Relic

by Gretchen McNeil

  Jack shakes his head. “Sounds like he was a mine employee.”

  Page after page of articles, all about Banner and the closure of Bull Valley Mine. Apparently, the town lingered for fifteen years, its residents dying off due to old age. The area had been completely denuded by the copper smelters, and once the mining companies were gone, the towns withered. Residents eked out a living, stubbornly clinging to their homes through the Great Depression, until the New Deal arrived in Northern California by way of the Shasta Dam.

  The building project brought new jobs, and new people, to the area, but Banner was on the wrong side of the construction, which meant, eventually, everyone would have to be relocated before the valley was flooded, burying Banner, Bull Valley, and the rest of the abandoned copper mines under a hundred feet of water.

  About this time, Malcolm Hockler’s name pops up again. A former supervisor at Bull Valley Mine during the early 1940s, he and his wife became the poster children for everyone opposed to the Shasta Dam project, even partnering with the local Wintu Indian tribes to protest flooding the valley. They got nowhere. As the rest of the Banner-ites were relocated, the Hocklers dug in their heels.

  By the time the valley was set to be flooded in 1945, local authorities were sent to the family’s cabin to physically remove them and their belongings from the town, but when they arrived, there was no trace of Hockler or his wife. A search party was hastily formed, and for a solid week they combed the hills and valleys of Squaw Creek and McCloud River, looking for some sign of the miner and his wife. To no avail.

  In the end, the authorities declared the Hocklers a murder-suicide, and it’s generally believed that Malcolm and his wife fled into the depths of the mine he once created, where he killed her, then himself.

  “Why would Weller be documenting the history of some old mine supervisor?” I ask.

  Jack shakes his head. “A genealogy thing? My uelita kept newspaper clippings of everyone even remotely related to us. Even the article on my cousins’ arrests.”

  “Could be.” Only Weller didn’t strike me as the family historian type.

  We turn to the next page. Instead of historical events, the book is now filled with newspaper clippings noting bizarre deaths in and around Shasta Lake. As early as 1948, there’s an account of a grotesque find near the McCloud arm of the lake. A survey crew had stumbled upon a body, believed to be a woman. Her remains were unidentifiable, and did not correspond to any known missing persons reports. Stranger still, near the bottom of the article, one phrase is circled—“the dehydrated condition of the body indicates that it has been in the area for quite some time.” In the margin, written in a crisp, sharp handwriting, are the words “possible mummification?”

  The following pages are a collection of strange deaths that occurred over the next few years, all eerily similar in their details: a body or series of bodies were found in the woods, mangled, deformed, half-eaten in some cases. The mounting death toll was written off to lost hikers and hungry mountain lions.

  The timeline jumps forward to 1969. This time, there’s no “possible” about it—a mummified body was discovered near Mariners Point as they were breaking ground on a new boat-docking facility. Though the workers swore there was no way the body could have been there the day before, the mummified remains were discovered on the rocky shore just above the waterline. Based on the style of his clothing, the mummy appeared to be from sometime after the war, but no identification was ever made.

  Then again came more reports of ravaged, half-eaten human remains discovered in and around the lake.

  The next few pages recounted a now-familiar story: a group of divers decide to explore the old caverns and tunnels of Bull Valley Mine. The story Jack and Rob thought their friend had made up was actually real, just as Sonya explained. Only one of the divers returned from the mine, and he was found dead in his home a few weeks later. The body had to be identified by fingerprints only, as the face and skull had been obliterated by an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. His teeth, it was noted, were never found.

  That’s when the Shasta County District Attorney got involved.

  He formed a task force to investigate the recent deaths and to determine if they were just a coincidence, were connected by some biological hazard, or were the work of a serial killer. The lead investigator was brought in from Sacramento, a man by the name of Michael Flynn.

  There’s a picture of Flynn, grainy and blurred from the yellowing newspaper, but even without the name, I’d have recognized the boyish chin and the broad, beaming smile.

  “That must be Deputy Flynn’s father,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “Weller’s partner. The one who convinced him to leave us alone that night on the beach.”

  “Oh, right.” Jack leaned in, squinting at the photo. “I didn’t get a good look at him, but yeah, same name. Could definitely be related.”

  We read on, scanning the next page. By 1973, the investigation was dropped.

  “Looks like they couldn’t establish concrete links between the deaths,” Jack says.

  “Apparently, they hadn’t checked the history.” I shake my head. “Jack, there’s a pattern here.”

  “Let’s keep going.” His voice trembles, whether from nerves or excitement I can’t tell. Probably both.

  I lean closer to Jack as I read eagerly. I need to know if the pattern continues, if there will be another mummy, another series of horrific deaths. Two instances could be a coincidence. But three? Or more? No way.

  Without a word, Jack flips ahead several pages, pausing on an especially thick section where a large newspaper story has been folded in on itself. My pulse quickens as he slowly unveils the headline, dated from 1983, and I know as I read the large print of the heading that this is exactly what I’m looking for.

  THE McCLOUD MUMMY AND THE MAN OF SQUAW CREEK—FACT OR FICTION?

  Early Thursday morning, a group of Redding middle schoolers on a weeklong nature retreat in the Greens Creek Campground stumbled upon a gruesome scene: the mummified remains of an Anderson man, missing since the late 1960s.

  Kip “Camaro” Romero was a local handyman and father of two who was reported missing in May of 1969 after failing to return from a solo camping trip near the McCloud arm of Shasta Lake. Though his abandoned campsite was found near the shores of Campbell Creek, no body was ever located, and after a lengthy court battle, Romero’s wife had her husband declared legally dead in 1977.

  It seems that decision was a sound one, based on this week’s discovery. According to Redding outdoor ed instructor Pamela Torres, Romero’s body was “curled up in the fetal position” at the base of a massive fir tree, partially obscured by a prickly bush, when she and her group of fifteen hikers discovered it. “At first we thought he was sleeping,” she said. “We couldn’t see his hands or his face, just his clothes. They looked a little ragged, but not falling apart like they’d been in the elements for twenty years.” Authorities currently have no theories as to the remarkable preservation of Romero’s clothing, or his cause of death. An autopsy has been ordered.

  The discovery of the “McCloud Mummy,” as Romero’s body is being termed, comes at a time when the Shasta area is reeling from yet another round of sightings of what locals call the Man of Squaw Creek. Seen as a harbinger of doom, much like West Virginia’s “Mothman,” the Man of Squaw Creek dates back to the flooding of the Squaw Creek and McCloud River valleys after World War II. Eyewitnesses report a tall, thin man in his mid to late twenties, who one moment will be striding through the trees and then vanishes into thin air. The man always appears to be the same age, despite reports spanning almost four decades, thus bolstering the claim that he does not age.

  “When the Man arrives,” said Zane Sheppard, seventy-three, a Bella Vista native who’s been camping in the McCloud and Squaw Creek valleys since he was a child and claims to have seen the mysterious figure on multiple occasions, “strange deaths follow. Mark my words, this mummy feller i
s just the beginning.”

  In a case of strange coincidences, Sheppard’s words might appear to be prophecy. Just hours after the discovery of Romero’s remains, another body was found less than five miles from the site, washed up on the shores of Shasta Lake. A woman whose body had been half-devoured by local wildlife. She has been identified as Margaret Cadwallader of Redding. Funeral arrangements are being made by the family.

  A creeping sensation races down my spine, my skin prickling as a realization dawns on me. “It’s happening again.”

  Jack turns to me; I can see fear reflected in his eyes. “Don’t,” he says, his voice throaty and raw, like he’s been screaming for hours. “Don’t read into this.”

  “Read into this?” I can’t believe he’s being so stubborn. “Each time it’s been exactly the same. First a mummy and then . . .” I swallow, gagging on the memory of what we found that afternoon. “Mutilated bodies. Like Deputy Weller. This must be what he wanted to talk to us about. After they found Cooper’s body, he knew the deaths would follow. He wanted to know if we saw anything that could help.”

  “Cooper’s body was found near the mine, and as far as Weller knew, we’d never been there.”

  “But Cooper was last seen near Slaughterhouse Island,” I counter. “There is a connection.”

  Jack takes a deep breath then shoves the book away from him in a sudden, violent action. “This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t even be reading this. We need to hand it over to your dad.”

  I pull the scrapbook toward me. “No way my dad will believe any of this.”

  “Exactly. And neither should we.”

  Jack grabs a plate of food. I never even noticed their arrival. The burgers look completely cold, but I whip off the top bun, douse the meat and cheese beneath with an unhealthy amount of ketchup, then cover it back up and take an enormous bite.

  Jack does the same, and we eat in silence. I wolf down my burger, one of the best I’ve ever had, then I slide the book in front of my empty plate. I need to know what comes next.

  I carefully fold the article along its established crease lines, then turn the page. It’s the end of the scrapbook, and there isn’t much to see. No more articles or clippings, just three words written in Deputy Weller’s neat printing.

  Find Malcolm Hockler

  TWENTY-TWO

  WE DRIVE IN SILENCE.

  I don’t need Jack to say a word to know what’s going on in his head. He’s grappling with what we’ve seen, what we’ve learned, and what we know to be true. Or, I guess, what we knew to be true. In the last two days, everything has changed.

  Yet my brain is revolting against the idea that it’s something unnatural. Despite all the evidence in Deputy Weller’s scrapbook, every molecule in my body is screaming out that just like in The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, there is a practical solution: we just have to find it.

  And given what I know of Deputy Weller, I find it difficult to believe that he bought the magic mumbo jumbo either. He was a cop, and cops look for concrete facts. Maybe his collection of stories doesn’t support a supernatural solution; maybe it’s a collection of real evidence?

  Unfortunately, it’s not like we can ask him.

  For the tenth time in the last half hour, Jack winces and reaches his hand up to his temple, massaging it with his fingertips.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “Just this bitch of a headache. Feels like someone drove a spike through my brain.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Isn’t it?

  I’m the one who brought Jack into this mess, just like I’m the one who forced Sonya to go on the houseboating trip in the first place. It’s like I’m cursed, bringing bad luck to my friends. I should just lock myself in my room and stay there until I head off to Stanford in August.

  That wouldn’t be any fun.

  True. But this summer vacation hasn’t exactly dripped with fun so far.

  Jack pulls up in front of my house and sets the parking brake. “Your dad hates me.” I start to protest, but Jack waves me off. “He does. We both know it. He thinks I’m trouble and, well, shit, Annie, maybe he’s right.”

  Both of us blaming ourselves. Could we be any more Catholic? “Now who’s being ridiculous?”

  “I’m serious. I should have talked you out of going to Deputy Weller’s.”

  “You didn’t put a gun to my head, Jack. I wanted to go.” Needed to go.

  “I shouldn’t have let you.”

  While I appreciate Jack’s protectiveness, I bristle at the idea that my boyfriend “lets” me do anything. “I didn’t realize I needed to ask permission.”

  He sighs. “I just think we should leave it alone.”

  Not even if you wanted to.

  “I know you don’t believe there’s some grand conspiracy going on here,” I say, “but you have to admit that Weller’s murder is bizarre. And coming a day after they found Cooper’s body? You saw what’s in that book. This entire pattern has repeated itself three times in the last seventy years. You can’t just ignore that.”

  “Aren’t you the daughter of a cop?” Jack cries. “Aren’t you supposed to find the logical explanation for everything?”

  “Maybe this is the logical explanation.”

  Jack folds his hands over the steering wheel and lays his forehead on them, defeated. “What do you want me to say, huh? That there’s something supernatural going on? You know I don’t believe in that crap.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He torques his head to look at me. “So what do you believe?”

  It’s a good question, and one I’m not entirely sure I have an answer for. For now, I’ll just stick with the facts. “I believe that book we found has something to do with Deputy Weller’s murder, and with what happened to us in Bull Valley Mine.”

  “Then you should turn it over to your dad,” Jack says slowly. His voice is earnest, but there’s a hardness around his eyes and mouth that I’m not used to seeing from my usually free-swinging boyfriend. Something about that book, about this whole situation, has him really freaked out. “Please.”

  “You’re right.” I can’t explain why, but for some reason I feel like the secrets held in Deputy Weller’s book will be lost on the practical, commonsense minds of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. But Jack has a point—I have to try and explain this to my dad. “I’ll do it when he gets home.”

  Jack lets out a long breath, then smiles. He looks older somehow, like the headache has sapped the youth and vitality out of him. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I nod and lean in, waiting for my kiss good-bye. He hesitates, then brushes his lips quickly past my own. I step out of the cab, surprised by the briefness of his farewell, and I’ve barely closed the door when he pulls out of the driveway and is gone.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP, BECAUSE WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, my bedroom is completely dark.

  I roll over and switch on my bedside lamp, blinking from the harsh light as it bombards my retinas, and glance at the time. Eight o’clock? Damn, I’ve been conked out for hours. The stress must have taken something out of me.

  I sit up and realize that I’m only wearing my bra and panties. When did that happen? Usually when I nap, I do so fully clothed, but judging by the lack of shorts and tank top on the floor, I must have thrown my clothes in the hamper before I passed out.

  They weren’t clean.

  Weller’s death clung to my clothes like skunk spray. They’re tainted: I’ll probably need to burn them.

  I pull some leggings and a T-shirt from my dresser, feeling sore and achy and very much like I’ve been hit by a bus, and as I’m getting dressed I hear heavy footsteps in the hallway. I’d know them anywhere. My dad’s just getting home. He must have been working on Weller’s murder all day.

  Part of me wants to avoid the confrontation
of telling him about the journal, push it off until later in the evening, but if he gets too far into a bottle of Tullamore Dew, there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll either lose his temper entirely, or break down in uncontrollable sobbing. It’s much better to talk to him when he’s tired from work, but still sober.

  I pad silently down the hall in my bare feet toward the bright lights of the kitchen. My dad bends down in front of the open refrigerator door, staring at a half dozen Tupperware containers holding last week’s leftovers. He’s still in uniform, but the crisply pressed shirt and neatly buttoned jacket are hopelessly creased and wrinkled, and look as if they’ve been balled up in a drawer for months instead of taken out of the closet this morning.

  “I think there’s still some of the penne and meatballs I made on Thursday,” I say.

  Dad doesn’t even flinch at the sound of my voice. “Perfect, I’m starved.” He pulls a blue container from the back shelf and lets the door close. “Want some?”

  My stomach growls in response. “I think that’s a ‘yes.’”

  Dad warms up the leftovers while I pull down some plates and set the small bar table in the kitchen. We have a real dining room table, of course, that we used to eat at every night, but by some kind of tacit agreement, Dad and I haven’t eaten there since Mom died.

  I grab a tub of pre-grated Parmesan and two diet sodas from the fridge, and we settle in for a meal. The silence hangs heavy between us; each wordless bite of lukewarm meatballs and undersauced penne is another nail in the coffin of our fractured relationship.

  “Work’s been crazy the last two days,” he begins.

  That’s an understatement.

  “Between Deputy Weller and the body of that fisherman, it’s like the whole department is going nuts.”

  “I bet.”

  “Sorry I haven’t been around.”

  It’s better that way.