Joshua’s entire body ached with a weariness that cut deeper than the cold March wind biting at his face. He pressed his back against the rusted fender of his truck, the metal rough and unyielding beneath his palms, smudging grime and mud onto his worn work clothes without him noticing. The night air was sharp and unforgiving, stirring the remnants of ice and snow on the cracked pavement around him.
His breath came in shallow, ragged bursts, each exhale a visible puff that disappeared instantly into the frigid darkness. Panic churned low in his gut, a slow, gnawing dread that resurfaced every few hours like a relentless tide. Every time it washed over him, it was the same: realization dawning that here he was again, parked alone on the outskirts of Winnipeg, searching the barren scrublands for his boy.
Two days had passed since he’d last stepped into the Winnipeg Police Service, his hope drained by the sluggish shuffle of bureaucracy and the cold indifference behind official eyes. Those 48 hours spiraled between restless aimless driving, ice cracking beneath tires, and furious frustration at a world that seemed stuck in molasses.
"We’ll keep an eye out, ask around," the officers had said, a phrase as cold and empty as the frozen ground beneath his boots. That was all the promise anyone could offer.
A handful of volunteers had offered to help look, but the Youngs were strangers in this snowbitten town. Wherever he went, he felt the weight of being an outsider—new blood, a nobody with a boy missing in a place where connections mattered. Manitobans didn’t tend to brave March’s biting chill for a man whose claim to local fame was showing up for coffee at Tim Hortons twice in a month, no matter how desperate he was.
Family was scarce too. An uncle somewhere, distant and distant still. Joshua had no real network to lean on. The heavy burden of the search rested squarely on his shoulders.
And the clock was ticking. He’d have to be back at the shop soon—maybe tomorrow, if he was lucky. The boss had been fair, all things considered.
"You’ve got a job here any time you want," the man had said, "but I can’t pay you for days you don’t show up. No vacation until three months in." A few coworkers had pitched in a day’s pay here and there, but bills didn’t pause, and moving into a new life meant every dollar stretched thin.
Joshua’s mind whirled with the impossible balance between hope and responsibility—trying to focus on greasy tractor pistons under the buzzing fluorescent lights while wondering if his son was out there somewhere, frozen and alone, or worse.
He took a shaky breath, forcing himself to look up from the slush and ice melting along the road’s edge. Across the cracked pavement, Mrs. Russell watched him from behind a faded curtain in her picture window. Her eyes, rimmed with age and sorrow, flickered with regret and a quiet shame she thought he wouldn’t notice as he trudged past, hands buried deep in his pockets and head bowed low.
Scattered footprints, hardened and fragile, imprinted the remaining ice. Their shape and tread matched the small rubber boots his son had worn. It was proof Mikey had been here—not much, but a sliver of reassurance amid the gnawing void.
Joshua turned his gaze south, noticing a patch of snow crushed and disturbed, the edges ragged as if flailing arms had torn through it. His heart sank at the sight. Snowfall and thin thawing had erased the finer clues, leaving behind only a cruel ambiguity.
No blood, no frantic marks scrawled in snow—no messages from a frightened child.
"Hey."
The voice broke the silence so suddenly that Joshua nearly dropped to his knees, the cold stabbing sharp through his numbness. A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the soft yellow glow of the Russell porch light. The gaunt, dirt-streaked woman lowered her hood, revealing tangled blonde hair matted with grime and a face lined with fatigue but fierce eyes.
"Fuck, D’arce," Joshua muttered, the words slipping out reflexively.
"On my way home," she said, twisting her boot in the gravel, avoiding his gaze. "I heard about what happened."
He said nothing, the weight of frustration and hurt clogging his throat.
"Have the cops said anything?" she asked softly.
"They won’t do shit," he spat bitterly. "I got a call this morning. They said, ‘We reviewed your case and think it warrants investigation.’ That’s a polite way of saying they barely even looked."
D’arcy shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, cold wind tugging at the oversized denim jacket that hung off her frame. "They’re all bastards. What about the news? The papers?"
Joshua shook his head grimly. "Nobody knows Mikey. Nobody cares. It’s like he’s invisible."
The night crept closer, folding the world into a heavier silence. The cold sank through Joshua’s coat, but it was nothing compared to the chill gnawing at his heart.
"It’s so goddamn quiet at home," he said, voice raw and breaking. "Mikey’s usually in the corner, playing with his Hot Wheels. I keep expecting to hear the little cars clicking on the floor... but there’s nothing. Just silence."
He wiped at his eyes as icy tears welled, the cold biting at the edges like tiny knives.
"Could you give me a ride?" D’arcy asked, already reaching for the truck’s passenger door handle.
Joshua hesitated, torn between the desperate need to linger one more moment in the frigid emptiness and the aching loneliness that gripped him deeper every second. Maybe if he stared at the snow a while longer, the universe might crack open and reveal some answer. Or maybe Mikey would just wander out of the dark, muddy boots heavy and dripping.
"I’m okay, Daddy!" came a small voice from somewhere deep inside his memory, a ghost of a laugh. "I got a super-big-mega booter! I was all the way down in the bottom of the ditch!"
He shuddered, forcing the thought back into the wilderness where the rest of his panic prowled, and climbed into the truck’s warmer cab. The engine coughed and sputtered to life, and with it, the walls Joshua had built around his grief crumbled. Tears spilled freely onto the steering wheel.
"Who the fuck would do this?" he choked, resting his forehead against the cold leather. "Who would take a kid like Mikey and..."
D’arcy sat silently beside him, avoiding his gaze, fidgeting with the window crank. Her face twisted with quiet sympathy—the kind of empathy that said, I see your pain, but I don’t know how to fix it.
"I wish I could tell you," she murmured. "Your ex—"
Joshua snorted, swallowing hard as the stench of her dirty clothes and the bitter night seeped into the cab. "Psychotic bitch’s still out west. Cops tracked that much. If God’s merciful, she’ll stay the hell out there." He wiped at his face, the cold sweat mixing with tears. "I’m sorry."
"Don’t be," D’arcy said quietly.
The truck rolled forward, heater roaring uselessly against the chill as it headed toward the dim rows of trailers. After a heavy silence, D’arcy finally spoke.
"You know," she said, resting her knees on the dash, "this might be a long shot, but have you thought about looking online?"
"What do you mean?" Joshua asked, frowning.
"Like, there’s this group—my roommate knows someone who knows someone—that finds missing people through internet tools. Not stalkers, more like digital trackers. A while back, they found two girls in India. It’s legit."
Joshua exhaled slowly, the idea feeling both absurd and strangely hopeful. "Weirdos online trying to find lost kids," he muttered. Just days ago, he might have laughed it off. Now, desperate, he was willing to try anything.
"Do you have a number?" he asked.
D’arcy pulled a grease-stained receipt from the floor and a carpenter’s pencil from the dash. She scribbled hastily, then pressed the note into Joshua’s jacket pocket, the coarse fabric brushing against his stomach.
"But they’ll want pictures. Lots of them. Mikey, you, your crazy ex, and... well, everything. Don’t leave anything out."
The truck’s headlights swept over the turnoff into the trailer park as she spoke. Neither said a word for a moment, the weight of what lay ahead pressing down.
"Which one’s yours?" Joshua asked quietly.
"Fuck!" D’arcy suddenly cursed, her fingers fumbling at the door handle.
"Whoa, hey!" Joshua startled, eyes darting to her frantic hands.
"My roommate left her cats outside again. Want coyotes? That’s how you get coyotes. Those little howling bastards’ll eat anything smaller than a moose. I’m so done with this place."
She caught herself and turned back, voice softer. "Sorry."
Joshua felt a shiver roll through him that had nothing to do with the cold. Coyotes. The wildness creeping closer, the menace lurking beyond the fences and trailers.
"It’s not fine," he admitted. "You wanna come inside? Maybe we can look into that internet thing together. It’d be easier to hate the world with someone else around."
D’arcy shook her head. "Wish I could, but I’ve got twenty minutes to chase cats and pack my stuff. If it’s still there. Never a quiet night with girls around. Savages all of them."
She stepped down onto the frosty gravel, boots crunching sharply in the silence.
"There’s gonna be good news for you. I feel it," she said, glancing back through the open door. "Just remember: pictures. Everything."
Joshua nodded, clutching the crumpled receipt like a lifeline. He watched her fade into the shadows between the trailers, swallowed by the cold and darkness.
Alone again, he stared down at the note, whispering to the hum of the heater, "What the hell am I doing?"
Pictures. He could do pictures. Birthday parties, Christmases, summer trips. Maybe even call Mikey’s teacher, plead for photos from school events. Anything to piece together a digital breadcrumb trail.
He clenched his fist, pounding it weakly on the steering wheel before shifting into reverse. But first—there was one last place to photograph. The bus stop, the cold witness to his son’s disappearance.
He exhaled a shaky breath and pulled back onto the road, letting the headlights carve swaths of light through the night. He didn’t know what awaited him, but he had to do something. Anything.