Chapter 3: Not My Son

Chapter 3: Not My Son

The brass valve felt unnaturally heavy in Trey’s pocket as he returned to the house, a cold, dense reminder of the piece of himself he’d left behind with Mr. Smith. He shook off the unease. He had a task. He had a purpose. Down in the damp chill of the basement, with the single bulb casting his shadow long and distorted against the stone, he worked. The screech of the old valve yielding to his wrench, the clean bite of the new threads, the final, satisfying turn that silenced the rhythmic drip—it was a small, defiant victory against the rot. For a moment, standing in the sudden quiet, he felt a flicker of control.

But the feeling evaporated the second he stepped back into the suffocating stillness of the house. Fixing a pipe hadn't changed anything. His father's body was still missing. A heavy, stone box sat hidden in the attic. And a strange old man now possessed a lock of his hair for reasons that made his skin crawl.

Neil was still at the kitchen table, staring out the window. "Did you fix it?" he asked, his voice soft, detached.

"Yeah. It's fixed." Trey scrubbed his greasy hands with a rag, the silence stretching between them. He looked at the silvery scar on his brother’s temple. He needed answers, not just about the last twenty-four hours, but about the day that had shattered their lives and sent him running. He had always accepted the simple, brutal narrative: his father was a violent drunk who finally went too far. But was it that simple? The empty morgue drawer suggested it wasn't.

“I’m going to call the sheriff,” Trey announced, the decision solidifying as he spoke it. “I need to see the file. The report from... that day.”

Neil turned from the window, a flicker of something—was it fear?—in his wide, still eyes. "Why? What's the point of digging that up?"

"The point is, his body is gone, Neil. Someone took it. Maybe something in that file, some detail we missed, can tell us who might have a reason." It was a flimsy excuse, but it was the only one he had. His real motive was a selfish, gnawing need for closure, to finally look the monster of his memory in the eye, even if it was just on a grainy tape.

The call was as difficult as he’d expected. Sheriff Brody, a man whose voice already sounded tired twenty years ago, was not thrilled to hear from a Blackburn.

"Trey? What do you want?" Brody’s sigh crackled over the line. "If this is about your father, we're looking into it. Probably just some sick kids."

"I want to see the evidence file from the assault case," Trey said, his voice hard. "Specifically, the security tape from Smith's Hardware."

"For God's sake, son, what for? That case is closed. Jason's dead."

"And now his body is missing," Trey shot back. "I just... I need to see it for myself. Please. It might help." He hated the pleading tone in his voice, but he needed this.

Another long-suffering sigh. "Fine. Come down. But don't make a mess."

The sheriff’s department was a small, cramped office attached to the town hall, smelling of stale coffee and regret. Brody, looking even more weathered than Trey remembered, didn't bother with pleasantries. He just pointed to a small room with a table, a chair, and an old TV/VCR combo. On the table was a dusty cardboard box.

"It's all in there," Brody said, his expression a mixture of pity and annoyance. "Knock yourself out."

Trey's hands trembled slightly as he lifted the lid. Inside were yellowed police reports, crime scene photos he couldn't bring himself to look at, and a single black VHS tape labeled SMITH'S HARDWARE - J. BLACKBURN ASSAULT. He slid it into the VCR.

The machine whirred and clicked, and the screen flickered to life with a blast of static. Then, a grainy, black-and-white image resolved itself. It was the sidewalk in front of the store, the camera's perspective high and wide. He saw a younger, thinner version of himself, standing off to the side, frozen in terror. He saw his father, Jason, a towering figure, wild-eyed and unsteady on his feet. And he saw Neil.

Trey’s breath hitched. He forced himself to watch. The scene played out just as he remembered. The shouting, the gesturing. Jason’s face was a mask of pure, contorted rage. He shoved Neil. Hard. Neil stumbled backward, his arms flailing, and his head hit the sharp edge of the concrete curb. He went down and didn't move.

Trey’s stomach churned. This was it. This was the moment. He reached for the eject button, his quest for closure satisfied in the most sickening way possible. But his hand froze. He’d forgotten about the audio. The original report had mentioned the camera had a microphone, but the words had been dismissed as drunken raving.

He fumbled for the volume knob on the TV and twisted it. Tinny, distorted sound filled the small room, mostly the rumble of a passing truck and the wind. But underneath it, he could hear his father's voice, raw and desperate. And he wasn't just screaming nonsense.

Trey leaned closer, straining to hear, his heart hammering against his ribs.

His father pointed a trembling finger at Neil's unmoving form on the ground. His roar was not just one of rage, but of something else. Something that sounded terrifyingly like grief-stricken madness.

"THAT'S NOT HIM!" Jason Blackburn screamed, his voice cracking with desperation and fury. "YOU THINK THIS IS MY SON? THIS ISN'T MY SON!"

Trey recoiled from the screen as if he’d been struck. What?

His father staggered, his eyes wild, looking not at the people gathering, but past them, as if addressing some unseen entity.

"YOU GAVE ME THE WRONG ONE! THIS ISN'T MY BOY! THE TRUTH... THE TRUTH IS IN THE ATTIC!" he bellowed, his voice raw. "GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"

The tape devolved into static as the first responding officer tackled Jason to the ground. Trey didn't see it. He was frozen, the words echoing in the silent room, rewriting his entire past. That's not my son. The truth is in the attic.

It wasn't a drunken attack. It was an interrogation. An exorcism. A madman trying to beat a truth out of a boy who he claimed wasn't his. The violence he had run from wasn't senseless rage; it was targeted, specific, and aimed at something he couldn't comprehend.

Sheriff Brody appeared in the doorway. "You good, Trey? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Trey looked up, his eyes wide with dawning horror. "What he was shouting... did anyone ever...?"

Brody shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. "He was a drunk, Trey. Drunks rave. Don't go making patterns where there are none. Your father was a monster. End of story."

But it wasn't the end. It was the beginning. Trey knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that Brody was wrong. This changed everything. His father wasn't just an abuser. He was a man fighting a battle so insane he couldn't articulate it to anyone, a battle that had turned him into a monster himself.

And the clue, the key to it all, he had screamed it for the whole world to hear. The truth is in the attic.

Trey's mind flashed to the object he'd found just hours before. The cold, heavy stone box. Hidden beneath the floorboards. In the attic.

He stood up so fast the chair scraped violently against the floor. He had to get back to the house. He had to open that box. The fear he'd felt his whole life was nothing compared to the terror that now gripped him. The question was no longer who would steal his father's body. The question was, what, exactly, was his brother?