There's no sense in beating around the bush here. People from my town are going missing, and nobody has any idea what's going on.
It started back just before Thanksgiving. A pretty big way to rain on Thanksgiving for the whole town. It was the owner of the one of the many-drug stores that pollute both this town and pretty much every other small town you can think of. He had a pretty forgetable name, John something. Surprisingly though, a lot of people knew this guy pretty well. Respected individual, was running for city council, goes to church (almost) every Sunday, that whole deal. The first people to find out the guy wasn't around anymore was the elderly folks around the town who came to him for their prescriptions, either out of commitment to him, or because they didn't trust the large pharmacies. After word got out that the man was nowhere to be found, people actually were pretty calm about the whole thing. Sickness, family emergency, and sheer forgetfulness were some of the reason people threw around, with some people saying he just gone on and skipped town. Of course, after a few days of nobody being able to reach him, a few people started to get concerned, so a curious individual decided to look in his garage window, and spotted his only car still sitting in the garage, unaware to the situation unfolding around it (as all cars are). It was at this point that the police deemed it necessary to form a search party.
The search party was rounded up pretty quickly, because even though we have a police force, it's not nearly large enough to be searching for someone on their own. So, for weeks we had nearly half the town, myself included, looking for this guy. Eventually, the police had to call it off, seeing as there was no sign of the man, alive or dead.
Of course, even though there was no proof he was dead, there was still a funeral held for him. As the resident gravedigger, I've taken care of digging the plots for hundreds of bodies, and (fortunately) I never had to bury a casket without a body until that point. Though, I recall reading somewhere that there are almost two million burials in America alone, where there's no body accounted for, so I guess eventually I would have run into this situation.
We lost ol' John, but that was that, right? At least, that's what the town thought, and hoped. Alas, their hopes were squandered when another person went missing, not even a week later. This time, a child. Young Lucy Browns, no older than eight or nine, was last seen getting off the bus to head up the infamously long driveway to her house, a house which she would never reach. A lot of people always criticized her parents for not walking her up to the driveway, or at least driving her home, but those words of critique vanished just as quickly as Lucy did. In the coming days, people flocked to the Browns' house with words of comfort and assuring statements. Of course, nobody except the Browns actually had any real hope of Lucy showing up again. I mean, how often do you hear about a young child going missing, and then suddenly showing up again completely fine? The answer is not many.
Obviously though, another search party was round up, and yet again another burial was had. This time was a bit different, mainly due to the fact that more people were crying than when John was buried, which is a little unfair if you ask me, but that's another discussion.
After the second funeral and second missing person, the police chief tried to keep everyone calm. Bless his heart, he tried, which is much more than can be said about our mayor, who decided speak as much as a guilty man in the electric chair. Even with the police chief's attempts, people started getting scared, and the third missing person case that followed Lucy's two days later scared them even more. It wasn't just "somebody" going missing anymore, it was the chance of you going missing.
People started blaming each other, and keeping an eye on their neighbors. Hell, I think I saw a friend people refuse to go and get their mail, in fear of somehow getting kidnapped while crossing the street. For me of course, I wasn't scared. I knew better to think I'd be kidnapped, unlike some of these folks who thought it would be smart to hole themselves up in their houses for days on end.
I still had a job to do though, so I kept digging. Even after people stopped caring, and paying attention to the news of a new missing person, I kept digging. Even after the town stopped supplying caskets, I kept digging.
Just back last week, the chief called everyone up and said that the police think they'll be able to find the kidnapper before the end of the month, but for some reason I don't believe them.
Though, they've been doing a lot more searching as of late. Going through areas they already have been through, hoping to uncover any hint of something that'll help them out.
I'm just glad they won't start digging in the graveyard, almost as glad as I am over the fact that they don't make safety coffins anymore.
People from my town are going missing