City of the Reptilians by Xaiver Morden

  *****

  Tamara was extremely upset as it was turning dark and Steven was not at home yet. Something bad must have happened, he is never this late, she thought.

  She was walking up and down in the flat nervously, not being able to calm down. Her eyes turned red from crying. Hours passed, but her boyfriend still did not show up, she called him several times, the phone was ringing, but he did not pick up. She could not wait any longer so she called the police and reported the disappearance of the man.

  The next day the police began investigating the case. They started searching the area where, according to Tamara, the man usually went rock climbing. By afternoon, they found his abandoned motorbike and his equipment. Furman, the county sheriff and his associate was examining the motorcycle and the traces around it. There were only a few small and narrow cracks on the ground.

  "This is suspicious, it seems like the motorbike fell down and someone stood it up, but if he had fallen down from a cliff after the earthquake as we suspected, how would the missing person have been able to do so?" the lieutenant asked.

  "He did not fell down, Ralph!" the sheriff replied, rubbing his nose.

  "He climbed off the rock, stood the motor up and then he just disappeared, I don't know, I have a weird feeling about this," he put his hat straight.

  "I cannot put this together, if someone had wanted to steal from him, they would have taken the backpack and the motorcycle too. If this is a murder, it must have been a professional, because there are no clues left for us. As for me, it looks like he just vanished from the face of the Earth. Moreover, he knew the area very well, apparently he came here every week. I have a feeling that we will have some bad news for the family because we will not find him easily. There's a chance that we will never see him again," said the sheriff.