SHADOWS OF SAMANTHA (Suspense/Thriller)
(Release Plan for Fall 2025: Currently started writing January 15th, 2025)
Samantha Owen is a young, twelve-year-old girl happily living with both of her parents in their suburb home in Chicago, Illinois. Every year the family takes a big trip in the summer months together and this year is no different, as they plan to go to Crystal Mountain Theme Park and Resort in Miami, Florida together. With excitement in her heart, Samantha and her parents fly from their home in Chicago down to Florida, where they catch a shuttle from the airport to go to the theme park. After checking into the hotel, the family heads out to the park the evening of the first day. Wandering through the crowd together, Samantha starts to trail behind her parents for a little bit, being cut off from them as they slowly disappeared through the large crowd. Before Samantha knew it, a black sack went over her head, covering her eyes as a strong hand covered her mouth and picked her up. Carrying her away from her parents and out of the park.
When the black bag finally comes off her head, Samantha finds herself in the back of a van with her hands and feet tied together, being driven out of the parking lot of the theme park. Inside the van are two men who she doesn’t recognize who begin to take her across the country to California, to a private residence in the higher end suburbs of Los Angeles County. A home synonymous with child sex trafficking for the higher elite class who will pay top dollar for children her age.
As time begins to run out for her, with each mile driven further away, Samantha works to find intricate ways to elude her captors and do whatever she can to escape. Desperately trying to find help for herself, before she becomes the latest victim of child sex trafficking in the United States.
Samantha will soon find out at the tender age of twelve, that the scariest monsters are human beings, and what we will do to one another.