Missing Margo

From Omnictionary

Dec 1st, 11:09am

Sam paused as the bell above the Movie Center door jingled.

Sam turned his head from the scene dispersing in the distance, only to eye the female who had walked through the door, and immediately sighed. There was no mistaking Merilee Simmons. Short, curvy, and sporting a small gap between her two front teeth, she was no doubt interesting to look at. But on this day, Sam would have rather seen a known serial killer than Merilee. She tried his patience more than anyone and usually only came to the Movie Center to waste Sam's time. She was in her usual uniform of paint-splattered jeans and v-neck mens sweater that was several sizes too large, and judging by the design, must have been from the seventies.

"Samuel!"

He winced. Sam hated his full name, and he so didn't need this right now.

"I don't have a lot of time here. Allison's in the car, and neither of us actually have our licenses...well, listen. Did you hear about Margo?"

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the headache that was beginning to pound behind his eyes, before craning his neck to look out into the parking lot. In the idling '76 Chevy Camaro he could make out a mop of neon green hair that he knew belonged to Allison Maddon.

"Margo?"

Merilee sighed, and resting her forearms on the counter, leaned over, flipping a braid over her shoulder. She spoke slowly and clearly, as if addressing a very small child.

"Margo Roth Spiegelman? Haven't you heard?"

Sam frowned, as an old man might when his hearing aid battery goes out. Suddenly, he was hit with a kerplash of memories surrounding the headlines of the paper for the past few weeks.

The headline in the Sunday newspaper was an insensitive 'Margone with the Wind', which is what you would expect from the tabloids. It was only now that he realized what it had meant. He had only seen this headline at a glance, while flipping through the papers for the cartoons, though there were many other headlines in other newspapers, he felt that he should have shown some sign of sympathy earlier. He hadn't realized at the time that the Margo in the headlines was Margo Roth Spiegelman, although Margo was not exactly a common name, but now he realized that Margo was missing, maybe even dead.

Merilee whipped out the same newspaper in which he had searched for the funnies, and Sam skimmed through the long article. It claimed that it was all a scam devised by Margo, which somewhat explained the less than sympathetic headline. Merilee looked him straight in the eye, and said something that would be etched into Sam's mind forever.

"Do you want to help me find her?"

He responded in kind with a rather loud "What?". So loud, in fact, that it seemed to echo through the whole building, attracting the attention of most of the customers in the vicinity as well as Sam's evil boss Hayley.

Hayley ruled the movie center with an iron fist and a glass-eyed stare. The whole staff loathed her and were constantly bitching about her, but she had a habit of appearing out of nowhere, so now they watched their backs as they bitched and would immediately change the subject when she appeared. Although everyone said that they'd rather work somewhere else, no one really could afford to lose their jobs.

She began to walk over, obviously to reprimand Sam for shouting at a customer, but was distracted by a patron who was black. It was a widely known fact that Hayley was very racist and would always watch ethnic customers in mistrust of them.

Though seriously appalled by Hayley's racism, this gave Sam the chance to take Merilee to one side, to be more private. This also made him seem as if he was helping Merilee as a customer instead of socializing with her as a friend; in the past Sam had gotten into some major trouble for chatting with customers.

"Why do you care so much about this?" he replied to her question. "I'm sure the police are doing everything that they can. Besides, we've got nowhere to start! The hurt look on Merilee's face made him realize that asking, "Why?" was a fairly stupid question. It was because Margo was her friend, and that looking for a friend is a natural response to said friend's absence.

With a strange smile on her face she quickly replied, "But. I've got a lead. A big lead. I know exactly where she was they day she went missing."

Looking severely puzzled, Sam asked, "If you've known that this whole time, why haven't you told the police about it?"

Sam knew why, though, or at least partly. It was clear since the moment he met Merilee that she was an optimist, the thing that he found to be her most annoying quality. He was much more of a pessimist, and he could see in her eyes that this was no joke; she really meant every word.

"I did, but they didn't believe me because of where I got the information." Merilee had announced her clairvoyance in the past, but no one seemed to take any notice.

"Nooo." Sam muttered, adding several extra vowels to the word. "Not the psychic thing again." He was laughing a little, even as he said it.

"Look, I saw her, and the guy who kidnapped her," she adamantly replied, "And if you don't believe me-"

"Merilee, you have to please just leave. You've already gotten me in enough trouble with Hayley."

"You know, if you went missing, Margo would drop everything to find you!"

He watched as she walked away, not knowing now that he might never see her again. Merilee and Sam were now both heading for danger.

By the time Sam got off work and was on the way home, he couldn't stop thinking about his confrontation with Merilee. Overall, he hated confrontation and upheaval, and this was probably the most eventful day of his entire year.

Then, just when he though he had finally pushed his conversation with Merilee to the back of his mind, he started to hear the footsteps. Suddenly paralyzed with his irrational fear, he didn't dare look behind, for fear of what he might see. He started to realize he was walking faster subconsciously, and he heard the footsteps get faster. Before he knew it, he was running, and so was the other person; his fight-or-flight instinct going into overdrive, he ran until he finally got far away from everything.

He only stopped when he tripped over something, in the strange wooded area in which he currently found himself. It was an unfamiliar area. Now, with the mysterious footsteps gone, he only felt foolish. But the adrenaline was still coursing through his veins, and he stopped to look down at what he had tripped over. At first, he simply saw a small bundle.

Then he realized.

At the top was a human skull.

It was a corpse. A skeleton.