Chapter Text
SNOW hissed a sibilant song, cloaking the city of New York in an eerie silence, hushing even the late night sounds which would have penetrated the darkness with its blanket of damp whiteness. It seemed for once the city slept, lulled into peace by the white fall. Or it would have, had not a shadowy figure moved along a rooftop, its crooked, bent form seemingly cloaked in darkness even in the surreal glow of moon and streetlight refracted in the falling snow.
The figure seemed animal, running with a feline gate, yet with limbs and proportions that made it anthropoid. Close inspection would show it to be monstrous in size, a seven and a half foot giant had it stood upright, with its limbs seemingly thick and corded with muscle under heavy, matted fur, its legs bent like those of a dog. It ran with an oddly stiff gate, as if the creature relied more on its momentum to bend them than strength, each limb ending in a thick, heavy paw as broad as a tiger’s. The footprints it left were clawed, long fingered like a bear’s or a man’s.
Even if its size were not seen, nor its strange limbs, the long, curving horns which protruded from the back of the head would have marked it as inhuman. They were nearly two feet long, like those of some African antelope, yet covered in a thick, soft velvet, akin to that of a buck deer in summer. But this did nothing to hide their wickedly sharp points, curving downward towards the running figure’s thickly furred back.
But it was on this back, which was covered in that thick, dark fur, that the real horror was revealed. The creature carried what appeared to be a heavy leather bag, not unlike a rucksack of dark, oiled leather, strapped across its broad back by a single thick strap running from shoulder to hip and around its muscled body. And, bundled down in this sack, his face just barely visible amid furs and blankets, was the face of an unconscious boy child, seven year old Albert Schultz.
THE news boys on the corners had yelled the news for nearly a month now, but the kidnappings had started at least two months before that, as best anyone could tell. The first two reports had been ignored by the police, the stories too outlandish to be believed, the parents, all immigrants whose English had been faulty at best, had relayed stories of their sons being stolen in the night by a monster. After all, runaways were common in the poor tenements of the Lower East Side, and the police had too many other problems than to look for two lost boys.
Too, they had dismissed the stories of two young couples living in Yorkville, good, hardworking people whose children, both young boys no older than eight, had vanished in the night less than two weeks apart. Yet, as was so sadly often the case, it had taken the disappearance of the son of one of the most prominent young lawyers in the city, William Schultz, to cause the police to begin to take seriously the disappearances. For, just as the others had said, the Schultz's had been awakened in the night by the sounds of breaking glass and the scream of their son. And, running to the terrified yells of their only child, the horrified parents had seen a monster of inhuman proportions carry their child out of the window, vanishing into the night beyond.
And so, the police had investigated. But what they had found was even more fantastic than the story the couple had told. The window to the child’s bedroom was, as was the rest of the flat, ten stories up a nearly shear building, and well removed from the fire escapes. The window had clearly been broken in from the outside, and, most horrifically of all, claw marks were found in the stone exterior sill, each as long and wide as a man’s finger. Yet, beyond these marks, no other evidence of the kidnapper could be found.
The police were baffled, cried the news boys. And now, a week after the Schultz boy had been taken, no leads were forthcoming, and the police were giving up hope. William Schultz, however, was not the sort of man to leave all avenues unexplored.