The Latchkey Kids: The Disappearance of Willie Gordon

By Vivian Munnoch

“Count and the nightmare goes away.
One two three four five six.
  Count and the nightmare goes away.
One two three four five six.
   Count and the nightmare goes away.  
One two three four five six.”

“Count and the nightmare goes away?”

Spring break is over an

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. V. Gaudet
• Release date: Oct 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781989714041

Vivian Munnoch

Vivian Munnoch is a Canadian author of dark fiction. Books suitable for younger readers are published under the pen name Vivian Munnoch. For the more mature reader, you can find books published under L.V. Gaudet.

Book preview

The Latchkey Kids

The Disappearance of

Willie Gordon

Book 2

Vivian Munnoch

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2019 by L.V. Gaudet

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-989714-04-1

Library and Archives Canada

First edition published October 2019

Printed by IngramSpark

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of the book.

Cover photo by Ryan Tauss on Unsplash

Discover other titles

by Vivian Munnoch:

The Latchkey Kids Series:

The Latchkey Kids

The Latchkey Kids 2:

The Disappearance of

Willie Gordon

The Wishing Stone Series:

Madelaine & Mocha

"Count and the nightmare goes away.

One two three four five six.

Count and the nightmare goes away.

One two three four five six.

Count and the nightmare goes away. 

One two three four five six."

Count and the nightmare goes away?

To all the kids who ever felt

there was that bump in the night

and didn’t think anyone

would believe them.

You may have noticed the lack of

descriptions of most of the characters’

physical characteristics in the Latchkey Kids.

This is on purpose. I want you to see

yourself and your friends, your neighbors,

and fellow students in the characters.

Contents

1      After the Fire

2      The Pact (Harry’s Blame)

3      Mr. Hooper

4      End of Spring Break

5      Back to School (The Bully is Back)

6      Madison’s Plan

7      Awkwardness and Threats

8      Missing Student

9      To Catch a Monster

10      Avoiding Trouble

11      Sick With Stress

12      Meeting at the Old Abandoned Place

13      The Problem with Anna

14      Sitting in the Dark

15      New Kid at School

16      Watching LaMondain’s

17      Kylie’s Problem

18      After School Problems

19      Bringing Joshua In

20      Joshua’s Home Life

21      Willie Gordon

22      LaMondain’s

23      Into the Basements

24      Beneath LaMondain’s

25      Tunnel Vision

Other books by Vivian Munnoch:

About the Author

The Latchkey Kids

1      After the Fire

The place that stole their innocence and almost took their lives has a name now, for Kylie, anyway. She never knew or cared about its name before. Somehow now it’s important. LaMondain’s Old Wares Factory. It is an odd name and that seems fitting.

Kylie is sitting on her bed with the door closed. She has been holed up in her bedroom for days. Ever since the night things went crazy at the old abandoned factory.

She is doing nothing. Not reading. Not even thinking. At least, she’s trying not to think.

The window is a physical presence in the room. She refuses to look at it.

The urge to look out is an annoying pull that won’t leave her alone. It is unsettling, but she refuses to let herself acknowledge that.

It’s just a window, she thinks. It doesn’t matter one way or another if you look out it.

She feels the need to look out. To see what is going on in the world outside her room.

Kylie, you are so dumb, she mutters and lies down, turning her back to the window defiantly.

There is nothing to look at out there anyway.

She sighs. Boredom is making her antsy and her frayed nerves are making her anxious. The window is making her crazy.

Kylie sighs again. It is a rough sound of exasperation and defeat.

She swings her legs around, sitting up, and slouching. She looks moodily at the window.

Fine. Getting up, she moves the few steps to the window in her small bedroom.

Kylie pulls the curtain back and stares at her own reflection in the glass against the dark backdrop of night.

Her face is pinched and pale, her cheeks gaunter looking than she remembers. Even in the poor reflection she can see the dark circles under her eyes. They look like bruising.

Do I really look like that?

She is filled with self-loathing over how she looks.

Kylie lets the curtain fall, turning to her dresser mirror to inspect her face. At least it is a distraction to put off the window.

The face staring back at her is as pinched and pale as the window reflection suggested. Her cheeks still look thinner than she remembers, a little sunken even. The dark circles under her eyes are not bruising, but they are still dark.

Ugh, I look awful.

Behind her, Kylie can still feel the draw of the window, the urge to look out of her self-imposed prison to the world outside.

She glances at the door.

All I have to do is open it and walk out. There is nothing keeping me in my bedroom except having to face the world.

She imagines herself walking to the door, grasping the knob and turning it, opening it, and walking out.

The task feels impossible; like climbing the tallest mountain in the world, clambering up sheer cliff faces with nothing to hold on to.

She sighs again, her shoulders drooping. She cannot get rid of that nagging urge to look out, to get some semblance of belonging to a world she feels she does not belong in.

Squaring her shoulders and stiffening her back, Kylie goes back to the window and pulls the curtain back to stare at her pinched pale reflection in the dark glass again.

It’s just a window. So why do I feel scared to look out? I’m being so stupid.

A surge of trepidation almost makes her stop and drop the curtain closed. She moves closer to the window, still seeing only her imperfect reflection in the dark window.

Kylie leans her forehead against the glass, feeling its coolness against her skin. She feels almost feverish against the smooth coolness. It might have been a comforting coolness if she did not feel like there was something dangerous lurking on the other side.

She cups her hands to the window on each side of her eyes to block the light in her room and looks out. She sees eyes staring back at her.

Kylie’s mother, Julie, is sitting at the kitchen table alone with a cold coffee in front of her. She has not touched the coffee in an hour. The room is almost dark with only the dim light on the back of the stove for light. Julie feels utterly alone and lost. She has no one but herself to talk to.

I am so worried about Kylie. She hasn’t left her room since the night of the fire at that old factory. She’s hardly eaten anything since they were rescued.

Her eyes are swollen with the pressure of unshed tears trying to push their way out. It is only adding to the stress headache she already has.

She swallows, fighting off the tears. Her voice is choked.

I don’t know what happened. Kylie won’t tell anyone what happened. None of the kids will. They told some crazy made up story. They won’t tell the truth. What really happened? Why were they at that old abandoned factory? What happened in there? What was that man doing there with the kids?

She shakes her head, trying to push the thought away, but she cannot.

That-that man, that vagrant-. She sniffles. If-if he touched her, did anything to her-.

The thought is too much. Anguish fills her and she covers her face with her hands to muffle the sounds of the sobs she cannot stop. The thought of that man, of anyone, violating her daughter, committing unthinkable offences against her, is more than she can bear.

Kylie almost screams, drawn by the surge of panic to stare at the eyes staring back at her from the dark window. Her heart is pounding in her chest and her chest feels constricted. She can’t breathe. She has to force herself to look at the eyes; to really look at them.

Oh my gawd, they’re my own eyes. I’m so stupid. She laughs nervously at herself.

Kylie looks out, past her own partial reflection this time, to the darkness outside her window. At first, all she can see is blackness.

I should turn off the light so I can see better.

The idea of being alone in the dark, even in the safety of her own bedroom, in her own home, sends a chill of fear shivering up her back. Kylie has not turned the light off since the night at the factory.

She moves to the bedside table, turning on the small table lamp there. Crossing the room to turn off the ceiling light, Kylie picks up a pink sheer fashion scarf. She drapes it over the lampshade, careful that it does not droop to touch the light bulb. A nervous fear sickens her stomach while she drapes the scarf over the lamp.

It is a fire hazard, she knows. But, a reckless part of her cries out to prove that she is not afraid of fire. This is as far as she has been willing to go to darken the room to sleep.

With the room darker, Kylie returns to the window.

She steels herself, holding her breath, and pulls the curtain back and presses her forehead to the window again. She cups her hands to her eyes to block out the light in the room like before, squinting into the darkness outside.

She concentrates on focusing her eyes. She can make out the shape of the house next door. The back door light is on, a shining spotlight in the dark. Its light makes shadows of the bushes between the two houses, making them stand out.

How did I not see them?

She can make out the shapes of trees, the branches swaying a little in the wind. More houses further away, their back yards lined up past the house next door. Trees and bushes, and a swing set a few houses down.

That’s the Foster’s.

Looking towards the front street she sees houses across the street. Part of a car parked on the street is visible, the rest hidden by the house next door.

Something moves in the dark, close beneath her window, the motion drawing her eyes to it. Whatever it is, it is small like a cat and dark. Kylie focuses on it, unsure if she really sees motion or if it is her imagination.

It’s a cat. Of course it’s a cat.

It moves slowly, then darts quickly, startling her, vanishing through the bushes between the two houses. The only proof of its existence is the bushes still shaking for a few heartbeats after it dove through them.

Please be a cat. Please be a cat. The words hiss out of her mouth in a near silently whispered prayer.

She steps away from the window quickly, her heart pounding in her chest and her throat constricting with fear.

Kylie looks at the bedroom door.

Mom? Come in, please. She can’t voice the words. She wishes desperately that someone would somehow hear the silent moment in her room, that they would know how afraid she is right now, that they would come running in to rescue her.

The door remains motionless and silent.

Julie gets up wearily, pouring the cold coffee down the sink and setting the cup next to it.

I need to go to bed.

She can’t help looking at the closed basement door as she passes it, an odd feeling of foreboding emanating from the darkness she knows is below.

The kids’ crazy stories have me being foolish now. She shakes her head, moving on past the basement door to go to her bedroom.

Julie pauses at Becca’s door, listening. She pauses longer outside Kylie’s room, feeling the urge to open the door and go in.

Blinking back the tears still burning her eyes, Julie moves on to her own bedroom, closing the door behind her.

***

Madison blinks tiredly at the computer screen. She has a new shorter pixie-cut; the result of the hairdresser trying to cut out the singed hair, and hates the new look. She thinks it makes her face look rounder.

She smiles, taps the keys, and reads the chat flowing on the side of the game screen. Her eyes darken, hardening, her mouth going into a hard angry line. Madison taps the keys again, moving her character and chatting back. More text streams down the side of the game. She reads it and pouts.

Her hand reaches instinctively for the bowl of chips. She has been turning to food as an outlet for her feelings, eating constantly.

She starts typing furiously; her eyes narrowed in concentration, and is interrupted by a knock at her bedroom door.

Madison, her mother’s voice comes through the door. I can see your light on. It’s late. Shut it down and go to bed.

In a minute, Mom, Madison calls back, her voice expressing more anger than she intends.

She stiffens as the words come out, realizing her mistake. With that tone of voice, her mother will not just move on and go to bed.

The door opens and her mother is standing there looking annoyed.

Yup, annoyed at the tone, Madison thinks.

Her mother’s arms are crossed over her chest.

That is not a good sign, Madison thinks.

Seriously Madison, I don’t know if it is because you are grounded or because of whatever happened with you and the other kids at that factory, but you have had a new attitude since that night and I don’t appreciate it. Shut it down now and go to bed.

Madison stops herself before she makes an angry noise. Controlling the surge of anger, she turns off the computer with forced calm and turns in her chair.

Happy?

Not with that tone, I’m not. If you keep that up I will take that computer out of your room.

Walking stiffly, Madison crawls into bed and turns off the side table lamp, leaving her mother standing in the dark with the light from the hallway backlighting her.

Her mother frowns and leaves the room, closing the door.

Minutes later Madison can hear the muffled sounds of her mother complaining about her to her father.

Nice, she mutters, laying there angrily staring into the dark.

***

Anna walks purposely through the dark, her runners occasionally scuffing on the road. There is only the odd distant car at this time of night and the streetlights give enough light to see.

I’m not at all nervous walking alone at night, she tells herself. The jittery feeling filling her tells a different story.

She takes a longer route than necessary, detouring up another street and then another. She is sticking to the well-lit streets for as long as she can.

Anna forces herself to not hesitate before entering the back lane. The lights there are few and the lane darker than the street. The odd garage, cars parked in their driveways, and garbage bins loom larger and darker than life in her nervous perception in the dark.

Each driveway she nervously passes; Anna half expects something to jump out at her. She speeds to pass each quickly, filled with a sick half relief when nothing jumps out as she leaves each driveway behind. She keeps watching over her shoulder in case anything follows her.

She stops before the back yard of the house on the corner. Anna looks at it. It is dark and silent. She almost shivers with the sense that the house and yard are deserted.

It doesn’t look different. So why does it feel different? It feels, I don’t know . . . abandoned somehow.

The house is small and the yard is full of junk. Weeds are already growing wild along with the sparse grass since its last cutting. The area next to the small detached garage backing onto the alley is littered with all kinds of trash. Tangles of heavy wire, the bare rusting metal frame of a kitchen chair with no back or seat, and all kinds of other junk is scattered around the yard.

A heavy dog chain snakes through grass and weeds, visible in the barren patches of ground. The end with the clip lays discarded on the ground.

Anna steps over the invisible barrier, the un-crossable no go zone, stepping onto the property that no one dares enter.

She walks over and bends down, picking up the end of the chain with the clip. She studies it. The clip is the kind that is rounded on one side with a flat piece pressed to its inside with a spring-like tension. The thicker rounded end of the clip is bent out as if it was bent with pliers, or perhaps clipped to something that pulled with enough strength to force it to give.

All those times that big nasty dog lunged with all his strength he never did this. He wasn’t strong enough to bend this clip like this.

Anna looks around nervously, then back at the clip.

I don’t think Caesar bent it. What could have done this?

A chill slithers down her back.

Anna puts the end of the chain down slowly, careful not to let the chain jangle. She looks at the darkened house, her eyes roving the windows. She thought she heard something.

I have the creepy feeling I’m being watched, Anna whispers.

She sees nothing.

Walking faster than before, she leaves the yard the same way she came in. Somehow it feels right; even though it is faster to cut through the yard.

Fighting the urge to look at the dark house, she hurries to the corner of the back yard, turns up the little street running next it, and reaches the front street where the streetlights offer more light. Anna gives in to the urge, quickly looking at the front of the house from the corner of her eye, expecting motion that never comes.

She hurries down the front street, forcing herself to wait until she is three houses up before breaking into a jog, and a few more houses before she starts to run.

Anna reaches her destination. She stops in the street in front of it, staring at the building looming large and darker than the night sky in the dark. LaMondain’s.

She is filled with feelings she does not know how to name. They are dark and full of trauma. There are too many to sort them out into something she can recognize.

Anna knows nothing of the building’s history. It doesn’t matter. To her it’s just a ruined old brick building that has a dark secret in its basement.

The windows are open maws to the blackness within, the brick walls surrounding them blackened with soot. If she stares hard enough, Anna thinks she can make out the rubble from the roof caving in dropped onto the fallen beams inside despite the darkness.

Yellow caution and police tape is wrapped on wooden stakes and construction sawhorses and is draped between them. Somehow that is supposed to prevent anyone from entering the property.

I didn’t think it was possible for this place to look worse. I was wrong.

She can still smell the stink of the fire. It burns her nose, reminding her of the scorched smoke that filled her singed lungs. It still hurts a little to breathe.

With a slow deep breath, she walks forward, approaching the old abandoned, and now ravaged by fire, derelict building. She ducks under the police tape and walks along the side to the back, her shoes crunching on broken glass, rocks, and pieces of debris scattered on the ground.

Anna reaches the back corner. She thinks she spots movement in the dark on the far side of the yard. Whatever it is, it seems to have vanished behind the little shed in the far corner. She stops.

Whatever it is, it’s gone, she says quietly, trying to pretend it does not bother her.

Dylan moves through the darkness carefully, staying close to the wall as he moves towards the front of the abandoned and fire ravaged factory, the weak light of an almost dead flashlight dancing on the ruined floor before him. It stinks of charred wood, melted plastic and burnt wiring and insulation.

His shoes leave scuffs in the soot and dust settled on the floor as he picks his way between blackened hulks of equipment and fallen ceiling beams. He stops before moving between the machines on each side of the path before him.

Each foot must be placed with care. The entire center floor area is a gaping black hole to whatever remains of the basement below.

Dylan looks at one of the blackened pieces of equipment apprehensively. It sits hanging dangerously over the edge of the hole, the floor beneath weakened by fire and water sagging down towards the blackness below.

I don’t know how that hasn’t fallen yet. If it goes, I don’t want it to take me with it.

Dylan flashes the light into the yawning hole. It does nothing to reveal what lies below.

I have to go down there.

He swings the light around the edges, looking for a passable way down. The stairs at the back door are gone, consumed in the fire or fallen; probably both.

The flashlight dims and blinks out, leaving him in darkness.

Dylan shakes the flashlight, trying to wake the weak batteries to life. He opens it, popping the batteries out and turning them before replacing them and screwing it back together.

Aiming the lens at his face, he shakes it again, frowning at it. The light winks back to life, splashing light across his face. It would have temporarily blinded him if it were not so weak.

The dim light reveals the haggardness of his features. His face is bruised and scraped. The weak light of the flashlight is wavering in his trembling grip. It winks off again, completely dead.

He tries shaking it and rearranging the batteries again. There is no life left in the batteries.

Dylan moves forward, his feet crunching on broken glass. Staying close to the piece of equipment on the other side of the hole, he carefully places one foot before the other, moving along the narrow ledge of floor remaining there. He places one hand on the metal next to him to steady himself, pulling his hand away to leave a smudged handprint in the soot and dust.

He makes it past and continues moving towards the front of the building.

A sound carries on the night air through the now gone window. The glass had been blown out by the intensity of the heat and flames, gaping sections of the wood that once boarded them up devoured by flames and pulverized by the firemen’s high pressure hoses.

Dylan freezes, holding his breath and listening. Only his eyes move as he tries to place the sound.

It came from outside. He barely dares to breathe the words.

He spots movement through one of the open windows. Someone is approaching the building. He cannot see who it is in the dark.

Bugger.

Retreating, Dylan reaches the equipment and carefully makes his way between them again. This time he does not give in to the urge to try looking down the black hole to the basement.

He is sure he feels the floor sag beneath his weight. His eyes widen and he stops, holding his breath that is coming in ragged gasps.

Dylan puts one trembling hand on the looming machine closer to the brick wall to steady himself. Swallowing, he forces himself to move fast, darting between the machines. He does not know if the groaning of the floor is only in his imagination or if it is real.

Dylan starts making his way carefully back to the back door he entered by, following his own footprints.

Anxious of not knowing what made the sound, he speeds up, moving too fast through the burnt building.

He reaches the back door and pauses, leaning on it and panting out the breath he was holding too long. It takes effort to hold his breath again. He listens.

Are they just passing by? They must be. They have no reason to come in here.