The Abduction Years

The ditch was full of August heat and broken glass.

Liam Mercer opened his eyes beneath a wall of weeds, one cheek pressed against damp earth. A blue bottle cap sat inches from his nose. Beyond it, the road shimmered beneath the afternoon sun, empty except for a red pickup shrinking toward the bend.

He tried to lift his head.

Pain flashed behind his eyes. His arms folded under him, stiff and numb. For a moment he couldn’t remember how he had gotten there, or why the sky looked too large, or why the clouds seemed to slide in the wrong direction.

“Help,” he called.

His voice came out thin.

He swallowed and tried again. “Help!”

A bird burst from the weeds. Its wings slapped the air, and Liam flinched so hard his shoulder struck a stone.

He pushed himself upright. Grass scratched his forearms. His sneakers were wet with mud, though the ditch around him was dry. One shoelace had been tied in a knot he didn’t remember making. His school shirt hung crooked beneath his jacket, and a dark smear marked the cuff.

He looked at the road.

The yellow center lines wavered, doubled, then settled.

Home was less than two miles away. He knew that much. The old water tower stood beyond the trees, its silver legs bright against the sky. If he could reach Miller’s Grocery, Mr. Miller would let him use the phone.

Liam stood.

The ditch tilted. He caught himself against a fence post and waited for the ground to stop moving. His knees shook, but they held.

A car appeared around the bend.

He stepped toward the road and raised both arms.

The car slowed. It was a white sedan with a dented hood. A woman leaned across the passenger seat and lowered the window.

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Liam said. “I need to call my mom.”

The woman stared at him. Her eyes moved over his clothes, his muddy hands, the weeds tangled in his hair.

“Where did you come from?”

“I was walking.”

“From where?”

Liam opened his mouth.

Nothing came.

The woman glanced toward the empty road. “Stay there. I’m calling the sheriff.”

“No.” Panic tightened his chest. “Please. Just take me to Miller’s.”

“You’re twelve?”

He nodded.

“Then stay where I can see you.”

She reached for something inside the car. Liam backed away, suddenly certain she was going to leave him.

“Don’t,” he said.

“I’m not leaving.”

“Don’t call anybody.”

The woman’s expression changed. “What happened?”

Liam looked down at his hands. Beneath the dirt, a faint red mark circled his left wrist. It looked like a burn, but the skin wasn’t blistered. Three narrow lines crossed it, perfectly even.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

The woman took out a phone. “I’m calling your parents.”

The word parents struck him harder than the dizziness. His mother’s face came to him in fragments: her reading glasses on the kitchen table, the chipped blue mug she used every morning, the way she shouted his name when he stayed out past supper.

Then another image slid over it.

White light.

A ceiling without corners.

Something moving above him.

Liam squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hey,” the woman said. “Stay with me.”

He opened them. The sedan’s engine clicked softly. A fly crawled across the windshield, disappeared, and appeared again on the roof.

“What day is it?” Liam asked.

“Tuesday.”

He stared at her.

“No,” he said.

“It’s Tuesday.”

“What day was it?”

The woman lowered the phone. “What do you mean?”

Liam turned toward the water tower. Its shadow fell east across the fields. He remembered leaving home on Saturday morning. He remembered his father calling from the garage. He remembered promising to be back before lunch.

Saturday.

The memory broke apart before he could hold it.

His stomach twisted. He dropped to one knee.

The woman climbed out of the car. “Easy. Don’t stand up.”

“I have to go home.”

“You need a doctor.”

“I have to go home.”

“You’ve been missing.”

The words reached him slowly.

Liam looked up. “Missing?”

She nodded, keeping her distance. “Your picture’s been on the news.”

He stared at her.

“For three days,” she said.

The ditch went silent except for the ticking engine and the dry rasp of insects in the weeds.

Three days.

Liam pressed his fingers into the dirt. Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday.

Three days gone.

“I was here,” he said.

“Here?”

“I was walking.”

“Where?”

He looked toward the field. The grass stood waist-high, rippling under the wind. A line of flattened stalks ran from the fence into the trees. At its end, the earth had been pressed into a wide, smooth oval.

He had not noticed it before.

The woman followed his gaze. “What is that?”

Liam didn’t answer.

He walked toward the flattened grass.

“Don’t go in there,” she said.

The oval was nearly thirty feet across. The stalks had bent outward in a perfect pattern, not trampled randomly but laid down as if something heavy had rested above them. The dirt at the center was pale and dry. A circle of blackened weeds marked the edge.

Liam stepped over the boundary.

The air changed.

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