Broken Monsters. Lauren Beukes

laces his slim fingers between Clayton’s clumsy ones. It squeezes, gently. An admonishment. Get up now. Stop playing. It’s not funny. Words it knows from Clayton’s head.

      But the boy is a dead, empty thing. It has done it all wrong. This stupid head, these stupid hands. It tries to remember how it came through, the man in the woods and the lure of uninhabited spaces – a vacancy that dream can rush in to fill, a door to step through.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ the dream says with Clayton’s mouth. And it is, for both of them.

      About to climb back into the truck, it hesitates and picks up a piece of pink chalk from the ground. It draws the rough outline of a door, the chalk snapping in Clayton’s thick fingers. But it is persistent. Because maybe, next time, the door will open, and the boy will climb unsteadily to his hooves and take lilting steps through.

      The dream will try again.

       Anywhereland

      There’s no such thing as by the book, Gabi knows. Every case defines itself. But you start with what you know. Work backwards. Fill in the gaps. Daveyton did not arrive home between four and five p.m., when he usually does on a Friday. He left school around three, according to the science teacher who was supervising the hang-out that day, which is what Humboldt Middle School calls their aftercare, confirmed by the footage they’ve retrieved from the security cameras. The school can’t afford to maintain their library, but they have surveillance cameras and metal detectors. Priorities.

      Usually, he would walk to the bus stop (public transit: the school does not have its own bus service) with a friend in his class, Carla Fuentes, but she had a dermatologist appointment, and her dad picked her up early. Which means he went missing somewhere in between school and home. It’s the worst place of all, that anywhereland.

      The parents have been interrogated separately and together, with a lawyer and without, and referred for counseling. They were both at work at the time of their son’s disappearance. Lucky to have a double income. Juliet Lafonte works as an administrator at a doctor’s office, although her arthritis makes her a slow typist. She has witnesses to her whereabouts all Friday.