My name is Reagan Cobblestone. The story I am about to tell is a true story about me and my family.
I don't expect you to believe it, but I have hope that maybe someone will read this and one day learns from my experience.
It all started on that fateful night. Like a match being used to light a candle, everything should have been obvious. But maybe it was my fear? My inability to understand? Whatever it was, I regret everything that happened after that night.
I was standing in front of my kitchen window, washing some dishes and waiting for my brother, Jake, to get home from his first day at his new school. I had forced my brother to attend the recently opened Christian high school, Shining Christian Academy, down the block and I instantly regretted it because from the second I told him he had no choice but to go to the stupid school, he'd given me nothing but a hard time.
It was getting late when I heard the front door open. I expectantly turned around, waiting for my brother to give me the news on how his first day at school had been, but to my surprise, no one was there and the front door wasn't open. My brother was a teenager, so of course, I immediately assumed that he was just trying to pull some stupid prank on me.
"Jake?" I called my brothers name half expecting him to jump out at me laughing, thinking that he had got me. But, no one responded and instead I was just greeted with the awkward silence.
There was no point in calling out his name again because I would just be making myself look stupid, so instead, I turned back around and went back to washing the dishes.
When I was done, I looked up at the clock and realized that it was almost 7 PM. I knew that my brother should've been home hours ago. I had grown concerned at that point, so I decided I would just call him up and ask where he was.
Maybe he went to a friends house. I thought. I took out my cell phone and quickly dialed his number and prayed that he would answer. But instead, all I got was his voicemail.
"Jake, it's your sister," I said after the tone. "You were supposed to be home a few hours ago and you haven't called me. I hope you're OK..." After a brief pause, I added "I love you. Call me." And then, before I could embarrass myself any more, I hung up and put my phone on the counter. And then I waited.
Another hour went by and I still hadn't received anything from Jake. I started to get really nervous. He'd never been that late before. And his school should've let him out at 5.
There had been news reports recently of someone in the area who was kidnapping teenage boys. And, if I knew my brother well enough, he was definitely their type of target. Based on the reports, they were only going after young teenage boys who walked home alone and, bad as it may sound, my brother definitely did that. There had already been two disappearances, and I didn't want Jake to make it three.
There's no need to panic. I thought to myself. Being stupid, I couldn't help myself and grabbed my phone and called him again. And this time someone answered. But it wasn't my brother, instead, it was a female voice that was familiar to me.
"Hello?" The voice that answered belonged to my friend, Jamie Ventura.
I had known her since middle school. Sweet, shy, liked to keep mostly to herself. I knew that she and Jake had feelings for each other and honestly I couldn't blame him. She was very pretty with long light brown hair and brown eyes. The freckles on her cheeks somehow made her even prettier. And I had every idea of what she saw in my brother.
His short, messy, black hair made his ocean blue eyes stand out from behind his glasses. Even though he was only 15, the boy already had a small stubble of facial hair.
And me? I was your average 17-year-old girl. My black hair went to my shoulders, perfectly framing my blue eyes, and I was lucky enough that it was smooth and just the perfect amount of curly. The only thing we had in common was our height. 5'1.
As I ran through my head comparing the three of us, I was hopeful that maybe Jake had decided to spend the night with Jaime and things were going well.
"Hi Jamie, it's Reagan!" I tried to sound as pleasant as possible so that it wasn't obvious that I was worried about Jake.
"Are you with Jake?" I asked, hoping that she could answer my question and put my worries to rest.
"I'm going to have to call you back...." She said, and then quickly hung up the phone.
I saw no sense in me trying to call her back, so I just put my phone down and hoped that everything was alright.
I decided to take my mind off of the crazy phone call, so I grabbed ingredients to cook something up for when Jake hopefully did show up. And with that, I got to work doing what I did best. Cooking.
It took me about 45 minutes, but I put together a really delicious meal that I knew Jake was going to love. Despite the fact that it was 9:45 and my brother still wasn't home, I was in a relatively calm mood. I sat down on the couch in the living room and just stared at the front door praying that eventually, it would open. And then, finally, it did.
"Oh, thank God! You're OK!" I cried as my brother walked through the door.
But he looked like he had just been through a world war, and he didn't look like he wanted to talk about what happened, so I decided to just let it go and pointed him in the direction of the kitchen.
"I made you some food, it's on the table..... I hope you like it." I said and walked into the kitchen with him.
I decided that the worst thing to do would be to force him to talk about why he looked like he had been caught and beat up by a mob. But asking if he was OK didn't seem like such a bad thing.
"Are you alright?" I asked carefully.
"Yeah. I know I look a mess, but I'm fine." He said and quickly put an end to that conversation.
"Oh....." I wasn't sure what else to talk about so I decided just to use small talk as a diversion for the awkward silence.
"I don't want to seem nosy... but I'd like to know how your first day of school was," I said after a minute.
"It was a normal first day at school." He said, making it obvious that he wasn't in the mood for conversation.
I waited for as long as I could, but the silence was unbearable and I could tell that something was bothering him. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.
"Look, Jake, we need to talk. You can't keep giving me this 'I don't want to talk' treatment, ok?" I said.
He just stared at me with a blank look on his face. "Sorry. It's just been one of those days. You must know what I mean...."
"Yeah, I know." I sat down next to him at the table. "Look, you don't have to... but if you want to talk about it I'm right here."
He looked up from his plate and sighed. "I'm fine. Just tired."
When he finished his dinner, I grabbed his plate and put it in the sink. I'd get to washing it in the morning.
Jake got up and walked toward the staircase while I finished cleaning up the kitchen.
"I'm going to bed." He said as he walked up the stairs.
I decided that since it was almost 11 at night there was no point in doing anything else, so I grabbed my phone and went upstairs to my bedroom which was located right next to Jake's room. I sat on my bed and looked through my contacts just for fun. There were a few people that I hadn't talked to in what felt like forever. But the contact that I hovered over was Michael.
He was my closest friend, and we'd known each other for 3 years. We thought of each other as best friends, but I had always wanted more with him. Though I doubted he felt that way about me. Being stupid again, I looked at his contact photo. His blue eyes and happy smile almost made me want to cry. His red hair shone brightly even in the picture, and he looked more muscular then I remembered. I suddenly got a chill up my spine and decided to move on.
When I was done going through my phone, I put it down and lay in bed. What was I going to do about Jake? Should I try to call Michael and see if he wanted to hang out? As all these questions ran through my head, I felt my eyes slowly close and I drifted off into sleep.
The next morning, I woke just before 6 am and I was actually proud of myself. Usually, I would oversleep and miss the chance to see my brother before he went to school, but not today. I jumped up and headed downstairs to make breakfast.
After I finished the eggs and sausage, I realized that Jake was going to be late for school. I looked up the stairs and waited to see if he was up and maybe just getting dressed.
"Jake?" I called. No response. "You're gonna be late!"
When he still didn't answer, I decided if he wouldn't get up himself I was going to have to go upstairs and try waking him through force.
I walked upstairs and immediately something felt off. Had the air near Jake's room always felt so heavy? Shrugging it off, I walked into his room and was literally knocked for a loop. His room felt like it was 30 degrees colder than the house. How was that possible?
"Jake?" I called to the bulge covered by blankets. "Are you ok?"
I slowly walked over to him and tried to shake him awake. When he still didn't respond, I began to get angry. Mostly because he was starting to scare me.
"If this is a prank, it's your worst one by far!" I said angrily as I shook the limp object that was my brother.
As I went to try a different way to wake him up, his phone began buzzing. I quickly ran to his dresser and answered it.
"Jake?" Jaime said from the other end.
"No, I'm sorry, he's not in right now," I said. "But, I can take your message and give it to him later."
"Oh, that's ok." She politely declined my offer. "I'll try again later."
I hung up his phone and immediately felt bad for not just letting it go to voicemail. I looked back over at my brother who still wasn't awake. Now I was beginning to worry, but there was no way I was going to let that get in my way of helping my brother, so I began to think of the best solution to my problem. But thankfully, my solution showed up easier then I expected.
My brother sat up, rubbing his eyes and staring at me with an exhausted expression.
"Hey! Dude, what time did you go to sleep?" I asked him while secretly wishing I'd told Jaime to hang on five seconds.
"Late..." He groaned.
"Sorry to hear that," I replied. But I did feel sorry for him. I mean, he looked like he could say he was a zombie and everyone would believe him.
"Yeah." He looked at his phone. "I heard you."
Shit. Busted. "You did?"
"It's ok. I was sleeping. You said the right thing. Who was it?" He asked.
"Oh! It was Jaime. I guess she was worried about you after last night, so she called to check up on you." I decided I should be completely honest. "She said she'll call you later."
He laughed and rubbed his eyes before getting out of his bed to get dressed. Being the nosy older sister I was, I couldn't help but wonder why he was up so late.
"So what kept you up?" I asked.
"Erm...." He hesitated. "Homework."
"Must've been a heavy load." I joked.
He responded with a glare and then pointed to the door, which was more than enough to tell me I was no longer welcome in his bedroom.
I left his room to let him get dressed and headed back downstairs. He came down after a few minutes and I set up his plate with an egg and some sausage.
"I made you breakfast," I said, holding the plate of food.
"Reagan, I'm 15 years old." He rolled his eyes. "I think I can handle myself." And, instead of eating the eggs, he walked to the counter and made himself a bowl of cereal.
It wasn't unusual that a teenage boy would reject someone making them food, but it was unusual that my brother was the one rejecting it. Usually, he graciously accepted anything I offered.
"Hey, are you sure you're ok?" I asked.
"Jesus! Reagan, are you ever gonna leave me alone?!" He snapped.
I took a step back, shocked at my brother's outburst. That wasn't like him. Not at all. And he looked even more scared then I was.
But, instead of backing away and leaving him alone, I walked over to him and gave him the biggest hug I could.
"It's ok," I said. "And if you don't want to talk about it you don't have to, but I'm here for you."
We both hugged for a moment but then he pulled away.
"I have to go." He said reluctantly.
A car horn from outside indicated that his ride to school had arrived.
"Good luck." I smiled. "Have a fun second day at school."
When my brother left, it suddenly felt ten times lonelier than before. I decided to just watch TV and take my mind off things.
After sitting on the couch and channel surfing for an hour, I began to hear things from upstairs. My phone? I thought. No, my phone was on the coffee table.
I muted the TV to try and hear the noise better, but it didn't sound like anything normal. It sounded like someone was upstairs.
Cautiously, I walked upstairs and realized that the noise was coming from Jakes room. Did someone break in?! I panicked.
I put my hand on the doorknob and braced myself, prepared for the worst. And then I opened the door.
Empty.
"Hello?" I called out. I got no answer.
But then, As I searched the room, I realized that the noises I heard were connected to the disastrous mess that my brother's room was. Someone had taken Jakes stuff and thrown it everywhere.
As I inspected the damage, I heard a strange guttural snarl from behind me and I screamed in fear. The last thing I remember was feeling a burning take over my body and blackness filling my vision.