2024 Travers Winner!

~Milo DuBois, Class of 2025 

The leaves were multicolored quilts draped over the trees. Soon, the quilts would begin to rip apart and fall to the ground. Deployed to combat these intruders: Bethany Thomas, a retired journalist, living on 524 Folkston Lane, Toppsville Maryland. Armed with an old, rusty rake, the sort whose handle seemed to be continuously peeling off, and headphones clamped over her ears. The leaves were particularly bad this year, smothering nearly every square inch of the usually green lawn surrounding the century-old, white cottage perched atop the hill on Folkston Lane. The house, decidedly south of anything important. Go 45 or so miles north, and you’ll find the town where Bethany grew up and started her career. She’d tried as hard as she could to get away from that town, and she would have had her mother not still lived there, and refused to move. Deciding to take a break, Bethany sat down on top of the mossy rock to the right of her front door and checked her phone. To her dismay, she was greeted with a usual barrage of emails, asking Bethany to create more content for her podcasts that channeled a series of murders that took place in town a decade or so ago.

Just barely avoiding being drowned out by her headphones, the noises of the TV drifted in, like a freshly cooked turkey wafting from the kitchen. 

“And just in, local police report that a body with multiple stab wounds has been found 10 miles north. Authorities have not yet revealed the identity of the victim. Police are informing the public to stay vigilant, as the killer may still be at large. But that may not be a problem for this town, one that has been on edge for the past 15 years since the killing of four people.” That was the last straw for Bethany, who promptly collapsed on the dull red couch with cloud-like pillows coating it.

Deciding to clear her head, Bethany decided to go out for a drive. She grabbed her keys from the kitchen table, and hopped in the back of her red Station Wagon. She had it down the hill, passing through the alley of multicolored trees, and the neighbors, oblivious to anything that was going on as she headed down the hill, the thoughts poured into her head. She didn’t know any of the details. This feeling was new to her, as she knew everything about the murders she reported on ten years ago.

Above everything else, was her worry for Tommy, the sole survivor of the killings 10 years ago, on which her podcast was based. Tommy had told her that he planned to come to Toppsville around this time when they met last year.

Soon, she pulled into town square, where, to her surprise, there was a multitude of police personnel surrounding the old statue of the town’s founder. Bethany gasped in surprise.

“Why are the police here?” she muttered to herself, “it happened many miles north.”

She hopped out of her car to investigate. This is what I’m good at, she thought to herself, or at least had some moderate success with, she thought, thinking back to her old podcast in the fame it brought her. She approached a town person, wearing a green baseball cap and a blue polo shirt.

“Do you know what the police are doing here?” She inquired about him.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “They haven’t been answering anyone’s questions,” he added. “Wait, aren’t you that podcast lady?, Shouldn’t you know what’s going on, then? The murders are around here; kind of your specialty, aren’t they?”

Bethany almost completely ignored the civilian’s comments and continued to approach towards the bright yellow do not cross line surrounding the statue. As she got closer, an officer approached her; he looked as though he was clearly the leader of the bunch.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but we are asking all civilians to stay away from this area.”

She turned around, almost resigned to not knowing anything, when an eager young police officer approached her from behind. He tapped her on the shoulder and said,

“Bethany Thomas??? I love your work, I’ve listened to every episode of your podcasts, even that questionable second season. I’ve even read your blog. I’m Ben, by the way.” He said with a joyous grin spread over every inch of his face.

“…And how can I help you?” she said sarcastically, clearly fed up with dealing with these incompetent people around the square.

“I heard you talking to the police chief over there; it sounded like you wanted some information about our presence here.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Listen, I don’t even know much of what’s going on here, but I’ve heard whispers. And whispers are better than nothing.”

“Fine, tell me what you’ve got.”

“So, from what I’ve heard, they found a map by the body on Sydney Rd. Someone said that you could barely read it through the bloodstains. But, despite that, it looked to have a large ‘X’ placed over this square,”  Ben said, clearly thrilled to have someone to tell this information to.

“So,”  she said, cutting him off. “They think that the killer might strike again. Right here.”

“Exactly,”  Ben said. “So, we’ve increased our presence here to try to stop a killing in its tracks.”

“And how do you plan on doing that? It looks like you’re just standing around right now. You do realize there’s a tall, unprotected building straight behind you.”

And with that exchange over, the two attempted to sneak into town hall. Somehow, they managed to get through the side door, which looks old and rusty, without any trouble or scrutiny. Just as the door pried open, 12 booming rings echoed from the top of the steep bell tower. After the ringing had finished echoing through the stairwell that they were facing head on, they still continued to hear sounds.

“Are those footsteps?”  inquired Ben.

“I believe so. We should follow them. It could be our killer,” Bethany replied, confirming Ben’s suspicions. Without a second thought, they started to bolt up the steep stairs. Hearts thumping, hands swinging wildly, and trying not to slip in the occasional puddle. Panting like a dog, Ben collapsed against the wall, and, under his breath, whispered, “The dot, it wasn’t in this building. It was right beyond the walls.” And with that, as if on cue, a loud ‘THWOMP’ echoed throughout the building. Terror spread through their brains and hearts, and without a second, they began to rush up the remainder of the stairs. Even though it felt like an eternity, shouts and panicked screaming began to ring from the square below in a matter of milliseconds. As they reached the top, there was nothing out of the ordinary there. The same gold bell. The same gorgeous view of the hills. The same empty bottles in the corner.

At the bottom of the tower, there was also nothing. The crowd had dispersed, and the police were gone. No one was there, except for one lone figure, their face obscured in the sunlight. As Bethany walked closer to the figure, it became clear that it was Tommy. 

“No, I was in the bell tower. We just heard a loud boom and lots of screaming.”

”Well, a body was just dropped from the tower,”  he said with panic in his voice. “The police whisked it away before I could catch a glimpse.”

”What are you doing here?”

”We don’t have time to get into that. None of us are safe.”

”Did the police find a note?”

”This time it just had a big circle around the town,”  he said.

”I’m going to drive back to my house. I’ll be safe there.”

As Bethany was driving back, thoughts flooded into her head. The one that left her the most unsettled, how did Tommy know about the notes. He hadn’t been there when the first note was uncovered. Bethany decided to put those thoughts aside and focus on the more important issue. She needed to put out a new podcast episode. She figured that if she could alert the public about the intricacies of the murders, she could help prevent future occurrences.

When she got home, she walked into her office, a room that almost hadn’t been touched for a few years, and began to set up a live streamed episode of her podcast. She set up all her recording equipment and emailed all her subscribers.

A countdown flashed across screens across the state: “Going live in 

3.

2.

1.”

“Hey everybody, and welcome to this special, live stream follow-up episode of my podcast.”  As she said this, she heard faint footsteps coming up the stairs.

”So, recently, the entire local area has been gripped and horrified by the recent string of brutal murders. So, let’s get into it.”

But, instead of the audience hearing information about the murders, they saw the door slowly creak open, a man taking a few steps, the slash of a knife, their host falling to the ground in agony, and then a man raising his head, revealing a face that the true fans would recognize as Tommy.