Under The Rug

It's not uncommon for people to go missing in our town. At least one kid leaves or goes missing each month. It's hard to think so many of the people walking down the street have lost someone or had someone leave them. But everyone gets used to it eventually, if they don’t, they just choose to leave as well and start over.

I've lost my fair share of people myself, not knowing if they left or are missing. I live with the owner of the local bar, The Sunset Creek bar. her name is Elise. My parents were drunks who forgot me at the bar so at least I know they left and aren't missing. When they eventually came for me two months later, it was only my father. He never knew how to take care of a baby and wasn’t ready to stop partying. He said my mother died from an overdose of something that was in her drink at a party.

Not knowing what they should do with me, the people working that night left me there in my carrier. Someone told the bartender, Angelize to adopt me but she could never afford that. Then it fell onto Elise's shoulders to take care of me, which she without a doubt would do. So, I would stay at the bar during the day and after Elise finished, we would go over to her husband’s restaurant, Ma Cher Elise.

I've been living this way my whole life. Once I reached the age to need to go to school, I went to school just like all the other kids. After elementary school I went to middle school just like all the other kids. After middle school I started high school just like all the other kids. Except I am not like the other kids, I'm the joke around town because of my parents. I'm the unwanted baby, the infant who was forgotten by her party parents in a dive bar.

I’m Evelyn Marie Branson, I’m 14 almost 15. I go to Sunset Creek High where I have electives in Arts and Music. I take Arts with my two best friends and my boyfriend. He isn't necessarily popular, but he is among that crowd of people. He plays football with the cool people and grew up with Evan, the team captain.

It’s the almost the end of the first semester and everyone is tired. We need to get to the end of December and then we get to relax again. We are all tired and ready to unwind for winter break. Most of us will go out in the snow and do stuff with our friends. Some kids from our school are packing to leave for a city with better schools and bigger houses. Some kids will stay inside bundled up and work on schoolwork, with the dream of getting out of our pit stop town.

I woke up today like every other morning, packed my lunch as usual and packed my bag with my school stuff. I walked past my “mom” and said good morning then continued to the door and got a ride to school with my “dad”. School went by in a blur. Once I got home, I barely had time to do my chores with all the homework I had. The week continued this way, until on Friday when my boyfriend, Blake Everette, wasn’t at school because he got a concussion in football. I went to his house on the weekend and watched movies with him, so he wasn’t completely bored. That game was particularly aggressive. I remember watching him get knocked down and then being helped off the field by his teammates.

We're almost done the week when, yet another kid goes missing. It's not just anyone, it’s the girlfriend of the football team captain, the captain of the cheer leading squad and the most likely to date the cool/popular kids. She is the most popular girl in school, the kid everyone wants to date, or wants to be.

Among the other missing kids there are 11 girls and 3 boys. There used to be 14 girls and 8 boys, but 3 girls and 5 boys were found. Two of the girls had been drugged and dragged to a party where they ended up drinking and having fun, so there weren't any charges following the events.

The boys decided to go on a camping trip for a week and called authorities after finding the body of the third girl in the woods. Bryce Walker stumbled upon her body while playing paint ball with the other guys that were camping. The autopsy revealed that she had been beat, strangled and hit in the back of the head multiple times, to the point where her skull cracked and caved in at the back. Ultimately, she died from a seizure caused by a large dose of rohypnol. The coroner estimated she died two months prior to being found.

The killer dragged her up to the hunting grounds and hid her in a large crevasse in the mountain side. When the boys were playing paint ball, they used those crevasses to hide and ambush each other. Bryce stumbled over her body while trying to escape the other team.

Shaken by the events, Bryce went thru therapy, counselling and even tried hypnotherapy. Bryce’s family ultimately decided to move away from our neighborhood.

But two weeks passed, and it happened again. A second and third body were found. Two girls that were in my grade, two girls I had classes with. It was Anna and Emily from the wealthy side of town. Emphasis on wealthy.

The pattern is still continuing. We have patrols on the woods now searching for teens that are out and about, but also searching for bodies. To date there are 11 bodies, 9 girls and two boys. All of them between the age of 15 and 18. The three other missing kids were found in their parent's van trying to ditch town for someplace better.

I’ve started walking home, and am just reaching the trail throught the woods, when I see my neighbor Philip, yelling angrily at one of the cheer leaders. Philip is a kind man who lives by himself and I've never seen him angry before. It's hard to think its him because he never had seemed like an angry person. I start to walk over to them and realize what must have happened. Her bike is laying on the road by the entrance to the trail, and Philips car is parked in front of the entrance as well. I start to hear what they are yelling about.

Angelie yells toward Philip while holding her hand to her head "Philip, you purposefully hit me while I was riding my bike! My parents will have your head for this!

“That would be preposterous! I had no intention of hitting you! And don’t say anything about your parents having my head, do you know what I have done for this community?!” Philip angrily yells back.

Angelie’s head is bleeding heavily from the side. A thick, red stream is dripping onto her clothes.

“You- you can’t get away with this... People will find out... I-I" says Angelie before collapsing to the ground and Philip starts walking over to her.

I start to inch backwards but slip on the curb behind me and Philip snaps his head in my direction. I look for someone else. Anyone at all. I turn and see Blake walking towards his friend Evans house. I yell his name and he looks my way, but Philip is already over me with a bat.

I notice that I'm not on a curb anymore, but in the back of a car. I see Angelie lying in a lump on the floor and start to panic. The car is hot, and I can smell exhaust from the car. The smell is so strong. Its then that I realize what he did. He fed a tube from the exhaust to the car window. Me and Angelie’s feet and hands are tied. We are both gaged but I managed to get it out of my mouth as it was just fabric.

I'm not sure if she is still alive so I give her a little kick with my foot. She doesn’t budge so I kick her again. And again, and again and again. Just when I thought she was dead and had given her one last kick of defeat, she let out a small whimper sound that brought joy to my ears. She opened her eyes and spat out the fabric in her mouth. The terror that I saw in her eyes gave me chills and sent a shiver down my spine. The car is filling with exhaust, so we need to get out soon or we’ll die.

I tell Angelie that we need to get out of the car fast or we’ll die. She mumbles something and moves into a sitting position. I scoot towards the window and start kicking at the window. It's not budging, so I start to worry. What if we don’t get out? Will Philip drag our bodies thru the woods like the other girls?

I remember when there was a raccoon in our house, and our father was out. My mother decided to call Philip to help. The raccoon ran around and was knocking everything over. Philip chased it around everywhere but couldn’t catch it. I remember watching it go under our rug and Philip picking up the chair and trying to hit the raccoon with it. We had to throw out the rug due to blood stains. I screamed at him not to kill the raccoon. By that point we named him Harold the trash cat. Philip ended up hitting Harold and he squealed. I cried even though I was told that he was taken to the vet and was fine. But when I got older, I realized he was murdered. He didn’t die from the chair hitting him though. He couldn’t have killed him with the chair which means he killed him in a different way.

I shift so that I'm standing on my knees, then roll onto my feet so that I'm crouched. I shuffle over to Angelie and tell her to untie my feet. She does as I say swiftly. I stand as best as I can, but the van isn’t tall enough for me to stand. I run at the window and send my shoulder into it. I learnt that from Blake. He taught me how to body check as he noticed me admiring him practice. My shoulder makes a loud crunching sound and I feel a severing pain in my shoulder. I remember that pain from summer camp when I was 12. I fell off the dock into the rocks and landed on a slippery rock that twisted my ankle and shattered my bones. I gasp but it doesn’t matter. The window didn’t break. I back up and ram the window again, and again, and again each time the pain getting worse. I hit the window again but this time the pain becomes practically unbearable, this time though, the window fractures a little. I must hit it again, I'm so close to cracking it.

I start to realize I’m coughing. I was so worried about the window I forgot about the fumes. I ram the window as hard as I possibly can, and it shatters. I look over to Angelie, but she is unconscious. I cut the bindings on my wrist and drag Angelie from the middle of the car to the back window, so that she gets clean air. I hurry back to the front and try and go to turn off the car, but he broke the key so that I can’t grasp it.

I hop out the back window and drag Angelie over the window. I look for my phone and it's not with me. I check Angelie’s pulse and look for her phone. Her pulse is good, and her phone is on her. I turn her phone on and it’s at 3% so I need to be quick. I feel the back of my head and its bleeding. I call the police and lay down next to the lump that is supposed to be Angelie. I start to feel dizzy and lightheaded, so I close next to lumpy Angelie.

I guess that I passed out, because next thing I knew I was in a hospital. I had surgery for my shoulder that I severely dislocated and broke when I was hitting the glass. I was also treated for a mild skull fraction. Angelie was treated for a broken wrist, arm and shoulder. She was also treated for her skull fracture. Blake comes by the hospital now and then to see me but is super busy with football that he usually comes by once every second day. I get out of the hospital in three days which is good.

Philip was found at his house the day after the incident. He was in his living room sitting on his armchair, reading a book. As a group of police were crowded around the house making sure there was no escape, a few police kicked down the door and found Philip with a book in his hand, with his cat was sitting is his lap purring delightfully. When the police saw him, they stopped and stared and to their surprise he looked over.

“Make yourselves at home gentlemen. I have the kettle boiling for some earl grey tea but if you would like I do have other kinds of tea. There is also special coffee I was gifted from Hawaii if you would like.” Philip said with a huge smile from ear to ear.

Philip sat there smiling at them until they finally spoke, explaining that they were there to arrest him for two counts of kidnapping, 11 counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, counts of child abuse, multiple counts of battery and assault.

He got up and held out his wrists for them to cuff him. As they cuffed him, he continued smiling, even when he was put in the police car. He pleaded guilty to all the counts, still smiling in the court room. He is serving life in jail for everything he did, and the families of the dead are recovering from their old wounds being opened back up.

My mom and dad are here for me along with Blake. When I was hit with the baseball bat Blake had already started running towards me, but Philip hit him in the head as well when he got to us.

I wish my biological parents left me at a different bar, in a different town. As much as I love my parents and Blake, it would have been easier to not lose my friends and peers. Being in our small town of sunset creek is stupid and pointless. But that’s not how life goes.

Its midday but I'm getting tired, I should rest my eyes for a bit. I start to hear my machine thing beeping faster, but sleep is more important. It's so hard to sleep though with people yelling around me and moving things around. All the gadgets they are putting on me is making it hard to sleep. Why are my parents crying, and why does Blake look so scared and upset?

Its finally quiet and calm, but I'm not in the hospital anymore. I'm with Jamie, Emily, Cathy, Anna, George, Freddie, Hallie, Evangeline, Kimberly, Carmen and Delilah. They are all the other victims from what Philip did.

We’re in a field filled with tall grass, yellow flowers and one tall weeping willow in the center of a ring of small, modern log houses. There’s a small garden and barn to the left of the houses.

They all turn around and look at me. I feel as if I shouldn’t be here but then Delilah, who’s two years younger than me, smiles from ear to ear. I smile back and she skips towards me with a basket full of the bright yellow flowers.

I embrace her in a tight hug, and we walk over to the group. I've always been fond of Delilah so it’s nice to see her soft smile and bright eyes again. They explain to me everything as we walk back to the houses for dinner, which is being hosted by Freddie and George tonight.

The thought of my old life fades away, like I'm done with one ride at a fair and am moving to the next ride. I’ll always remember that time, but it’ll only be in the back of my head now.