Hey guys. My name is Bridgette, and I’m a 16(f) from a small town in America. I’ve made up a fake town name and people names for this post, just to keep everything cool and anonymous etc. This happened a couple of weeks ago, but it’s taken me while to write it down. I’m still processing everything.
The Hock County Community Gather Round occurs annually on the first Sunday of September, hosted on the generously sized high school sports field. Emma, Hayden, and I regard the bustling crowd- shiny local business banners, families wielding ice-cream cones and luminescent bubble wands, police officers riding pack-down Ferris wheels.
“Right,” Hayden says. “I’m off.”
Emma, my oldest sibling, looks at him evenly.
“It’s an event for families, guy. Could you spend, like, three minutes with us?”
Hayden smiles. “You’re not my family, guy. I’m off.”
I want to comfort Emma- I understand that she is trying to make up for the five years she had absconded to New York- but something stops me. I remember the emptiness of the house when she left, like the hole left behind by a missing tooth.
“Emma, I’m really sorry to do this-”
“Just go, Bridge.” She waves a blonde, nail-bitten hand at the crowd. “And don’t get into any trouble. If you do, get me.”
I follow Hayden’s betrayal, and enter the Hock County Community Gather Round. I am nurturing a gorgeous, glorious mission: infiltrate the Pig Man’s Cabin and find evidence that Pig Man exists. Such splendid things shouldn’t be spoiled by the sticky semantics of sibling disasters.
Like the fantastical magical creatures they are, Dina and Ross appear to my left. They are leaning against a free standing metal rail, ruffling through Ross’s infamous shoulder bag. Dina pulls out a pocket knife and hurriedly places it pack in the bag’s depths.
“Why?” she says.
“Because,” Ross pats his shoulder bag proudly. “If Pig Man tries anything, I can stab him in his Pig Man penis.”
Ross is only half-joking. An awkwardly put together 6ft, he is an only child and nestles the corresponding over-confidence accordingly. Dina arches an eyebrow in preparation of a reply, but sees me first. Dina, a compact 5ft 3 and one of five siblings, pulls me into a hug.
“Pig Man penis,” Ross says as a way of greeting. “Conclusive evidence or nah?”
“Nah,” Dina and I say in unison.
“Pig man testic-”
“This is a serious mission, Ross,” I cut in. “I adore and cherish you, but cannot bear to hear more of your comedy.”
“To the truck!” Dina says, sweeping a manicured hand towards the parking lot. “Bat man music!”
***
Dina’s cherry red pick-up, parked expertly between a puke-green sedan and silver hatchback, is a second-hand gift from her older brother Antonio. It is comically ginormous for her- a tiny, bushy haired, Italian-American maniac. It is ridiculously butch for Antonio, a lanky, braces-wearing clownish choir boy. And, I suppose, it is bold for someone like myself, an averagely tall, averagely blonde, above-averagely smart idiot.
None of us suit the stunning beast. But we love it regardless. I love it especially as it gracefully crushes rocks and twigs underneath it’s brutal rubber wheels.
I triple check the contents of my school bag, In it there is:
· A mini-torch with a beaded key chain that says bridgeatsfrts
· A dark blue portable phone charger
· A fraying and well-used moleskin-but-not-moleskin notebook
· Hayden’s warmest grey hoodie
“6 teenagers go missing every seven years since 1985, supposedly at the hands of Hock County’s very own urban legend Pig Man,” I say placing my backpack in the seat next to me. “Can anyone tell me their names?”
“Kylie Mongrove,” Ross begins.
“Kyle Mongrove,” I correct him. “Jenny Baker-Brown. Susan Luiccio. Ryan McDonald. Brie Leeds. Anabelle Go-”
The sky was dark blue. Dina flicks on the trucks high beams as we follow the dirt path through the forest.
“Anabelle Goldstein,” she finishes. “Your sister?”
Emma was, or perhaps still is, Anabelle’s best friend. Her death was the catalyst for her abscondment, and the unresolved mystery still haunts her. It is part of the reason Hayden and I are reticent of Emma- Anabelle’s revenge always seems to take priority in her life.
“6 teenagers. The next should be taken in two years. Giving us a primo opportunity for gonzo investigation style tactics, yes?” I say. Dina punches one fist in the air, and Ross, looking back uneasily, claps two hands together.
“If that means we’re not going to die,” he says. “then hells yes.”
We hurtle further into the woods, towards Pig Man’s Cabin.
***
Dina’s pick-up’s sunny yellow head lights illuminate the rectangular wooden cabin benignly minding it’s business in the middle of the forest. To our left are the train-tracks where Anabelle, Ryan, and Susan were found. Behind is Hock County, where each teen spent their last days in the universe.
The forest shivers with bugs, beasts, and us- three teenagers regarding Pig Man’s Cabin with a mix of admiration, fear, and excitement. Dina shines the blue light of her phone torch onto the front door, which is slightly ajar.
“Oh no,” she says, but she is smiling.
The door doesn’t creak when we open it, which is strange. I believe all creepy serial killer lairs should have creaky doors. It doesn’t look old either, or abandoned. The wrap around veranda is clean, and a pair of heavy black boots are perched near the entrance.
Inside is awkwardly normal as well, and is lit by a mixture of the truck’s headlights, Dina’s phone, and my mini-torch. There is a wooden frame sofa with red flannel cushions, a bare-bones bed and dresser in the corner, and simple wooden dining set pressed against two curtained windows. There is no bathroom or kitchen, only light, patterned rugs beneath the sofa and dining table. I turn to Dina, who turns to me, and we both turn to Ross.
“This isn’t someone’s holiday cabin, right?” He says. He casts an uneasy look around the simple, gentle interior.
The shapes of torch and phone light float around the room like ghosts.
We split across the room. Ross examines a pile of newspapers on the coffee table. Dina roams around the dining table, and I open dresser doors, hoping to find something that proves Pig Man’s existence.
The draws are almost bare, with a couple of random shirts or pants rattling loosely in the empty space. I pick up a white t-shirt. On the front is small, black letting on the breast that reads H.C.P.D. In the bottom draw is a beer mat from the Hock County and Friends Tavern and Pub. The smiling cartoon smiley face is faded, and the mat is white and peeling around the edges. I splip it into my bag.
“Yo, can someone bring me a light?” Ross says. Both Dina and I gallop over to him, making loud, hard thumps on the dustless wooden floor. We peer over Ross’s shoulders, shining our lights onto what he is holding.
“Ding ding ding, Rossamund.” Dina says. “You hit jackpot.”
It isn’t a scrapbook or a photo album or a diary detailing a disgusting confession. It is a note-book, like, one of those yellow spiral A4 notebooks you buy as a plastic-wrapped four pack from the newsagents. Ross has it spread open, and on the normal blue lined paper is a polaroid picture paper-clipped to the top, and a neat sentence underneath written in blue biro. Breanna Leeds. 14 year old Caucasian female. 14/2/2013. Suicide. The polaroid is of Brie. I can’t tell if she was dead or alive, so I peer closer, tilting my light to avoid the glare. She is staring at the camera without any expression. Her short brown hair is unsettled, and her lips are pressed in a pink line.
“Flip forward.” I ask Ross.
“I did. She’s the last one in here.”
Ross thumbs forward, and then back. Behind Brie are similar pages for the other missing teenagers, but in front of her is blank, blue lined page after blank, blue lined page. I grab the book off him and sit on the couch, flipping forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and-
“That can’t be true. This is wrong. How could this be wrong?”
I stop on Brie’s page. Her black, empty eyes stare back at me.
“Annabelle wasn’t a Pig Man victim, right? Otherwise her picture would be here, yeah?” Dina frowns.
I flipped back.
Ryan McDonald. Sixteen year old Asian male. 18/5/2006. Exposure.
Susan Luccio. Sixteen year old Caucasian female. 30/8/1999. Fall related to intoxication.
Jennifer Baker-Brown. Fifteen year old Caucasian female. 23/9/1992. Suicide.
Kyle Mongrove Jnr. Eighteen year old Caucasian male. 1/4/1985. Overdose.
“But, that would mean that the next attack should have been in,” I count on my fingers, “2020. And, I mean. Anabelle was found in 2018. I know that. I remember that.”
I rip my mini-torch light towards the wall behind, to the bed, to the windows, to the open door and the beastly red pick-up idling in the forest.
“Pictures.” I say. “Dina take pictures of the pages. Then put it back where Ross found it. We can’t let anyone know we know this.”
“You’re freaking me about, Bridge.” Ross say.
“We need to keep looking,” I turn to face Ross and Dina, walking backwards. “That book is saying that the last Pig Man victim was in 2013, not 2018. Which either means there was a victim not found in 2020, or that all the rules are baloney and the next victim could-”
“It could be anytime.” Dina says. She cast her phone torch around the room, and shadows grew and shrunk in the revolving light. “Fuck.”
“It could be anywhere.” I say.
“It could be anyone.” Ross says, and then “holy smokes, Bridge are you okay?”
Walking backwards isn’t the smartest strategy in traversing an unfamiliar space in the dark. I trip on something on the floor, and fall butt first onto the wood. My sweet mini-torch rolls away from me, turning itself off as it hit the ground. Ross helps me up as Dina illuminated the trip hazard in waning blue phone light. A square hatch sits placidly in the middle of the room, with a gold combination lock glinting on it’s handle. I crawl towards it, and turn the four numbers towards Dina’s torch.
“What would the combination be?” I ask.
“No. No way. Ross says. “I’m out. I’m out. I’m out, guys. I’m-”
“Out. Got it.” Dina looks around the room again, as if she is a general scanning a battlefield. “Go to the truck and get it ready to leave.”
Ross gratefully accepts Dina’s keys and leaves. A second later the car light blink off as the engine restarts. We are plunged into darkness for one, two, three seconds, before the boiled yellow head lights turn back on. Dina smiles when they did, as if saying scared yet?
We regard the combination lock.
“I’m just going to try what it’s on.” I say. “Maybe they just left it on the combination. Because they’re lazy or dumb or some such.”
“Or some such,” Dina agrees.
I tug down on the little padlock, bracing for the looming pull of defeat and resistance. To my surprise, there is no pull. Only a bold click as the lock opens. Dina and I share a surprised look and then Dina, maniacal, and manicured and incredibly intelligent, takes a picture of the opened locks combination. She nods a go ahead, and I pull the lock off, wrenching the hatch open.
A rope ladder wobbles down to a dark, dirt hole. It is big, but not cavernous. We can see all rocky walls and muddy floor. The smell of humid meat and greasy hair rushes through the open top. I cover my nose with my elbow.
I lost my mini-torch when I fell, so I pull my phone from my pocket to use the torch. The blue light sweeps over the mud floor, the rocky walls and-
I lurch back. Dina does too a second later when she sees what I did.
Something big and bipedal, with long fur hanging off it’s heavy, thick body. Something with hooved legs and big, clawed hands. With long fur covering everything except for bald patches around three yellow eyes, a wide open mouth and pink snout. Small triangular ears twitched on top of its head. It looks big, crude, and childish. All eyes and teeth and soft, large body and claw and
And it was looking at us. It placed a hand on its heart.
“Shut the door, shut the door, shut the door!”
Dina scrambles for the lock, as I fling the hatch shut. She loops the silver chain around the handle as the wood starts shaking with several tremendous thumps. The hatch flexes underneath me, as Dina finished the chains, and loops the lock through. The thumps follow us as we race out the door and ran to the car, where Ross is looking at us with wide eyes.
“Put it in gear, you fucker!” Dina screams throwing herself into the passenger seat. I reach the back handle, but remember how we found the cabin. I look back at the door now, thrown open in panic.
With Ross and Dina yelling at me, I race back to the front door. Inside, the thumping has stopped. Everything is back to normalcy, back to that awkward, everyday arrangement of normal furniture and decorations. I glance at the hatch, but it was silent. Something catches my eye in the moon light. The small, gold padlock that Dina has looped through the chain. It is open. She didn’t click it close. And the hatch, held slightly open. Open enough to see three yellow eyes starting at me.
I wrench the door near close and run back to the truck. Ross speed us out of the forest in the red beast that suits none of us, but loves us nonetheless.
***
Ross parks imperfectly next to a black jeep. We hurtle dizzily out, and the slam of three car doors sounds as if it is echoing through the vast, cavernous universe.
I lean against the top of the car and endeavour to understand the complete, true events that happened, as they happened. But I’m shaking, and details loom out at me in no sensible chronology. Three orange-yellow eyes. The Anabelle-less spiral note-book. The pub beer mat. The padlock combination. A t-shirt embroidered with some strange acronym.
“Holy moly,” Dina says. “Holy fucking moly. We are history makers right now.”
The sky is black around the alien lights of the sports field. We look toward the gather round, sharing the same singular thought. And, hands wound tightly together, we walk back towards the gentle hum of the crowd, of the families, of salty food stalls and colourful carnival games.
We pass a police car. Officer Adam leans against it, eating a soft pretzel. On the side of the car are the initials H.C.P.D.
I stop. Dina and Ross jerk awkwardly in front of me.
“You alright Ms. Baker?” Officer Adam’s voice sounds friendly and far away.
Dina, who is looking back to see the cause of the sudden halt, frowns.
And then, miraculously, as I feel pushed completely out of my body, Emma Baker, twenty four years old and hard-boned, appears seemingly out of nowhere, holding a half smoked cigarette between her fingers.
“Interrogating minors in parking lots now, asshole?” she says. “Interesting tactics.”
“Just doing my job, Em.” Officer Adams says bemusedly.
“Do your job away from my sister.”
He nods, and I recall several times since Emma has returned that she’s picked fights with police officers. Officer Adam probably has a rough idea how this is going to go. He grabs his pretzel, tips it genially at the four of us, and heads off to find a quieter, Emma-less place to enjoy his snack.
Emma watches him go, and then turns to me. Her eyes are filled with such palpable concern that it softens me completely. I forget the empty house and the abscondment. Instead, I remember the time I fell off a tree and Emma kicked the tree, or the time she wore plaits to school after I got bullied for mine, or the time, when mom had systematically broken all our plates and bowls, she took Hayden and I to her room and let us play with her expensive make-up. I remember my gorgeous, terrifying, loyal older sister who sent us birthday cards every year she was away. And I slam into her, hugging her. A second, and then she hugs me back, resting her head on mine.
“You’re okay,” she says. “You’re okay.”
For now. I think.