Recording found Tuesday, September 14
Recorded by [Unknown Subject], found in a pile of clothes belonging to Hadley Morgan in the backlot of Derringer Square Cinema. Hadley Morgan has been the subject of a Missing Persons case for the last 5 weeks.
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Playback of recording transcription:
*Sounds of rustling*
'Micheal' (Muffled): "Julia, I am so fucking tired of this. You keep telling me you don't come in my office, but my fucking camera is gone, again!"
'Julia' (Distant and Muffled): "Micheal, I didn't go in your office, what are you talking about?"
'Micheal': [Inaudible]
*Sound of rustling. The subject appears to get further away from 'Micheal' and 'Julia'*
*A door opens and closes, followed by heavy breathing*
Unknown Male Voice: "There. I did it. I found them. Can you please just stop doing thi-"
*The recording cuts. The sound of labored breathing is heard*
Unknown Male Voice (voice is strained): "Please stop hurting me. I did what you told me. Please just stop. Just stop. Please!"
Unknown Male Voice (subject is crying): "What do you want me to do? Let me go home. Please just let me go."
*The subjects sobbing and whimpering is recorded for around 20 seconds*
Unknown Male Voice: "I just want to go home."
*The recording ends*
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Caleb propped his head on his hand as he read the transcript. It was a lot of questions and zero answers to what he wanted to know. He had been searching for anything for weeks, and thought this just might be his break, but staring down at this paper made it clear this was just another mystery he didn't know the answer to. Interrupting his depressing thought, Justin tapped him on the shoulder.
"Can we use any of this?"
"I'm not really thinking so. It's just a transcript, so we don't have any way to know who this guy is. No part of the recording mentions Hadley at all."
"So, we paid Tom to steal us police evidence for nothing, that great."
Justin sat down in the chair next to Caleb, in the dining room of Calebs small apartment. The dim light from the hanging lamp above them did a mediocre job of illuminating anything not directly underneath it, leaving the living room and kitchen in darkness. Even if Caleb didn't seem to care much, Justin would anxiously look up and around every now and then like something caught his attention. Caleb didn't think much of it. Justin had been adamant that Calebs place was haunted since he saw a coat fall off the rack near the door almost 4 months ago. Caleb was more focused on the transcript. In his head, he felt his confusion and melancholy turn to anger and frustration. He threw the paper down on the table.
"Who the hell uses transcripts anymore? Why not an audio file or something?" He said in an abrupt tone, causing Justin to startle a bit.
"Toms dad is an old-fashioned cop, I heard he carries a revolver the department used in like the 70's."
"Yeah, well- whatever." The anger slipped out of him, replaced by the same feeling of defeat from before.
"I get it man, this is frustrating for me too. This all feels like we keep finding walls instead of clues."
"I just... I just want her to get back safe. All the stuff the news keeps saying about this is really screwing with me."
"I'm sure when this is going to be solved before it has to go national. She's out there, Caleb. Probably thinking good thoughts about how best to trash you in your stupid game you two play. She'll be home soon, and we'll help do it."
He nodded and looked back down at the paper.
"Whatever creep grabbed her took her clothes. I really fucking hope she's okay man."
Caleb stood up and went into the kitchen, flipping on the light, seemingly to Justins relief, and pulled open his fridge to grab a jug of milk. He poured a glass for himself and looked over the kitchen bar into the dining room at his friend.
"You know what? I'm sure we can convince Tom to get us more stuff from the case, we paid him two hundred dollars. Then we can grab Emily and get her to use her weird outdoorsy stuff to help us look around Hadley's house and see if the cops missed something. They had to have missed something."
Justin nodded at him and went back to anxiously looking around the living room. Caleb had always been a bit amused at Justins disposition to his apartment, but right now it was getting on his nerves. He didn't say anything though, just choosing to drink and mull over what he knew in his head.
Hadley had been at her house, or well, her parents' house. She had held another D&D meet at her place on Sunday, the eighth of august, for a continuation of the session zero she ran the week before. Caleb and Justin showed, playing their rival rogues. Emily and Thalia had shown up too, respectively a paladin and a barbarian. Tom had called out because he was feeling ill, though it was more likely he had his girlfriend over and was too embarrassed to admit it. Caleb remembered the session ended sometime around 2 am, followed by everyone passive-aggressively lamenting at the lack of a utility caster while giving each other the side eye. Hadley said she was going to turn in for the night and ushered everyone out. That was the last time anyone saw her. The next morning, Caleb swung by her house at around 11:15 am to pick her up for work and she wasn't there. Assuming she was already at work, he went to the theater and clocked in early to see if she was in the breakroom, but her locker wasn't even being used, meaning she didn't show up.
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The boss, Henry, was mad at her for all of two days until the missing person's report was put out by her family, who found all of her belongings still in her room. He quickly changed his mind and started telling all his employees to be careful on their way home after dark. Then the other people started disappearing too. More and more reports of missing people started to show up. A few kids and teens, grown men and women, even an older lady. Around then, everyone started getting paranoid. Henry even started shifting business hours so the theater closed at 10 pm instead of 2 am like normal, and only let people go out to sweep the parking lot after dark in pairs.
Caleb and Justin had gotten tired of waiting for the cops to find Hadley a couple weeks ago and started looking for anything to find her. When the news of her clothes being found not only without Hadley, but in the backlot of the theater a couple days ago, they knew they had to get any form of evidence related to her case, and paid Tom to sneak something away from his dad, who was one of the detectives. Besides, they didn't have anything else better to do, because Henry got spooked and closed the theater for the week.
He was a bit lost in thought when he heard Justins leg bouncing against the chair he was sitting in.
"You alright man?"
"I swear to god man, you live in the creepiest place you could have picked." Justin kept looking into the living room and back at Caleb like an insane person.
"What now?" Caleb sighed.
"Your living room is the weirdest thing ever. I keep thinking the coat rack in the corner is someone just, standing there.
Caleb took a pause. He put down his drink.
"I put the coat rack in storage, you kept complaining about it every time you were over."
Justins head snapped back to the living room.
"No, dude, its right there, where it always is." He said as he pointed to the far corner of the room, by the TV stand.
Caleb looked where he was pointing. There was the TV, his shelf... and the shadowy figure in the corner. He felt his body go cold.
"What the fuck is that?"
"Don't screw around dude, it's the coat rack... right?"
"Justin, I swear to god I put nothing in that corner."
He stepped out of the kitchen and towards the switches by the door, slowly, keeping his eyes on the figure. He swore it was a person, staring at him. He moved a bit faster when it seemed to move forward, hearing Justin yelp and fall out of his chair behind him. He got to the switch and quickly flipped the light on.
"Dude what the hell."
There was nothing there. The corner was empty. He looked at Justin.
"Okay that... there was something there, right? I'm not crazy?"
"Yeah, no, I saw something."
Justin stood up from the floor and moved over towards the corner. Caleb followed behind him. They looked around the entire half of the room for a solid minute, before looking at each other.
"What was that?" Justin looked at Caleb like he would know.
"Zero clue."
"Me either man. I swear I saw something."
Caleb gave a confused shrug and looked around for something to do to calm himself down. He saw and grabbed the remote from the coffee table. His nerves were acting up a bit, but it had to be nothing. They both just were paranoid. That had to be it.
"I'm just going to... watch something. You cool with that?" He said as he sat down on the sofa.
Its back was against a wall, and he preferred there not be space to lurk behind him right now.
"Keep the lights on and sure." Justin said as he slowly sat down on the sofa too, seemingly sharing the same thought.
Despite the heavy unease they both shared, Caleb pointed the remote at the television and hit the power button. The usual late-night legal drama show came on, in the middle of some big dramatic scene. He flipped the channels around a few times, trying to find something good to watch. The local news ended up being the choice, as they watched yet another report about the Missing Persons cases. When the person talking mentioned, after another ten or so minutes of pointless recapping, that there were seventeen active cases, Justin audibly groaned.
"Another one." Caleb muttered.
"How have they not found Anything? You can't just vanish off the face of the earth. Not this many people."
They went back to staring at the Screen as the program showed images of the missing people. He saw the pictures of everyone who had disappeared, including Hadley. The newest one appeared to be a member of the police, some older guy in a fancy uniform. They listed him as Richard Francis, the lieutenant of the local police precinct.
"Great, they got a cop. No one's safe." Justin groaned again as he looked at Caleb. Then he froze. Caleb gave him a look.
"Caleb. You left the kitchen light on, right?"
Caleb was confused by that question.
"Yeah, of course I did." He said as he looked to his left at the kitchen. Over the kitchen bar, he saw that the room was completely dark.
He paused for a moment. He had left it on. He definitely left that light on. He felt his nerves start to act up a bit more, anxiety starting to take over.
"You know what? No. Fuck that. Fuuuuck that. You have a guest room at your place, right?"
"Yeah, let's get the fuck out of here." Justin said as Caleb turned off the tv.
He paused, then opened the cabinet door on the shelf and pulled out his knife. He stepped outside his apartment with Justin and turned his lights off, swearing he felt something watch him. He glanced around the dark room and saw the dark shadow in the corner again. A small creak came from down the hallway. He shut and locked the door. The unease continued as he walked with Justin to his car, feeling as if there was something in the night watching him too, but he shrugged it off long enough to get into the driver's seat. Justin got into his passenger seat and Caleb started the car. As he pulled out of the lot, he looked up at the window to his apartments living room. He couldn't see anything in the pitch-dark window, but he felt like he might just spend a couple days over just to be safe. Justin punched him in the arm.
"Let's get out of here already."
"Yeah."