By Dane Gonser

Tonganoxie Junior High School

My cousin Terry was taking us home from Maya’s Halloween party when we heard the front tire blow out. We got out to take a look. Terry scowled at the tire; he could not believe his eyes. The tire of the new Chevy pickup looked as though it had gone through a meat grinder. The warped metal and shredded tire made him wonder what could do such a thing, but then he shivered as the icy winds tore the forest over the narrow strip of barren road they were traveling on.

“How did we get lost?” he said to himself.

Just a few hours ago, we had been at Maya’s party having a good time with all of his friends. Now, three hours later and coming up on midnight, we were stuck out in the wilderness with no way to get help.

“We should go and find someone who can help us,” I said.

“We do need to get help, and I don’t know what happened to the wheel, but it’s not going anywhere. I’ll walk down the road and see if I can find some help,” Terry announced.

And with that, he was gone.

As the three of us waited in the truck, we turned on the radio thinking it would calm our nerves. Jeff scanned the stations, finding only one. The low, static-filled sound of bluegrass music filtered into the truck, and we listened for a while as the music played softly.

Then, suddenly, a loud, clear voice came on and announced, “Attention, we have alarming reports of a convict who escaped a federal prison. This man is a killer and a madman. People in the local area need to take high alert: lock your doors, bolt your windows, and don’t go out if possible. Police have reports of many disturbing carvings, which no one could make out, all over the cell in which he escaped. Please take high alert, more reports later.”

You could cut the tension with a knife. Jenna had a horrified look on her face and she looked out the window into the dense forest, as if it were a prison itself.

Just as I was about to nod off, and what seemed like hours later, I heard a shrill scream from Jenna.

“There is someone in the road!”

She was right.

Dazed, I focused on a hunched figure through the fog, coming toward the truck. Thoughts raced through my head and I remembered the gun behind the seat. I grabbed the gun, and we jumped out.

Jeff yelled, “Terry, is that you?”

No response.

Once again he yelled, “Terry, is that you?”

Then, trembling with fear, I squeezed the trigger, and the figure hit the cold pavement.

We reluctantly approached the body, turned it over, and with a shock realized it was Terry.

He lie there with a gunshot wound and slash wounds covering his arms, neck and torso. We stood there and looked down at him, at the slash wounds and we wondered what had happened to him.

Then, all of the sudden, we heard a branch crack from behind the truck. We exploded into the woods with panic and the horror of not knowing what had made the noise.

Minutes after taking off into the woods, we came before a hill and at the top of it was a small cabin. We wandered up and opened the door, thinking we could spend the night.

I fumbled around for a light switch, and realized that there was none to be found. I came across an old rusty lantern and some matches and lit it. As the light cascaded across the walls, deep carvings were illuminated and struck us with terror. I rotated the lantern around, and all three walls we were facing were covered with incomprehensible carvings.

We all three looked at each other in shock, and I recognized the smell of a lit cigar. I whipped around and the light of the lantern showed the face of a large man standing in the corner with glaring eyes and a bloody ax in his hands …

Bret Koch

Tonganoxie Junior High

Eighth grade

My cousin Terry was driving us home from Maya’s Halloween party when I heard our front tire blow out. We pulled over on a lonely stretch of road and got out to examine the wheel. Sticking out from the side of the tire was a small silver gleam. At first I thought it was a nail, but when I approached the tire I noticed it was a small bullet. Someone had shot the tire!

“What do you think we should do?” Terry asked with a quizzical look upon her face. We all had the same blank stare.

“I would call for help, but…”

I was cut off in mid-sentence when my phone began to vibrate. I had received a text message. The text message read:

Dear Brett,

I have the gun that shot your tire. I just thought I would tell you that this gun can and will shoot people if I don’t get what I want. What I want isn’t money; I want the head of your fellow traveler, Terry!!!”

“Oh, no!” I breathed.

“We should just start walking,” Terry announced. “I mean it’s not like staying here is going to help us any. If we start walking, maybe we will find a house or something.”

So we began to walk down the long stretch of grave road. We had been walking for what seem like days, but was only a couple of hours when we came upon a mansion. We thought it was kind of weird for a house of this elegance to be in the middle of a deserted road, but we would have been just as happy to find a creaky shack.

We walked up the steps, and I put my hand around the knocker. Not long after the knocker touched the door, it was opened by a man who looked very gentle and caring.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Terry spoke up. “Just this past night I was bringing my cousin home from a Halloween party and the tire blew out on my car. I thought I had a spare tire with me, but I forgot I had taken it to a nearby shop to get fixed. At first we thought a nail had popped it, but when you get down close to the tire there is a bullet halfway through the tire.”

“Well, it’s only 7:30 in the morning and the tire store isn’t open yet. I suppose you could just stay here until the tire shop opens at noon,” the man who introduced himself as Dennis said with a smile.

But it wasn’t the type of smile that made you feel warm and safe, it was the type of smile that creeps you out and makes your stomach turn.

We walked in Dennis’ house and it was the most wonderful looking place you could ever imagine. Terry politely asked where she could find the bathroom.

He said, “Upstairs and to the right and it will be the fourth door on your left.” When she turned the corner, things got bitter.

At first we were all silent and then Dennis made a move. He jumped off the couch he had been lounging on and made a move toward Ashley, my fraternal twin sister. She moved just as hastily as Dennis and sent him soaring into the loveseat. I jumped up and ran upstairs hysterically trying to find Terry. I went to the fourth door on the left and found Terry’s manipulated and mangled body. There was blood all over the bathroom and the point of a jagged knife hand found its way into Terry’s heart, with a note attached. The note read:

YOU HAVE ENTERED THE HOUSE OF BTK … YOU WILL NOT LIVE ANY LONGER!!

I had no time to think, I had to find Ashley and we had to get out of there. I found her in the kitchen, but she wasn’t alone. I snuck up behind Dennis and pushed him in the back. He stumbled and Ashley and I ran to the front room and without turning back, flew out the door.

We were running back the way we had came. My cell phone began to vibrate and I flipped it open to see whom the text was from. I read it aloud to Ashley:

YOU LITTLE PUNKS MAY HAVE ESCAPED THIS TIME, BUT I WILL FIND YOU AGAIN. BTK!!

What my sister and I didn’t know is that we had just escaped the serial killer, Dennis Rader, aka, BTK!!