Melissa had first heard about June Conner when she was in elementary school. The disappearance of a high school girl was a big story in the little hamlet of Hemlock Village. There was almost no crime and everybody knew everybody else. Stories went about that she had been abducted, but most people just chalked the whole thing up to her being a runaway. This wasn't that strange. Hemlock was a quiet community and for being in the rust belt it was actually doing pretty good economically. Still, young people craved excitement and it wasn't unusual for kids to leave town to go to the city after high school, or even before they graduated.
After a flurry of warnings from her parents about not walking home after dark or talking to strangers, Melissa had pretty much forgotten about June until that evening in October when she was walking home from cheerleader practice and the sun was going down. She had stayed late at school because she'd just had another fight with her mom over her younger sister, Karen.
Karen, at 15, was everything the three year older Melissa was not. Tall, blond, with the face of an angel, the figure of a model and a head filled with air: the clone of her mother. Melissa was short brunette with long straight hair, with a slim figure and a cute, but not beautiful face.
Her mother favored Karen, something Melissa was keenly aware of. In fact, getting on the cheerleader squad was more about trying to win points with her mom, than supporting the Hemlock High School football team.
She was almost home when she noticed the fancy car parked along her street. It was like something out of a museum, but it was clean and shiny, almost as if it was new. She wasn't into cars, but the name "Rolls" popped into her mind. The driver's door opened and a tall man stepped out and blocked the sidewalk in front of her. He was good looking, with dark, almost black hair, maybe forty years old wearing a dark, well tailored suit.
Even in Hemlock a stranger blocking a young girl's way was a bad sign, but Melissa found herself rooted to the spot. Unable to walk around him, run the opposite direction or even call for help.
"Hello, Melissa," he said in a deep, velvet voice as he opened the passenger door. "Why don't you take a ride with me?"
Every thought in her mind was to get away from this guy, but her body seemed not to respond. Instead, she felt herself walking to the car, climbing into the passenger seat and hearing the door close behind her.
***
They were soon driving along the outskirts of the small town, then turned onto a side road. Melissa realized where they were going: The old Anderson Mansion up on the hill.
The Anderson family had founded the village back in the days of coal mining and had built a large house overlooking the town. It had been abandoned for decades now, but the Hemlock Foundation owned it and kept in it in good repair. There were rumors that someday they might open it as a museum and tourist attraction.
It had a reputation as being haunted and kids would dare each other to sneak in or throw rocks at it. Well, they had until a few years ago when Billy Jenkins was found dead outside it with a broken neck. The police said he must had been climbing on the porch roof, slipped and fallen off while trying to get into a third story window to steal some stuff. Since then kids had stayed away from the place.
The Hemlock Foundation had been set up by the last of the Andersons' to manage their considerable wealth and was generally beneficial to the town. Like many small towns in the rust belt, factories were leaving and businesses closed, but whenever one did, the Foundation seemed to be able to entice another factory or business to replace it. As such, life was pretty good in Hemlock and certainly better than the impoverished Grant Junction, or dying Oak Corners, two of the closest towns in the county.
As the car pulled up to the mansion a door rolled open in the attached carriage house. The Rolls pulled inside and the door automatically closed behind. it.
***
"I hope you are hungry, my dear," said the tall, dark man. They were in the dining room of the house, a space bigger than the whole bottom first floor of her parent's home. It was elegantly furnished in a style that seemed a hundred years old. She was seated, still wearing her cheerleader uniform, as her host brought out several serving plates loaded with food.
There had been little conversation since he had put her in the car. He had said nothing and she felt strangely unable to speak, let alone make demands about being taken home or offer threats to call the police.
He uncovered the plates and dished out her dinner: lobster. Her favorite. Lobster was unheard of in Hemlock unless you spent a fortune, but Melissa had tasted it on a family vacation to Maine and couldn't get enough of it. How did this tall, strange man know?
Finally, she squeaked out, "Listen, I need to go home. My mom will have dinner waiting on the table for me!"
The strange man smiled, "Melissa, I'm sure you will find this meal much more enticing than the TV dinner you would have been popping in the microwave tonight."
How did he know!?! Her dad was away on business and her mom was driving Karen to Grant Junction to get a fancy new dress for the Fall dance. Her mother had been over the moon that Karen had been invited by one of the seniors on the football team to the event and Melissa was intently jealous. She could not imagine her mom buying her a special dress for a dance. Not that anybody had asked her to attend it with them anyways.
Melissa decided to make the best of it and dug into the lobster while her host watched with a smile.
