I think maybe this will make more sense if I write it down.
Laurie Miller, missing
Click to read news article
On October 30th, a girl named Laurie Miller disappeared in Vermont, just across the border. They found her car in a snow drift off Interstate 91, near Rockingham. All of her belongings were packed in the vehicle, as if she were in the middle of moving house. She’d sent out an email to her college friends and professors earlier that day, telling them she’d be away for a few weeks due to“a family emergency”.
But no one knew anything about it. Not even her parents. As far as they knew, everything was fine.
Laurie got on the I91, crashed her car, abandoned it and vanished.
A witness later claimed they’d seen a girl running through the woods along the Interstate that night, running as if her life depended on it.
There were lots of rumours. I discussed it over text with my best friend Taylor while she was on her shift at the Red Lantern. Taylor thought Laurie wanted to disappear. She wanted to get lost, so she went missing. I don’t know why she said that, but it made just as much sense as anything else.
The last I heard from Taylor was around 11 PM. She’d just gotten out of work. She said she was going to pick up some dirty fried chicken, eat it in her car and go home to make fun of TheBachelor.
Then I got this:
I called her and called her but she didn’t answer.
I told myself that whatever weird thing was happening to Taylor involved something minor, like boys... We could sort it out in the morning.
Taylor Petty, missing
When I woke up, the first thing I did was to check my phone. No messages. Her phone was switched off.
She’d posted some strange statuses on Facebook, about not knowing what she was doing and being lost, but that wasn’t completely unheard of.
Then I saw this:
The headlights.
Just like Laurie Miller.
It was Taylor’s car. Everyone knows because it’s purple, with a pine tree-shaped air freshener and a tartan blanket in the read. She’d rear-ended it into the Ditchwater place, with enough force to knock down the wall.
Someone called the police and they towed it. It was on the news.
Back when Ditchwater still had an owner it was a private road, with a chained gate. There aren’t any street lights, so it’s real dark at night. There are lots of creepy stories about it. Sometimes kids go there legend tripping, looking for ghosts. It runs parallel to the I91 but the trees are so thick you can hardly see the house from the road. It’s totally desolate. There’s no reason to drive down by the Ditchwater.
The police seem to think Taylor crashed while driving drunk and dumped her car. They think she’s laying low, hiding out.
But Taylor is my best friend. If she wanted to skip town, I’d be the person she skipped town with. She would’ve said, ‘I’ve done something really stupid, Ken. Come pick me up.’
And I would’ve done.
We always said that if we got in trouble we’d be there for each other, no matter what.
One night, I swore I’d bury a body if she asked me to.
She’d do the same for me. No question.
That’s what best friends means.
That’s how I know something is really wrong this time.
Kennedy Sinclair
Investigate Taylor’s room
Use the image map below to look through Taylor’s belongings for clues. Check back in 2015 for the next installment.