"Y/N!!" I heard the voice getting closer. I heard someone knock on my door. "Y/N wake up seriously!" I slightly opened my eyes and rubbed them.
"Yeah, yeah alright" I said as I slowly sat up.
"Can I come in?" they said.
"Uh huh"
My brother, Finney, walked in the room. "Sorry for waking you up but dad got a phone call."
We stared at each other for a while until he spoke.
"It was the police. Your friend Griffin has gone missing."
I looked at him dumbfounded I couldn't believe what he just said. That was the day my life changed in the spring of 1977.
That morning I went downstairs in my pj's and my father handed me a news paper. "I'm so sorry Y/N, I know he was your friend." he looked at me and frowned. I sat at the kitchen table and read the front page, Griffin's face printed with his name and age and everything else you could possibly want to know about him. The police didn't know who done it they assumed it was a man and called him "The Grabber."
When we returned to school we had a service in memory of him everyone cried acting like they knew him, pretending they cared but they didn't, they wouldn't have known his name if it wasn't for the paper. I confided in my brother about it and he said stuff like this unites distant towns and makes it so that we all know each other and grieve together to remind us to be more safe or whatever, I thought it was all absolute fucking bullshit. I mean my brother talks out of his ass sometimes but never have I ever wanted to get a pillow and scream into it at the top of my lungs. I thought he would be on my side with this but he wasn't and that kinda pissed me off.
The rest of the school year was weird everyone was on edge for a while, teachers would make sure we walked home in groups or pairs to try and make sure it never happened again. It worked very well actually and there was no kidnappings for the rest of the year.
The town thought it was a one off situation acted like there was no chance in hell it could happen again but I knew better than to be so stupid. I tried to make everyone know that it was dumb to think it wouldn't happen again. And I was right the following year a boy called Billy who was taken doing his paper run around the town. That's when we started getting afraid again that's when shit actually started to hit the fan..