Chapter 4: More Disappearances

As the days and weeks went on and the weather continued to turn colder, Thomas settled into his usual routine of helping his father around the homestead and spending his mornings and early afternoons in his classes at the Derry Schoolhouse. It was hard to act like everything was normal though, because more local children had either gone missing or been found dead. Of course, almost a dozen children had gone missing from last summer until now, but 7-year old Peter Townsend was the first to be found dead. He had last been seen heading for the banks of the Kenduskeag stream to look for crayfish, and that was where he was found the next day, torn apart and partially eaten by some unknown animal. The other children were assumed to be runaways, but the remains of the Townsend boy were a sign to those who paid attention, a sign that Derry's youth were not safe from harm. It had caused the parents in Derry to be more watchful of their children, and Thomas' mother and father were no exception. Thomas was not to walk home from school by himself anymore because his father picked him up and walked him home everyday, and he was no longer allowed to play by himself in the Barrens. It was for good reason, because over the last month, four more children were found dead in different parts of the Barrens, and they had all been horribly mutilated by some unknown assailant.

It started on September 3rd, just a day after Thomas and his father made the trip to chop wood. A local woman, Ms. Evans, was on an afternoon walk when she spotted a severed foot along the bank of the Canal, which was the part of the Kenduskeag River which passed through the town center of Derry. Horrified, she reported it to the town Marshal and at that point the subsequent investigation revealed that the severed foot belonged to a young child, and a further search led to the remains of a child, later confirmed to be 9-year old Daniel Wilson. The remains were found just within the Barrens near Pasture Road. His parents reported that he had left for school that day just like always, but he never arrived at school. It was speculated that he had been killed near the Canal and dragged under the water until the body washed out in the Barrens. It could not be speculated whom or what had attacked him. His parents were devastated and went to stay with family in Bangor, donating their possessions to the local church and sold their home near Witcham Street to the Derry Town Council.

Two days later on September 5th, 8-year old Nicholas Robertson was found decapitated next to a tree less than 100 yards from where the Wilson boy was found. In addition to missing the head, the legs of the body also appeared to have been partially eaten, as the left leg was stripped of its flesh and muscles down to the bone. The Robertson boy was determined to have been the victim of an attack by an unknown animal, possibly a bear or a bobcat. The boy was survived by his father, 49-year old Samuel Robertson, who was Derry's chronic town drunk. He committed suicide a week later by hanging himself.

On September 19th, 11-year old Billy Drake and his younger brother 10-year old Timothy Drake were reported missing by their parents after they did not return home from school. Their school teacher reported that the brothers had been in classes that day as normal and were headed down Jackson Street back toward their house. Their bodies were found by railroad workers arriving for the early shift the next morning at the Derry Train Yard. The scene was one of horror, as the boys had both been torn to pieces and their remains were scattered around a 50 square foot area in the dirt lot near the edge of the train yard. The attack was determined to have taken place in the late afternoon, leading the town Marshal and his deputy to believe that the boys had been kidnapped somewhere between the schoolhouse and their house sometime after school had been dismissed for the day, and had been held by their kidnapper until early evening, where they were most likely taken to the Train Yard and killed. What further troubled and confounded the investigators was the fact that the remains of both boys appeared to have been partially eaten in addition to being mutilated. After the discovery of the remains of the Drake brothers, a wave of fear and foreboding gripped the population of Derry. It was now evident that something far more sinister was taking place than simple animal attacks.

The common element of all of the deaths was the fact that not one person reported seeing or hearing anything at all out of the ordinary.