Page 2 of Merciless Prince
The scream was so guttural that I couldn’t tell if it came from a man or woman. All I knew was that it was the kind of raw, agonized sound that tore from the lungs of someone who was in a world of pain.
“Hello?” I tentatively called out, voice almost cracking with fear. “Who’s there?”
There was another scream, but no response beyond that. Then there was a faint choking sound followed by a series of short shrieks and a shrill ‘Please! Stop it!’.
My blood ran cold. It sounded like a woman was being tortured, all the way over on the other side of the dungeon. I wasn’t sure exactly how far this hellhole extended because it was so dark, but considering how distant the screams sounded, I figured it had to stretch at least a hundred yards to my left and right.
I took a deep breath, did my best to swallow my dread, and got up on shaky legs. Then I slowly stepped into the darkness, heading in the direction of the noise. Perhaps this was some sort of test, and someone was watching me from a hidden camera to see if I would do anything to help the person in pain.
“Hello?” I called out again. “Where are you?”
There was another faint scream, but still no indication that the person had heard me. After that, all the sounds died away. I couldn’t go any farther into the dungeon to investigate, because the chain around my foot only stretched about ten feet in any direction.
I returned to the pillar, heart aching with fear. As I slumped down, my chain clanked against the cold ground, echoing throughout the space. That sound was followed by a series of thuds.
I sat up straight again. Someone was coming.
An icy shiver shot up my spine, and my heart beat faster and faster with each passing second. The heavy footsteps drew closer and closer, until a man came into view. A familiar man, with a strong angular jaw and thick dark hair.
He looked down at me and smirked, eyes lit with malevolent amusement. “Hi, Shay. Are you ready?”
1
Shay
Eight weeksearlier
“In the last fifty years,over a hundred hitchhikers and tourists have disappeared in the Bellingham Triangle without a trace. Seven students from the university, too.” My best friend Cori’s voice was tinged with excitement as she slowly read aloud from her phone. “Isn’t that crazy?”
I turned my head away from the train window and looked at her, forehead wrinkling. “What’s the Bellingham Triangle?”
Cori’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“We’re literally moving to Bellingham for the next few years and you’ve never heard of the Triangle?”
I gave her a blank look and lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “I thought I knew everything about the place, but I guess not.”
Cori rolled her eyes. “I swear you live under a rock sometimes.” She returned her attention to her phone and typed something into Google. Then she clicked on the first link that popped up and handed the phone to me. “Here. This article explains more than the other one.”
My skin prickled with curiosity as I started to read.
The Bellingham Triangle, also known as the Vanishing Triangle, is a loosely-defined region in upstate New York where a number of people are known to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The Triangle includes the township of Bellingham, the sprawling Bellingham University campus on its outskirts, the 17,086-acre Bellingham State Park, and other surrounding areas.
The rate of missing persons in this region is over eight times the US national average and over fifteen times the average of other areas in New York State. With its small population, it is the per capita disappearance capital of the country.
Here’s some facts and figures to prove this claim.
Every year in the United States, over 600,000 people are reported missing. The vast majority of those people are later found—usually alive. Only a very small number remain missing. As of this year, New York State has 606 people still missing; a rate of 3.1 disappearances per 100,000 people, compared with the national average of 6.1 per 100,000. However, if we focus solely on the Bellingham Triangle area of New York State, we can see that an average of two people vanish from the area every single year. That doesn’t sound like much, but considering the relatively-small population, it makes the statistical disappearance rate jump all the way to 49.8 per 100,000. That figure is even higher than the country’s highest state disappearance rate—48.1 per 100,000 in Alaska.
So what on Earth is going on in this Triangle?
Popular culture has attributed many of the disappearances to the paranormal. Others claim it is due to the activity of extraterrestrial beings. However, police investigators and other reputable sources have dismissed the idea that there is any mystery.
Due to the area’s vast amount of wilderness and the high number of hikers and tourists that pass through every year, it has been theorized that most of the missing people became lost or stranded—most likely in the state park—and eventually died of exposure. Others may have drowned while swimming in one of the region’s many lakes. While tragic, there is nothing mysterious about these particular explanations. Furthermore, due to the remoteness of many areas in the park and animal predation, finding bodies can be difficult, especially when many of the vanished people aren’t reported missing for several days after they are last heard from by friends and family members.
It is strange, however, that none of the bodies have ever been found.
