by Peter Grist
“Goodbye Mister Saunders, you have been a royal pain in the ass.” and squeezed the trigger.
thirty-eight.
“Noooooo!” The scream came from the barn door just as Rosen pulled the trigger. He instinctively jerked in that direction making the shot go high and wide but it still hit Ed’s skull, opening a wound on the left side of his head. His body fell heavily back to the floor once more, blood flowing freely into the blue carpet making it look black. On the wall above the tool bench, an old rusty scythe with a short wooden handle and long curved blade twitched.
Rosen looked down at the salesman’s prone body then turned towards the barn doors. Linda stood in front of his car, haloed by the headlights from his police cruiser. In her riding boots, tight jeans and fitted shirt, Linda’s tall, athletic figure looked mouth-wateringly tasty to Rosen.
“Well, well, I guess maybe I am gonna get my chance to put a tail on you after all. Get your cute ass over here.” he ordered. Linda didn’t move.
“NOW!” he roared and fired his pistol up into the roof causing a cloud of dust and wood splinters to cascade down. Linda jumped and screamed at the same time. The scythe twitched again.
Linda stepped forward several paces then stopped.
“Keep moving honey,” Rosen swung his gun back towards Ed’s still figure, “or I’m gonna make sure your new boyfriend here quickly becomes your next ex.”
She moved forwards again, breathing deeply but her head high and proud. She stopped again just a few feet from the raised platform. “You won’t get away with this you murdering pig!” she spat at him.
“Oh yes I will you stuck up bitch, I already have, now take your shirt off.”
“What?!”
“You heard me clear enough, take it off, now!”
The scythe rattled against the barn wall making both of them look in that direction but when their eyes looked at the tools and bench everything was still. Rosen looked back at Linda, the thought of field mice gone already. He thumbed the hammer back on his gun very slowly for dramatic effect, the click sounding very loud in the silence. Tears welled in Linda’s eyes as her hands reached for the top buttons of her checked shirt. They came undone with ease and as her chest heaved, Rosen’s skeletal grin widened. As she unhitched the bottom of her shirt from her jeans, her large firm breasts burst outward, the lacy deep red underwired bra barely holding her in. Rosen’s arm lowered slightly as all of his concentration went towards Linda’s exquisite form. Her long black hair, still held in a ponytail, came down the left side of her body, stopping just above her flat, sun-kissed stomach. Like a hungry wolf, Rosen licked his lips. Neither of them noticed the rusty scythe quiver again on the wall.
Rosen had started to pant slightly. “Show me.” he demanded in a husky voice. She dipped her head in shame then brought her hands around the back of her body reaching for the clasp on her bra. As she fumbled to unlatch the garment Rosen glanced down at the salesman, the pale skin, two bullet wounds ejecting lots of blood and no visible breathing told him all he needed to know, he had finally killed the pain in his backside. As he looked back up Linda’s bra came away from her chest, revealing a glorious sight to Rosen. He took in the large firm breasts topped with large dark areolas and large erect nipples. His lascivious grin widened and he licked his lips once more as he took a step nearer to her. “Now take off your jeans.” he demanded. At the same moment, the workbench and all of the tools hanging above it started shaking violently. The percussion was incredible, like an earthquake, but the rest of the barn wasn’t moving. Linda raised her head and looked over to the bench. Rosen lowered his gun slightly as he reluctantly looked away from Linda’s exquisite form and stared in awe at the sight. All the tools were rattling, rust fell from worn saws and hammers, a wooden peg gave way and an old pick fell to the wooden bench then to the dusty earth. One of the outer panels of wood splintered and gave way, the remainder slapping against the piece of wooden wall.
“What the f…”
The rusty, jagged scythe came spinning away from the wall like a boomerang. Mesmerised, the sheriff never moved as it flew straight towards him. The blade hit him across the neck with such force it sheared his head clean off. His head tumbled back, bounced and rolled unevenly across the top of the marble altar, a bemused look now permanently stuck on its countenance; his body just stood still, the revolver still in his hand. The scythe carried on to the other side of the barn, hit the wooden wall then clattered to the dusty earth and lay still. The rest of the tools and the workbench fell still and silent. Linda watched this happen as if it was in slow motion. With the sheriff’s heart still pumping, blood spurted up and back in a glorious bright red geyser, splattering down onto the marble table top then running in rivulets down the drain gulley’s to the chalice waiting underneath. She stared at Rosen’s body as the blood pressure weakened. Eventually, his legs buckled and he sank to his knees as if in prayer, then a few seconds later he toppled forwards onto the raised floor, his headless torso hanging over the side of the stage, what blood remaining oozing freely from the open wound. Linda’s hands went up to her face.
“Oh my god!” was all she could murmur as she stood horrified, transfixed to the spot, watching the pool of blood from Rosen’s body spread across the hard-packed earth then sink into it. After what seemed like an eternity she heard movement from behind the altar and heard a low moan.
“Ed!” She darted to the left of the dais, away from the wretched sight of Rosen’s body, her half-nakedness completely forgotten. As she came around to the rear side of the marble slab there was Ed Saunders lying on his back in a pool of blood, trying to get up and focus his eyes. She jumped the eighteen inches up onto the stage and flung herself at Ed. Very gently she got behind him and lifted his shoulders and cradled him to her chest, her tears of horror now turned to tears of joy. He moaned a little as she moved him; his eyes fluttered open then closed again, his body going limp. Her tears ran down her cheeks and gathered at the point of her chin then dropped lightly onto the side of Ed’s face. The tiny river of tears ran down the side of his nose to his lips. The moist sensation and salty tang made him lick his lips. It was enough to rouse Ed from his semi-unconscious state, he tentatively opened his eyes. The first thing he could focus on was the glorious sight of Linda’s beautiful deep, tanned cleavage that was rising and falling with the deep breathing coming from Linda’s chest. He grinned broadly then winced in pain.
“Is this heaven, tell me it is, please?” he managed as he tore his eyes away from her bust and looked up into Linda’s large brown eyes.
“My god, I thought I had lost you, I saw him shot you, I thought you were dead!” she replied. The mention of the sheriff made Ed stiffen.
“Where is he, what happened, did I get him?”
“You didn’t see it? He’s over there,” she pointed with her right hand to the other side of the dais, “dead.”
“Did I shot him?”
She shook her head no.
“Did you shot him?”
Again she shook her head no.
“No one shot him, it was a……I don’t know, I don’t know what it was, I just know he’s dead, very dead.”
Between them, they got Ed to his feet. There was a large gash on the side of his head where the bullet grazed him, but it was already starting to scab over although blood was still freely seeping out. He still felt wobbly and held onto the altar for support. She took a handkerchief from her jeans back pocket and placed it gently on his head to help stem the bleeding. He winced again but thanked her. His shoulder had started to ache more than his head now. He looked around slowly to make sure Rosen was dead and almost jumped when he saw the skeletal face of the sheriff looking up at him just a few feet away.
“What the hell?”
Linda couldn’t bear to look at the ghastly sight; she turned away, looking over towards the hole that had been dug many years ago in the corner.
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“Well you’re right, he’s definitely dead….but I still don’t understand what happened, who did this to him?”
“I can’t explain it now, maybe later, but we have to get you to the hospital. You are still bleeding quite badly from your head and shoulder.”
He let himself be led to the side of the stage and they gingerly stepped down, Linda taking most of his weight. They shuffled round to the front of the stage but Ed stopped then swayed. He felt dizzy and his knees started to go weak. They slumped back and sat at the edge of the stage as far away from Rosen’s body as they could get. As they sat together, the engine on the police cruiser stalled and the bare lights above them grew dim.
“Oh what now?!” she exclaimed.
“What’s that, over there?” Ed pointed over to the workbench that was now in half darkness. They saw some figures emerging from the darkness. A young Asian girl took a step further into the light. Ed’s heart missed a beat. Barefooted and dressed only in a brown hessian type dress, he instantly recognised the girl from his dreams, the girl from Vietnam, but this time there were no wounds, no blood. She was quite beautiful, just as he remembered her, as if it were only yesterday, his heart lurched. When she had moved from the darkness to the light she had seemed translucent but now she looked alive and vibrant, almost shining. In her left hand she carried a wooden doll, his doll, the same doll he had carried with him as a reminder of his sin for all of those years. She held her right hand out to the side, beckoning for someone to join her. Another figure stepped forward from the gloom and took the Vietnamese girls hand; it was Grace Benjamin. Slightly taller and wearing a lovely floral dress, she looked as pretty as the picture from her birthday.
Ed glanced at Linda, with a ‘can you see this too?’ look. She nodded at him then looked back at the two girls in wonderment; tears were starting to form in her eyes again. Instinctively she knew the little girl was the one from Ed’s dreams, the one who had haunted most of his adult life. The girls smiled at each other, held a hand out each and waited. Two much larger apparitions manifested themselves and joined hands with the girls. Buster took Gracie’s hand and Elsa, Buster’s wife, took the hand of the Vietnamese child and wooden doll. In unison, Ed and Linda stood up and faced the group before them.
Ed looked into the faces of each of them for a long moment and then rested on the young Asian girl. He was close to tears now too.
“I am so sorry for what I did to you, I really am, there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think of you…..”
The child let go of Grace’s hand and put a finger to her own lips to silence his words. Then she smiled; a beautiful, serene, peaceful smile that Ed knew was full of forgiveness, for him and him alone.
“Thank you.” He sniffed and stifled a sob. He could hardly speak through his emotions but he turned and looked at Buster.
“Are you okay my friend?”
Buster looked down at his daughter, squeezed her hand then raised his empty right hand and gave Ed a thumbs up and a huge toothy grin. They all smiled; each and every one of them, as tears rolled down Ed and Linda’s face. The four apparitions raised their hands in a wave, bowed their heads in thanks then turned and walked back towards the workbench and darkness. The girls disappeared, then Elsa, and lastly the gentle giant. Buster paused, turned back to Linda and Ed, gave another thumbs up in thanks then walked into the darkness and faded away.
After a few moments, the lights hanging from the roof of the barn grew brighter again. Linda looked up into Ed’s lovely face. “You felt that didn’t you, the happiness? They are all at peace.”
“Yes, I felt it.” He managed to reply. He looked down into her angelic face. “What now?”
“Now, we go and get you checked out, get Josh, then we go home.”
“Home? Your home?”
“Of course! You don’t think I am letting you ever go back to that motel do you?!” She replied. She kissed him on the cheek and herded him towards the barn door, pausing long enough to pick up her bra and shirt, slipping the shirt back on.
“Darn it.” Ed said in mock disappointment as she covered over her incredible body.
“You’ve had enough excitement for one night don’t you think? Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time in the future for you to explore.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes, plenty of time.” she said smiling as they walked out of the barn into the first early rays of a bright dawn and a glorious day.
Epilogue
Ed sat under the picture of the three P-51 Mustangs, warmed by the roaring log fire, deep in concentration, reading the headlines from the Columbus Dispatch, central Ohio’s main newspaper. They and most of the news organisations from around the country had followed the breaking story of the eight children and almost as many adults found buried in a mass grave in the lower foothills of the most western point of the Allegheny mountain range. The story had even been syndicated around the world. The papers and TV stations had followed the story through, from the initial finding of the grave and arrest of eight men caught trying to disperse the bodies, with a ninth man being arrested at a local hospital, all the way through the trial, to yesterday’s guilty verdicts in the Supreme Court of Ohio held at the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center on the east bank of the Scioto River in downtown Columbus. Most of the evidence had come from the owner of a motel in Ludlow called Sam Ryan, one of the nine men accused of the murders, who had bargained for leniency by helping the police with their enquiries. Ed Saunders read that over the past sixty-odd years, Ludlow’s mayor and the sheriff had formed a ruthless and murderess club of Ludlow residents with a penchant for sadistic and ritualistic torture of minors. The sadistic killers had fashioned themselves on a Nazi-style lodge but statements from the Thule Society vehemently denied having anything to do with the group. Most of the victims had been travellers passing through the city limits and had been stopped by the sheriff for minor misdemeanours and if found to be suitable victims, were tortured and murdered by the vicious group in a horrific ritual. The adults seemed to be collateral damage for the gang and of little significance. The vehicles they had been driving were crushed by one of the gang who owned and ran the local junkyard. A few of the licence plates had been found in the junkyard owner’s office and helped identify some of the missing persons. When I-71 fully opened in the sixties, through traffic started to dry up so the gang resorted to abducting occasional local residents from the poorer quarters of town. Kids they thought wouldn’t be missed all that much. Thankfully, almost all of the bodies had been identified except for a vagrant that happened to pass through Ludlow at the wrong time. The report went on to say that the local librarian, a Mrs Linda Saxon, had uncovered the atrocities when filing old issues of a local newspaper, and with one of the surviving relatives, had done some incredible investigative work then managed to unnerve the perpetrators into trying to move the bodies further away. A local militia had followed the murderers up into the hills and caught them red-handed trying to dig up and move the evidence. Two of the murderous club; the leader, Mayor Frederick Willets and local junkyard owner Ashley Barrett were killed by one of the militia, who also sadly was killed by gunfire. The militia victim Eugene ‘Buster’ Benjamin also happened to be the father of one of the gang’s victims, Grace Benjamin. The other ringleader of the deadly society, Ludlow’s own Sheriff John Rosen, disappeared the night the group were found out. Although a large amount of money, passports and his cars, including the last car he was seen driving, his Sheriff’s Patrol Car, were found at his residence on the outskirts of Ludlow, no trace of him has yet to be found. In his absence he was found guilty of murder of the people from the mass grave and an elderly woman from the town who apparently disturbed the sheriff while he was robbing the mayor’s house. A shrine or altar of sorts was found in one of the sheriff’s outbuildings along with his revolver, which had been fired, and a large amount of dried blood which through DNA testing was found to b
e Sheriff Rosen’s. Due to the enormous amount of Rosen’s blood found at the scene, federal agencies do not believe he could have survived whatever disturbance occurred there and are not actively looking for Rosen although he remains on their wanted list. Traces of a second blood type were found at the scene but did not match anything in the police database but were thought to belong to one of his victims. The guilty men were due to be sentenced next week.
Linda came into the front room, and with a flourish took her knitted scarf off and shook fresh snow onto Ed’s lap. “Thanks for that!” he said in a mock grumpy voice. A few flakes of snow held in Linda’s black hair and as they started to melt they glistened like crystals in the firelight. Once again her ageless beauty took his breath away. He finally managed to look away from her and saw Josh kicking off his rubber boots in the hall while trying to hold on to the Golden Labrador puppy’s lead. It licked at the boy’s face at it ran and jumped around in excitement, making Josh laugh out loud. Ed smiled at the sight. Linda looked over his shoulder as she stroked his head and read the headlines.