Overburdened
Part 1
Autumn fell cooler than usual in the city of Royal Woods Michigan, especially for one Lynn Loud, she waited on the bleachers of the football field looking in all directions for any sign of life.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket to check her text messages, only to be disappointed at her inbox showing no new text, she tapped her contacts widget, and selected Francisco.
-Where r u!?- She typed frantically then tapped send.
She waited a few minutes before finally receiving a response.
-On my way- She quickly smirked then put her phone away. After a brief wait she looked straight at the bleachers on the other side of the field to see a young man the same age as her wearing a Michigan State jacket. Soon he made his way to Lynn and sat next to her.
"Sorry I was at practice, so what's up?" Francisco said only to meet with silence.
"Sooo, you blew up my phone just to give me the silent treatment?"
Her gaze sent proverbial daggers into his being sending making him rethink his last statement.
"Lynn I can't pretend to understand how you feel, but I know you enough to know that you're needing someone to talk to." She looked over at him directly with a serious expression.
"You should feel at the very least an ounce of what I'm feeling right now." She said sternly. Francisco looked at her with much confusion at the icy tone in her voice, but after he took time to contemplate his face grimaced, and he released a sigh of frustration.
"Look there's nothing anyone can do about that! So just get over it! Move on!" He exclaimed.
Lynn's chin began to tremble at what words spilled from her former boyfriend's mouth, without tears or words she quickly turned and swiftly punched his jaw, causing him to fall back from the bench seat.
"The fuck is your problem!?" He asked obliviously.
"Asshole!" She exclaimed as she quickly left the bleachers.
"What!? is that it!? That's all you got Loud!?"
"Fuck you!" She shouted as she walked out of the field.
"You already did remember!?" He shouted back with a petty response. "You hit like a girl!"
1216 Franklin avenue, the address of the Loud house, Rita holds her youngest daughter Lily and waits patiently by the front door for her daughter Lynn to return home. She peeked out the window once more only to see a stray cat creeping up the sidewalk. Through the noise of her children and the animals polluting the house she only thinks harder on where her sports star was.
The sun set welcomed a cool breeze, as the Loud family finished their dinner with one less mouth present, the fracas continued as usual, except for Lincoln and Lucy whom sat in their rooms wondering what's become of their older sister. As Lincoln looked at a photo of Lynn and himself, Lucy wrote poetry of which her sister profoundly inspired.
As the mayhem moved upstairs, the back door slowly swung open, and Lynn finally returning home crept in through the kitchen, she looked at her phone to see the time, on her lock screen the time displayed shown 9:45pm . She sneaked into the living room then to the staircase.
"Hold it young lady..."
Hearing her mother's frustrated voice Lynn groaned from aggravation, then turned slowly to look behind to see both parents, what she seen was not anger, but concern even fear.
"We were worried sick about you!"
"What have you got to say!?" Both parents exclaimed.
Lynn frowned and threw her bag down in frustration then looked at them with her tired, darkened eyes.
"I was just getting air." She said in a monotonous tone.
"For almost 7 hours!?, You missed meatloaf!" Lynn sr. exclaimed in disappointment.
"You could've at least checked in!" Rita added before hugging her tightly. "I'm just so thankful that you're okay..." She broke the hug and stroked her freckled cheeks.
"Lynn understand that we're going to be more and more worried about you ever since..." He paused with Rita elbowing his belly. She looked at them once more then pulled away.
"Just leave me alone..." She said with a tremble in her voice as she proceeded upstairs to her and Lucy's room then slammed the door behind her.
Rita crossed her arms, then looked over at her husband sharing a likewise feeling of hopelessness.
"Lynn needs time... She's been through so much." She said as she looked upstairs once more.
"Way too much... Luckily we never had to see what she did."
Lincoln opened his door a crack and peered across at the shared room of Lynn and Lucy, stark concern cloaked his hazel eyes.
Inside the dimly lit bedroom, Lynn switched off her football lamp, and slammed herself onto her bed, too tired to stay awake, but far too miserable for sleep she was alerted to the shuffling from her younger sister's bed and a chilling sigh from behind her.
"I take it you talked to him..." Lucy said with her deadpan voice.
Lynn turned to look back at her gothic sister then turned back to face the wall.
"If you want to talk, I'll be in my usual spot..."
Lynn said nothing only reached under her pillows for a Nike box, one much smaller than a typical shoe box, she held the box firmly in her embrace, she sighed then closed her eyes briefly she pulled out her cell phone once more and looked at a message she had saved in drafts, then put it away. The bedroom door opened a crack and a blonde haired girl walked in wearing a teal night shirt.
"Lynn? Are you okay?" She asked innocently. "Your big sister's here, anything you want to say to me?" She frowned at Lynn's silence yet she tried hard to think of what to say to her.
"Sweetie, I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I know when my family needs me, Lynn you're my sister, so I guess thats means you're my family, and you need all of us."
She lain behind Lynn and rested her head on her little sister's shoulder attempting to comfort her forlorn sibling.
"I have know idea what you're feeling right now, but I know that what you was put through is horrible, and I wouldn't want anyone else to go through what you did."
Leni stroked her younger sister's hair then kissed her cheek.
"I'll let you get some sleep, just remember.. we all love you Lynn."
Her older sister's words made her chin tremble, touched by what she had to say she listened for Leni to leave the room, before looking at her message one last time, with tears welling up in her eyes she typed on her phone's messenger then tapped save draft, afterward she wept silently into her pillow as if faced with a difficult choice with Lucy listening in from above.
Lynn looked at her phone now fully charged, the lock screen showing 3:15am seeing this Lynn sat up from her bed still fully dressed. She grabbed the box from her bed and shoved it into the pocket of her oversized dark gray hoodie, using her stealth skills she sneaked down stairs, then past the living room, and into the kitchen, where she grabbed bottles of water and placed them in her hoodie. After grabbing what she needed, she exited through the back door.
Once she made her way up the street she looked back at her home cluttered with various litter from 11 children. She pulled the hood up over her head, and cinched the drawstrings minimizing exposure of her face. As she walked away she thought about the past, the fun she had with her family when they went on their outings, visiting their grandfather, her sporting events, her friends, but it remained as reflection, any joy that she had was now gone.
"I'm sorry..." She thought as she turned off from Franklin Avenue, and readied to make her way into town.
"Yes, over a day now!" Rita exclaimed on her cell phone at a dispatch caller.
"Well that's not good enough! Find my daughter goddammit!" She quickly ended the call out of frustration.
Soon Lori and Bobby walked in back temporarily from college.
"Literally everyone there knows about Lynn now... And all of our numbers are listed." Lori said, clearly out of breath.
"Thanks, both of you..." Rita said as she sat at the kitchen table.
Seconds later Lincoln, Clyde, Ronnie Anne, and Lucy walk in with stacks upon stacks of missing person flyers, followed by Luan, Lana, Lola, and Lisa each carrying a stack.
"More on the way..." Lincoln said with a short breath, his voice having dropped over the recent months.
"Thanks honey, let's look at them." Rita said as she taken one of the flyers from her son's stack. The center of the paper a picture of Lynn from the last year wearing her white and red jersey with the number 1 on the center, she pridefully grasped her aluminum baseball bat and had a bright and confident smile one she had not shown in a long time. Rita skimmed over each picture bordering the center one that made up the collage, and the longer she looked the further her heart broke.
"We asked Polly if she knew where she'd be, and she got on her roller blades and took off looking for her." Lincoln added.
"Hey buddy, we're going to go look again, maybe we'll find her." Clyde said as Ronnie Anne frantically ran ahead of him.
"Ok, let me know of anything no matter how trivial." Lincoln said with distress.
In town, Luna, Sam, and their friend Corey pass out flyers in the lobby of the mall to each and every person entering and exiting.
"Hey! Have you seen this girl!? She's my little sister, please let us know if you see her!" Luna said with her gravely voice riddled with fear which elevated with some of the people passing showing little concern.
"Yes, you can call any of those numbers! Please help the Louds!" Sam exclaimed as she shared her girlfriend's concern.
As the two girls pass out the flyers, even attempting to give one to customers that already had one due to their rattled nerves.
"Luna! Sam!" A young man's voice projected from the mob of mall goers.
Luna and Sam both look to see their friend Corey escorting a middle aged woman through the dense crowd.
"This lady... She said she's seen Lynn!" He said as he adjusted his glasses and fixed his messy frosty purple hair.
"You have!?" Luna exclaimed as she quickly darted to the woman with graying hair.
"Ma'am please! Where did you see her? Was she ok!?" Though Luna was shaking the woman lightly it didn't aggravate her in the slightest for she understood that she was panicked about the situation.
"I seen her the day before yesterday, she looked like she was leaving the football field." The revelation made Luna's anxiety much worse than before, causing her to leave abruptly.
"Thank you ma'am, could you please call any of the numbers on the flyer if you see her again?" Sam asked politely.
"Of course, and could you give your friend my deepest apologies?"
"Yes, thanks again." Sam said as she turned to join Luna.
"Thank you." Corey said likewise.
Luna sat outside of the mall, leaned against a light pole her shaking hands struggling to light her cigarette. Sam and Corey soon arrived to where their distressed friend was.
"Just fucking light will ya!" Luna exclaimed.
Sam then grabbed the cigarette and the lighter from her, and lit it for her shaken girlfriend. She took a drag and passed it back to her.
"Luv, you've gotta stop smoking those... They'll wreck your chords!" Sam said after she exhaled the mentholated vapor.
Corey took out his vapor pen and clicked the button five times until the led blinked twice, he then took a long drag as he held the button. Both girls took notice of the sweet smelling cloud he exhaled.
"What flavor is that dude?" Luna asked as she took in the scent of vanilla and mixed berry.
"I call it blizzard of ozz." He answered as he took another drag.
"Not too shabby mate..." Sam added.
Sam and Luna took a few more drags from the shared cigarette before the brown haired rocker grinded the butt beneath her boot. Luna then rested her head on Sam's shoulder where she stroked Luna's pixie cut hair comforting her heartbroken girlfriend.
"Where could she be Sam?" She asked.
"I dunno... I honestly don't know babe..."
Corey looked at his friends lost and without any words to help Luna. He took off his glasses and hooked them to his shirt collar.
Back at the Loud house, a police car pulls up to the curb in front and two officers step out, the driver was a portly, middle aged man sporting a mustache and grays peppered his brown hair. The passenger was a fit man with fair complexion, in his mid to late twenties. They walked up to the porch.
"Phipps and Brosco following up on a missing child call from 1216 Franklin Avenue." The portly man said through his two way radio.
The younger officer made it to the front door quicker than the other then waited for him to make his way up the creaky steps. He rang the doorbell only to receive a jolt from the faulty switch.
"Fuck!" The officer quietly shouted as he tried to shake the feeling back to his finger.
"Yeah, should have warned you about that Brosco." Officer Phipps said with a chuckle at the expense of his fellow officer.
"Ugh, that smarts..." Brosco said with slight frustration as he knocked loudly on the door.
Lynn sr. rushed to the door knowing the police were on there way, he held on to hope that they had found his daughter safe and sound. He opened the door to see both officers standing patiently.
"Mr. Loud?" Brosco opened.
"Yes."
"I'm officer Adam Brosco, and this is officer Mark Phipps, we're with Royal Woods police department juvenile division. May we come in?" Brosco followed politely and calmly, remaining sensitive to the family's situation.
"Of course, my wife and I were sitting in the dining room, would that be okay?" Lynn sr asked.
"That's fine."
They walked in to see chaos left from the younger children playing. Phipps noticed the damaged trophy case with some of the trophies missing and some tarnished by blunt force.
"Honey, these officers want to talk to us." He said calmly to his wife as she looked at photographs of their missing middle daughter, from the time of her birth, to the last few months a span of fourteen years.
"Did you find her!?" Rita exclaimed. "Please! Please tell me she's okay!"
"Ma'am I'm gonna ask you to calm down!" Phipps commented without regard to the state of the grief stricken mother. Brosco put his hand on Phipps shoulder then gave him a look that stated not now .
"Mrs. Loud? Mind if we sit?" The young police officer asked politely.
"Of course not, sit anywhere you'd like." Said Rita. Both officers sat in the seats across from the distressed parents.
"Mrs. Loud, I'm officer Adam Brosco juvenile division. I just want to start with the call that dispatch received, one Lynn Loud jr. fourteen year old female, brown hair, brown eyes. Missing since yesterday morning... I assume this is correct?" He asked in a calm professional manner.
"Yes officer." Rita replied trying hard to maintain.
"From the time of the first call, this didn't allow much time that's one reason we couldn't start sooner with our search, because in cases with missing people you need to wait twenty four hours before calling us, with teenagers especially since it's a time where they tend to become rebellious." He added.
"You need to understand officer Brosco, she had been through alot of stress the last four months! That's why it's so important that we find her as fast as we can!" She exclaimed.
Perplexed, the officers looked at the photographs and noticed distinct differences between them more so with the most recent ones taken.
"What kind of stress? If you don't mind telling us... It should help us in the search." Brosco calmly and confidently requested.
The evening faded to twilight, Lynn sat in a overflow drain in a canal west of her home, with her mobile data disabled, it made searching for her through her cell phone nigh impossible. She looked at her alerts to see over fifty text messages and forty missed calls all within half a day.
Instantly her phone received an emergency notification, an amber alert was issued meaning that she wouldn't be able to hide for long. She opened the box only to get choked up from it's contents.
"I, I can't..." She said to herself her voice weak and mousey a far cry from her formerly bold and confident one.
She put away the box in her hoodie pouch and pulled the hood to cover her face yet again. She then began her trek into the darkened town.
Brosco and Phipps both sighed obviously disturbed by the clues revealed to them. Brosco clenched the coffee mug and looked up at Mr and Mrs Loud with a look of familiarity.
"I see... And with all that building and mounting stress and pressure..."
"Yes, the trip to the hospital that night it destroyed her, hour after hour, day after day, she just fell apart right in front of us." Rita explained in frightening recollection.
"She stopped playing sports, she withdrew from us, all in such a short time." Lynn sr added.
"And she straight up refused therapy?" Phipps asked, completely shocked by the revelation.
Noticing that the couple were beyond their threshold for questioning Brosco took a flyer printed by the family, and gazed upon it.
"Mr and Mrs Loud, we have all we need. I'm sure you both need time alone with your children. We'll be sure to call you with any findings." Brosco assured them. Then stood from the chair followed closely by Phipps.
"Good night." Said Phipps as he tipped his cap.
As the two officers prepared to leave, seven of the ten children accounted for stampeded through only to slow their pace to the leaving officers.
"Sorry officers!" The white haired boy said as he cleared the doorway for Brosco and Phipps.
"You must be the siblings." Said the young officer.
"Only some of us mate!" Luna said in her false British accent.
"We have to head back, your parents can tell you anything you want to know." Said Phipps as he exited the house.
"But we literally want to know about Lynn!" Lori said in outrage.
"An amber alert was issued, that's all we can do for now." Said Brosco as Lincoln and his sisters gathered around him.
"I promise we will find her..."
The mob of Louds walked away in disappointment, some left upstairs and others went to the dining room to join their parents. As Brosco turned to leave, he slipped on a rogue banana peel and stumbled to his knees.
"So does this mean we'll see you next fall ?" Luan poked her head out of the doorway and giggled at her own pun. "Get it!?"
She then quickly joined her sisters and parents, Brosco only shook his head at the behavior of the jokester girl. Soon he joined Phipps in the car, the squeak of the leather seats filled the small space.
"You know that girl is dead right?" Phipps bluntly commented right as Brosco took his seat behind the steering wheel.
"You don't know that Phipps, you seen the look on their faces." He said as he folded the flyer and slid it into his uniform shirt pocket.
"Parents make her participate in sports, gets overextended, makes mistakes, parents get angry, kills the girl out of rage, feels bad, then throws her body where it can't be found until it starts rotting. Open and shut Brosco! Happens all the time. And those hooligans are in on it too did you see how they acted?"
"Do you have any siblings Phipps?" Brosco asked as he looked at a picture of himself and a girl taken the year 2003.
"Only child... Why?" He asked.
"Then don't jump to rash, and frankly idiotic conclusions! Everyone in this town knows that this girl is a sports fanatic, the more she plays the better for her. And a girl of that much energy and enthusiasm, to suffer such a terrible fate, isn't just traumatic to the individual, that trauma effects the entire family." He suddenly fell silent gaining a look of concern from his partner.
"You okay?" He asked.
"We have to find her Phipps, alive or dead, her family needs this."
The streets now vacant, Lynn takes advantage of the still and walks freely. She takes notice of a tall and lanky young man standing at the side of Gus's Games n' Grub. He glanced up and nodded signaling the hooded girl over to him. She walked quickly over and hidden herself in the shadows.
"Interested in anything pharmacy grade? I have it all..." The shady character approached Lynn.
"Is it free?" She asked.
"Ain't nothing for free anymore man..." He said with his voice evident of his burnout nature.
"I need something whatever you got."
He looked her over from head to foot and realized that he was dealing with a girl and a smile of carnal glee stretched across his acne ridden face.
"Well... If you're broke, and you really need a fix..." He said with an overload of confidence. He then pulled a small square package from his pocket.
"We could take this around back... If you know what I mean.."
Though she was mentally and emotionally drained, Lynn knew full well what he wanted and the wrapped condom he held was evidence to confirm her suspicions.
"I'll hold off kicking your ass long enough for you to come up with a different payment method!"
With her harsh words, he quickly put away the profalactive. And he soon thought of a solution.
"Tell you what, I'll give you a 'sampler' for just a feel of skin... No strings attached!" He said with a wink.
Though not much better of a choice, she thought long and hard before nodding her head in agreement.
She turned facing him and he faced her, she loosened her hood then allowed his hand to slip under her clothing, where he gently fondled her breasts, and ran his fingers over her nipples. Quickly she pulled away and cinched up her hood once again.
"Not bad... Here ya go... Enjoy." He commented as he handed her a tiny zip lock bag with various narcotic pills, she grabbed it from him then walked away.
"Hey, just so you know, I'll give you a hundred more in exchange for a good time!" He said to her as he laughed. His words left a sour feeling in her stomach, then overcame by nausea she choked back the urge to vomit then continued to wander.
But what the dealer wasn't aware of, the pills he bartered to the troubled girl wasn't simply to give her a high, it was instead one that would be her undoing.
Upon reaching the park, she hidden herself within the dense tree covered borders, where she waited for dawn, unable to sleep, unable to close her eyes without hearing deafening, bloodcurdling screams of agony.