text: Section 1: Voices “But mom I don’t want to go outside it’s so hot,” ten-year-old Gordon whined. “It’s the summertime, in my day all we did was play outside,” Gordon’s mom Patricia said. “Agh, fine,” Gordon said enthusiastically. Gordon walked into the garage that was stale with hot humidity. He grabbed both grips of his dark purple GT Mountain bike and walked his back to the end of the driveway. Gordon looked back, and saw he forgot to close the garage door, he rushed back to close it. It was so hot outside just that act made his forehead sweaty. Gordon got on his bike and pedaled away. Once Gordon arrived at the local playground, he looked around and saw it was a ghost town. The town of Aferton was in a drought, and the grass was dry and yellowing. The dirt that the playground was centered it was blowing around and crunched when Gordon stepped foot on it. The slides were green plastic, the swings seats were black rubber, but the Mary go-round was metal. Gordon tried the Mary go round first, but once he grabbed the red metal handles he immediately had to let go. “Ow!” He said to himself, the metal handle felt like it was two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Gordon decided to move to the green plastic tube slide, and after a couple of slides down he go bored. Gordon went back to his back that he seat down, and was about to leave until he heard the rusty swings moving back and forth. Gordon looked up and saw the four swings in the set moving back and forth all on their own. Gordon’s skin broke out in goosebumps, the wind picked up to fifteen miles per hour, and the air suddenly felt twenty degrees cooler. “Run” A kid's voice shouted. Gordon quickly began to make a 360-degree movement, looking around for anyone else at the playground. “You have to leave they are coming!” The voice cried out again. Gordon looked around, and the Mary go round now began to spin itself very quickly. “They want to hurt you just like they hurt me!” The voice cried out again. Gordon was now panicking, he rushed to his bike but slipped on the dry dusty dirt. Gordon looked and saw he skinned his elbow, but at the moment that was the least of his worries. Gordon hopped on his bike pedaling faster than he ever had before. Gordon looked back and the things happening at the playground stopped once he was only within ten feet away. Gordon took a deep breath and finished his ride home. “Done already? You were only gone thirty minutes,” Gordon’s mom asked as Gordon entered the kitchen. “Yeah,” gordon said. “Did you have fun?” His mom asked. “Yeah sure I guess,” he said nonchalantly. Gordon thought to himself, “Do I really want to tell her what I just saw? She would keep me locked inside forever,” “Want a Gatorade?” His mom asked. “No I’m ok,” Gordon said now rushing to his room. Once in there, he had an inner debate with himself. “Do I go back and figure out what all that was about or do I forget about it?” He thought. Gordon suddenly began to have a pounding headache, the room got frigid. “Don’t go back to the playground!” A child’s voice cried out in his head, it was the same voice he heard earlier at the park. “Who are you?” Gordon called out to his empty room, he wondered if he was going crazy. “They stock that playground, I was not the first kid, and I won’t be the last unless we work together to stop them,” the voice said. “They’ve been doing it for years, and have still not been caught,” the voice continued. “I am going crazy, I just know it,” Gordon said to himself. “Why won’t you tell me who you are?” Gordon asked curiously. “My name is Donny, when I was eleven I was kidnapped and then killed later that night at the same playground you go to, it happened 15 years ago,” Donny continued, “I have an idea, but I’ll need your help,” Donny had said. Section 2: The Kidnapping 15 years before Gordon was born, an eleven-year-old boy named Donny was taken right from the same playground Gordon now played at. Two men drove up to the side of the park in a beat-up painter's van, the one on the passenger side hopped out and ran towards Donny as the other quickly opened the back door. Donny began to panic and darted toward his bike. Donny thought he was going to be able to get away, and then he felt big hands on his shoulder. “No!” Donny screamed. “Shut up!” The kidnapper said holding his hand over Donny’s mouth. Donny tried to yell out “Help!”, but it was just muffled. The guy who grabbed Donny threw him in the back as the other made a hearty laugh, and slammed the back door shut. “Where are you taking me!” Donny screamed. The two men laughed and hit the back door of the van hard. What Donny did not know was the pure evil these two men possessed. Donny would not know it till the time was up on his life. The men sped off making an audible tire screech as they did so. It was the middle of July in Texas, so the heat and humidity were unbearable. The two men left Donny in the back of the hot van and parked at their hideout for hours before returning to finish him. Donny awoke in the very early hours of the morning, first, he thought it had all been a terrible dream. Once he got acclimated to his surroundings he realized it was no dream. Donny had been tied up with a rope, had a cloth around his mouth and for extra precautions, the kidnapper's handcuffed his hands and shackled his ankles. Donny began to panic when he heard the kidnappers coming towards the van. They were not speaking in a loud tone but the sound of their shoes crunching on the gravel outside had been loud enough. “So what do you want to do with the kid,” one of the men asked the other. “What we do with all the other kids we’ve snatched up, torture them, and watch them scream,” the other man said with a chuckle. The two men walked around to the back of the van, and what little light there was from the street lights and the moon radiating in the sky blinded Donny as he glanced up at the two men. “Alright twerp time for your medicine,” one of them said. “You grab that side I’ll grab the feet,” the other guy said. What happened next to Donny was terrifying. The last thing Donny felt were the hot tears streaming down his face, and the pain as the kidnappers took his legs away from his body. Once the kidnapper finished their torcher they packed the dismantled limbs into a suitcase and threw it in the back of the van. The kidnappers always liked to bury bodies at the playground they kidnapped from, no one ever thought to look in those locations. They never understood why, and they didn’t plan on questioning it now. They also never understood why parents continued to allow the children to go to the playground alone, they had been at this for a couple of months and the disappearances from this park were all over the news. The kidnappers brought shovels with them as normal with this kind of thing they did. It was 3 A.M. and the town was still quietly asleep. As they approached the playground the kidnappers cut off the lights to the van. They hopped the curb and drove close to a set of woods that outlined the playground. The kidnappers began to dig the burial hole swiftly and would stop now and then for water breaks. This was the moment that always got their blood pumping, and gave them this high they would continue to chase for years. Section 3: Revenge It had been a couple of weeks since Gordon had last heard from or thought about Donny. Donny had told Gordon the story of what happened to him, and Gordon had stayed away from the playground. Today was the day that changed, and after today no child would go through what Donny went through. Donny and Gordon made a plan to catch the kidnappers once and for all, but Gordon didn’t know how horrific the act would be. “Are you ready for today?” Donny said to Gordon. “Yes,” Gordon said in a monotone shaky voice. “ I can feel them, they are going to be at the playground today I just know it,” Donny said with some excitement. With a tightly twisted stomach, Gordon went to the garaged and hopped on his bike. As Gordon got about five minutes from the park, he saw a van following him out of the corner of his eye. It was the kidnappers and Gordon felt it deep in his stomach. Gordon timidly stepped off his bike as he arrived at the playground, and began to play on the Mary go round. “They followed me all the way here,” Gordon said to the empty park praying Donny would follow through with the plan. There was no response from Donny to what Gordon had just said. “I have to be going crazy,” Gordon said shaking his head and looking down at the ground. Gordon was staring at the ground watching his shadow sway back and forth on the Mary go round. Gordon gasped as he saw two larger shadows appear overhead. Gordon looked up, “How are you doing kid?” One of the men said with a wide grin. “Let's get him!” The other side. Gordon began to crawl to the other side of the Mary go round. The kidnappers didn’t think to just go around to the other side and followed Gordon through the middle of the Mary go round. Gordon was able to exit the Mary go round first, and as soon as he did so the kidnappers were met with a big surprise. The Mary go round began to spin very quickly, Gordon guessed about 30 miles per hour, and this lasted for about ten minutes. The kidnappers began to cuss, and holler at Gordon telling him “Make it stop, and we will give you go easy on you at first,” The Mary go round stopped abruptly, and the two kidnappers went flying and landed right in front of the swing sets. The swing set now had two broken swings which hung by a single strand of metal rings for each swing. Once the kidnappers tried to stand up, their heads were swimming and their vision had doubled from being so dizzy. The chains from the swing set swung around the kidnapper's ankles. “What's going on here!” one of them yelled at Gordon, who was now watching with wide eyes. The kidnappers were dropped on their heads, and even though the kidnappers were in pain, they felt relief. The kidnappers took a while to get to their feet, but once they did they grinned at Gordon, “You are in big trouble mister,” one of the kidnappers said with an evil grin. As the two began to step forward they heard the clinking of the swing chains again. They turned around and this was when their lives finally came to an end. The hot metal chain quickly wrapped around the kidnapper's throat. Their eyes began to bulge out of their eye sockets, their faces turned a purplish red, and green veins began to pop. “This is for all the kids you've hurt!” Gordon screamed at the two kidnappers. Donny could feel their lives being drained from them, and once their lives met an end he dropped their bodies from the chain. Gordon was terrified after seeing two human beings murdered but knew it was necessary. “What happens now?” Gordon asked Donny. “You go home, tell your mother you never went to the park today, you decided to go to the library instead,” Donny said. “What about the bodies?” Gordon asked staring at the dead kidnappers. “Someone will see them and call the police eventually,” Donny said coldly. “The other children and I can now rest knowing these two won't hurt again,” Donny said. “I might have nightmares,” Gordon said as his eyes were still on the bodies. “Small price to pay for justice,” Donny said. That had been the last of Gordon’s communication with Donny. As Gordon slowly rode his bike home, deep in his mind he asked himself, “Was that the right thing to do?”