Rikes: A Narrative Analysis

An old house sits on the top of a hill in a small town named Rikes, Wisconsin. It is December in Rikes and the house is covered in snow, with barely any wood left showing. The wooden house is not visible from the nearby street because it is engulfed by thick forest. The house is owned by Frank Nelson, but many people in town refer to him as “Saint Nick” because he is the Santa Clause at the local church. He is in his seventies and he is a widowed husband, no one in town knows about what happened to his wife because he had moved there after she had died. Though some thought this was weird, it did not raise many concerns around town, but most of the parents feel uneasy about Frank because he has had a bad record with the cops and his drinking
Most of the kids wake up and run to get their parents to start opening up presents under the tree. But in the Houses of the Robinson’s, the Ware’s, and the Lester’s none of this joy was happening, and there were no kids waking up the parents wanting to open their presents. Instead, there were tears and frantic calls to the police and 911 and to everyone they know around town because the kids were missing.Everything in the houses looks normal, no signs that they had gotten kidnaped or that they had run away. All of the kid’s beds are made perfectly as if they had not even gotten into bed the night before and the air in the rooms felt still and cold. All of the kids missing are boys and all of them are only kids except for ten-year-old Titus Ware, he has a younger brother who is 8. Titus sleeps in the same room as his brother, Tristan, who claims to his crying parents that he saw Santa during the night. Both of the parents ignore what he is saying, they too focused on the phone call with the police describing what Titus looked like. The day is dark for those three families who's kids were missing, while other families have joy and thanks for this day of