Whatever Happened to the Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline?

CALL LOGS
Angelia Rice was no saint. Not by a long shot.
But she got the job done. Always. And she always did 110%. That was just the sort of reporter she was.
So when she went missing mid-way through July I couldn?t help but be alarmed. When you?re running a small local station and you count on a star reporter like her, everything goes to **** when they don?t show up for work.
That was what got me digging into her latest obsession, Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline.
Or more specifically, the circumstances surrounding the recent liquidation of the Salem branch office.
That was the first red flag that told me she was really on to something and this wasn?t just another conspiracy theory. See, I was on the line with Angie when the incident went down; and I know for a fact that building wasn?t just torn down. But the world thinks differently. According to an official statement made by the new CEO of the company, the location was downsized due to lack of funds. And since there wasn?t any footage left to prove otherwise, that was the narrative that the world accepted.
But not Angie. She always dug deeper.
My investigation began about two weeks after her disappearance when I received a strange phone call from her cell phone. When I picked up though all I heard was heavy breathing. And then the line went dead about about a minute.
It was just long enough though for me to triangulate the call and tell me where she trying to get me to come.
Clearriver Washington. That gave me pause.
Not because I?m a superstitious person mind you, but because I knew enough about Brighter Futures to remember that this was where their first branch office was founded well over thirty years ago.
It had always been a place of local legend though, off the beaten path. Some even claimed it was cursed. Given the fact that now Angie was missing in the same locale, it didn?t take much for me to connect the dots back to Brighter Futures.
So I did what any good reporter would do and called in a few favors. Thankfully despite our floundering network sponsorship, I still have a few friends here and there that worked in the area.
?Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline huh? Yeah I?ve heard of it. That place was always getting calls from our department,? Tommy, a detective stationed in Evergrove; told me.
?Did you ever go to the Clearriver location?? I asked him. ?No I think it?s been closed down for years,? he admitted as he told me to hold while he took a call.
?Hey David, I was right. A buddy of mine says that it?s been renovated into a pharmaceutical storehouse now,? he told me.
?Do you know the name?? he asked.
?Auset, they?ve been around awhile. Nothing major. I think they specialize in fertility drugs and handling patients with ptsd,? Tommy told me.
?Why would Angie go there?? I wondered.
?Look; I know you?re worried about her but maybe she just took an extended vacation. She?s a grown woman, and besides there?s no way we could pinpoint exactly where she is in the county without a warrant on her Findmyiphone account,? he told me. There was an awkward pause between us as Tommy realized the real reason I was calling and he muttered. ?****. You need that data don?t you,? he muttered.
?Angie could be in danger. I know I probably sound crazy, but Brighter Futures is dangerous.? I told him. ?Besides, you owe me one.?
?Damn it. You know this can make me lose my job?? Tommy muttered. ?You?d be doing some a solid, anything you want you got it.?
?Fine. I?ll see what I can do.?
I told him thanks as I drove past the county line.
When I got to Clearriver, my first stop was the Auset facility at the north part of town. I figured that of all the places in the sleepy town for her to go to, the massive pharmaceutical company was likely at the top of the list.
After waiting for about an hour to be seen, I was directed to a small room where one of the on call doctors asked me a series of questions and then gave me a quick physical. I tried to bring up Angie, but it seemed to go nowhere fast.
?Is there someone in charge that might know more?? I asked the nurse.
?Doctor Emerall would be the one to talk to, but I?m afraid he has transferred over to a new location due to the recent merger,? the nurse told me.
?Merger? With who?? I asked.
?Some telemarketing service. I?m not sure. All I know is Emerall was offered the head position at the clinic. Left us all in the dust to clean up after him. Mighty unfair if you ask me. Only one who even got to tag along was Doctor Angler. And I think that?s just because Ralph has a soft spot for him.?
?Was it? possibly the Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline?? I asked.
?Yep! That?s the one!? she said with a nod.
?That?s rather odd isn?t it? Why would a Drug company merge with a business like that?? I asked pointedly. But she didn?t have the answer for me.
Instead my conversation was interrupted by a phone call from Tommy.
?Hey David. I pulled a few strings and got what you needed. Looks like we can pinpoint Angie?s last call after all. I?ll shoot you the coordinates,? he said.
?Thanks for this,? I told him. I glanced at the image that he sent and then matched it with a nearby lake. ?I can?t pull up anything on google,? I muttered in frustration.
?That?s because it?s a restricted area. Lots of military testing goes on there. Listen, if Angie is there; it?s likely she has run into some nasty folk. There was a body we found in the water couple weeks back that the government swooped in to ****** away before we could even run the forensics. Told us it was outside of our jurisdiction,? he said.
?In other words if I go out there, I?ll be on my own,? I realized. Tommy didn?t confirm it, but I knew my guess was right. I told him thanks again, and started driving.
Since it was a long drive, I did a little search on the two names the receptionist had dropped for me; Doctor Emerall and Angler.
The first one didn?t have many results. One of the people that stood out amid the crowd that had that name had Graduated at the top of his class from Seattle, raised by grandparents near Salem. LinkedIn gave me more interesting tidbits.
Specifically that this doctor had been a former counselor for Brighter Futures between the years 91 to 93. Then just simply left.
Angler had absolutely nothing on him at all. Like he didn?t have a digital footprint at all except for a review of a nightclub down in Florida. But it didn?t seem connected.
Then, just as I made it to the outskirts of the lake; Angie called again. Except this time it wasn?t her.
?Turn around.?
?Excuse me?? I asked the peculiar voice.
?Your friend is dead. You don?t need to look any further.?
?Who is this??
?My name is? it doesn?t matter. I tried to save her. And I know you want too as well, but she?s as good as dead.?
?So which is it then? Dead or as good as?? I countered.
?Keep going and you?ll wind up just like her,? he warned.
Then the line disconnected.
I parked at one of the rest stops and tried to call back. Nothing. After a few tries, I discovered the number didn?t even work. But the data that Tommy had given me was enough to tell me that I was close. The phone call was coming from somewhere in the middle of this forest.
So I whipped out my phone and started walking, using the limited satellite in the area to follow the trail to the pinged location. But still I wasn?t seeing any signs of life. I was so focused on the phone I didn?t watch where my feet were taking me. I tripped over something and fell down a muddy ravine, my phone flying from my hand. When I recovered and looked up toward the spot where I had fallen, I found myself staring at a man covered in blood.
I stood up and went toward him, noting that most of his legs were gone, shredded by some wild animal. He was wearing a lab coat with a bright emerald green A on the right pocket, and clenching a cell phone in his left.
I fumbled amid the muck to find my own only to realize that the cheap thing was broken.
I could faintly see the light of the ping and then realized that the stranger I just encountered was clenching Angie?s phone.
?Angler...?? I asked.
He opened his eyes faintly. And then he screamed.
From behind me something came bounding out of the woods with the ferocity of a full grown bear. It pushed me down and I felt one of my ribs break as it towered over the Doctor and then began to sink it?s claws into his chest.
I was struggling to breathe as I collapsed to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness as his guttural cries rang out across the empty woods.
When I did come to, I found that his body was gone; a trail of blood in its place.
I hastened to see where it led, the winding path taking me further into the woods until at last I found what seemed to be a bunker of some kind.
That was when I saw her. Angie. Except she wasn?t the woman I remembered any longer. Now her fingernails were long and jagged. Her eyes dark and bleeding. Her teeth gnarled and crooked. Her skin was a sickening yellow and her body a distorted mess.
She was finishing off the last bit of the doctor, spitting out a golden key that he had wrapped around his belt like it was a discarded bit of bone.
Then she turned and looked straight at me. I?m not sure if it?s because she registered who I was or because her appetite was satisfied but she did me no harm.
That was the last I saw of her.
I made it back to my car and contacted Tommy using my car phone to give him my location, but as you might have guessed; they couldn?t go into the reservation to find Doctor Angler?s body.
They did find Angie?s phone, although it didn?t really help as much as I had hoped. There was a list of numbers that she had recently called but none of them had names attached to them. And calling them just led to more dead ends. All of them were disconnected.
I think I tried again to find more out there, but no matter how hard I did; the woods seemed to become a maze. I didn?t even find the bunker again. Any trace of what had happened here was gone.
Angie?s tortured face still haunts me. I know that Brighter Futures is the one that did this to her. But there isn?t a shred of evidence I can provide for that.


Source.