Deadly Auditions

Chapter 1.

Kat slowly opened her eyes to a splitting headache and heard a noisy engine. She felt the shaking of the car she was in and noticed she was slumped over in a brown leather back seat. She lifted her head up and realized she was on a train going very fast. She thought to herself “ is this a normal speed?”, but she chalked it up to her headache. She had migraines often and knew she was having one from how nauseous she felt.

She looked around her and saw she was surrounded by other girls (also laying in a seat ) or slumped over. Most of them were in workout gear, leotards and sweats. She turned her face down to what she was wearing. She was in an outfit she wore to auditions ( black leotard and black skirt with leggings) and remembered her audition from the broadway show Phantom of the Opera to play “Christine”, the show's star in New York City.

She pulled her brown hair down from the messy bun she had which was contributing to the throbbing in her head. She then tried to stand and her legs were too wobbly. She fell back in her seat against the window. She noticed a few of the other girls start to shift and wake and realized that some of the girls were looking familiar. They had been in line for that audition as well.

“ Were we all tricked into a fake audition?” She thought. “ Were we drugged?” She put her hand on her head and tried to put pressure on her temples. She looked out the window and the speed just made her dizzy. “ How many girls are here?” She started to count and had counted 15 in the car she was in, including herself, and wondered how many cars were on the train.

Finally she felt strong enough to stand and slowly stood holding onto the seat back for balance. She called out “ is anyone else awake?!” She winced at how bad her throat felt, but she was too scared to sit and keep her mouth shut. She heard several groans and cries and realized the other girls were all feeling the same way. She knew they were in some kind of trouble.

She started moving seat to seat to see who was waking up and if everyone was ok. She was hoping someone might remember how they all got here or what happened. One girl swung a fist at her as she shook her awake. “ Woah! I’m not the bad guy!”Kat yelled as the girl was terrified as she woke her. “ We are all in trouble” she said as all 14 girls were awake. “We are on a train going very fast and it isn’t slowing down. I think we have all been drugged. Does anyone remember anything?”

All 14 girls were shaking their heads and looking confused. A few attempted to stand and had wobbly legs as well. Kat watched them try as she had to stand and move and told them to sit until they felt less dizzy. Kat had to see if there was anyone else on the train, so she slowly crept toward the back door. When she reached the door, she jiggled the door and it wouldn’t open.

She looked around and spotted a fire extinguisher. She asked another girl to help her pull it off the wall of the car. She brought it back and weakly hit the handle of the door. Nothing happened. She knew she was feeling weak but she had to get it open. She lifted it above her head for more leverage. She brought it down and the gravity force hit the handle enough to break it off, she then had to pull the door back without the handle and struggled before pulling back enough to tell they were in the caboose of the train. She had a feeling they were a long way from any help.

The girl that swung at Kat, decided she was ready to get off the train. The girl moved to the front door of the car they were in, and found it was locked as well. Kat brought the girl the fire extinguisher to break the lock there. The girl on the first try busted the lock and handle right away and Kat thought she should have tried that to begin with.

They both pulled back the door together and found the next car was going to be hard to get to because of the tie between the cars being so far apart. They stepped back into the car they were in to make a plan. They needed to somehow make a bridge for one of them to pass through without falling and killing themselves. They looked for a board or flat piece and they couldn’t find anything so they started looking at the leather back seats.

They worked together to rip one off the base to use to throw in between the train cars and climb over. By this point some of the other girls were panicking and trying to rush the two girls working together, but they assured them they were doing their best to get help. They were determined to get out in one piece and get all the girls out in one piece. Kat was just afraid if they couldn’t get out soon, they were not getting out alive.

Chapter 2.

By now the news had spread of missing girls all going to the same audition and not coming home. Family members reported it from all over the state. The girls had been missing for over 24 hours and the police had been brought in. They had the media announce that anyone that had camera footage of the girls or the audition site leading to finding the girls would get a reward.

The search for the girls began at the audition site in New York City. They started with the director who claimed he left prior to the auditions end due to an appointment he had made prior with his doctor. The police confirmed his appointment with a phone call and he was checked in there at 1:30pm, July 24th, 2022. The auditions had started at 11:00am of July 24th, 2022 and was supposed to wrap up at 2pm.

The next person they looked at was the actor who was playing The Phantom , because he was left at the auditions when the director left. Video footage shows him leaving at 2:05pm and locking everything up. The police wondered why the girls were not seen leaving prior to the building being locked up. When they asked the man he told them there was another exit they went through and he showed them another exit. This one didn’t have any camera views that anyone could see. The police were suspicious but didn’t have any evidence so they had to let him go.

They had the list of the girls who auditioned that day and there were 31 in all. All were in their teens or early twenties. All were very fit and healthy girls. They were all talented individuals who had made it into a select category of gifted and were all being considered for the role of “Christine” which was being cast in a month. The last “Christine”was starting a family and was retiring from the show.

The part they found interesting was that they only had 30 missing reports, not 31. So which girl was not missing? The girl who wasn’t reported missing according to their list, was Eliza and she lived in Brooklyn off of Kings Highway, which was a mostly Russian area. She was 21 and a Juilliard graduate. She lived with her Mother who was a retired Broadway star herself. They decided they had to talk to this girl.

They rode the N train to Kings Highway. On the way they planned out their questions and wondered if one little girl could really kidnap 30 girls and decided she couldn’t have done it. They knocked on the door and a woman in a green satin robe with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes answered the door. “ Eliza! These men want to speak to you.” She yelled and walked into the kitchen. She offered coffee to which the men refused.

A tiny girl who looked almost sickly with how skinny she was stepped forward, looking almost like an identical twin of her mother. The lead investigator asked her to sit and talk with them. She sat in a rocking chair while the men asked if they could sit on her couch. She nodded. They introduced themselves and started by asking her about her audition which she said went well. They then asked her how she left because no video showed her or any girl leaving out the front door.

She shifted uncomfortably and said the odd part was she didn’t remember leaving and had woken up with a huge headache. The men were surprised at her response and asked the last part she remembered. Suddenly, a call came through the officers pagers that there was a reported missing train and they each switched it off eager to get Eliza's response. She put her hand to her head as if it hurt and she was straining to remember. “ We were all being invited to a call back and I was walking to the bathroom and I just remembered someone passing very close in front of my face. Everything went black. Then I woke up back here in my room. “

The men started to get worried. Why were the other girls missing and Eliza was not. They asked if they could draw a blood sample to tell if there was anything in her system. She hesitantly agreed. They pulled out of their bag a butterfly needle and test tube. They stuck her vein inside the crook of her arm to a almost non existent vein and took enough to fill up the tube. They pulled out the needle, put pressure on a cotton swab and wrapped her arm in gaze. She placed her hand on her arm where they drew blood and she appeared exhausted and weak. She asked if they could leave now so she could lie down. Her mother started to help her get up as she was almost too weak to stand on her own at the moment.

The officers agreed and headed back to the station to continue their investigation. After testing the sample, her blood proved she had chloroform in her system. They wondered who could be targeting these girls. The real question still was where the other girls were? They started getting reports of a speeding train seen heading toward Canada at an uncontrollable speed. The thought crossed one of their minds about the girls being on there but they disregarded the train. They needed to focus on the girls.

Over the radio, they got a frantic call from someone that had seen the girls on the news and said they saw a man loading body size bags onto a train and thought it was odd. She saw the news and thought this may be related. Oh no! That's when they realized the girls were on that train. They immediately started contacting the other officers and emergency services. They decided to send a helicopter to find the location of the fast moving train. Would they make it in time?

Chapter 3.

Kat and the girl that swung managed to lift the leather seat back from the car they were in, to the door of the other train. The girl held the seat to hold the bridge while Kat crawled on her hands and knees across and pulled herself up on the other side. The door was surprisingly unlocked and Kat pushed it open to another set of girls screaming and trying to find a way out. She announced there were 14 more girls from the last car as well and they were all in trouble. She let them know herself and another girl were working on saving them all. Kat went to the front of that car and that door was locked again. At least she knew what to do. She located the fire extinguisher of that car and asked another girl for help to yank it off of the wall of the car and ran back to break the lock. She lifted it high enough to break it on the first try.

She could see into the next car which had a bigger opening in the back. There was a man pushing up a switch with a piece of wood and he saw Kat trying to climb over. He attempted to escape out the hatch at the top. Kat yelled for backup. Several of the girls helped to charge the front car and latched onto the man's leg as he was pulling himself onto the roof to try and jump off. Kat realized he was at the auditions as well with his daughter. Where was she?

Several girls pinned the man down and Kat demanded to know where his daughter was. He said it was Eliza’s turn to shine and he wasn’t going to let the rest of us entitled girls ruin it for her. He was willing to die himself to get her the role. All of a sudden, the train made a jerk and almost went off track going around a curve. Kat knew they had to get control quickly. She leapt up to pull the wooden piece from the train switch so she could pull the brake but realized it was broken. After looking around she found the emergency brake cord and pulled it. As it finally slowed and came to a stop , she realized they were surrounded by emergency vehicles and helicopters. They were found.

The man was pulled off of the train and arrested for kidnapping and attempted murder. He didn’t fight, just asked for his one phone call. The girls were all pulled off one by one and checked by the EMTs. All were proven to have been chloroformed and abducted in a bag. They must have been carried out the door of the auditions somehow, but why didn’t anyone see them being carried out? Was there someone else working with him? The train managed to take the girls hours away from New York City. What would have happened had the girls not woken up on time?

Chapter 4.

Eliza had no idea her father was going to do that. He encouraged her to audition after she had been hospitalized because of her battle with anorexia. She really wanted the role but felt weak and exhausted the whole time. Her mother was too busy taking selfies and instagram posts to worry about her daughter's health. Her mother and father split when Eliza was 14. Her mother got parental custody of Eliza and her dad only saw her every other weekend. He didn’t care about his own happiness. He just wanted Eliza to be happy.

Unfortunately he caused embarrassment for Eliza. Now not only would she not get Christine, she would have to suffer more because of what he did. Could she really show her face again? Would they recognize her? She could color her hair. Maybe change her look. It was useless. She might as well lock herself in her room. She was just being harassed by the media anyway. She was famous, just not the way she hoped for.

Chapter 5.

Kat was still having nightmares from the train and was napping one afternoon when she got the phone call for a callback. As excited as she was, she hesitated from her last adventure. She would not go alone this time. She had made friends with the girl that swung at her on the train and learned her name was Tracy. She called Tracy to see if she also got a callback.

Tracy said unfortunately she didn’t, but that she would go with Kat so she didn’t go alone.

When they arrived at the audition site, they were escorted by the police this time into the building. There were only 3 girls called back and Eliza was one of the girls. She looked red-faced and made sure to apologize to Kat, Tracy and the other call back. She also let them know she was withdrawing from the auditions but she felt like she needed to apologize in person. “Good luck!” She said to Kat and quickly left through the front door to a car waiting outside which was a police escort to take her back home.

We later learned that her father was found guilty of kidnapping and attempted murder for all 30 girls and wouldn’t be eligible for parole. Kat felt bad for her but tried her best at the audition. Kat didn’t get the role, but was asked to be the understudy for Christine and a chorus member. She still took it as a win. She went through literal hell and almost lost her life over it. Tracy and her got an apartment in lower Manhattan together and decided they were family now.

Kat and Tracy wrote a book about their experience and it became a bestseller. They found a way to turn a negative experience into a positive one. They checked on Eliza a year later only to learn her anorexia killed her and in turn, her mother overdosed on sleeping pills. 5 years later Eliza’s dad was found dead in his cell and he was murdered by a fellow inmate. At least Eliza and her dad could be together again.

Kat would grow to become an advocate for women becoming victims of kidnapping. She wanted to make sure this never happened to anyone else ever again. All because of an audition where she almost auditioned for her life. All because of an audition where almost 30 girls lost their lives. A psychopath decided his daughter's happiness was worth killing for and dying for. As a result, Kat did find her best friend and life's purpose. Was it all worth it?