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Detective Rory Gorden despises small towns, always so close-knit and dramatic. If it weren’t for the police chief being his friend and asking him to help he would’ve never accepted this case. Three high school girls are missing, two 16-year-olds and one 17-year-old. Families say the girls never came home from school, and classmates haven’t seen them since school dismissed. All the girls walked home and had nothing in common, one girl being extremely social and popular, one of the other girls being a loner with one friend, and the oldest one bearing showing up to school not talking to anyone, and none of the girls were friends or even talked to each other. If Rory wasn’t so nice he would tell the parents their daughters ran away and to wait for them to come back in a week or two but he had nothing better to do anyway, why not look into this a little more?
He talked to the family about the 17-year-old girl Emma, a single mother who worked a lot, and a 12-year-old younger brother. Emma was rebellious and had run away from home before but she was the first one missing and it's been two weeks since, having the longest run away been two days, something had to have happened. Her mother was a mess crying and Rory could tell she hadn’t eaten or slept in days, the brother was staying with his grandparents a town over. The second girl who went missing was 16-year-old Chrissy, her mom, and dad were devastated her father spoke while her mother just sat there in a daze. Her father just kept repeating how everyone loved Chrissy and how she must have been kidnapped and if the police didn't find his daughter he would start a manhunt himself. It’s been a week since Chrissy went missing and from what Rory could tell, the father was only telling the half-truth. Chrissy was popular, but with popularity also came hatred and jealousy, most of the loner kids didn’t have anything nice to say about her if anything, there were too many people with a motive. The last girl, also 16, was taken yesterday, seems like week intervals of the girls going missing. Her name was Jen, she lived with her aunt since her parents passed in an accident as a child, she was quiet having one close friend, most people didn’t know her when the police questioned the school, she was invisible.
The police questioned the school staff and some students, but no one knew anything about the girls' disappearances, all they could find out was Emma was at school the day she went missing and all the girls were distant, Chrissy refused to walk home with her friends or boyfriend that day, Jen left before meeting up with her friend to walk home like they usually do, and Emma told her girlfriend she wasn’t feeling well and canceled their plans. Sounds like the girls knew something was going to happen but didn’t tell anyone, could have they been threatened or stalked?
Staying in his hotel room, going through the girls' texts trying to find signs of blackmail or something. When he got a call… they discovered a body. It was found in the school kitchen in the walk-in freezer. It was unidentifiable, a face peeled off lying on the floor, the legs and arms missing, half the skin missing, all the organs gone including the eyes with the throat slit. It was dripping blood onto the floor with a rotting stench, whatever skin was left was rotting, and maggots were falling out of the empty eye sockets. Now there's a body that is officially a murder case, the forensic scientists at the police station tested the DNA. It was Emma, she's been dead for 4 days but her legs were cut off 9 days ago and her arms, 6, it seems like she was kept alive while she was slowly cut apart and after her lungs were removed she finally died, she suffered for a week and a half. When her mother was informed, she fell to the ground screaming about how this couldn’t be possible and how it had to be a trick. Everyone was thinking the same thing, Chrissy was suffering right now.
It’s been 6 days since the body was found, and the school was shut down Chrissys’ family has been freaking out storming the town searching every building, with a curfew in effect no one out after 7 pm. The main police officer on the case Chase Groves was questioning everyone at the school for any information he could get, Emma's Girlfriend, Rose Miller was a big suspect refusing to leave her house after the body was found but talking with her Rory could see she wasn’t a murder just broken. Rory was walking out of Rose’s house when he got a call another body had been found on the football field. When he got there he saw her hanging from a noose from the field goal similar to Emma she was missing her legs, arms, and organs but most of her skin was intact, unlike Emma whose skin was peeling off and rotting Chrissy's skin was rotting but not as bad as Emma and not ripped off either and no maggots were falling out of her eye sockets and her mouth was sown shut she looked like a bettered doll but covered in blood looks like she bled out then was hanged like the killer is setting a stage and any girl can be next. The football team found her they still come here to practice Rory can see a football player crying and being restrained by Officer Groves seems like Chrissy's boyfriend sad twist of fate that he had been searching everywhere for her and he’s the one who found her but now he wishes he didn’t. At the station, Chrissys' mom was crying on the floor while her dad went on a rampage and had to be restrained by Officer Groves tried to calm him but he just couldn’t handle the fact his only child was taken and tortured and he couldn’t do anything about it, sad people like to think they're in control and if they're diligent they’ll be safe but that isn’t true no matter what you do or how you prepare you’ll never be safe neither will the people you care about.
Then another call came into the station another girl reported missing from her home. 17-year-old Sukie Green her parents found her room ransacked when they came home from the store. Rory decided to focus on the school staff since it's too controlled to be done by a student. There is the math teacher Mr.Smith, the English teacher Ms.Rain, The science teacher Mrs. Thompson, The history teacher Mr. Anderson, and the janitor Sarah and Jack are the main suspects. The math teacher is hated by most students and is described as mean and harsh, the janitors are quiet and don’t interact, the English teacher is weird and stares off most of the day, and the science and history teacher were home alone with no alibies. Rory decided the English and science teachers couldn’t be the killers since Ms.Rain is distracted easily she couldn’t keep up with the schedule of kidnapping every week and killing every two. Mrs. Thompson is old and has bad bones she couldn’t do the physical taxing work of the crime scenes. The last four suspects were detained at the station for the time being where Officer Groves said he and Sarah were married and he knew she couldn’t commit these kidnappings and murders so she was released there were three Rory didn’t think they should have released Sarah just because she was married to a cop but it isn’t his place to argue. Rory called Rose and asked her what she thought of Sarah and she said she didn’t talk much but whenever she looked into her eyes it creeped her out it was like she was planning her murder right in front of her Rory had a bad feeling about her but couldn’t be sure. He decided to follow her around just to be safe and Rose offered to help seeing how determined the girl was he knew she would be with or without him so he agreed.
The next day after following her around she had a normal day she lived on the outskirts of town and Officer Groves was at the station with all the suspects they watched for a while she stayed inside most of the day after waiting all day Rose grew impatient and decided to search around the house when it got dark and Rory knew he couldn’t let a 17-year-old wander around a maybe murders house alone so he went with her. After searching around they spotted a cellar that was locked up with chains and they heard footsteps they hid on the other side of the house and watched Sarah open the cellar and walk in. Rose insisted on going down and threatening her to show them where the girls were but Rory insisted they wait since she might have a gun or hid the girls somewhere else and they needed to be sure Rose didn’t listen she ran to the cellar and opened it and walked in leaving Rory forced to follow.
It was dark with one light bulb illuminating the small room. It had a bunch of boxes like a storage room. It was dusty and smelled of mold, dirt, and blood but Sarah was nowhere to be seen. There was a door on the other side of the room. Rory told Rose to stay there, pulled out his gun and walked to the door. When he opened it, the first thing that hit him was the smell of rotting corpses and blood. He saw Jen dead. Her body was lying on the table with no arms or legs like the other girls, in a corner of the room Sukie was tied up. She was trying to scream but her mouth had been sewn shut. Sarah walked into the room from what seemed to be a freezer Rory held the gun at her but he couldn’t figure out how he hid this from Officer Groves he lives here so maybe she refused to let him down here but why would he just go along with that? That's when he got hit on the back of the head and fell to the ground he looked back and saw Officer Groves…so he was in on it. Groves demanded that Rory kick his gun to him so he did, the power a gun held at you can make you do. Groves asked Sarah if she was okay then told Rory he should have just let it go, then went on a monologue about how his wife needed the girls to eat…what weirdos. Groves went on a rant saying how she's pregnant and craves human flesh, and the girls should be grateful to help such a cause. That is when Rose hits Groves over the head with a pipe and he’s knocked unconscious Rory goes for his gun and then points it a Sarah who was running for her husband's gun on the floor. Rose picks up the gun shoots Sarah in the leg and then goes to help Sukie.
Rory then calls the police Sukie is moved to the hospital and Jen's guardians are informed of her death. Groves was arrested along with Sarah and it’s later found out Sarah wasn’t pregnant she was a delusional maniac who kidnapped, tortured, and killed teenage girls just because she wanted to and could and showed no remorse in the end. Even with the last girl surviving she will be traumatized forever and her normal life was taken from her just because of a crazy lady and her husband who didn’t get her help and just enabled her. What a sad and pathetic world we live in.
