prologue

When I was a little girl, my friends and I would play in the woods behind my house. One day around six-thirty, we were playing hide and seek. I hid in the bush, which wasn’t my usual hiding spot. I waited there crouched down, but no one found me, and I never found them. I was alone in the dark, and it was so quiet that all I heard was the soft rustling of the wind in the trees.

“Sarah Tyler, Brad, Katie?!” I looked around. “Where are you guys?”

The bush in front of me started to shake. I was scared. Then a hand touched my shoulder. I screamed.

“It’s okay Mandy,” My Dad picked me up. I was eight years old then.

“Daddy, I can’t find Sarah, Tyler, Brad, or Katie.” I wrapped my chubby arms around his neck.

“It’s alright. I’m sure their parents have found them already.” He turned and started to walk away. I saw a man come out of the bushes. I open my mouth to scream, but he put his finger to his lips, and I stayed silent.

Daddy took me inside; we sat down at the table for dinner.

Mommy put carrots on my plate. I hate carrots; I ate everything but the carrots.

“Amanda, eat your carrots,” Mommy said.

“But I don’t like carrots.” I scrunched up my nose.

“I don’t care, eat them.” Mommy gave me her stern look.

I put a carrot in my mouth. It was gross. I opened my mouth to spit I back on my plate.

“Don’t you even think about it.”

The phone rang. Mommy went to answer it. As she walked to the phone, I gave my carrots to Daddy; he likes carrots.

“Hello? Oh, Hi Mrs. Barber… No, I have not seen Sarah…. No Amanda’s right here. The kids didn’t come in with her… OH MY GOD… Tyler, Brad, and Katie are gone too? .... well, of course, I’ll help…. That’s strange…Amanda, what were you guys doing in the woods?”

“Playing hide and seek,” I said.

“Well, maybe they got lost. I’m coming right now. Daniel will stay home. Just in case something is wrong. Alright, be right there.” Mommy hung up the phone.

Mommy went upstairs, grabbed a robe, and two flashlights. She came back downstairs and kissed Daddy and me on the cheek. The Mommies and Daddies of Sarah, Tyler, Brad, and Katie went out that night and every night. But they never found them each day they would go a little farther in the woods and come up short. By the next week, the police joined the search, and the week after that, the whole neighborhood was up day and night looking for them. No one could ever think that something like this would happen in our small town of Foxburg, Pennsylvania.