Sunday Short: My Family II - Eli

It’s been seven years since the Wilkins case. Seven years since I stood in that basement, surrounded by blood, and read the words “MY FAMILY” scrawled across the wall in a child’s trembling hand.

I told myself I’d moved on.

That the nightmares would fade.

That Eli, whatever he was, was gone.

But you can’t move on from something that follows you.

I still work homicide, though I don’t take cases involving kids anymore. I can’t. Every time I see a small shoe, or a bloodstained drawing, my hands start to shake. My therapist says I’m traumatized. Maybe she’s right. But how do you explain trauma that breathes?

Last month, I got a report from a small town two counties over. Two adults found dead in their home, bodies mutilated, organs missing, no signs of forced entry. The coroner’s notes made my stomach turn. It was too familiar. Too precise.

The same pattern. The same brutality.

And then came the part that froze my blood:

A child’s footprints. Bare. Leading away from the scene.

I didn’t tell anyone, but I drove there myself. I told the local PD I was reviewing old case files. A lie.

When I stepped into that house, it was like stepping back into the Wilkins’ basement, the smell, the silence, the cold that clung to your skin. And on the living room wall, written in what I could only assume was blood, I found it again.

The same message. The same handwriting.

Only this time, it said:

“MOM FOUND ME.”

I don’t know why, but my knees gave out. I sat there for a long time, just staring at it. Then my phone buzzed, a notification, even though I had no signal.

It was a picture. Grainy, low-light. Taken from my own living room.

And standing behind my couch was a small figure.

Smiling.

I didn’t sleep that night. I haven’t slept much since.

Every clock in my house stops at 3:13 AM. Every mirror fogs up with a single word: FAMILY. And some nights, I hear footsteps in the hall again. Small, patient ones.

Last night, I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. The screen was blank, no number. Just one word flashing where the caller ID should be.

ELI.

When I answered, all I heard was breathing. Then a voice, faint, childlike, but not human.

“Don’t you remember me, Mom?”

The call ended. And now, as I’m recording this, I can hear him again. Right outside the door.

He’s been waiting a long time to come home.