Eighteen Going on Dead

Chapter Thirteen: Lake Encke

Ladin's Lake or should I say Lake Encke was shut down a year ago during the summer in one of the most popular weeks to take make a family picnic and surround yourself by nature without leaving your doorstep or going into unfamiliar places. In the beginning of that week, after Gabriel, Yolanda, Courtney and I took a trip out ourselves and had a good swim- a child became sick with a wired form of fungus in his inner thigh, to come to find out it was some sort of chemical substance that makes a person skin turn black and purple.

The toy factory that contaminated the lake was made in the 80's when the economy was booming, but it was shut down five years ago because of the use of increase use technology. Apparently they used the chemical in the past twenty-five years and contaminated the lake in the past twenty, It just took one kid that had the most sensitive skin and was allergic to everything to cry wolf. Since then that shut the lake down with no hesitation.

Now it was a crime scene, this time it wasn't a woman who escaped her attack met and died on the road. She escaped and was brutally murdered on the side as if she were an animal during hunting season; stabbed down and skinned alive (literally). Her arms no longer held her honey skin, along with her feet.

I rode my bike through the taped off area slowly to see if I can spot a be obvious thing, but the cops could of picked it up. The ride to school was long like a I suspected, but not even the extra minutes could prepare me for the line of news vans parked in front of the school. I parked behind the post near Katy, who too were curious on the sudden pop up of reporters that crowded the front entrance.

"What's happening?" I asked anyway.

"I don't know, I just got here myself.

Class was much crowded than outside, everyone was chatting about why they think the reporters were here and how it connects to the death from last night. Even with the picture from this morning, no one knew who that girl is- clearly she was the same age as us and should be in school, but it was all a mystery.

"Class settle down!" The teacher stood in the front, fingers interlocked as she overlooked her students- everyone was here to be accounted for. Her skin was paper than before, eyes could not stay in one place as her body shivered in fear. "As you all know, another tragic death struck Ladin and as you all don't know the poor young lady was a student in this very school and in this class."

"What?" Everyone voice before going back to their chattering. Even I was shocked, I recall everyone face in this class for the past nine months and not once have I seen her or at least I thought.

"Okay, okay. I know y'all are confused. The student- Mary Keller- was a junior that took this class and went missing about a month ago." The woman explained, only making the class even more curious.

"If she went missing, why didn't we hear about it?" Tanya asked, finally using her voice for something good.

"Because during that time she transferred to another school, her parents were moving. The reason why we didn't share was odd, and I assure you if anyone knew about the situation more than me; I would shine more light on it, but for now let's not keep our mind on it."

How can we not think about this? A fellow student in this class is dead and was missing for a month without at least one of us noticing her... not once! That's fucked up and even the police couldn't identify her quickly, the town is not that big to forget a face.

The news of this information spread faster than the speed of light in the school, everyone knew everything by lunch and even then the seniors nor any other grade level knew about this girl, apparently she was a loner that wrapped her world around book and class; no friends, no unnecessary communications with the teacher, even her parents didn't show up to any conferences.