The Last Christmas On Earth

"Do you still insist on this? Do you want to tell me why I should take a sedative?" He replied nervously. Before Eve could even answer, Dr. Adam Parker interfered.

He had a fine mustache and round intellectual glasses combined with a fancy butterfly, he looked like a mannequin escaped from an antique shop.

"Mr. James, please listen to me! You have not been sleeping for much longer than a day, your eyes are completely bloodshot and the veins on your neck and temples are extremely dilated. I am telling this for your own health, you should rest because going on like this you may collapse within a few minutes. I'm sure that if you would allow me to check your blood pressure, it would be off the charts" he explained to him seriously, staring at him with his tiny clear eyes.

"Until I won't see my son again I am not willing to rest, understood? Indeed, if waiting here means collapsing, that's fine!" James argued with a raspy voice looking over at the doctor: he was trying to identify who was sharing out some coffee outside in the crowd.

"How I feel is not your business, and if..." he was saying till Hellen arrived. "Excuse me," she said placing a hand on James's forearm trying to get his attention. Eve noticed the gesture and glared at her jealously or perhaps simply claiming her ownership; Helen defiantly stared at her while placing the Sheriff's star pinned to her chest and then again to James.

"I must return to base, I have to plan tomorrow workday," she told him tightening the grip on his arm as a sign of solidarity, then Eve gave her again a piercing glance.

"Sure, I see" he nodded nibbling his upper lip.

"Good. If you have any news, call me please"

"Yes Sir, I will keep you updated. Thank you for doing this" he replied sadly because he feared that instead, for that evening, there would have been no news.

"Don't give up, I'm sure that anytime now you'll see Harry riding his bike up there, at the top of the driveway," she said trying to encourage him.

"I really hope you're right... but I just can't understand why he did it. Lately, we hadn't even scolded him, we didn't give him one reason to run away from home..." he concluded shaking his head slowly.

"I don't think he ran away from home, otherwise he would at least leave you a note so you could feel guilty" Helen objected after thinking for a while. "Anyway try to hold on, you'll see that everything will work out. See you Tomorrow" she concluded, then she walked away towards the patrol car, deliberately ignoring Eve. Before getting on the Jeep she stopped to give instructions to agents and volunteers so that the next day at dawn, unless news, everyone would already have known what to do without wasting precious time. Eve focused on James.

"Love... I would rather prefer not to insist, but why don't you drink herbal tea? Maybe something that won't let you sleep but help you at least to relax".

"So I wasn't clear enough" he snapped so loudly that everyone was looking at them, "I am not going to relax! If you didn't notice yet, I'm in this condition because despite all the efforts we made so far we can't find our son! There is no sign of him or his mountain bike within five miles, and if you really want to know what I don't understand is how can you stay so calm, and above all why we haven't decided yet to call someone expert! By now it is clear that Harry has been kidnapped and despite all their goodwill these people will certainly not be able to help us find him again!"

"Oh really? Then if that's what you think, why aren't you looking for your child on your own?" The Beagle breeder, who gathered the canine units, told him bothered. His partner answered with a blank stare, shrugging his shoulders.

"A kidnapping? We are a very normal family that lives in a remote village of peasants and fishermen, who should have kidnapped our son? And what for?" Eve said, shocked.

"I don't know, what I know is that we have to call experts, I told you! What? Do you hope our Harry will be found thanks to them?" James vented his frustration, pointing to the muddled rescue teams set up by the people of the town; they were all returning to the base camp because it was dark and finding Harry would have been impossible. Men and women were emerging in small groups from the bush, exhausted and distressed, and deliberately avoiding to look at Eve or James. Most of them put torches and backpacks to the ground wearily, depressed, discouraged; one guy called loudly for the dog that had plunged back into the bush in pursuit of a hare, another one slipped into the Headquarters, prepared inside a camping tent.

"Do you think your colleagues and your boss have done better so far? Maybe the sheriff?" Eve retorted, pointing to Helen as she was giving the latest guidelines. James was going to reply, but the doctor placed a hand on his shoulder, drawing his attention.

"Mr. James, I would not seem... don't be offended if I get involved, but I don't think your son may have been kidnapped by someone. You know very well that Harry is not a boy like everyone else, any banality that would leave another child completely indifferent, like a fall from a bicycle, could have caused him emotional trauma. Harry may have lost his sense of direction, or could ..."

"Save your breath!" James shouted, shaking his hand sharply.

Helen was already seated in the driver's seat of her Cherokee and was about to start the engine. When she heard him screaming, she opened the door and poked her head out to see what was happening: James was approaching his nose a few inches far from the doctor's face and he was going to explode, and knowing how much he disliked him, she feared he might do something foolish. Some of the volunteers were heading towards the two contenders aiming to calm down their souls. Helen was wondering it was not the case to intervene in person.

"Look, my son is not an idiot, he only has Down syndrome! Harry has gone fishing alone at Payson Corner several times, he knows how to ride his bike perfectly and can't get lost for five damn miles. Is it clear, Doctor?" James was shouting when a sudden movement behind the doorbell attracted Helen's attention, who would have been able to recognize that silhouette even a hundred miles away.

Helen's heart started beating wildly. Just as she had predicted to James a few minutes before, the boy had materialized beyond the hedge that bordered the east side of the property. Harry used his last energy to quickly walk the steep path that led to the entrance of the garden, and there he stopped to look at the scene panting. He did not understand the reason for all this shouting, but he got close to them, watching fascinated as if it was a movie; most importantly he was relieved because his parents were both there and at first sight, it seemed they were both fine.

"Thank God" Helen murmured, bringing her hands to her mouth, jumping off the road and running towards Harry, who had meanwhile walked a few more yards and stopped not far from James. He was approaching interested and amazed for the circus before him. He got off his bike and got down on his knees as if the forces had abandoned him all at once.

"Harry!" shouted Helen as she saw him fall. Everyone turned to look and then immediately exploded in a roar of joy followed by euphoric liberating applause. James was the first to reach his boy and literally tore him from Helen's arms.

"Dad, you're not angry, are you? I know I was late, but it's not my fault. I must have fallen asleep".

"You fell asleep? " Echoed James. "You have been missing home since yesterday at 2 pm. It's eight in the evening! You've been out for thirty hours, where the hell have you been?" He shouted grabbing him by his curved shoulders.

"I... How can it be possible, since yesterday?" Harry said confused trying to figure an excuse out, but not finding one he looked at his father with a guilty face. His eyes were moistened and his lips began to tremble, he was going to cry because he thought no one would ever believe him.

"Enough! Can't you see he is not feeling well? Let him go!" yelled Eve pushing James away. Then she held his hand helping him to stand up. "Don't worry honey it's all right! Come on, let's go inside" she whispered hugging him protectively.

Nodding she invited the doctor to follow them and James, still confused, watched them go towards the house. He wanted to go with them, but he could not move a single nerve: the discharge of stress showed as a sudden wave of fatigue whose backwash had carried him off any remaining energy.

Harry's dog suddenly came out of the reed that bordered the green at the back of the house and ran to him wagging his tail.

"Toby!" Harry exclaimed reaching out to pet him, but unexpectedly the dog stopped a few inches from him and immediately backed away to avoid the contact. He raised his snout and sniffed the air, lowered his ears and arched his back, lowering his tail back between his hind limbs. He sniffed again and walked away from the boy again, then straightened the hair on his back and began to growl at him, showing his teeth. Finally, he positioned, ready to attack.

"Toby..." Harry murmured disappointed as he moved towards him. James guessed what was going to happen and ran trying to avoid the worst thing. "Toby, what..." he said just in time, a moment later the dog pounced on Harry, knocking him over and biting his forearm, which he had instinctively lifted up to protect himself. After that, he placed his nose an inch from his face and again he growled threateningly. James belted the dog and lifted him from the ground aiming to make him harmless, but he felt that he was struggling so hard that he would have escaped immediately. The sensation of dripping blood showed him that the claws of the powerful Collier's hind limbs had caused him a cut in the thigh of his right leg.

"Hurry, take him inside, I can't hold Toby anymore" he shouted to Eve. She helped Harry to get up and dragged him home by running, the doctor picked up the leather bag and hurried after them. James let the dog go who barked and gave paws to the door already closed and immediately ran to hide in his wooden kennel, where he continued to yelp and howl for a while. James wanted to punish him but he gave up just after one step because his leg was giving him too much pain. "All we need is the crazy dog ..." he whispered stunned scratching his head. That swing of emotions had destroyed him.

It was late and the volunteers were very tired, but Helen continued giving orders to dismantle the Base Camp anyway because the equipment could have been useful if a new emergency had occurred somewhere else. At the end she thanked those who had participated in the rescue and dismissed everyone except the ambulance driver, Dr. Parker would have noticed what to do once he had determined that the boy was fine. Since James was still dazed, Helen was concerned about taking the mountain bike into the shed, she knew how much Harry cared for it and how angry he would have been if the next morning it was still there, thrown out in the meadow.

She bent over the bike and spotted the boy's clock on the grass. She thought the boy must have lost it when he dropped to his knees so she slipped it into his pocket willing to return it to James as soon as possible. She grabbed the handlebars and noticed that it was covered with a very fine light blue-colored luminescent powder; mechanically she tried to scratch it off with the nail of her little finger, but a tiny cut on her fingertip provoked such a pain that she immediately gave up cursing, then she shrugged and started pushing the bike towards the shelter. James recovered and joined her when she was already at the door of the tin shed.

"What did I tell you?" she told him with a big smile on her face.

"As always you hit the mark again" he admitted "it has been scaring. And then the dog ... did you see what he did? Until yesterday he would never have dreamed of behaving that way".

"Dogs are special, probably Harry had a smell he didn't like. Now don't bother your brain anymore, the most important thing is that your boy is at home again and above all that he is safe and sound".

"You're right ... but I really want to know where he was all that time ... do you have any idea how long those thirty hours have been?"

Helen didn't tell him, but she knew it at least as well as he did because she had always felt an inexplicable bond with the boy. "Don't worry, sooner or later he will tell you everything. But you know him, don't try to force him or he will raise an impenetrable barrier and he will shut himself off ... be patient and let him decide when to tell you everything" she advised him shaking his hand to cheer him up and, as it happened other times their bodies touched, that contact gave both of them a sensation similar to a slight electric shock... Embarrassed, James pulled his hand away, then nodded unconvinced because he was dying of curiosity and wanted to ask his son about what he had been doing all that time.

"Now I really have to go, it's very late. Take a few days off, you look wasted" Helen said to close the conversation.

"I don't know, I'll think about it".

"What do you mean?"

"You know, if I stay more than a day locked up in the house, I end up going crazy. And then even Harry will be better distracted, whatever happened to him. I am sure that as soon as he returns to the Scout Camp and his habits than better it will be, for him and us all".

"So what?"

"I think I'll get back to work the day after tomorrow" James pointed out. She scolded him with her face, but she knew she couldn't force him to stay away from work.

"It's your decision, but stay close to him" she replied, and he nodded again.

"Will Eve go to work tomorrow?"

"Knowing her, I think so, and I don't get it. Sometimes it seems like she doesn't care about the two of us".