Chapter 1: Rattling in the Cornfield

Ontario, Maple Diamond town

November 9, 2011

Pumpkin Theater: Home For Retro Movies and Video Games.

Henry looked at the sign with nostalgia as if he were a kid again. His partner, Ben, soon exited the police car and signalled for Henry to enter the building with a nervous expression. The two entered the building to meet with the owner, Jimmy Dafoe, who was relieved when he saw the two cops. Both cops received a phone call from the theatre about two children going missing, Maria and Nicolas. Said kid's parents came to us and explained in more detail what had happened to their children. The parents explain that they drop their kids at the theatre to celebrate their friend's tenth birthday. The theatre had a birthday room that was a fairly decent size, where kids would hold their birthday parties. The theatre will cater the food and cake for the birthday parties and will usually end with the kids watching a movie at the theatre. According to the parents, they were late to pick up their kids after the party was over, and once they arrived there, they were nowhere to be found. According to Jimmy, the kid's friend's parents decided to stay with them until the parents arrived there but had to leave early to pick up their oldest son. So the kids were left waiting for their parents to arrive. Jimmy added that the security camera caught kids running outside and taking a photo with a bulldog animatronic outside. Soon after taking the photo, they seemed to be looking at something in the forest near the theatre and ran into the forest. The Pumpkin Theatre was located north of Maple Diamond Town, 10 minutes away in a rural area. It had a decent-sized cornfield with a forest next to it. The forest was big and long and was known to have wolves and bears located in the deeper parts of the forest, while smaller animals like foxes and turkeys. After hearing the details from the owner, Henry and Ben decided to look for the kids in the forest. Henry thinks of a question as the two are about to leave and asks Jimmy. Henry asks where the second owner is since he remembers two owners of the theatre, Jimmy Dafoe and Kosaku Kramer. Jimmy looked surprised when Henry said that Kosaku had left the company one month ago. Jimmy explains that Kosaku left because he no longer liked running a business. After all, it was too stressful, and he wanted a change of pace. He is now an office worker for a local department store and is doing well, according to Jimmy. After Jimmy explained Kosaku's whereabouts, he pointed to where the kids were last seen towards Henry and Ben. It was near nighttime, so Henry decided to look for the kids before it became dark outside. Henry told Ben to stay with the family until other officers arrived while he could go up to the forest and see if the children were still nearby. Henry exited through the theatre's left exit, which led into the children's playground with the bulldog animatronic that takes photos to the right of the entrance. Henry made his way through the cornfield, which was a pretty decent size with the corn stalks around my shoulder height. The cornfield wasn't big, so he didn't take long to get through it. Henry was standing at the entrance to the forest when he saw a photograph lying on the forest floor, most likely taken by the children earlier with the bulldog animatronic outside the theatre. By this time, Henry noticed that the weather was worsening, becoming windier and colder by the second. Henry grabbed the photo, which belonged to the two siblings making dumb faces with each other in it. Nothing suspicious was seen in the photo, but Henry decided to place it in his bag just in case it would be needed for an investigation if the children turned out to be missing. Henry decides to head to the stream in the forest as he knows that when he was little, he and his friends would go there to play and look at the many birds that would come there. So there could be a chance the two children saw a bird and followed it through the forest to the stream. The stream was located in the middle of the forest and would usually take 15 minutes to 20 minutes to get there. Henry arrived at the stream in 14 minutes and was greeted by the two children throwing stones into the stream. Henry was relieved to see they were okay and asked them why they were there. Nicholas said something very odd. He said he saw a strange bird in the forest that looked like a raptor at the entrance of the forest staring at them for a second and then retreated into the forest, so he and his sister chased it into the forest before making it to the stream where they were stopped by a hunter there that told them it was too dangerous to go any further as they were a wolf pack in the other side of the forest. Henry asked them where the hunter was, and the kids responded that he had just left and told them to wait for someone to get them. Henry then radioed Ben that he found the kids and told the others to cancel the backup as the situation no longer needed it. Nicholas and Maria soon returned to their parents, thanked me for the help, and left. Ben congratulated me on my first job, and Henry simply responded, "It's not a big deal." Ben asked Henry if he wanted to get a pizza for old-time sake since it was still kind of early, being 7:30 pm. Henry agreed to his friend's request, but they heard rattling in the cornfield behind them as soon as they started to leave for the restaurant.