Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s freezing and she’s alone but Cupcake doesn’t care. Her father was finally paying attention to her. They’d gone to a movie in Old Fordge Valley and even got ice cream after! He never takes her anywhere. For the longest time, she thought he didn’t love her.

No matter how many pretty things she had, or what she wore...she wasn’t pretty. Or little. Or graceful. She looked like a boy in a dress. She was big, her voice all wrong for a girl. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to be seen with her. But now she was starting to look different. Her hair was longer, her clothes were fitting better. Now he would look at her and smile, not frown. Today being her 13th birthday made it even better!

It was late when they headed home. And, as luck would have it, when the car broke down. This stretch of road also happened to have notoriously bad cell reception. Town was a short walk but he said she’d be safer in the car, walking in the road was dangerous.

“Open your present, be back before you know it.”

Richard Demarco returned with a tow truck to discover the passenger door open, his daughter gone. He calls out for her but gets no answer. Funny, it’s the driver that catches the clue.

By slipping on a patch of ice over the guardrail and landing on it.

In an otherwise pristine field of snow, lies a crushed pink cell covered in unicorn stickers. Beside it a pink sparkly diary. Open with something strange scrawled inside.

/So sweet. So...delicious./

Nearby was a book mark with a name the same crimson color as the words in the book, dark spots splattered on it.

A thin trail of it leading deep into the woods. Where something with glowing blue eyes is watching.

The man lets out a horrified shriek.

*BS*

Don’t go to the lake.

That’s been drilled into their heads since birth. It’d been a week since that night and Cupcake was still missing. The field the separated the road from the forest. The beyond the forest stood Burgess Lake, the very one they were always told to avoid. It wasn’t official but everyone knew the girl was dead. If he takes a child, they’re never seen again. All they ever find is the blood.

Story goes the lake used to be a gathering place for cultists who fled to the new world like the pilgrims. One particularly harsh winter it was thought their god had been angered. A pair of settler children were kidnapped as sacrifices to the god that lived in the lake. That got the Burgess villagers to hunt them down. After the slaughter, the girl was discovered to be spared but her older brother’s body was never found, only blood leading out to the frozen lake center.

That’s just a legend. There’s no legit record anything of the sort took place. No child has gone missing there since. Unfortunately the alternative was no less disturbing. Some psycho using the legend to cover his tracks. Taking children and leaving only some of their blood behind.

Jaime had chased Abby there once when she got wind of a squirrel and his mother went ballistic.

“Jaime, never do that again!”

“But why? Why is everyone so scared of that lake. It’s water. Does some maniac live out there? Then why is it okay for adults to be there?!” That was the last straw. You can only tell a child no so many times without giving a reason why. The answer was no since he was little. Now he’s too old for ‘because I said so’.

“Jaime...please. It’s not safe.” she sobbed. “Do as you’re told. Please.”

Why won’t they talk about it?

A few days later, he finds Pippa crying on the playground. She’s hiding in the tubes, eyes red and puffy from tears. She gives him the first real clue.

“Dad and Mom are fighting. She said he’s going to jail.”

“I’m sorry Pip-”

“No! It’s my fault!” She bawls. “He...he said if he just took me the lake then he wouldn’t have had to steal.”

Huh?

“Momma hit him when he said that.” She drew her knees up to her chest. “She that he’ll get me if they do that. Then he said that’s fine with him.”

“Who’ll get you Pip?”

“They won’t say his name. My cousin said if you say his name he’ll come to you. That’s how he got Cupcake; her dad left her there knowing he’d get her.”

That seemed to be the popular opinion among the children but the cops leaned towards a more selfish, less supernatural explanation. The Demarcos barely acknowledged having a daughter p til then but were supposedly so distraught after the incident. Giving heartfelt pleas to her kidnapper for her safe return. Offering large rewards for information. Lavishing in the attention from the media.

But never once showing any real emotion.

The handwriting in the diary wasn’t a match for anyone the police tested, not even the victim. That wasn’t the case for the bookmark with the name on it. It matched her father’s writing. A detail the paper published but omitted what was actually on it. Only hint that ‘he’ might be being used to cover the unthinkable.

No one will say who this ‘he’ is. So Jaimee starts to listen when others think he’s not. Eavesdropping on older kids too. One day he finds a scrap of paper two 8th grade girls were passing in an assembly on the floor.

-My mom thinks he’s coming for her. That Pippi girl.-

-Yeah. He lives in the lake and eats unwanted children.-

-That’s stupid. Lots of folks don’t want their kids and he doesn’t take them.-

-You have to be near the lake and speak his name so he can get you.-

-Really? What’s his name?-

-Jac- there’s a slanted line right after that. One of the girls must have snatched it away when a teacher walked by.

Jaime throws it away as he files out with his class. But now more curious than ever.

*BS*

His mother worked late at her office that night, barely awake on the drive back. She’s snapped to waking when she arrives home to find her yard swarming with police. The back of the house had been charred, fire fighters just disconnecting the hose from a nearby hydrant. Panicked, she hardly remembers to put it in park before leaping out.

“Oh god! My children!” She tries to run inside but is stopped by an officer.

“Mrs Bennett?”

“Yes goddammit! Let me go my kids are in there!”

“Ma’am, you cannot enter. Not yet.”

“Are they hurt?! Where are Jamie and Sophie?!”

“Ma’am...we respond to a call about a fire. We broke down the door to put it out, house was locked up tight. The stove top was on but-”

“WHERE ARE MY KIDS?!”

“...we don’t know.”

The hysterical woman broke away from him. Driven by a force to mighty to be held back. Before anyone can react, there’s a blood curdling scream from inside and the first policeman knows she’s seen it.

There’s writing on the wall of the living room. Writing in blood still wet to the touch.

/This town has such sweet children. And now they’re mine to have./

Anita Bennett passes out just as authorities rush in after her.

She doesn’t know until the next day the true scope of the horror. It’s not until she talks to her friend Lisa that it sinks in. That she becomes aware the whole thing wasn’t some fever dream. Because Lisa’s Claude and Caleb were gone too. So were their friends Pippa and Monty. Vanished with only those chilling words on the living room, bedroom or bathroom walls. The only other common thread even more unsettling. Abandoned cellphones all displaying the same text.

/Who’s Jack Frost?/

It had come from Cupcakes’ phone moments after her father left the car over a week before.

*BOS*

Chapter Text

*BOS*

At first, the police investigated the disappearances as they would normally. Dubbed the Burgess 7 Mystery, the incident turn everyone’s lives upside down and nearly tore the small town apart. Everyone was a suspect.

The blood found at each scene matched the child or children who were last seen there. No sign of struggle, so the perp either got the jump on them or they went willingly. In Cupcake’s case, the later seemed plausible in the beginning; the only prints on that side of the car were her own even on the outer handle. But then they couldn’t explain the single set of foot prints that led away from the car. They were hers but stopped where the blood trail began. Never changing direction or speed. The trail lead across the field, through the woods and the center of the frozen lake. As if someone had incapacitated her, injured her enough to cause continuous bleeding then carried her over a little over 4 miles leaving nothing disturbed. How the hell had that happened? What happened after?

Investigators had even gone so far as to break the ice to dredge the lake. An idea quickly abandoned once they realized it was frozen at least 5 feet down. There’s no way she could’ve gotten down there in such a short time with so much effort needed to reach liquid water. Mr. Demarco was only gone roughly 57 minutes. A time worked out using metadata from their cell carrier.

The other 6 vanished under equally puzzling circumstances.

Ingredients for the Bennetts famous hot cocoa were on the counter of the burned out kitchen. Jamie had been making some on the stove. The pot had been unattended for sometime before catching fire. The children were taken well before anyone noticed the flames. Both of their cellphones were in the sofa. Both showing the group text with only three words. The wall above where the writing had been.

The entire Whitmore clan was at home when it happened.  On his way to bed that night Chris noticed the sound of booing coming from down the hall. At 10pm the twins were still up playing their special edition Guitar Hero game and apparently losing the in game crowd. When he opened the door to tell his boys lights out, all he found was the ‘You Suck’ screen, two plastic guitars on the floor next to their phones and the chilling message on the wall.

Monty’s parents and brother were home too. He hadn’t been feeling well  and got up to take a shower hoping the steam would help. Jacob went to freshen up for a date thinking the younger boy was in bed but the shower was still running. After banging on the door he used a coat hanger to pop the lock. Only to find an empty bathroom. Sleeping clothes folded on the back of the toilet, sneakers by the door. The outfit he’d worn to school nowhere to be found. The same message written across the wall and shower curtain. His iPhone in the sink.

Pippa had gotten into her nightgown but never even pulled back her quilt. She’d called out the open door to her mother for help pinning up her hair then presumably closed her door to change. The older woman had already been on her way up the stairs with a laundry basket. In the time it took Mrs. Jaeger to finish putting clean towels in the linen closet then walk 5 feet, her daughter was gone. Cellphone on the vanity. Her husband busied himself down stairs in his office with paper work. He only became aware something had happened when his wife’s body hit the floor directly above him HARD. Like Mrs. Bennett, the bloody words were too much for the woman to process.

Doors locked.

The Felder bathroom didn’t even have a window.

No screams.

No surprised shouts.

No suspicious noises of any kind.

Nobody could figure it out. Eventually winding up in the cold case files but far from forgotten.

*BOS*

This attracted all manner of paranormal experts and theorists anxious to do their own investigating. The unofficial cause, according to locals and out of towners alike, was the spirit that lived in Burgess lake. Said to be the ghost of a boy murdered back in colonial times; slowly bleeding to death before the ice gave way and he drowned. He had frigid blue eyes, unnaturally white hair and skin pale as snow. Said to have taken that appearance from ‘the shock of death’ somehow. Over the years he became angry and resentful. He’d been confined to his watery grave by a spell to keep his spirit from seeking vengeance. Only speaking his name could break it.

Which is probably what the Burgess 7 did, reading it aloud.

No longer bound, Jack was free to satisfy his lust for the flesh and blood of children. That’s why no bodies were left.

Something that couldn’t be proven but persisted nonetheless. Treating it like the legend of Bloody Mary, thrill seeking (re:stupid) young people would try to recreate the circumstances of one of the vanishing and say his name.

Thankfully nobody else disappeared.

...

Their pale bloodless corpses were always found right where they played their deadly game. The situation was always the same. Just like with the Burgess 7, there’s nothing to alert anyone to the situation until it’s over. No witnesses.

Except one.

Samson Radcliffe was looking for his daughter and her less than brilliant friends at midnight. Deciding to camping right after a snowstorm, who does that? Using a series of elaborate excuses consisting of ‘I’m staying with _________’ and turning off their phones insured their parents remained clueless. Well the ones that weren’t detectives for a living. Ever the paranoid parent, especially with the weirdness in this town, Radcliffe had merely traced the signal from the tracker in his daughter’s Highlander.

He trusted his daughter. Just not the 4 idiots with her.

Disgruntledly trudging through the snow, he honed in on the sound of laughing and giggling. Too tired to make a grand entrance, he just barrelled through the brush flashlight blazing.

“Marlene Hanna Radcliffe you are in so...much...” His voice trailed off at the sight.

All five teens were around  a campfire, tents and the SUV with the radio on in the background. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except the seven other younger kids holding them down. Startled they looked up at the man with glowing blue eyes and mouths covered in blood. Clearly from the bite marks all over Marlene, David, Stephen, Jodie and Bryan. Faster than he could blink they were on him. He thrashed around but small hands were like steel vices.

“Let him up. You guys know the rules.” A voice laughed.

“Aw...” They whined as they pulled away.

“He didn’t call us so we can’t touch him. Unless he’d like to speak one of our names...”

The one to call them off, Sam knew his name the instant he saw him. White hair, blue eyes, ghostly complexion. The local legend stood before him. But he wasn’t looking at him. Instead he prodded the eerily still bodies of his baby girl and her friends. Marlene moaned but didn’t open her eyes. Parental instinct kicked in and he ran forward.

“Get away from her!”

“Nope.” The tiniest of the young monsters snatched his coat sending him backward into a tree.

What he saw before fading into unconsciousness would forever be burned into his mind. The hunger in the eyes of the murderous phantom as he bit into his poor daughter’s neck. While the smaller ones descended on the other barely breathing teens. Smiles on their faces.

*BOS*