The Start of Something Terrible

Police had found very little in way of evidence as to what happened. Her mother didn’t check if she had been home the previous night and they weren’t home when she would have left for school that Monday. She wasn’t present in school either, though this wasn’t unusual behavior; she had been missing classes regularly for a while. She had apparently been hiding the truancy notices from her parents. That last bit was something Oren suggested to her through correspondence, a fact that made her feel sick.

What made her feel sicker was that she was the only person to see Penelope on the day she disappeared. All police estimations assumed the girl had gone missing on Sunday, the sixth. Oren saw her the next day, she knew she was alright, she was good at reading into that sort of thing. She couldn’t tell the police, they couldn’t know she was involved. They would raise eyebrows at the payphone call to Oren’s home, the one to organize their meet at the beach. They’d hear the rumors about her following classmates around campus. The rumors were something started by classmates years ago, bullies painting her as the one in the wrong, so she’d stop tattling. Her detailed reports about previous incidents had only served to further her reputation as an obsessive loner, the sort of kid parents worried about. Her social standing made any appeals to authority worthless, anything she said would be taken in bad faith based on the reputation that preceded her. That was one reason she couldn’t come forward.

The other, though, was the letter. The police had already found the letter Penelope was writing to Debonair, the only one Oren hadn’t had the time to sneak in and take once the investigation started. The details released to the public about the letter were scarce. Apparently, Penelope was talking to a man who called himself St. Clair. They were apparently quite familiar with one another. St. Clair had invited her out for a clandestine midnight outing to an undisclosed location. These were worrying for Oren to hear, she would never suggest meeting up in person. Not only was she not a devilishly handsome older gentleman detective, but she was only capable of writing in his signature style through hours of consideration and drafting. The apparent contents of this letter seemed unthinkable, like Penelope had suddenly massively raised the stakes on their little game. That was until Oren had looked through the letters Penelope had kept. Alongside the tens she had herself written, there were several penned in a different hand. Impressive imitations, though clear to the creator to be from a different author.

That’s why she couldn’t come forward. She couldn’t tell the police that the man they were looking for was fictionalized, someone she and Penelope made up to pass the time. If they knew she was the one behind the assumed suspect, they wouldn’t care about her side of the story. They’d see a teen girl who used a fake name to isolate and seduce her best friend. They’d see a long-spanning plot to make Penelope Clark impossible to track before being lured out of her home into the wilderness to be kidnapped or killed under the cover of midnight.

Reading these letters was page after page of disturbing realizations. How closely this author knew my writing meant they had read what she had written. How well they knew the persona Penelope put on meant they had read what she had as well. How they subtly drew her in with veiled flirtation. How well they led her along. How they made out their relationship to be one completely unique in its understanding and sensuality. This was someone that knew, or at least understood, both Oren and Penelope intimately. Above that creeping horror, though, was finding just where this impostor had asked her to meet. The same isolated, rocky, trash-laden beach she had asked to meet on that Monday.

Oren returned to the beach, under daylight. It felt safer. She thought about that day, knowing what she knew now. She had noticed that Penelope was anxious. That she felt more open. That she was touchier. These were all influences of this stranger, signs that she was being misled and made vulnerable, signs that she was being hunted. She came to where the two had sat, where their empty beer bottles still sat nested in the sand. She saw a set of heavier footprints in the sand, apparently fresh. They led to where the two once sat by the driftwood. Oren followed the prints, seeing nestled into the neck of the bottle Oren herself had been drinking from, was a note.

“I have in my possession all the letters Penny has written in the past month. Letters addressed to your home, depicting her complete fall to my manipulation. If you do not comply with my demands, these letters will fall into the hands of the police and I will divert significant personal resources to ensuring you are incarcerated for many long decades. My demands are as follows: Leave these islands immediately, do not return home or stop at any secondary location on the way to the airport. You may not contact your family nor anyone else either now or ever. If you ever return to this place or attempt to gain contact with any of your friends or relatives, this evidence and more will surface.

Yours,

Debonair St. Clair”

The letter was disorienting, terrifying. Oren read the note and reread it. She looked out to the sand, seeing where these heavy footprints trudged off the way they came. She returned her gaze to the note, and then to the bottle. On the inside, flush against the glass, was a plane ticket. One-way, HNL, departing 3 hours from now.

April 14th, 1980. The day Oren Estrada left home.

Hell 2

Hell 1

The Start of Something Terrible