Christine had returned home from college with her heart in pieces that Christmas, having lost her fiancée', sweethearts since their senior year of high school, who had suddenly seemed to fall from the face of the Earth.
He stopped calling.
He stopped visiting.
And from everything she could discern about his disappearance... he stopped existing.
And he wasn't alone, four other brothers of his Sigma Delta Kappa fraternity had disappeared, in what police had narrowed down to the same six hour period.
Aside from the love of her life, the missing persons report included Andy Romero, a star defensemen on the college soccer team. Reuben McNichols, a six-foot five giant of a man in his Senior year of dominating the college wrestling circuit. And then, the wildcard whom seemed to have no connection to the other three aside from being fraternity brothers, a quiet kid by the name of Drew Gaer.
Drew was the only one in the group that wasn't a known friend of any of the others outside the fraternity, mostly keeping to himself and spending all of his free time making extra tuition money as a known computer wizard, destined to be the next Bill Gates of our world according to anyone who had paid for his services.
Then there was Christine's boyfriend, Ryan Blake, a known trouble-maker throughout high school who had been expelled so many times his parents had had to move twice in four years just to change districts and get a fresh start. The constant moves were the only reason he'd graduated high school at all, though a good student, and while most would've bet that his past would follow him into college, an assistant coach for the university's hockey team appealed to his unbridled aggression and found the proper channel for it.
Ryan's freshmen year, he was already known as one of the most fiercely dominant players on the ice, at half the size of other players who wanted nothing to do with his bad side. He proved to be an extremely effective means of clearing paths to the net, including a path of his own, taking quickly to the proper procedure involved with LEGALLY running someone over in a big ugly smear - and Smear became what they called him.
What kept the campus most on it's toes was the size of the men who were missing, most of them anyway, and the impeccable shape that three of the four had been in at the time of their apparent capture. A star soccer player who could run the full length of the field in half a minute. A giant decorated wrestler nearly undefeated in his college career who could lift his weight and half again well over his head, as easily as a bag of groceries. And then Ryan Blake, Smear... the hockey player who'd knocked out more teeth with his open-ice body checks than most boxers had with their fists.
The trio were gritty, chiseled, animals even... all except for Drew Gaer. The quiet kid whose keyboard sounded like hundreds of stampeding deer within his dorm room, as his double-jointed fingers narrowly avoided mangling together while pummeling his formulaic brilliance into his overhauled system.
The case was into it's second week without any leads, and it was then that a heart-broken, near-hopeless Christine had gone home. She was glad that she lived close to the university if they got a break in the case, she imagined in her mind that the phone would ring and she could race to the hospital, see Ryan alive surrounded by his frat brothers... dirty and bruised but alive and home.
Upon arriving home, she remembered the cruise her parents had been planning for months, which they'd left for that morning, leaving her home alone in the giant two story, eight bedroom house.
Which is what had brought her to her parent's church so late in the evening. She couldn't stand to be in the giant house alone, and she prayed that maybe someone would be there. She needed someone to notice her heartbreak, to be with her and know what to say, at least share her company... more than anything, she desperately needed to not be alone.
Opening her eyes from a silent prayer which had somehow gotten lost in everything that was going through her mind, a newspaper caught her eye at the far corner of the pew. She recognized one of the pictures beneath the front page headlines as hers... and Ryan next to her.
Jumping up to grab the paper opposite her, she checked the date and realized it was today's paper, one she hadn't read yet, with the headline claiming a new break in the story. Her eyes felt like they were on fire trying to speed through the article...
"...after bringing in almost 300 students for questioning and having received nearly a hundred anonymous tips, the police have learned that all four men were seen on dates at the approximate time of their disappearance..."
Tears came to her eyes, and she wanted to argue with the words as though someone else was there to hear her. Looks can be deceiving, she reminded herself. A lot of their friends from high school had followed them to college, male and female, and Ryan had always been very social. She had no reason not to trust him. It could be a mistake.
"Three of the four girls have been officially reported missing by their families, while the fourth girl's family has yet to be reached. Though her name has not been disclosed, her parents are said to work at a church about fifteen miles from the campus where she was last seen on a date with one of the missing boys. Her parents are yet to be reached as of this print. Police are even beginning to question whether or not the parents' apparent disappearance has something to do with the mysterious circumstances under which the others have not been found. The possibility of the parents' role as either suspects or victims, however, is yet to be specified."
Her eyes swelled against the steady beat of her heart, throbbing against her chest as the sweat broke on her face and a slammed door echoed in the cavernous walls of the church where she sat... apparently alone.
"Ryan wouldn't cheat on me..." she said, staring at her picture and the place where her name had been screened out beneath it. It didn't say anything in the caption about the girl in the picture being the girl they were looking for.
The facts seemed to jump from the page and smack her in the face with a sting that shook her all the way down her spine.
She was sitting in her father's church, one that her parents had built and restored with every dime of their life savings after years of being condemned and abandoned. She did the math in her mind as she drove back and forth from the college to the school, all the times she'd stared at the clock on the way home... doing the math as she held in a sharp gasp from the pit of her stomach.
Fifteen miles from church to campus.
"Ryan wouldn't cheat on me," she said again, another door slamming shut as she jumped to her feet and whirled around, still alone, but with footsteps beginning to echo all around her, breaking the long silence.
"Who's there?" she called out into the empty church, as the footsteps grew quiet and a menacing laugh reverberated from beyond the walls around her.
"Ryan wouldn't cheat on me," she repeated to herself, "the girl's parents owned a church fifteen miles from campus... and Ryan wouldn't cheat on me. Only one of them hasn't been reported missing... the girl whose parents own a church... fifteen minutes from campus."
The footsteps started all around her again, coming closer, rushed, like cloven hooves pounding into the carpeting, up and down stairs and in and out of rooms, as though they were scouring the entire building for something.
"Who's there?" she called again, stammering with fear as she began to turn every which way to look over her shoulders and behind her, hands trembling and stomach beginning to churn with nausea as she fought to keep her vision from tunneling to darkness and passing out there on the floor.
"Ryan?" she called out... "Answer me right now or I'm going to call the fucking cops!"
The lights in the church fell to sudden darkness as she reached for the phone in her purse, dropping it with a scream as she crouched beneath the pew and fought for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The footsteps were all around her now, from the last pew to the first pew and on each wall, circling and rushing past one another as though to form a tight circle around her.
She grabbed her phone and quickly ran her fingers over the buttons, visualizing in her mind the 9 and the 1 to call the police.
She pressed them as she found them and lay on her back prepared to kick as the phone rang once... twice.... three times... still no answer....
