
It was then that the man's expression grew grave, and sweaty hands began to fumble in his lap. His voice was barely a whisper while he answered, "Yeah, I got my dog back. But something's not right about him... Something wasn't right about that man either..."
After 13 years in this line of work, Wilson was quite acquianted with this old give and take game, and he helped to guide Samuel along. "'Not right'? What do you mean by that?"
There was another moment of deathly silence. "Something wasn't right with that man," Samuel repeated to himself, staring off into space. Wilson assumed he was referring to the good Samaritan, but he didn't need to wait for an answer. "That wasn't a man." Samuel's eyes were anxiously darting back and forth, as though he were watching and waiting for something, his voice trembled as he tried to process his thoughts, until finally he let it slip:
"That man was an alien."
Oh, boy...
Now, don't get the wrong idea. Detective Wilson wasn't intentionally looking down on Samuel; he could sympathize with the fact that this man was clearly shaken up about something... but aliens? It was now that Wilson was ready to end child's play and solve this case.
"Alright, Samuel," Wilson sighed lightly, "why don't we start from the top? Tell me everything that you remember."
The man rearranged himself on the front steps, sitting up straight as his thoughts began to formulate. His hands remained tightly clasped together, as though clinging onto each other for dear life. Samuel started to speak... "We got ourselves a dog a few years back... An Irish Setter, nice family dog to keep around the kids, patrol the property..."
Samuel's eyes darted up to the sky while he recalled the memory. "Well, the one morning -- maybe 3 or 4 days ago now -- we woke up and Paddy wasn't there. Y'know, we asked the kids, 'Did you let him out last night and forget to let him in?' Nope... Looked all around the house, the backyard, the neighbourhood, we put up posters... We couldn't find Paddy."
"Okay, and you said this was 3 or 4 nights ago? So around Friday..." Detective Wilson was furtively taking notes during Samuel's recollection.
"Yessir -- and there was absolutely no sign of Paddy either. We checked our security cameras, the neighbours checked theirs -- nothing. He just vanished."
A few squiggles of the pen and a tap on the pad to finish off his notes. "So how was it that Paddy came into your posession again? This man -- you had no idea who he was?" A swift shake of Samuel's head. "Okay, talk me through what happened there."
Samuel's Adam's apple nervously bobbed against his throat. "Huh, well, I was outside right here, just tinkering on my car, when I could hear this guy shouting at me. I turned around and I seen this guy walking towards my house with my dog." He gave his head a scratch. "Only, I didn't think it was my dog; Paddy didn't even react to me. No barking, no jumping or excitement... He just seemed beaten down..."
"And 'this guy,'" Detective Wilson reiterated, "can you give me a description of him?"
There was a thousand-yard stare in Samuel's eyes as he pictured the suspect. "Uh, bald, scrawny, very pale... Guess you could say his eyes were grey, almost cloudy..."
"What about his age, if you had to guess?"
"...Well, he looked to be 30s, but he had a teenage boy's voice..."
Wilson wrote down Samuel's statement. "Any other distinguishing features?"
There was a very long pause on Samuel's end, to the point where Wilson had to look up from his pad to make sure he was still standing there. He was -- and he looked petrified.
"He had no lines."
Now it was Wilson's turn to pause. "I'm sorry?"
Samuel responded, only quieter, as he repeated himself, "He had no lines, in his palms..." The detective seemed to be waiting for him to explain. "Well, this man brings me back my dog, so naturally I showed him some southern hospitality, went to shake his hand -- the son of a bitch whipped it away from me, something about 'being a germaphobe.'"
Another nervous head scratch. "So we got to talking about Paddy... The man said he caught 'im running in his field, said his property was a few miles from here, saw the Missing Dog posters while driving these country roads... Then we were saying our goodbyes, the guy handed off the leash to me, my hand finally grazed his..." There was that phrase again: "He had no lines in his hands..." Samuel eventually explained. "Y'know how people have all these lines in the palm of their hand? This motherfucker's were as sleek as rain -- no grip, just rolled right off of mine. And the touch," Samuel nearly gasped, "he was ice cold, sir. There was no feeling there."
Upon hearing this, Detective Wilson was unsure of what to make of it. Sure, it was strange, but it was possible there were other explanations aside from "aliens." There was a chance the man could have burned the lines away... But even burns would leave physical marks behind...
Samuel continued. "Of course, after he left, some more things weren't adding up. For one, I never put up missing posters that far out... For another thing, I never put our address on the posters..." He gazed up at the detective with a pained expression. "And that dog in there may have been Paddy at one point, but that ain't my dog no more." There was an ominous tone to his words...
Wilson nodded. "Speaking of, is it alright if we go in to see Paddy now?"
The two men entered the house. They did not need to search for long; Paddy remained dormant on the family couch, in the exact same position as when he had first arrived at the house.
"He hasn't so much as budged from that spot." Samuel looked on at his dog, his face full of concern.
Detective Wilson went to put his hand out to Paddy, happily singing, "Hey, buddy! How're ya doing?" Samuel's earlier words rang inside his head: "Paddy didn't even react to me." The young dog was extremely lethargic, and he didn't so much as bark at this stranger who had entered his home. "This is how he's been the whole time?"
Samuel nodded sadly. "Tried taking him to the vet yesterday, but nothing's causing it, far as they can tell."
"So what is it that you're looking to do here, sir?" Wilson asked, an obvious hint of agitation in his voice. "Your dog goes missing, someone returns him to you, and you want to press charges because the dog's depressed?"
Samuel lowered his voice and quietly said, "Can I ask you what you think of this?" Gently, he lifted up Paddy's ear to reveal a row of circles etched into his skin. There were five of them, all in a line, some slightly bigger than others but otherwise all roughly the same size.
Wilson took a moment to observe them before stating, "Okay. And?"
Without a word, Samuel moved onto Paddy's opposite ear: another row of circles in the exact same formation. Again, without waiting for a response, he moved onto Paddy's chest, where the circles caused an unnatural ripple from where they had been etched into the skin.
This time Wilson was a bit stumped. "What did the vet say about all of this?"
A dark smirk crossed Samuel's lips. "'Birth marks.'" The detective hesitantly stood up straight, unsure of what to make of all of it. Samuel continued once more. "Here's what I believe happened, officer. I believe that my dog was abducted by aliens. I believe that the 'man' who dropped him off was an alien responsible for the abduction. I believe," his voice began to break as tears filled his eyes, "that whatever they did to Paddy traumatized him for life." He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "And I believe that they're going to be coming for me and my family next.
The reason I called you out here, is because if I do go missing next... you'll know why..."
