We brought Andrew into the library and called the police,
who called Andrew’s parents. Within the hour they were both here assembled in
the library. They made an odd crowd; a tired and dishevelled couple with tears
in their eyes, tears of joy now rather than the constant ones of sorrow, and
smart officers without even a speck of dust on them. But common to both of them
was the grateful smile, though none more genuine than Andrew’s mother. She was
a nurse, I remembered from her interview on the news. She was almost a minor
celebrity in Ashmoor, seeing as her son had been the first to disappear. The
other sixteen were never so widely known – in some kind of twisted ‘we’re first’
on the part of the media. She had come straight from work – she wore a coat and
a small badge reading ‘Savannah’.
“Thank you so much!” She gasped with unadulterated
happiness. “I’ve been so worried, beyond words, I can’t thank you enough-“
“Excuse me, but we didn’t find your son. He was left outside
our library, that’s all we did. Don’t thank us.” Dorothy broke in, ever the
blunt knife.
“I’m just so glad to have him back.” She held her arms
tightly around the boy of fifteen. “The doctors say they’ll come down as soon
as possible, and I’ll make sure you find out what happens.”
When I got home, I flicked on the television and watched the
news. Normally it wouldn’t be my favourite program but today I needed it to
keep my mind away from - well, you know. Everything I must not remember.
I was greeted by BBC News’ presenter talking about Andrew.
This is BBC News, in
Ashmoor Town, England.
Andrew Blake, the
first child to go missing in what has been called the worst kidnapping
case in Ashmoor history, was found today in front of Ashmoor Public Library.
The kidnapper, dubbed
the “Ashmoor Asylum Kidnapper”, is still at large despite the efforts of the
authorities to find him.
Andrew Blake claims to
have no memory of the time he spent while kidnapped – or at all. Here we have
substances expert Joe Chair to explain.
“Thank you. Now, there
are many drugs which cause memory loss, but it is unlikely that any were used
on Andrew. Why? Because he has been examined by top psychologists and no drug-related
issues have been found. In fact there is no drug currently known to the
scientific community that could completely wipe the prefrontal lobes and still
leave the cortex and cerebellum fully intact. To put that simply, we are
currently at a loss to understand how his memory has been fully wiped without
impacting other parts of the brain.”
Thank you, Mr Chair.
We will keep the public updated on any new occurrences.
This is BBC News in
Ashmoor, England.
I switched off the TV and climbed upstairs to do some
homework. That at least would take my mind off everything that had been
happening.