Running From No-One

Chapter Four: Death Wish

     ONE MONTH LATER

I had spent the last month piecing together the newspaper clipping and trying to decipher what it was doing so far from Boston. I had discovered a similar newspaper in a different part of the park, this time from Iowa.

The Des Moines Messenger

Young Woman's Disappearance Confuses Local Authorites

Article written by Benjamin Ackers, 23rd March 2017

A young woman by the name of Montana Clwyd went missing from her home town of Des Moines at 11:38pm on January 23rd 2017. She was last seen leaving her home calmly, not showing any signs that should be conceived as troubling. 'She was a 16 year old girl with her whole life ahead of her,' Diana Clwyd, mother to Montana Clwyd, states in distraught.

I frown. Why would you use the past tense if you think she's still alive somewhere?

Local authorities disclosed that there was a torn rope and a hastily scribbled note left on the girls bed, found mere hours after her reported disappearance, despite the fact it not being there beforehand.

I wait patiently to see what else the article had to say but it just abruptly ended. It looked like it had originally said more, but the page was blank and empty past the previous paragraph.
    I sigh irritably and slam the clipping back on to my desk, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hand until I could see flashing colours in the air. I pick the clipping back up and watched as it sagged miserably across my hand. I reach out and grab a red pin from a small pot on my desk, placing the clipping against a cork board and stabbing the top left corner with the first pin, grabbing another one and stabbing the top right corner to keep it in place.
     I lean back in my chair and carefully and quietly study both newspapers side by side. No seemingly obvious connections between the two people. I sigh in defeat and shut my eyes, before hastily snapping them open again as I grab the end of the Iowan newspaper and re-read the last line, then I grab the end of the Bostonian newspaper and scan through it.
     'Rope' and 'hastily scribbled note' appeared in both articles. When I checked over the dates, I also noticed that they'd both been missing for 3 months before either article was written. I frown and tap my fingers on the table, maybe they both had a death wish?

Little did I know, it was a lot worse than a small death wish. It was a chain.