The Roy boys are missing. 

“Three members of the Mt. Pleasant High School Varsity football team are missing.” Read the headlines of the Mt. Pleasant Weekly.

By Friday, everyone in town had heard about the mysterious disappearance of three Mt. Pleasant High School Varsity football players.

At first, Mr. and Mrs. Roy weren’t concerned when the high school Principal called them to let them know that the boys hadn’t shown up for homeroom that morning. The Roys were no longer deeply concerned if the boys were missing for a couple days. The boys often would spend the night in the adjacent woods, sometimes breaking into one of the empty summer cabins. The Roy boys would join other boys to drink and smoke pot and once in a while, snort cocaine. Neither boy wanted to jeopardize his chance for a football scholarship, so hard drugs were prohibited because both brothers believed football was their only way out of Mt. Pleasant. Hard drugs were prohibitive, but consuming large amounts of alcohol seemed a rite of passage.

Donny, at 18, weighed 235 and was 6’5” tall. ‘The Brick’ was a clear candidate for a football career, if he could manage his anger. His discipline problems made everyone tiptoe around his sullen moods. He was considered dangerous on the street–deadly on the playing field. Donny did whatever Stone told him to do. Stone kept control of his big brother and kept him out of trouble whenever he could intervene.

It was Stone who was the dangerous brother. Quick-witted, but always a little on edge, ready to manipulate circumstances for himself and his brother’s best interest–in Stone’s mind. Stone was one of those broken human beings where the humanity part of good behavior was absent in his intentions. He never showed any sympathy for weakness of mind or body. He had no empathy for another being’s pain. He once shot a neighbor’s cat just to watch it die.

Both boys were considered good looking. Both boys were always well dressed, needing nothing as their parents both worked hard to provide for their sons what they never had when they were young. The high school Booster Club made sure that members of the team had new sport jackets each season, new equipment on the playing field and a new training facility with weights and strength building equipment available to all members of the Varsity and Junior Varsity basketball, baseball, soccer, track and football teams.

The football players appeared in the local parade at Homecoming, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Booster Club would sponsor floats and convertibles for the team members to ride in and wave to the fans and neighbors.The high school band with the cheerleaders participated. Football was nearly everything to the local community. They identified themselves with the high school Varsity’s win/loss record. They donated their money to the sports department rather than the church. Football was their religion.

When the news was clear that three members of the football team had disappeared, volunteer search parties began to grid the immediate areas and members from the town and the church began to scour the adjacent woods. Curtis’ neon vest that he had loaned to Christian that night was found in pieces, the left shoulder of the vest was ragged as though fire had scorched it and blew the neon cloth apart. There was no DNA, or evidence of blood to test–the storm had washed it away.

The police called Curtis twice into the police station to question him about the night Christian had disappeared. Curtis was one of the last people to have seen him. 

“Tell me again what you and Christian were doing the night of his disappearance.” The Sheriff had Curtis and his Dad in one of the interview rooms at the police station. A table and chairs were the only furniture. Curtis’ Dad sat next to his son, but said nothing. He could not answer what time Curtis had come in. Mr. Mason told the officers that he had fallen asleep and hadn’t heard Curtis come home.

“Christian and I went to Denny’s after the church meeting. We got something to eat and we left the restaurant in time for Christian to pick up a prescription for his mother. I dropped him off at the pharmacy–I offered him a ride back to the church, but Christian wanted to run home. I left him at the pharmacy just before midnight, then I went home.” Curtis is starting to stutter.

“Why did it take you so long to get home? The Sheriff tried to sound thorough with his questions.

“The rain. I was three miles from home when it started raining so hard that I couldn’t see the road from the ditch. I pulled over and put on my blinkers in case a car came along, but that time of night, the road has little traffic.”

“What did you two talk about for almost two hours? Was Christian depressed? What do you think was the reason for his disappearance?” The Sheriff watched Curtis’ face as he tried to answer without stuttering which made his stuttering worse, and more suspicious.

“Did Christian have any enemies?” The Sheriff goes down his list of prepared questions.

“No. I mean, not that I’ve seen. Christian was kind. He was kind to everybody.” Curtis can barely say a word without hesitating in slow syllables.

“Christian wasn’t depressed–in fact, he was happy. We talked, well, Christian talked, mostly. I listened. Christian never seemed depressed. We talked about football. We talked about the church meeting that we had just attended. We talked, rather, he talked about religion and school after high school. Christian talked a lot about religion and about Enoch.” Curtis took painfully long to stutter through his answer. 

“Who the hell is Enoch?” The Sheriff turned to look at Christian’s parents, who were sitting in a row of chairs along the back wall. Both seemed in a daze, coming into the station with Curtis and his father for emotional support, hoping for a clue to Christian’s whereabouts.  

“Enoch is mentioned in the Old Testament. He was the seventh son of Adam and Eve.” Moses answered in his reverend voice. Christian had never mentioned Enoch to his Dad before, but he knew that Christian was well read about the characters in the Bible. He grew up listening to Bible stories as bedtime stories since he was small.

“What was the last thing Christian said to you?” The Sheriff cannot think of what else to ask.

“He reminded me that we have an algebra test, second period.”

The first game of the season was less than a week away. Reverend Carlton had been invited to become the team chaplain. He would lead the team in a prayer in the locker room before each game. Moses was popular with the football team. That’s how he became involved with the Roy boys attending 100 church services in lieu of a felony charge and spending some jail time, which possibly would have ended the opportunity for either brother to qualify for a football scholarship.

No one had a clue about where the missing boys could be.