Our story begins in the house of Katie, a 15 year old girl, and her mother. Katie was sitting in her living room in her old ripped pair of Abercrombie jeans, and her oversized hoodie with huge neon letters spelling “HOLLYWOOD” across the front. She was sitting sideways with her long lanky legs draped over the side of an arm chair. Katie had long blonde hair tied up in a messy bun, and her big blue eyes were rapidly skimming across the pages of her favorite book, Kidnapped.

Katie was so intrigued by one part of this book, that this was her fifth time reading it. She loved the suspense where the teenager had been kidnapped, but was finally rescued by a fellow neighbor. Somehow, reading this book helped Katie cope with her fear of death. This fear came out a couple years ago when Katie’s father was deployed to Afghanistan but never returned. This left a hard life on his wife’s shoulders, and caused he to never be the same again.

While Katie was reading the scene of the kidnapping, she received a phone call from a restricted number. She decided to decline it, thinking it was a wrong number. About thirty seconds later she received a notification of a voicemail. She couldn’t understand what the person was trying to say. All she could hear was a person breathing loudly and heavily into the phone. Suddenly in the last two seconds of the voicemail, Katie heard a scream, and then the message ended.

Katie was startled and didn’t know what to think. “Maybe it was a butt-dial. Yeah that’s it. Someone called me by accident and they were watching a scary movie,” she told herself.

Katie had completely lost track of time and of the list her mother left of things to do around the house. However, she was quickly reminded of what time it was when her mother stormed into the house from her grocery shopping.

Her mother waddled into the living room barely holding her own body weight up. “By the looks of the crumpled to-do list on the floor, I am guessing you didn’t do your chores?”

“Oh mom, I am so sorry! I got up this morning and was so into my book I completely lost track of the time,” exclaimed Katie.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” said Katie’s mom as she grabbed her by the hood of her sweatshirt and pulled her into the kitchen.

“Empty the dishwasher,” shouted Katie’s mother as she stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

As Katie was putting the dishes away, her attention was caught by the breaking news story about a kidnapping in town. She listened intently as the news reporter stated the terrible news. “Breaking news! There has been a kidnapping reported from Central Street, San Francisco, a 16 year old girl has been missing with more information to follow.”

“That’s terrible!” Katie thought. She carried on with her chores and started vacuuming the floor when the grandfather clock startled her as it struck 5:00 pm.

“I’m leaving for my night shift and should be home around 10:00 tonight,” said Katie’s mother as she walked to her car.

Katie was starting to get nervous since Central Street was two streets down the road, and the phone call incident was still lingering in the back of her mind. She decided to calm herself down by lying on the couch and watching an episode of SpongeBob. In the middle of the show, Katie received another phone call from a restricted number. She again declined it. Not too long after, there was a voicemail.

She listened to the voicemail. This time she heard a person who sounded like a girl, whispering “help” into the phone over and over again. Then she heard a deeper voice in the background yelling and screaming, telling someone to shut up. The message ended again.

Katie decided to report this to the police. As she was calling the police a breaking news update interrupted the SpongeBob episode.

“More news following the kidnapping case on Central Street. After further investigation, the police have confirmed that the 16 year old missing girl is Tara Smith. She was said to have gone on a class trip a couple of weeks ago, but the class returned this morning, but Tara was nowhere to be found. Stay tuned for more information at 11:00 tonight.”

“Oh my god,” whispered Katie. “It’s all coming together. I know Tara Smith. She sits behind me in math class! I gave her my number for our project and she said she would text me about it after she got back from her trip!” Katie said to herself.

Katie heard a response from the other end of the phone, “Hello San Francisco police station, what’s your emergency?”

“Um, yeah, hi, my name is Katie Jones. I have some information involving the kidnapping case on Central Street. Is there anyone I could speak to regarding this?”

“Yes, I will send a couple of officers by your house to speak to you rather than over the phone.” replied the operator.

“Okay, thanks. My address is 435 Washington Street.” said Katie.

The police pulled into the driveway ten minutes later. She explained how she had gotten the phone calls and she had heard heavy breathing, and a female voice similar to Tara’s. She explained how she had exchanged numbers with Tara in math class before she left for the class trip, but class had ended before she could get Tara’s number into her phone. The police wrote down the information, and told her to call again if she got another phone call or any additional information.

Thirty minutes after the police left, Katie heard the loud scream of her cellphone piercing her ears, as her ringtone went off. The violent vibration was shaking the floor with little spurts of shock like a person shakes when being electrocuted. The glowing screen said only “restricted.” Katie grabbed it, but she had missed the call. She waited patiently, yet nervously for a voicemail. Finally it came in. Katie heard a soft feminine voice speaking fast. The girl stated her name; Tara. She was saying an address, something about a secret door under ice. Katie grabbed the nearest piece of paper, and wrote down the information.

Katie again called the police and they said they would be right over. Katie met the police and told them she wanted to come along. They drove off towards the address given by Tara.

The police and Katie arrived at an abandoned ice rink downtown. The door was closed, but the glass was smashed. As they entered the building they discovered a small square piece of ice missing in the center of the rink. There was a trap door leading to a secret room. Katie was getting scared. In the room they saw Tara sitting in a chair guarded by a man in a black ski mask. “Stay here, we’ll be right back,” said the police to Katie. They ran into the room and started yelling at the man in the ski mask to get down on the ground. Gunfire was exchanged, and the police lay bleeding on the ground. Katie’s greatest fear was happening right before her eyes. As she started running back towards the door, she stopped. She knew she had to be strong. She couldn’t leave Tara to die. She calmed herself down, and started to think of a plan. She ran back to the entrance of the tunnel and called the police station. Within minutes later 8 armed policemen showed up to meet Katie. When the police filed into the secret room, the man in the ski mask was gone and only Tara remained tied to a chair. Thanks to Katie, Tara was finally saved.

When Tara was finally home, she was overjoyed to see her parents. Tara explained how she had been kept in that ice rink for 2 weeks. It all started when she was boarding the bus for her trip, and a guy came up to her and asked if she could help carry his bags from his car to the bus. She went to help him, but he had tricked her and stuffed her into the truck of his car. He later knocked her out by smashing a pipe over her head and carried her into the ice rink.

“I can’t even describe what the man looks like,” reported Tara. “The whole time I saw him he had a ski mask on. But the one thing I will always remember is what he smelt like. He always wore an absurd amount of cheap smelling cologne.”

“He was insane and kept telling me he wanted me all to himself. He always told me ‘I don’t care if you try to escape, or even get away with it. It won’t matter because in the end I will always find you and have you all to myself,’” stated Tara.



After saying goodnight to her parents, Tara was excited to climb into her own bed and just sleep knowing she was safe.

A couple of hours into her sleep, Tara woke up and rolled over thinking it was morning. She checked her clock, which read 3:47am. She stumbled out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. She was struck with the cold breeze coming from the slightly opened window, but didn’t seem to think about shutting it. As she searched aimlessly for the light switch, still half asleep, something made her stop dead in her tracks. Then it hit her… the smell. The smell of that absurd amount of cheap smelling cologne…