He recognized the journalist on the table. Missing four weeks now. He was assigned her case, briefly, before it disappeared from the roster. Her friends, her co-workers, all described a fun, happy woman with an acerbic wit and dreams of a journalist.

A woman who loved her job.

A woman who cut the world off and vanished.

Here she was. Next to her on another table, with another white sheet pulled up to the shoulders, was a short, pale, man. Severe scarring on his head and along his jaw. Garrett, the morgue technician on duty, tapped a pen on the table the man laid on.

"We IDed them both," Garrett said. He placed his hands behind his back and attempted to straighten his slumped posture. Skinny, absent a chin, and attempting to grow facial hair that was as light as it was sparse, Garrett seemed perpetually in adolescence.

"Who's he?" Peter asked, pointing to the short, scalped man. Detective Peter Femia was on his tenth year, and on his fifth year of saying it was his last before he found a new line of work. Peter's husband John stopped celebrating, because he knew his husband's quick glances at Craigslist for a new job or the occasional perusal of a University website was a show, but for who's benefit he was never sure.

"Tim Johnson. Also missing for about four weeks or so. Lost his job and walked away from everything. We found them side by side in the alleyway twelve hours ago."

"Robbery?" I asked.

"Doesn't appear to be. But we do know one thing. They killed each other. Literally bled out in an alleyway, knives out."

"Knives?"

"Nothing special. Just serrated kitchen knives. Probably purchased from a dollar store. No one heard a thing. No one saw a thing. They were found by a transient approximately two days after they died."

"Thanks for calling me," Peter said.

"Don't tell anyone," Garret said.

Peter asked if the bodies were different from the others that had been found. Two bodies turned up in the Hausman Preserve, far from any maintained hiking trails. One was found in the aftermath of the TexNation fracking well explosion in Nobility, TX. Three more in different parts of the city, including one literally laying in the middle of a busy crosswalk. Despite hundreds of potential witnesses, no one saw him drop down onto the street. If Garrett's autopsy report was correct, the deceased remained invisible for nearly three days before his corpse was struck by a car.

Each body, among the old scars and days old seeping wounds, had a large t-shaped incision on the chest. An autopsy scar. One that had healed. Major organs missing from many of them, including hearts, livers, lungs. Eyes and tongues in some cases.

Each body, taken from the morgue during the night. Each day, Garrett found his reports missing. No one, not even the officers who called them in, had any recollection.

"Can I have your notes? Copies of course. And anything else you have," Peter asked.

"Afraid not."

"No?"

"Look, I owed you one. And we are way past even now. When I come back in the morning, they will be gone. Along with my notes, security tapes, you name it. Like they were never here. Anyone who would go to that much trouble, ensuring an autopsy is done with copious notes before just...disappearing them? I'm not fucking with them."

"You know what I think," Peter said.

"Neither of these were one of those kids. We ID'd them. No autopsy scar. But, the rest of it...they're too much like the others."

"It's a start," Peter said.

"You got to look." Garrett dropped his notes onto the table. "I'm getting a snack. Should be gone about ten minutes."

"We're definitely even now, Garrett," Peter said.

"We were even months ago. After this, I'm not calling you."

"Fair enough."

Peter took pictures of the notes and of the bodies. The first body he encountered was about six months before. He couldn't shake the young woman's face, it seemed too familiar. He was on the cusp of falling asleep when he remembered.

The TV special. The retrospective on the 726. The girl recovered in Hausman Preserve was identical to one of the women interviewed, a woman who lost a daughter. He went into the station early, only to find himself in a Twilight Zone episode.

No record of the girl. No one had a single memory. He'd seen people hide the truth before, hell, he'd seen his superiors conveniently forget details about a City Council person's public intoxication arrest. But there was no wink, no veiled warning.

No one remembered.

But Peter did. He eventually found out that Garrett did as well. Despite his reluctance, Garret agreed to contact Peter should any similar bodies arrive. Peter took notes. He took pictures. He stored them in a safe hidden in the floor beneath his home office desk.

As Peter prepared to go the higher authority on Friday, he came into the station Wednesday morning to find everyone shell-shocked. One of their own was dead, and by his own hand. A fellow officer shook his head when relating the story to Peter.

"Guy was losing it. He went to everyone he could, he even tried calling the FBI. He said the 726 were alive. He said there was some grand conspiracy to make people forget. They talked to us, but we had nothing. Chief suggested he take some time off, maybe see someone. Then last night, service pistol."

Peter nodded along, talked about what a damn shame it was, and decided he needed more evidence. He might only have one shot at exposing this, it needed to be airtight. He wondered what would have happened if he ever crossed paths with this man. Could they have cracked this together? Maybe not. Apparently, a conspiracy had formed, and the only one that could ever truly succeed, one in which the participants were completely ignorant of their involvement. He decided tonight, he would remain in the morgue. He would see who comes for the bodies. John was out of town and Peter didn't have a shift.

He would wait.

* * *

Even ten years later, he found it so hard to fathom. In one night, across the continental United States, 726 children vanished in the middle of the night. Not one lead in ten years. Not one confirmed sighting, aside from occasional paranormal nonsense popping up online about black-eyed children or UFOs.

What baffled the detective more than anything was how quickly the world acclimated to the case. Everyone simply accepted that this happened with no explanation. The world didn't stop.

But over the years, he came to understand people acclimate to anything. He watched his own government lock up children they stole from their families at the border, imprisoning them for the crime of believing in the goodness of his country. How many were lost, just as the 726 were?

Of course, on the anniversary, people's interest in the 726 renewed. But that's all it was. Interest. Not horror, not disbelief, but interest. What a curious happening, everyone seemed to muse, all those kids going missing. On the tenth anniversary, when interest should have reached a zenith, Marble Springs happened, then Nobility's fracking disaster shortly after buried the story even deeper. There was no room for the 726 anymore.

Not that lack of interest would deter Peter.

The morgue's chill burrowed into his bones. The room always held a boreal atmosphere, but waiting in the dark, his muscle stiffening and heart stopping at every sound, he felt frigid.

"This was a bad idea," Peter said. Not even the gun on his hip eased him. In the dark, he felt vulnerable. Even in the corner of the room, eyes fixed on the only entrance, he was exposed. Who were these people? The bodies of the journalist and the man were in their respective freezers. They bore all the scars of the others, except for one. They vanished as adults, not children. How were they linked?

"You seem like you're deep in thought."

Peter pushed back against the wall and drew his gun, he raised himself slowly. He held the weapon out in front of him with steady hands. A man stood in front of the freezer.

"How did you get in?" Peter asked.

"I walked in. Same as you."

"Who are you?"

"My name is William."

The man appeared to be in his early 20s. Black, wearing a dirty gray sweater. On one of the bare tables that sat between him and the detective, sat a plastic wolf mask. Peter kept the gun raised. He took a step forward, then another. William remained still. He looked at Peter with boredom.

"Why haven't you forgot?" William asked.

"I don't know," Peter asked.

"At one time, you could have joined us. You don't forget. That's a rare attribute."

"What's happening? Where are you taking these bodies?"

William crossed his arms and let himself fall back against the freezers behind him. He leaned against them and stared up at the ceiling. He said he had no intention of taking these anywhere. They were different. They would burn.

"What do you mean, burn?" Peter asked. He lowered the gun, but kept his hands gripped on the weapon.

"You want to know?" William asked.

"Yes."

"Are you ready?" William asked.

"Yes! Talk to me!" Peter roared.

"My name is William. Ten years ago, I was stolen, along with 725 others. I'm the only one left. Before you ask, yes, they're dead. All of them."

He continued. There was no connection with Kidz Clubz. They needed a threat connecting them, a false lead. The people who took them came in person. Two men. He was sure one of them was probably human.

"They just...came in the house?" Peter asked.

"We let them in. We had to," William said. "Kids are so much braver and caring than we give them credit for. Especially when the lives of their family are at stake."

"Why did they take you?" Peter asked.

"Everyone was so far off. It wasn't sex trafficking, slavery, we weren't shipped somewhere to be a child army. We were candidates. We had ten years to learn, to train, ten years to be...changed. But Hart only needs one of us."

"Hart?"

"Adam Hart."

"Like Hart and Sons?" Peter asked.

He never saw William move. But he felt the hands on his throat. On instinct, he dropped the gun and tried to pry them off his neck. He felt the warmth of William's breath on his ear. The grip tightened.

"The bodies?" William whispered. "They are sent to him. Hart keeps what he needs, and gives the rest to an associate. A hungry, hungry person, Peter. Very hungry. These? They weren't prepared properly. They will burn. Peter. Peter, I am saving you."

Peter's voice choked and gasped, raw and desperate sounds. All air left his lungs in spurts. He saw dots on the edge of vision that became shadows, darkness converged.

"I am saving you. I thought God would intervene. I thought Jesus would come down and stop them. How could he not? How could he not act? But the hill exploded. I saw the fires myself. And the only person trying to help? You. Only you. So, I'm going to save you. Then I'm going to save my father. And my mother. And my brother."

He loosened his grip, his hands ached. The body dropped to the floor. He wiped his eyes and tried to blink away the tears.

"Don't worry. It's going to be so much worse for me."

Peter burned. William laid out the bodies of Jamie and Tim beside the detective.

William left for Nobility.

He needed to save his family.