HIS OTHER SON by MAYNARD SIMS

in, dad.”
                “I
don’t care,” Stock thundered. “Can’t you see, I didn’t care. I just wanted…”
                “He
just wanted his favourite child back,” Caroline said.
                Ray
was surrounded by the women. They looked at Romodon .
Simon, standing close to Caroline and Paula, looked too. They were all awaiting
instructions.
                Romodon stood. He looked at Ray. “You have wasted the work
of many months. That will have to be dealt with.” He snapped his fingers. “Take
him, and these two.”
                Ray
felt hot fingers grab his arms. He flashed out with the knife and felt soft
flesh yield to the blade. One of the women fell clutching her face.
                The
others swarmed over him likes ants and he struggled to fight them off.
                Romodon knelt over the prone body of Frank and was doing
something that Ray couldn’t see,
                Simon
suddenly let out a yelp of pain and staggered against the desk. Caroline held a
black stiletto shoe in her hand, the tip of the heel coated in blood. When
Simon hit the floor it was with quite a crash.
                Randolph
Stock had fallen face forwards out of the wheelchair and was dragging himself
painfully across the deep carpet towards his beloved son. Romodon stood from the body and watched him, fascinated.
                “You
are wasting your time, Mr. Stock. It is not your son. Not any longer. Facially
it resembles him as he was, but his essence, his soul, is long gone. We
replaced it with a substitute, but…”
                Stock
had reached Frank and was cradling his head. He was talking softly to his son,
but no one tried very hard to hear what he was saying.
                The
door to the study opened and more white robed figures came in.
                Caroline
let herself be taken, and it served as distraction enough, to allow Paula to
get away.
                Ray
felt fingers of fire filter under his skin until it was as if his internal
organs were being ripped apart.
                Ray
and Caroline were subdued. As they were carried out of the room Stock looked up
but just as quickly returned his attention to the only child he had really
cared for.
               

 
    A few weeks later Paula stood on the dock by the harbour
and looked out to sea.
                   
Martin Devereaux had called in the police, and they
in turn brought in the FBI, but no trace was found of either Caroline or Ray.
The search continued.
    The house was cleaned, the bodies were cleared away,
and Martin slowly got on with the job of running Yellow Beach. If he missed, or
was upset about his wife, he hid it well.
                   
Randolph Stock became a recluse. He took to his bed, under the supervision of
Dr Cooperman, and wasn’t responding to any treatments.
                   
Marlene was pronounced dead, and a small private funeral service was held. Her
body was buried in the grounds of the Stock estate.
                    Romodon and his followers disappeared.
                   
Paula had made her own inquiries about her mother and uncle. She knew some odd
people from hanging around the various bars and clubs, and through word of
mouth she got a lead.
                   
She’d been at the dock since morning, and it was now moving towards four in the
afternoon. A fisherman, Oscar Hernandez, and his son Rudy, had shown her where
to look. She knew Elsa Hernandez from college.
                   
Paula sat on the rough wooden decking, pulling at splinters with bored fingers.
Despite outward appearance she loved her mother very much, and she wasn’t going
to rest until she found her.
                   
She didn’t really know her uncle Ray so much, but the night of her