The world stopped when five-year-old Maddie Mckenzie disappeared.
at least for our town it did, everyone in the small town of Salem (not the one plagued by witches in the 1600s) the one in Oregon just to clarify.
My Name is Tara Blaine, and I have lived in Salem all my life, and it’s your simple small town with a heart of gold, hell we have fall festivals and all that almost every month. But soon all of that stopped when Maddie went missing.
It was December 17th a week before Christmas and the amber alert broadcast blared across the station I work at. She had been outside playing in her back yard and when her mother called her in for dinner that’s when she realized she was gone.
Our town was heartbroken and everyone pitched in to try and help find the girl.. but with no luck.
I want to make myself clear here also… I DID NOT want to do this story. My Producer Josh told me I had to.
“to help the families move on” is what he said when I came into work this past Friday.
I guess I should explain what I do, I am a host for the local radio station, a watchtower if you will, over the small that is nestled just below the station I work at, telling them the weather and hot stories every single week. Sometimes I even do advice pieces it’s a bit of everything.
But this time I felt like it was too soon to be talking about Maddie. It’s only been a few months and sure the possibility of her still being alive is very slim, but still possible, at least I like to think so.
But as it were when I walked into work today I was met with my assistant, Claire’s line up for the show. We had the sheriff coming in for an interview.
I knew Gus from around town when I was a teenager he was a deputy, sure he busted me and some friends that would sneak down to the cove to smoke a little but he was always cool with me. Hell on prom night after Ricky Carlson got too drunk and couldn’t drive me home Gus was the one that did. Granted Ricky did puke all in the back of the patrol car but luckily I was riding shotgun and Gus just hosed it down afterward.
He had been alone since his wife passed away from breast cancer a few years back and he had to raise Hudson, his son all alone ever since then.
I hated having to grill him about Maddie when I know he did all he could.
But Josh wanted this so I had to do it.
I am going to be posting the transcripts from the interviews here though, because after interviewing Gus and the other survivors of the incident… I think there is something else going on in the woods of Salem. Something Darker…
If anyone out there has ANY idea what this might be could you please try and help me figure it out?
SHERIFF GUS SUTTON- INTERVIEW 1 INTERVIEWED BY TARA BLAINE
T: hello, Gus… er Sheriff…
G: Gus is fine Tara, I’m not exactly on the job at the moment.
T: I know I heard about the suspension after what happened to Hudson and the other kids out there…
G: Yeah I’m grateful, to be honest, it gave me the time I needed to take care of my boy.
T: how is Hudson doing by the way?
G: he’s better, we take it day to day but he’s making it.
T: well that’s good to hear…so Gus whenever you’re ready can you tell me in your words what happened to Maddie Mckenzie?
Gus let out a sigh, I know I had to have been the 100th person to ask him this.
G: it was December !7th and Mrs. Mckenzie went to the schoolhouse and picked Maddie up, they arrived home around 4:15 pm and that’s when Maddie went outside to play while her mother cooked dinner.
It had only been about 30-45 mins later when I got the call.
Maddie was gone.
The Mckenzie’s house was along the border of the treeline and so at first, we thought she had seen a rabbit or something and just wandered into the forest and got lost.
But after me and my men began combing the forest we weren’t so sure…
T: and why was that?
G: we… we found blood. It was a small piece of her dress and it had blood on it. We tried to bring in the search dogs but they got spooked when they entered the forest. The search went on for a few weeks before the rangers took over and then they closed the case saying a mountain lion had probably just snatched her.
T: do you believe it was a mountain lion?
G: hell no. I think some sick fuck took that little girl and did unspeakable things to her.
T: did you have any suspects that had a motive?
G: Evil people don’t need a reason to be evil Tara…sometimes they just are.
It was getting late so I decided to wrap up the interview for that day, I hugged Gus goodbye and walked him out to his truck. Claire was watching me from the station door sipping her coffee.
We waved goodbye as the truck disappeared down the gravel road and I closed the door as we walked inside.
“so… “ Claire started, “what do you think happened to her?”
“I don’t know… I mean the mountain lion story makes sense but then why weren’t there any drag marks?” I said as I shuffled the papers into neat piles.
Claire nodded her head, “true but what about the others, that class was attacked and all of the survivors swear that they saw the same thing out there in those woods, how do you explain that?”
“honestly I can’t,” I let out a sigh, “ but one thing I do believe…
Maddie was just the beginning…”
We gathered our things and locked up the station to head home for the night, I had a busy day tomorrow, and a lot more interviews…