Silent Treatment

Once again I got little writing done other than my prompt story, which once again ran a little long so we’ll just get right to it. The only thing I might mention, this was not written to the current prompt but one I had in reserve. If I don’t get a story written to the current one next week I’ll put up a new prompt.

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The boy hadn’t spoken since his twin had gone. Not that he’d really spoken before that. He and his brother communicated with each other using grunts and growls, they didn’t communicate with us at all.

The disappearance was a complete mystery. They’d been kept in a locked room, for their own safety, so he couldn’t have just wandered off. Someone must have taken him, but the remaining boy wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell us who.

The boys had been found up on the mountain by a group sent to retrieve the group of survivalists who were conducting an experiment on total isolation. It was to be a ten year experiment to see if the group could survive on their own without any outside assistance or technology. They staked out a section of the mountain and the rangers were to steer clear.

For the most part the group seemed no worse than any other back to nature group. But after several harsh winters in a row when game became scarce, the university that was sponsoring the group became concerned and requested an official check on them.

The two rangers who drew the short straws made their way up the mountain and were back down in the same day. They were unable to do a head count of the group – when they reached the edge of the group’s territory, they were met by several angry, bearded, emaciated figures carrying spears.

Not knowing what to expect at the end of the tenth year, the university sent an entire team to let the group know their time was up. This time there were no spear carrying figures, in fact, there was no one at all to meet them. They reached the main camp without seeing a single soul.

Although there were signs it had once been used by a large group, it was obvious no one had been there in several years. There was, however, a trail leading away through the woods and they followed it to a cave where they found the two boys.

This was obviously where the group had moved to. Judging by the detritus left behind, they’d been living there for several years. There were bundles of spears leaning against the walls along with heaps of other crude tools, remnants of cloth and animal skins piled haphazardly. Off to the side was a pile of bones that had been gnawed clean. One of the rangers accompanying the group picked one of the bones up for a closer look and let it drop with a shudder. It looked too human for comfort.

In the back of the cave’s large chamber they found the two boys, curled together like puppies in a nest of bone, animal skins, and leaves. They were naked and filthy, scratched and bruised and bloody. And totally wild. They snapped and snarled at the team and had to be forcibly subdued.

The team could find nothing to show where the adults had gone. Surely they wouldn’t have just left their children behind. There were no graves, no bodies, no trails to indicate where they might have headed. The boys certainly weren’t talking. And though they were badly emaciated, they wouldn’t touch the food they were offered.

By the time the team got back with the only survivors of the experiment, it was late. The man in charge made the decision to keep the boys in one of the utilitarian bedrooms in the basement of the university, usually reserved for grad students pulling all nighters. The windows were barred and the doors locked – it seemed the safest place. In the morning they’d call in a bevy of experts to deal with them.

But in the morning, there was only one boy in the room and the mystery as to where he’d disappeared to was as strange as the mystery of what happened to the group. One last time they questioned the remaining boy. He opened his mouth, they leaned forward to hear his answer, and he let out a very satisfied belch.