 I used to work as a missing persons detective. This is the case that made me quit. I joined the force young, 21 years old. From the start, I was always taken by the idea of missing persons cases. It was more morally straightforward than homicide, more interesting than drugs. There was a pureness and righteousness in finding missing people, which was hard to find in other areas of policing. It was unfaultable work. I would only ever be doing good. Of course, I spent my time walking the beat first, six years before I could finally take the promotional exam to make detective. And after that, it was another four years before the opportunity came to transfer into the missing persons department. I was truly passionate about the job, something which not many people can say. Every day I could feel as though I was truly making a difference, delivering a presumed dead child back to their parents is an indescribably fulfilling experience. Of course, on the flip side came the crushing despair every time a case went cold. No matter how impossible the case seemed, no matter how much I reassured myself that there was nothing more I could do. There was always a voice in the back of my mind reminding me that the victim was still out there somewhere. The worst thing was when we found a corpse knowing that I'd failed to save a life. There are so many out there that I've never found or found too late. I see their faces over and over again in my dreams. The perpetrators have also stuck with me. I dealt with a lot of sick sick people in my time. I had a lot of horrible cases. A lot of times I doubted myself. But like I said, this is the one which made me leave the profession for good and never look back. By now in my career, I was one of the most senior detectives in the department. I got the lead on most cases and was generally looked to as someone to take charge when things took a turn for the worse. I walked into the station and was notified first thing about the call that had come through during the night. Five children, two girls and three boys between the ages of four and six had disappeared from the same neighborhood literally within a few blocks of one another in the same day. I'm not going to tell you their names or who they were out of respect to them and their families. I'm also not going to give any place names or details which might give too much information about the case away. Trust me, you're better off knowing less. With the extremely similar circumstances between each disappearance, I made the executive decision to treat this as a serial kidnapping case. Normally in these situations, some creep has driven around the neighborhood in a van taking as many kids as he can. So right away, we got to work. I know it's a cliche, but the first 48 hours really are the most important on these kinds of things. Coming to move quickly, I and my partner went to interview one set of parents and sent junior detectives to interview the others. The parents I interviewed told me that they'd last seen their son the previous morning when he'd gone out to play in the front lawn. The mother had been out there supervising him, but she had to step back inside for 30 seconds to turn off the oven. And when she hurried back outside, her son was gone. Life questions posed and neighbors gave no further clues. None of them had seen anything. The other detectives had come back with similar stories. Parents turning their back for a moment and their children disappearing in the meantime. With no leads, we began our second step, checking CCTV in the surrounding area. Luckily, the suburbs where the kids were taken from were surrounded by dense commercial areas, high streets and shopping centers. These kind of places always have loads of security cameras, but it takes time accessing and checking that much footage and we were losing valuable hours. I was able to get permission from my superiors to rope in more officers to check all of the cameras as quickly as possible. Credit to my team, it only took us 24 hours to find the right piece of footage myself and a few of my higher ranking colleagues, as well as the two detectives who had found the evidence gathered in my office to analyze it. I remember that those two only junior detectives at the time looked a bit shaken when they brought the footage to us. When we all sat down to watch, they warned us that the contents of the clip was strange. Looking back, that was the wrong word for it. We asked them to sum up what was in the first video they told us we needed to see for ourselves. The camera which had caught the video was at the back of a supermarket facing into one of those street depots where food trucks pull in to unload and restock, you know, those creepy looking alleys behind stores full of old cardboard boxes. They always give off an eerie vibe when you pass them in the street. This particular site had openings on two public roads, which is how the perp must have got access. The roads were unusually quiet ones for the area, which explains how nobody noticed. The CCTV footage began with a long alley empty, then far, far back. Right at the end, we began to see a blurry pixelated shape appear out of the dark. We couldn't make out what it was yet. It was still in the low quality image stage. The shifting mass of fuzzy pixels grew closer and closer until we could make out an adult on foot with several children behind him. We were taken aback, unusual for kidnappers to stay on foot. This made it much harder to see how we could have taken the kids without garnering attention. Eventually, the group came within clear view and we all let out an audible gasp, a mixture of shock, confusion, and, at least in my case, fright. You see a lot of things in that job that give you the shivers, but not much like what was on that video screen. I'll do my best to describe the surreal sight that met our eyes, the man, and we could tell by his imposing height that it was a man was wearing a disturbing get up. He had one of those Mr. Punch masks, you know, like the classic puppet character, an unsettling thing with a too long nose, hooked chin, and bulging eyes. The skin on the face of the mask had been painted far too pale, almost snow white, brazenly contrasting with the crimson tinted cheeks, giving the unintentional complexion of someone at death's door. The mask was cartoonish with heavily exaggerated angles and features, and I'm not afraid to say that it made me very uncomfortable. There was something about the popping eyes with their swollen veins and poorly sketched pupils that seemed to stare at me through the screen and passed that into my mind. And the smile, it was only a mask, but the smile gave off an unmistakable air of malice and insidious intent. When I looked at the mask too long, I felt afraid. I felt as if something dark and terrible was searching hungrily for me. Whatever the creator of this visage was, they were an unhinged individual. The man wore a bizarre hat, black, shaped almost like a medieval gesture, complete with silver bobbles at the end of each sleeve. The cap and bells went down the back of his head far enough that his hair was obscured. He had a strange kind of coat on, more like a robe. It had no buttons or zip, and it was long, too long, flowing past his ankles and pooling on the ground around him in folds, almost like a miniature bridal train. The coat was formed of hundreds of colored patches stitched together, but you couldn't describe it as colorful. None of the patches were bright or vibrant. Each was a different dark hue. Some muddy brown, some gray, some a deep maroon, some dirty yellow, some chemical orange, some inky green. Not one color was pleasing, almost as if the coat had been sewed with the intention of causing visual discomfort. The coat had many, many pockets, far more than could ever be filled. It seemed that almost every patch had a pocket stitched into it. From two of these pockets, the two on his left and right hip stretched a handkerchief of ribbon. The handkerchiefs were composed of a pattern of black and white alternating diamonds. The handkerchiefs stretched a few meters behind the man, and gripping tightly under the fabric were the children. A scan of their faces confirmed that these were the missing kids we were looking for. And yet none of them looked traumatized. None were upset or crying. They all smiled and laughed, gripping the handkerchiefs. The strips of fabric were like those magician's tricks, the never-ending ones. The children held on with both hands, three on one side, two on the other. They skipped along happily and energetically. Clearly they'd been groomed by this person in the mask. Disturbingly, he himself also skipped. He raised his knees in jovial leaps, almost like a dance or drive. Each time he frolicked up and down, he lifted his feet, which were encased in strange pointed shoes that curled upwards. One time, to this eerie jig down the dark alley, the man held a wooden pipe to the mouth hole in the grinning mouth of the mask. He was playing the same tune over and over again. It was green sleeves. That tune's always been a personal favorite of mine. Something about that simple melody repeated over and over again. It's utterly entrancing. But hearing it in this setting, it was nothing but terrifying. The tune was too absorbing. It was almost hypnotic. When I listened for too long, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen. There was also something slightly off about the man's playing. It was hard to pin down. A small, unpleasant note every now and then. The procession continued through the alley, the haunting figure at the front leading the troop until they passed out of the security camera's viewing range. My fellow investigators and I were gobsmacked. We had absolutely no idea what to think. Never in any of our respective careers had we seen anything like this. Could this really be happening? Was that eerie figure really out there somewhere? At least it did a little to strengthen our resolve. There was no way we were going to leave those kids with somebody that insane. We quickly sent out reports calling for anyone seeing someone matching the odd description of the man we'd seen to come forward as soon as they could. At a point like that, witness sightings were our best bet. I made the mistake of reassuring the anguished parents that we were going to bring their children home. But as the days went by, we had to widen our search from city to district and then after a week to state, we wanted to be absolutely sure we caught him. We had our first press conference. We released a still photo of the security footage along with it, leading to a lot of ridiculous questions. I think it was right at the end of the first week when the first newspaper gave the kidnapper his name, the Piper, I'll admit it was fitting his strange outfit, musical accessory, and most of all the way those kids were just happily skipping along next to him. As if in a trance, all harked back to the age old Pied Piper story. The name stuck. Soon all the press was calling him that. Then the public, the public loves criminals with a nickname. I'll admit, even us in the station began calling him the Piper. Unfortunately, no sightings came through. Nobody had seen the distinctive figure. We were just beginning to lose hope. When we got the call, a man a few towns over had spotted a man dressed in a tire matching the Piper's with the children behind him in the alley behind his apartment building late at night. We went over there and interviewed the man, but he couldn't tell us much more than what he'd seen. It was very late, he was very tired, and he was sure his eyes had been playing tricks on him. Luckily, the building had a security camera facing the alley. We were given access to the reels of footage over the last few days and trawled back until we found the period of time during which the man had reported spotting the Piper. The footage was watched only by me and my partner Jeffords in the security room of the apartment building. With a similar angle to the first video, the camera faced down the long dark alley. The cobbles were littered with broken glass and junk. This was a much shadier district. Then we began to hear that same haunting melody, green sleeves. It sounded as if it were coming from somewhere far off in the distance at first, but it gradually got closer. When the closer it got, the more I began to shiver. Once again, we saw the same sight emerge as we had in the first piece of footage. The scene was practically unchanged. The Piper still wore the same disturbing mask, the same peculiar hat and coat. He again proceeded slowly, rhythmically forward, dancing through the night. Still he held that wooden pipe to his lips and played. And still the five poor children were behind him, either side. Still they clutched tightly with both hands to the long black and white handkerchiefs. But whereas before they'd laughed and skipped along with their tormentor, now their faces were gaunt and tear-stained. They looked thin, horribly thin, far thinner than they'd been before. I had the awful thought that these children looked as if they hadn't eaten in a week and they'd been moving across the country on foot for most of that time. They did not frolic now, they stumbled and tripped as if they were being pulled along by the Piper and his handkerchiefs. Yet still they gripped the fabric. Still they refused to let go. They were clearly in tremendous pain and tremendously fatigued. God, why didn't they just let go? As Jeffords and I watched in horrified silence, the Piper removed one hand from his pipe, though he continued to play, deftly manipulating his instrument with only five fingers. His other hand reached into one of the many pockets of his coat. As he drew the handout, we could make out something pink and gray squirming in his hand. I squinted at the computer screen we were watching the footage on and made the dreadful realization that he was holding a rat. The rat looked well-fed, it was large and muscular, however the mangy fur hinted at some kind of disease. The Piper lifted the rodent by the tail as it clawed and twisted in the air, gnashing its jagged teeth. It looked mad with aggression, almost rabid. He suddenly tossed it backwards behind himself and the kids. It hit the ground on all fours and scampered into the shadows. He then reached into a different pocket, retrieving a second rat and performing the same chilling ritual as he had with the first. As I looked closer, I could just about make out the way the cloth of his coat was wriggling. How many did he have in there? My brain suddenly noticed something. There were more rats, a little way behind the procession, staying just within the shadows, but always following. They leapt and crawled over the trash and obstacles in their way, moving in small groups of three or fours, tenaciously following behind. Eventually, the eerie figure of the Piper and the poor children moved out of shot. But for at least 10 minutes, the exodus of rats continued. Every so often, the small forms would dart along the alley, always following. The entire investigation team was utterly aghast. Whatever we were dealing with here, it was something far worse than we'd first anticipated. We didn't tell the press or the public about the development in the case. This was kept strictly confidential. I felt confusion, and I felt helplessness, and I felt fear, fear for the kids, trapped with that thing, and a deeper fear, fear because I was beginning to realize that there are beings out there beyond what human minds are able or willing to understand. Now the trail began to go cold. We had no more witness sightings, and with a search area now so large, there was little we could do. I couldn't order car checks. The Piper moved on foot. I tried offering a monetary reward. I tried helicopter searches, nothing. I tried sniffer dogs, still nothing. I felt utterly unable to do anything to help the missing children, and I felt solely responsible for whatever horror was being inflicted on them. The worst moment was facing the parents, telling them that I'd been wrong, that their little ones weren't going to come home. Soon it had been a month, then two. The case was essentially dead. My colleagues stopped working on it. My superiors gave us new assignments, but I couldn't concentrate on any new cases. My mind was replaying the footage over and over again. My dreams were taken up with nightmarish visions of that horrible mask. Then three months later, I was on a visit to a different precinct, picking up some samples from their forensics lab. I overheard one of their officers talking about how, way upstate, the cops were getting flooded by reports of a massive freak rat migration. Wow, in one town, people were stuck in their homes as the streets were flooded with erodents. My mind instantly began to war. Of course, it was an absolute shot in the dark, but the piper had been seen heading upstate and it was completely the wrong time of year for that kind of behavior from the animals. One explanation I could think of was that they were being attracted to something, just like the rats in that alley. At that point in time, I was willing to do just about anything to find those kids, to bring some kind of closure. I asked the officers what town they meant. I'm not going to tell you its name, but it was a small rural community out in the back woods surrounded by farmland. I did my own research and found that the town was a day's drive away. I didn't tell my superiors about this development. There was no way they were going to authorize me to investigate such a tenuous lead. The only person I confided in was Jeffords. He was just as invested as me. He agreed to come up with me. By the time we got round to going, the migrations had been over for a month, but that didn't matter. I was sure that we would find something. From research and speaking to the locals, we discovered that the majority of the rats had been seen moving in the direction of an abandoned farm a half mile away. We arrived at the farm and were instantly hit by the eerie atmosphere. The sight of the big decrepit windmill looming ahead made me shiver. And we noticed the rats immediately too. By the time we arrived, the sun was beginning to set, and as soon as we got out of the car, the rodents swarmed around our feet. They appeared from hay bales and shrubbery, and skittered away again just as fast under our boot heels. We made our way to the old farmhouse first, and went from room to room checking for anything. Here the rats were even more populous, filling up corridors and diving out of rotting pantry shelves. We found nothing in the house, though we tore it apart, searching under beds and in the cupboards. Next, we trudged up to the big barn at the top of the hill. Looking up as we approached, I felt an unshakable sense of dread. The red and white paint was peeling off now, and there was a large hole in the roof where the timbers had collapsed. Jeffords and I heaved open the large doors and entered. The smell hit us first. It was absolutely rancid, a mixture of shit and death. The interior was pitch black, we could literally see nothing inside. Turning on our torches, we cautiously made our way past the stacks of molding hay, which were piled on top of each other all the way up to the roof. The ground was obscured by layers of thick muddy straw, which in turn was caked with rodent feces. The only light was that provided by our torches and the weak moonlight shining through the hole in the roof. The rats were all around us, constantly brushing up against our legs, scuttling past. When I pointed my flashlight at the stacks of hay, I could see it riving and shifting as if it was alive. Each bale must have been absolutely packed with the things. Every so often, one would leap out from the hay. The rats made me uneasy. They never quite plucked up the courage to attack us, but they screeched and bared their teeth whenever we passed them. When I pointed my torch far into the distance of the path ahead of us, I could see thousands of yellow eyes staring from the shadows, watching us, chittering. It was one of the most eerie sights I've ever seen. I noticed at first a faint sound coming from the end of the barn as we got closer, hearts pounding. My ears could make it out to be that same tune, green sleeves. Except this time, it was slightly different. It wasn't being played on a wooden pipe. It had a different kind of tinkle, almost like a piano, but not quite. Now Jeffords and I were both extremely on edge, expecting any moment to see that horrific smiling face. Eventually, we drew towards the end of the barn, and then we saw the door. In the center of the back wall was a rusty metal door. It was thick steel, like it had come from an industrial site. There were deep scratches and dents in the surface, and rust stained it all over. As I drew closer to that door, I felt fear. I wanted to turn and run away and never come back. I didn't want to see what lay beyond it. I knew somehow that whatever its contents was, it would be awful. We found the source of the noise sitting just in front of the door, an old battered music box. It acted almost as a background theme as we continued. The door, strangely, was not locked. He pulled the handle down, and with some effort, it creaked open. Instantly the smell hit us. It was a hundred times worse than when we'd first entered the barn. Jeffords turned and vomited on the floor. I somehow knew what we'd find. I'm going to describe what was behind the door as best I can in such a way that's still respectful to the deceased. I don't want to go into graphic detail, especially not in this kind of case. But I have to. No, I need to get across the horror. If I come across as apathetic in my retelling of this, it's because I've wept for so long that I'm numb now. There was a room behind the door. Somebody had put up a fake back wall in order to conceal its presence. The room was small, but not cramped. There was a table set up in the center with five chairs around it. The whole room was covered in rat feces. There were thick chains connected to the walls, which ran all the way to each chair. Every chair had two chains, each with a manacle on the end, presumably to shackle the feet. In the center of the table, there was a pot of crayons and colored pencils, and there were stacks upon stacks of paper drawings, children's drawings, of houses and stick figures and pirate ships and random scribbles. Every drawing was soaked with blood. We didn't find a single whole body in there. The rats had taken care of that. We found that damn mask lying in the middle of the floor in the blood. It just seemed to stare up at us, grinning. We left the barn in a daze. I stomped on the music box, crushing it. We called for backup, and it soon arrived. Already, Jeffords and I decided to just tell the parents we'd found the bodies. Nothing more, no details. Ever since that day in the barn, I haven't been able to get the green sleeve's tune out of my head. Even after a year, I find myself humming it, no matter how much it revolts me. Even when I'm able to force myself to stop, it continues to play at the back of my mind. Nowadays, when it's late at night, and I'm alone, I hear it clearly now, as if something is playing it on a wooden pipe just outside, and I want to listen, I want to go outside, I want to follow the music.