Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm a Retired Cop. This was my most DISTURBING case | Scary Stories

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

They all just disappeared...          Story from J. Hunter Richardson Make sure to check out more of their work at u/strange_dangerous   Cover Art from David Bocquillon Carrasco     ��      Original YouTube link: I'm a Retired Cop. This was my most DISTURBING case           For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech  Darren Curtis Music - YouTube Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

This was the one case that I couldn't explain. Missing persons cases are always tricky, but when it involves kids, that's when it gets personal. And when it involves a whole bus of kids going missing, well, you're willing to put yourself through hell to bring those kids home. But this was the case that it made me see how close to reality that can be. I've seen hell, but those kids have seen worse. The worst part is, though, is that the kids don't even know what happened. It should have been a snow day. The woman on television muttered in pained disbelief.

Her name was Charlene Carter, and her daughter, Meredith, had disappeared, along with 15 other students who rode the bus home from school on that cold December day. Two days later, Charlene calls my office looking for help. She needed somebody to find her daughter, somebody who wouldn't be bogged down by bureaucracy. After seeing her on television, part of me was actually waiting for her call. So when she finally did, I recognized her voice immediately. Yeah, I'll do it.

I said before she could even add. For months, it had been nothing but cheating husbands and workers' comp cases. I needed to do something positive, something good, I needed to help. I needed a case that would wash the ick off. Now the blizzard of 2018 had come to Stearns County, Minnesota with unexpected force in what weathermen Brewster Raines described as the biggest mistake of his career, he told the parents of Stearns County not to worry and that they could expect a light dusting at most. This was true until the afternoon, when the skies started to darken. And then for

some unexplainable reason, the clouds released a flurry of thick white snow on our small Midwestern town. Meredith Carter was just 13 years old when she and her classmates went missing. She, along with her best friend, Beth Klein, had boarded the school bus home. They were last spotted ducking through the thick snow as they climbed aboard. Reinhold Jackson was driving that day. Now, normally, he would have greeted the girls with a smile and a polite. Afternoon, ladies. But on that day, he kept his eyes forward, hoping that the storm would clear just enough to get him out of the parking lot safely. Now the calls to close the schools came in too late to really matter.

Many of the kids were picked up by family members. But those who relied on the bus, they were the last to go. It took Reinhold an extra 20 minutes to get to the school that day. Maybe we should hunker down here. It's only getting worse out there. He said to Principal Lane. Lane explained that the school had lost power and heat, so it would be best for the kids to wait out the storm at home.

In reality, these were the last 15 students left, and Lane had a certain disdain for at least seven of them. Farm kid troublemakers, she called them. The rest of the kids had been picked up before the storm got too bad, but Reinhold got the call late, and every single delay that day only made it harder for him to get there. Truthfully, Lane had no interest in being trapped with some of her least favorite students. And this is why she insisted they be taken home. She planned to make the short trek to her house a few blocks over, where she still had heat.

Later, many would ask why she didn't just take the students with her, where she could have kept them warm and safe. She would never publicly answer that question. It took less than a quarter mile for Meredith to realize something was terribly wrong. Though she could feel the vibration of the heavy diesel engine under the bus, she could not actually tell if they were moving. The wind was blowing in from the back of the bus. It pushed the swirling snow past the windows in a way that made it look like they were moving backward. Reinhold hunched over the wheel with the glass inches from his face. He was driving by gut feeling and the brief glimpses of the reflectors in the road. But even those would soon disappear beneath a record snowfall. He had driven this path

hundreds, if not thousands of times. So it was that tiny shred of familiarity that kept him moving forward. I could drive this road with my eyes closed. He once joked. And I assume he regretted that quip. Maybe he felt that he brought the whole terrible situation down on them from tempting fate. But that wasn't what happened. Reinhold was not the one responsible for it. Andy Smith was the first and the only child to be dropped off that day. Meredith watched as Andy's mailbox seemingly appeared out of nowhere, materializing in the gray-white swirl of space outside. Andy had looked back at his classmates as he stepped off the bus.

Now, Meredith wasn't sure if he had some sort of premonition that he wouldn't see them again. Not like that. Speaking with Andy a few weeks later, I asked him about that moment, and he admitted that he was just afraid to walk out into the white void that stood between him and his house. He was scared. With Andy gone, the bus shuddered with the change in gears, and the mailbox once again disappeared into the nothingness. Rose, Brine and Peter Dash were supposed to be the next kids to be dropped off. But the bus would never make their stop. Instead, it would somehow drift into another place, somewhere unfamiliar and strange. The asphalt would slip out from under them,

hidden beneath the snow. It would erase any last sense of direction. Reinhold would only drive for so long, before the snow would envelop them and erase any sense of movement. When Reinhold cut the engine, Meredith said that the silence that followed was almost painful. Not even the wind gusting around the bus hissed anymore. There was nothing. For Reinhold, all he could hear was the shrill sound of tinnitus in his ears. It filled him with such an overwhelming sense of dread. He began to hum to fill the silence. Meredith thought his humming was unsettling to say the least. In the backseat, the children fidgeted.

They were afraid and confused, some unaware that they'd even stopped. Meredith was the first to spot him, the tall, shadowy figure standing out from the white snow outside. Later she would admit that her reaction was primal, surprising even herself. She'd already been screaming for a few moments before realizing the shriek was coming from her own mouth. Other students soon joined her, and Reinhold did nothing to quiet them. Instead, he stood and stepped down to the door, careful to not open it. The man outside was tall, gaunt, and crooked. His limbs were abnormally long. and bent at unnatural angles. His gray, waxy skin looked almost yellow against the white

that swirled around them. His two black eyes sat like orbs pushed into solidified fat. His mouth puckered in a single small slit, separating like an unstitched wound on his face. Almost everyone on the bus had the same instinctive revulsion. to the man's appearance. That is, except for two 11-year-old girls, Cindy Olmsted, and Janine O'Malley, sitting near the back of the bus. Instead, the two girls just stared in awe. Meredith claims she noticed Cindy smile ever so slightly. It was at this point, Reinhold opened the door and stepped outside. Curiously. He didn't approach the man, nor did he seem to be fleeing.

Instead, Reinhold stepped out and walked to the front of the bus. He turned and looked back at the children, who were now gathered towards the front in various states of panic and terror. Meredith said that Reinhold looked sad like he knew he wasn't coming back, and he never did. With the door open, the man moved along the side of the bus. His long fingers trailed along the windows and left behind a streak of oil. The children moved away from him, crowding towards the back of the bus, as the man moved towards the front. He lingered outside, just out of view of the children. And it was then that Cindy and Janine moved through the crowded

huddle of scared children, neither girl appeared to have the same sense of overwhelming fear. As Reinhold disappeared into the white swirl ahead of the bus, the man stepped on, and the air suddenly felt hot and sticky. Meredith said it was thick in her lungs. With each step he took onto the bus, her vision blurred, and her heart began to throb. This is as far as our knowledge goes of what happened to that bus. This is because this is as much as Meredith could remember. I'd been hired by her parents who were unhappy with how law enforcement was handling the case.

Meredith's father, Mike, had a strong dislike for Paul Schechter, the chief of police. It was a rivalry that went back to their high school years. The call from Charlene came on a Friday. I drove out from St. Cloud that Saturday. The children had been missing for 48 hours at that point. I did my due diligence and spoke with those investigating the case, but even if they had anything, I got the feeling that they wouldn't share it. I spent half my day driving the 12-mile route that Reinhold had taken every day after

school. From the time he left, to his first and only stop, it took him 25 minutes. And we know this, because Meredith's watch stopped the moment the man stepped on. Looking down at the slowing second-hand, she watched it come to a grinding halt. Before blacking out. For me, the whole route took eight minutes in total. Given that information, in his assumed speed, wherever the bus went, it couldn't have been far. There were three lakes in the area that could theoretically have claimed the bus, but not one of them had even a crack in their eyes. If that was what happened, we wouldn't have known about it until summer.

Luckily, our answers, at least some of them, would come two weeks after their disappearance. The bus would be found not in a lake or a ditch, but on a road 30 miles from town. a road that hadn't been used in decades, unpaved, and almost forgotten. It led to a farmhouse that many people didn't even know existed until the bus was discovered. Meanwhile, others claimed that the house had always been there for as long as they could recall. The media had picked up the story. So just about every person in the county, heck, in the state. knew about that missing yellow school bus. It was on everyone's mind. Everyone was on the lookout.

Armand Sheen was the mailman who'd picked up the deliveries that morning. That fateful day, he saw that he had a new stop to make. It was a stop that had always been on his route. But he'd never delivered anything to 13 South Elk Road until that day. The long-abandoned farmhouse had finally received mail. It was when Armand leaned out of his truck to drop off a letter into the broken mailbox that he spotted the yellow blob further up the long road. Like everybody else, he'd subconsciously been on the lookout for that shade of school bus yellow. So when he spotted that same shade in the distance, he decided to investigate.

He turned up the road and drove for another three minutes until the bus came into view. He called the police before he even confirmed that it was the missing bus. But he knew in his gut it had to be this one. I was tipped off by one of my contacts in the department. I arrived at the scene within minutes of the first officers. And as I pulled up, I saw the little girl step out of the folding door. She was squinting in the sunlight, still surrounded by the thick layers of white snow. Unfortunately, Meredith was the only student to step off that bus.

The paramedics were still on their way when she did. So Meredith was covered by a shiny silver blanket and the embrace of an officer with a warm, caring smile. The bus was quickly checked for other children. And this was when their parents' worst fears were confirmed. They were all still missing. When I spoke with Meredith, she claimed to remember everything up until the moment she passed out. The very moment, the man stepped down to the bus. Next thing she knew, she was woken up by the calls of the first officer to arrive.

Even from a distance, Armand knew that he'd better wait for the authorities to arrive. He told me later that he stopped in his tracks the moment he saw the bloody, four-fingered handprint on the rear of the bus. Aside from that handprint, there was very little evidence of foul play. While many of the children left their belongings, there were no signs of a struggle, and it was essentially just an empty bus. The blood found outside the bus that created the handprint was never linked to any of the missing children, or anyone for that matter. At least, not at first. The handprint itself was strange, too.

As clear and defined as it was, it had no visible fingerprints. Instead, the handprint was made of straight, criss-criminable. crossing lines. I found the hash marked prints unsettling in an indescribable way. What's more, the four fingers extended evenly from the palm. It didn't look like the missing fifth finger was the result of some injury, but rather the whole hand was just naturally formed that way. At the time, I thought this meant the handprint's unusual characteristics would make it easy to find a suspect. It did not.

At the time of the discovery, most of the attention was on Meredith. The rest focused on the empty bus. It seemed that no one noticed the mysterious house just a little further up the road. You think maybe they're in the house? Reinhold took him up there for shelter? I asked one of the officers. He squinted in the direction of the house and turned to me with a puzzled look. Up where? he asked. It was clear not everybody had noticed, the large Gothic mansion a quarter of a mile away, but I felt drawn to it. I can't It was like an unexplainable force pulling me up that dirt road.

And I had to investigate. I noticed a young officer, a man named Shemp, staring off in the distance. Like he was mesmerized by it, too. What are you thinking? I began. Should we take a look? He turned to look at me, almost shocked. He looked around at the others who had seemingly,

not seen it. And with that question, I'd confirmed that he was not as crazy as he felt. Shemp didn't reply. Instead, he merely nodded. He told his superior, we were going to head up the road to check out the house. And his boss nodded dismissively. He didn't even question my involvement. Shemp and I walked in silence, choosing to make the trek on foot so we could look for any signs or clues that the children had gone this way. Before we left, I made a mental note that the bus still had half a tank. So why it stopped where it did was a mystery. If Reinhold had returned and led them to the house, why not drive farther up the road?

If the blizzard was dense enough to hide the house, why even leave the bus at all? all. There was no reason, in my mind at least, for the bus to stop there. And just then, a terrible thought struck me like an ice-pick at the back of my skull. Maybe Reinhold wasn't the one to lead them to this house, if they made it to the house at all. My fears were all but confirmed later on when speaking with Meredith, when she told me about the tall man. With each step closer to the house, the air around us grew thicker with an unfamiliar scent. A strangely sweet, sugary smell that crept down my throat and settled in my belly with a heavy nausea. Buried beneath the sweetness was the stench of rot, unholy, and unfortunately

familiar. It was the smell of death. I could tell Shemp noticed it too, by the way he held his sleeve up to his nose. But neither of us dared acknowledge it, for fear that if we did, it would confirm what we already knew. Something had died. I know what you're thinking. Why didn't he call it in immediately?

Ask for backup. And the answer was simple in a way. Denial. Maybe even hope. As we approach the house, The peeling white paint looked more yellow up close. The hairline cracks looked like dark, dead veins on the skin of a corpse. The front door was covered in thick layers of black, tar-like paint,

and it gave it a strange, fleshy texture. Shemp reached out for the tarnished brass knob, but the door creaked open before his fingers made contact. He stood there frozen with his hand out as the door opened, inviting us in. The smell, the awful stench of sweetened death seeped out, heavy and oppressive. And both of us took a step back. Shemp's hand drifted to his sidearm as he pushed through the doorway. I could tell he was fighting every instinct to run.

The old wood floor creaked beneath his weight, groaning with each step we took inside. The only light came from behind us. It reflected off the snow and shone in through the door. The windows were so old and dirty that barely any light made it through. Shemp flipped the light switch. But the dull click brought no light. I followed in after him, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness. There was something strange about the air inside, and I felt a warmth coming from somewhere

ahead. Heavy flecks of dust hung suspended in the still air. The smell was an odd mixture of basement musk and discarded rot. It was so thick, I could taste it." Shemp quickly turned and pushed past me, running out the door to vomit in the snow. He wiped his mouth and staggered back down the road in a haze. Not once did he look back in my direction. I figured it was only a matter of time before he called for backup and they would close off

the scene, and I had to act fast before getting kicked out. So I continued inside. I stepped through the door, and I let my eyes adjust to the low light. Gradually, the dim shapes in front of me start to take on form. At first, I thought the large mass near the door was a pile of discarded junk, but I quickly realized it was moving. The mass wasn't a pile of old magazines or broken furniture like I thought. It was soft, wet, and pulsing.

It leaked something that spread slowly across the floor. This pulsating mass was clearly the source of the horrible decaying stench. I looked closer, and I finally realized what it was. A large mound of animal carcass, covered in writhing maggots. Deer, rabbits, and a half dozen other unrecognizable creatures that had been piled up under a strange altar hanging from the ceiling. Twisted roots wrapped with twine and hair and formed into weird angular shapes dangled from a chandelier. A dark wet spot had soaked into the ceiling above it. Tauri fluid oozed down the twine to the tip of the hanging altar.

I could see the fluid slowly drip onto the rotting pile below it. At that moment, something crawled across my foot. Stardled, I leapt back to see a small mouse limping across the floor. It looked diseased with a spine that was unnaturally crooked. I watched as the tiny creature crawled past me and up the rotting mound to its peak. The mouse reached out for the strange altar dangling above. It seemed like it was mesmerized by it, and then it jerked in a painful spasmus and collapsed in place on the pile of death.

This was too much, and I was about to leave and wait for backup when I heard a long, hollow, moan coming from somewhere at the top of the stairs. It sounded like the deep, satisfied exhale of a man, like someone who'd just eaten a full meal. I looked up, but the light from the door didn't reach that far. I thought for a moment that I saw some movement in the shadows, but I couldn't be sure. Looking back, it's only now that I know it was the four-fingered man. Hello, Reinhold? I said.

No answer. But the sound of the creaking wood above me meant that somebody was up there. Something had made that sound. The old pine staircase had rotted with age. Every other step crumbled beneath my feet. The wood cracked and splintered under my weight. And so I rushed to the top, stepping wide to avoid the brittle, weakened center of the stairs. The landing opened up into a long hallway, longer than seemed possible.

At the far end, a dull, door closed. Hello? The police are outside. Help is here. I called out. A low, rumbling hum answered from behind the closed door. It grew louder as I got closer. The door hinges started to rattle, and the crooked frames vibrated against the wall. It felt like I was walking through water, fighting a current. A heavy weight pressed against my chest until I finally reached the black-painted door. I grabbed the knob, turned, and pushed it open. And immediately, I saw what made the dark dripping stain on the ceiling, a festering crimson pool at the center of the room, blood. And I know I know. Any other rational man would have backed the hell out and gone for help, preserved

the integrity of the crime saying, you know. But at that moment, I was not a rational man. Despite every fiber of my being telling me to run, I exhaled sharply, and I stepped inside. The room itself was otherwise empty. Aside from an old rocking chair in the corner. There was no sign of the man I heard or anyone. Even more disturbing was there wasn't anything to explain the blood. It seemed to bubble up from gaps in the floorboards. It just trickled up and out towards the darkest corner of the room. From where I stood, I thought I could see a figure in the corner. Maybe it was the man I heard from downstairs. Maybe he needed help, I thought. So I crept towards

the black void where the corners of the wall met. I carefully tried to avoid getting blood on my shoes. But as I passed the rocking chair, I heard its subtle, unmistakable creak. I felt his gaze even before I turned. And as I did, the tall man raised his four-fingered hand and gently placed it on his lips. He exhaled a long breath and went. His other hand pointed back to the dark corner. His puckered mouth then twisted into a terrifying grin, and his sunken eyes were unnaturally open and round, as if his eyelids had been removed.

I felt my body recoil. Every instinct was telling me to run, but my feet were stuck in place, stuck to the soft, sticky blood on the floor. And I had no choice. I followed his gaze back to the darkest corner of the room. Peter Dash was the first kid to emerge from seemingly no one.

His face was blank, and his eyes were glossy and unfocused. The shadows seemed to peel back from his face as he stumbled out from the impossibly dark corner. One by one, the children stepped out from the shadows and across the pool of thickening blood. Each one looked as if their minds were somewhere else, as if they were only. moving on instinct. They all gathered around me, as if they were instructed to do so. Rose Brine was the last to come out. I looked back at the tall man, but the rocker was empty now, even though it continued to move. I felt my feet shuffle forward sloshing through the blood. It was like I was freed from whatever held me in that spot. I quickly led the children out

into the long hallway and then down the broken stairs. I rushed them past the mound of death and threw the open door into the light. Outside, Shemp still hadn't returned with backup. Even as we emerged from the house, nobody seemed to notice. We walked for a long walk. while before somebody finally did. It was a paramedic who saw us first. She came running, shouting for the others to follow, and the children were met with the embrace of warm blankets and comforting adults. Meredith watched our return from the back of an ambulance. As she did, her face changed into a look of pure horror. Her eyes darted from one face to another searching for someone.

Everything all right? I asked her, pushing past the crowd. Is it, is it Purda? Where is she? Meredith said. The excitement quickly turned back to worry, as it became clear that Beth Klein was not among found children. Cindy Olmsted and Janine O'Malley were also still missing. Their questions came quick and frantic. Where were the children? Where did you find him? How? Why? Who are you again? My answers, though, only seemed to lead to more confusion and further questions. What house? Some of them said. It wasn't until I led them to that large Victorian manner that they seemed to finally recognize it. And I told them what to expect.

I wasn't going back in there and I chose to stay outside. And I watched their flashlights pass by the windows as they searched the house. From the yard outside, I studied the layout of the windows and I couldn't match up how the house looked from the outside to how it was when I was in there. the hallway on the second floor, it seemed much longer than the house could contain. Chief Schechter appeared in the doorway, flashlight at his side. He exchanged a few quick words with someone inside and then turned his attention to me. He waved me over with clear disdain, and it reminded me of why Meredith's father disliked him. I didn't want to be anywhere near that house again, let alone step inside. But Schechter's look told me I'd better do what he wants.

But as I got closer, I realized that he didn't seem affected by the awful stench. Though it wasn't as strong as earlier, the smell still lingered and stuck to the back of my throat. Flashlights illuminated the entryway as officers inspected every inch of the front room. The mound of animal carcasses was gone. The hanging altar was missing. I looked back at Shemp, who merely stood on the steps in confusion. Where'd you find them kids? Schechter asked, glancing back inside.

And I stuttered, searching for an answer. But I was too distracted by the fact that the room was now empty and looked completely ordinary. Schechter cleared his throat, demanding an answer. Upstairs, end of the hole, I think, I finally said. There was no blood in any of the rooms. None of them had a rocking chair either. I just shrugged.

And they eventually accepted that I must have just been confused in the stress in the moment. Nobody mentioned the rotting mass of bodies I described downstairs. And I decided I wouldn't push the issue. I worried they might think I was losing my mind. Meanwhile, Shemp was clearly also struggling to reconcile what he'd seen with what's now in front of us. By all accounts, this was now just a regular, abandoned house. But with three children still missing, the search expanded and continued for another four days. Beth Klein, Cindy Olmsted, and Janine O'Malley.

We're never found again. Neither was the house after everyone had left. In the end, the report said that I found the children upstairs in the master bedroom. People figured that I'd mistaken the dark corner for some sort of closet. And the children themselves were of little help. None of them would say a word about what had happened to him. It was only Meredith who had anything to say. And that was chalked up to her being left behind on the bus. Even when the children slowly returned to their normal selves in the weeks that followed,

they still had fewer answers than I did. Most of them didn't remember anything after they got on the bus. A few remembered part of the ride and the snow, but none of them remembered as much as Meredith dead, which is why we kept going back to her for answers. It was nearly two weeks after the storm when Meredith finally spoke to me and told her story. She remembered everything up until the moment the tall man boarded the bus and her watch stopped. I tried to get more out of her, using details from my own experience in the house, but she couldn't say much more than what she already shared.

What about the tall man? I asked one last time. Do you know who he was? She shook her head. But I could tell there was something more. She looked down at her feet, looking away from me. But I just decided to let it be. It was only after the drawings were found in Cindy's room that I knew there was more to the story.

Beneath Cindy's bed, her mother found a stack of torn papers, scraps taken from larger sheets, all of them scribbled on, all of them showing the same horrifying figure with long, slender limbs, black eyes, and four fingers. I asked Meredith on my last visit if she knew why Cindy might have drawn the tall man, and finally she broke. Meredith sobbed for a full three minutes, before letting out a tearful. I told them not to. She went on to explain that both Cindy and Janine were behind it all. They were the ones who had called on the tall man. According to Meredith, and confirmed by Principal Lane, Beth Klein had embarrassed Meredith

during lunch a week before their disappearance. Beth had told Peter Dash that his crush on Meredith was pointless, because she was still a little girl and had not yet gotten her period. Word spread quickly, spreading like wildfire. middle school stuff. The little girls had approached Meredith while she cried in the bathroom, and they offered her help. A way to make it all go away.

A way to make Beth pay for what she did. They told Meredith about the tall man. They explained that they too felt shunned by everyone else. But the tall man can do something about it. All they needed to do was offer up a sacrifice. In return, he would grant their wish and take them away to somewhere better. Somewhere they belonged. This way they would all get what they wanted.

Meredith would get her revenge, and the other two would get their escape. All she needed to do was leave him a lock of her hair. If he accepted, she would then write a letter to ask for his head. help. Meredith told me she refused, but the two girls had already decided it. They wrote the letter and gave him a lock of her hair. And immediately, I thought of the letter that Sheen had delivered to the empty house, the mailbox that was so far down the road. And an image flashed in my mind, The strange altar that hung from the ceiling above the mound of animal corpses, the lock of hair tied into the twisted roots, dripping with blood. I left Meredith that day feeling sorry for her. Sorry for the blame she must be putting on herself.

The drive to the abandoned mansion felt longer than before, seemingly farther than had been only days. before. If I wasn't actively looking for it, I would have missed the broken mailbox. I quickly threw open the small wooden door and looked inside. And sure enough, the black envelope that she carried to this house was still there. Hand shaking. I pulled it out. I knew that I should have called the police. But in need to know the horrifying truth, It drove me to open it right there. The first thing I noticed was the messy cursive. The address of the cursed house just up the road had been scribbled on the front, and it was clear to me that this was the handwriting of a child.

The note inside was written with the same looping handwriting. There were only four lines written. Dear Mr. Man, I have an offer to give. The life of two girls for all to forget, take their souls to erase Beth and her lies, make them forget and return my pride." The letter was postmarked the day that the bus went missing. This was the letter that Meredith claimed she told the girls not to send, but it had no mention of a wish for freedom to get away.

It offered not one, but two souls. I didn't share any of this with Meredith's parents when I asked to take one more look around her room. Instead, I told them I was looking for any evidence that would back up her story, evidence that she may not realize was relevant to the case, which was true in a way. So they took their daughter out for pizza, yet the only sit-down restaurant in town was while I investigated, and what I found shook me to my core. At the back of her closet beneath a pile of clothes, I found drawings, large black scribbles

on giant sheets of butcher paper. Some showed the house, others showed the mound of animal carcasses. One even showed the rocking chair. I couldn't find any drawings of him. This was because every depiction of the tall man had been torn out. Large, jagged holes remained where the tall man would have stood. I took the sheets and brought them to the station where I pulled in one last favor. Shemp took me to the evidence room where he retrieved the drawings that had been found under Cindy's bed. Each and every one fit like a The torn edges of the scraps found in Cindy's room lined up perfectly with the jagged

holes in Meredith's pictures. None of this meant anything, though. The three girls were still missing, and the only suspect was a tall man with four abnormally long fingers. Regardless of who summoned him, he was the one behind their disappearance. I do feel that Meredith's guilt and sorrow were real. I do believe she felt regret for whatever her involvement was. But I don't believe the mystery of the tall man will ever be solved.

The blood from the handprint matched the blood found on the souls of my boots. It also matched the blood on the children's shoes. But that blood didn't match anyone in their database. It did, however, match a sample from a cold case nearly 50 years ago. The same blood was found on a handkerchief that was left at the scene of a young boy's disappearance. The following spring, Reinhold's fate was finally revealed. His body was found 27 miles from where the bus was recovered.

He was buried beneath a shoulder-high snowdrift. Nobody's sure how or when he made it there, but it was clear he died of exposure. Meredith returned to school that same year. Her parents were happy to report that despite the trauma and her involvement, she's happier than ever. She even got her first boyfriend, Peter Dash.