"Hey Joan is the sound rea...okay got it. Michael get your shit together!," a tall lanky man by the name of Colin, stands in the middle of a cheap motel room wearing a black suit, calmly yelling orders at his associates, "Stan, Gregory, everything looking good? Can you see this face? cuz you know as well as I do, that this is our money maker."
Stan Smith, the cameraman a bulky block headed man of few words gives Colin a quick thumbs up. Gregory Mercer, who was in charge of lighting, a man of modest stature, short bright red hair, and a winning personality. Gregory looked in Colins direction, gave a quick smile. Flipped Colin off with one hand, pointed the light box at Colin's face, and put the brightness at its max with his other hand. Then quickly began putting everything back the way it previously was laughing all the while.
Colin scrunched up his oval-like face, and rubbed his closed eyes as he said, "Alright good, good everybody get ready the doc begins in. 3, 2, 1, go," the camera zoomed in, and Colin's eyes opened, his green irises on full display. He smiled showing off straight white surgically enhanced teeth, which match his pale complexion, and contrast his short spiked black hair.
"Is it possible for a whole town to disappear without a trace?" Colin paused for a moment in order to build tension, which is hard to do because of his mono-tone, and appealing reporter voice that puts people at ease.
"That's a question my team and I have been asking ourselves for several weeks, following the disappearance of an acquaintance. Carl Weathers, beloved host of the weekly forecast here at Channel 8 News, has mysteriously gone missing. Before the disappearance Carl was seen at work, where he requested three days time off, he said it was for a quote."
"family emergency."
"Those three days….eventually turned into three weeks. Throughout this time our station has been working closely with the authorities in order to locate Mr.Weathers, but their efforts have yielded little to no results."
"My team and I decided to take matters into our own hands, and find Carl Weathers. We began our search with the only clue Mr.Weathers left. The reason for his absence…..his family. We obtained Mr.Weathers records, and found that he only has one living relative…..and that they live in a secluded town. By the name of, Davisville."
"Davisville is a small town with a population of 6,149. Located in Maine's countryside making it a difficult place to find without prior knowledge. It seems as though the founders of Davisville valued their privacy, due to the fact that the town was built, right in the center, of an eighty mile wide forest, by the name of, The Vanishing Forest. The forest got its name from the thick fog that is prevalent to the area, when the fog rolls in, the woodland paths become impossible to navigate."
Colin looked down, brought his hands together, as he looked up to the camera and slowly said, "Now here's where things get strange. You can no longer contact anyone from Davisville."
"According to our web of information....the phone lines in Davisville have been undergoing maintenance…..for over two years now. When contacting authorities to share our information, we always achieve the same result. A single sentence answer."
"That's outside of our jurisdiction."
"So we then tried to contact someone with jurisdiction, but as it turns out...their phones were also down. Things got stranger and stranger, and we knew we couldn't contact them with messages. So we decided to go and physically see the town of Davisville for ourselves."
The camera then zooms out revealing the motel room, "Now here we are in the only building within a ten mile radius of The Vanishing Forest. A small motel called The Lonely Pine, located at the one way road leading to Davisville. The same motel Carl Weathers briefly stayed before entering the forest. We asked the manager if he'd seen anyone matching Weather's description. He didn't remember. But he did have security tapes, with five months worth of footage."
"We looked through the tapes and found a familiar face which lead us to the room we're currently in. But, Mr.Weathers was not the only guest headed to Davisville. We looked through the tapes and found that dozens upon dozens of people have been recorded going to Davisville, but so far none have been seen driving back."
"The last place Mr.Weathers was seen alive, and the first stop in our search for him. I'm Colin Wolfe, of Channel 8 News, signing off."
"Cut!" yelled Stan as he lowered the camera. Prompting Greg and Joan to also begin shutting off their equipment.
Colin dropped his smile, and his shoulders. It isn't easy putting on a persona that'll vibe well with the masses, but Colin felt he had a knack for it....as long as he doesn't have to do it for too long.
Michael Brendanawicz, a behind the scenes journalist with brown hair and a short face with a wide jawline, walked up to Colin, began to slow clap, "Good job! I both saw, and felt....no emotion from that." Michael stopped clapping, and gave Colin a fake smile, "I'll never understand why you have to do this to tell people the news."
Colin smirked, and quickly formed a reply because….these two have argued many times before, "Believe you me, being in the news isn't all sunshine and rainbows Michael. You're always on display, and the people actually like that I'm so well dressed." Colin laughed and looked Michael in the eyes as he whispered, "If I forget to wear a tie one day. They'll riot, storm the station, and politely request that I be fired."
Brendanawicz laughed, and applauded, before saying, "I just know that I can't do it. I'd prefer to wear what I'm wearing opposed to your….monkey suit."
Colin laughed louder, and longer than Michael, just to spite him, "Yeah Mike. I'm sure everyone, will take you seriously when you report a deadly fire wearing a seinfeld tv shirt, and a faded red hoodie. Plus they'd like it if your face wasn't shaved, and your hair looked like you've just woken from a year long coma."
Michael adjusted the collar of his aforementioned hoodie, "Hey they might. You never know! They'd go, "Hey this guy's just like me!" and they'll be drawn in to my natural charm."
Joan Kilner, a short brown haired woman in charge of sound, walked in-between the two men. Acting as the voice of reason, "Hey dumbasses! We're burning daylight. Start taking down, and putting away equipment. I wanna get to the town, get some shots, and get the hell out of there before sundown."
With Joan's encouragement, the two men shook hands, and began to help the other three take down the filming equipment. The whole process took about thirty minutes, and throughout that time Colin and Michael tried to argue again, Greg threatened to set them on fire, Joan laughed, and Stan silently watched while doing everyone's work.
When everything was all packed up Joan loudly clapped her hands once, "Alright! Let's go, next stop the haunted city of Davisville."