MidReal Story
Secrets of Clayton: A Mississippi Summer Unveiled
Scenario: I'm writing 20 chapter book called the last summer of Mississippi Clayton it is a thriller, horror, true crime story
Create my version of this story
Jamie Thornton
amateur sleuth, friends with other protagonists, athletic build with curly brown hair, curious and brave
Sarah Jennings
police officer, acquaintance of Jamie and Michael, short blonde hair and sharp eyes, determined and resourceful
Michael Greene
local historian, childhood friend of Jamie, tall with glasses and a scholarly appearance, intelligent and cautious
I was twelve years old the summer I discovered a dead body.
It wasn’t just any dead body, either.
It was the body of a young woman who had gone missing from Clayton, Mississippi, twenty years earlier.
The police had never found her, and her disappearance had been one of the biggest mysteries in town for decades.
But there she was, lying at the bottom of a well in the middle of the woods, just waiting to be discovered by me and my friends.
We were just kids back then—Michael Greene, Sarah Jennings, and me—and we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to go exploring that day.
All we knew was that it was hot as hell outside and we wanted to cool off in the woods behind Michael’s house.
Chapter 1
I was twelve years old the summer I discovered a dead body.
It wasn’t just any dead body, either.
It was the body of a young woman who had gone missing from Clayton, Mississippi, twenty years earlier.
The police had never found her, and her disappearance had been one of the biggest mysteries in town for decades.
But there she was, lying at the bottom of a well in the middle of the woods, just waiting to be discovered by me and my friends.
We were just kids back then—Michael Greene, Sarah Jennings, and me—and we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to go exploring that day.
All we knew was that it was hot as hell outside and we wanted to cool off in the woods behind Michael’s house.
We’d been playing hide-and-seek for hours, but it was so hot that none of us could stand it anymore.
It was a sweltering summer day in Clayton, Mississippi.
The sun beat down on us like a hammer, and the air was so thick with humidity that it felt like we were walking through mud instead of breathing.
Michael Greene, Sarah Jennings, and I were playing hide-and-seek in the woods behind Michael’s house, trying to escape the heat for a little while.
Sarah was "it," so Michael and I ran as fast as we could through the trees to find a good hiding spot before she caught up to us.
That’s when we saw her—the woman’s remains were hidden deep in the woods at the bottom of an old well on Michael’s family property.
We found her that day because it was too hot to do anything else.
My parents worked long hours at the bank in downtown Clayton, so I spent most days with Michael and Sarah who lived across the street from each other.
Michael’s father owned one of the largest construction companies in town and his mother was a teacher at the local high school.
Their two-story colonial-style house sat on five acres of land surrounded by towering oaks and pines.
It was built in the early 1900s by one of Clayton’s founding families who had settled there after the Civil War.
The house had a wide front porch with a swing, four bedrooms upstairs, and a huge kitchen with a walk-in pantry.
Michael’s father had lived in Clayton his entire life and knew every inch of land for miles around town.
The sun beat down on us like a hammer, and the air was so thick with humidity that it felt like we were walking through mud instead of breathing.
Michael Greene, Sarah Jennings, and I were playing hide-and-seek in the woods behind Michael’s house, trying to escape the heat for a little while.
Sarah was "it," so Michael and I ran as fast as we could through the trees to find a good hiding spot before she caught up to us.
That’s when we saw her—the woman’s remains were hidden deep in the woods at the bottom of an old well on Michael’s family property.
We found her that day because it was too hot to do anything else.
My parents worked long hours at the bank in downtown Clayton, so I spent most days with Michael and Sarah who lived across the street from each other.
Michael’s father owned one of the largest construction companies in town and his mother was a teacher at the local high school.
Their two-story colonial-style house sat on five acres of land surrounded by towering oaks and pines.
It was built in the early 1900s by one of Clayton’s founding families who had settled there after the Civil War.
The house had a wide front porch with a swing, four bedrooms upstairs, and a huge kitchen with a walk-in pantry.
Michael’s father had lived in Clayton his entire life and knew every inch of land for miles around town.
He’d bought the property from his mother’s family when they’d died in a car accident on the way to church one Sunday morning.
The land had been in her family for over a hundred years and was covered in huge oak trees and thick underbrush.
There were several wells scattered across the property that had been dug over the years to provide water for the animals that roamed there.
Michael’s father used to keep horses but stopped when I was little because he said he didn’t have time to take care of them anymore.
Michael and I had been friends since we were in diapers.
We’d grown up together running through the woods behind his house, playing make-believe games with his sister’s old Barbie dolls, and building forts out of the old barn wood in their backyard.
As we got older, we were allowed to explore further into the woods on our own.
When I was in the seventh grade, my family moved to New Orleans because my parents said there weren’t any good jobs in Clayton.
I missed Michael terribly when I first moved away but we wrote letters to each other all the time and I went back to visit every summer when I wasn’t in school.
That year we were twelve years old, Sarah had just moved to town from Memphis.
She lived down the street from Michael and we’d met at the pool at the country club where we all took swimming lessons in the summer.
She was a tomboy like me and Michael, so we became fast friends the first time we met.
That summer was one of the hottest on record in Mississippi.
Chapter 2
The land had been in her family for over a hundred years and was covered in huge oak trees and thick underbrush.
There were several wells scattered across the property that had been dug over the years to provide water for the animals that roamed there.
Michael’s father used to keep horses but stopped when I was little because he said he didn’t have time to take care of them anymore.
Michael and I had been friends since we were in diapers.
We’d grown up together running through the woods behind his house, playing make-believe games with his sister’s old Barbie dolls, and building forts out of the old barn wood in their backyard.
As we got older, we were allowed to explore further into the woods on our own.
When I was in the seventh grade, my family moved to New Orleans because my parents said there weren’t any good jobs in Clayton.
I missed Michael terribly when I first moved away but we wrote letters to each other all the time and I went back to visit every summer when I wasn’t in school.
That year we were twelve years old, Sarah had just moved to town from Memphis.
She lived down the street from Michael and we’d met at the pool at the country club where we all took swimming lessons in the summer.
That year was one of the hottest on record in Mississippi.
The temperature was over a hundred degrees by mid-morning and the humidity made the air feel like a wet sponge.
We’d been playing hide-and-seek for several hours and were all exhausted from running around in the heat.
I’d been hiding near the tree line close to one of the old wells on Michael’s family’s property.
I didn’t know how deep it was, but I’d heard that some of the wells on his father’s land were dug by hand and went down over a hundred feet.
As I crouched down near the well, trying to catch my breath, I noticed a terrible smell coming from below.
It smelled like a mix of sour milk and rotten eggs, and I had to hold my nose as I breathed.
I heard Sarah and Michael coming towards me and glanced down into the well again.
The smell was even stronger now and I could see something down near the bottom of the well.
It looked like a dark lump of mud.
I could barely make out what it was through the haze of the foul odor, but I could see that it was shaped like a skull.
I felt a scream building up inside me as I stared down into the well.
"Hey, Jamie! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
Michael called as he and Sarah came running towards me.
They stopped when they saw me crouching by the well, holding my nose.
"What’s that smell?" Sarah asked as she tried to catch her breath.
"I think it’s coming from down there," I said as I pointed into the well.
They came over to me and we all peered down into the dark hole.
I could see something shining at the bottom of the well now and I realized it wasn’t a lump of mud I’d seen earlier—it was a human skull.
We all screamed and ran away from the well as fast as we could.
