For Riley

I love my little sister.

Riley is innocent, caring, and the smartest seven year old girl I ever knew. Then again, I’m only thirteen and don’t have many friends that are my sister’s age. My older brother, Ryan, is a junior in high school and always pretends to be too cool to hang out with his middle school brother or kindergarten aged sister. The only time that he’s willing to spend time with us, or at least be in each other’s presence, is when all of us go to our old family barn once a month and his girlfriend, Eileen, gets to tag along. I don’t mind her though because she sometimes brings us cookies from the shop she worked at in the mall. "Here's your box of cookies, Corey!" She would hand over and I would gladly take.

Mom and Dad are a story of their own.

Dad was just like any other one I had seen on any Netflix show. He works at a communications company, and told me he just has to be on the phone with idiots all day trying his hardest not telling them that their idiots. I definitely know what I don’t want to to when I grow up. I imagine I’d come home just as angry and upset with everything like he does and can’t wait to pop open a beer and be upset and angry at the TV for telling him bad news or yell at the stupid kids in the movies for not knowing the killer was behind the door. Dad didn’t really like to play with me or Riley, except when we would go to the barn and play horseshoe’s, but even then he would get upset at both of us for not throwing it right and using his perfect technique. Riley and I usually brushed it off as dad being dad and waited until he got tired of the game to go throw rocks down the well. We searched for rocks of different sizes and tried to see who could make the best ka-thunk sound. It probably wouldn’t seem like much fun to other people and I bet my friends would get bored of it within the first minute, but the time with Riley made it most enjoyable right up until mom would yet from inside that it’s getting dark out and we’re going to be eaten by the wolves if we don’t get back inside soon.

Mom used to work as a bookkeeper until she got fired. She would come home just as angry and upset as dad and complain about all of her coworkers, when actually sounded like they were doing most of the work. Before, mom would brag to us about how she could show up to work whenever she wanted and then take a long lunch to go out and eat with her friends to have their afternoon cocktails. She still has those afternoon cocktails, but at home now. I would quietly tell Riley when we would play games together, “Well, I definitely know not to have those mid-day drinks when I grow up if I don’t want to be old and bitter.” I knew she had no idea what I was joking about but would laugh anyways. Mom would always complain about not having enough money to do anything and got mad at us for being too expensive. They just bought Ryan a used car so he can drive himself to school and all of them would often complain about his college expenses that would soon be coming up. Finances were usually the topic of most fights. No money for food, no money for gas, no money for vacations. Riley and I would have to escape reality by watching movies or telling each other stories about our perfect fantasy lives. She was a fan of princesses in ancient times where a prince would come and save her from the evil King and Queen take her to their own castle where everyone would be rich and free and her best friends would be her brother who would come and visit her all the time and also a talking frog who was waiting on their own prince charming to come and kiss them. Her fantasy world was completely different than my own. In mine, I was a master detective and brought justice to whoever thought they could get away with their crimes. Every stolen dollar would be returned, every missing person would be found and reunited with their families, and every murder victim would rest easy knowing that my smarts and detective powers would catch every killer. And maybe a cape too.

Despite everything that happened at home, we all had our personal reasons for going to the barn. At the end of every month, we would drive to the barn that was just outside of the city that grandpa left us after he had passed away. He had some animals that would keep him company after grandma died from cancer years ago, but dad sold them for extra cash when everything was left to him in the will. I’m surprised he didn’t sell the barn too, but I’m guessing it’s either because no one wanted it or he enjoyed coming out here as much as we did just to get away. We had just got back from the barn last weekend and drove back to reality unfortunately and still had a few more weeks until we could go back. Getting back was always a chore in itself. I was in charge of bringing in everyone’s weekend luggage and Riley was in charge of vacuuming the floor mats and cleaning the mud that everyone always dragged in.

“Hey you missed a spot!” I would always yell and tease at her, where she would then grab a handful of mud and run and try to hit me with it. And then I would always have to help her finish cleaning because she actually did miss lots of spots. Riley and I spent last weekend walking around and trying to catch weird looking bugs to stare and study them, but this weekend I am supposed to go to a sleepover at my friend John’s house. I never minded going because he always had the best new video games and his mom would order pizza with everything on it and extra dipping sauce.

Everything was going good and John and I were watching a scary movie and halfway through a bucket of popcorn until John’s mom came in the room.

“Hey Corey, your mom’s on the phone.” John’s mom said, and directed me to the kitchen phone.

“You need to come home. We’re going to pick you up.” Corey’s mom said, with an odd sounding tone.

My mom pulled up to the house and I got inside the car. “Is everything OK?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Your sister is missing. She went to play outside but never came back in and we tried looking for her but we couldn’t find her.”

My heart sank and I suddenly forgot how to breathe. We pulled up to the house and there were cop cars all around with their lights flashing. Dad and Ryan were standing outside talking to the cops and I ran inside to see if maybe she was just hiding and they hadn’t checked everywhere yet.

I couldn’t find her.

The next morning I walked around and waited outside for her to come back. I was sad, but anger took over. “Someone needs to be brought to justice,” I thought. Someone had to have seen something. Someone knows what happened to my sister. To my best friend.

I walked around and asked every neighbor to see if they had seen anything or if they had any cameras pointed at my house. Maybe the cops missed something. I looked everywhere.

The end of the month came around and for once, I had to beg my parents to go out to the barn. I figured they seemed hesitant to go out because the whole family wouldn’t be there, but they finally gave in.

We spent the day inside the barn and I offered to help mom cook dinner. Everyone was mostly quiet and distant, Ryan especially since Eileen didn’t come with us this time.

“I need to say something,” I said at the dinner table while everyone was eating. I thought I was going to cry, but that same anger took the place of every other emotion. “I had told myself that I would do everything that I could to see that I would find Riley. I need her and she needed me, and no one would ever get in the way of that. The day she went missing was the worst day of my life and I have done nothing but look for her ever since while it seemed like all of you easily got on with your lives.”

Mom started to cough.

“I asked all of the neighbors if they had seen everything and nothing came up.” I continued. “I searched all around and when I was almost ready to give up, I went to sit in the car with my head down and that’s where I found out. I thought it might’ve been a coincidence, but everything started adding up.”

Dad and Ryan started coughing hysterically.

“I looked down in the car and saw the mud. The mud that Riley and I had cleaned up and we weren’t supposed to have been back to the farm for another few weeks. I thought it was a coincidence until I stole the car in the middle of the night to come out to the barn and to search myself.”

Everyone was choking on the ground, gasping for air.

“I was almost ready to give up again until I tossed a rock into the well, and didn’t hear the usual thunking sound. I pointed my flashlight towards the bottom and that’s where I lost it. That’s where you lost me too. You all, for some reason, seemed so much happier after we got the check in the mail for her life insurance and it sickened me.”

I watched as their lives escaped from their evil eyes.

“You took her from me, and now I’m taking you.”