by Dale Young
“Maybe she went back to our place. She shares an apartment with me and another friend of ours that works over at the Post Office. You can walk to it from here. Maybe she just decided to walk back to the apartment and then come back for her car later.” The waitress, satisfied that she had just solved the mystery, shrugged her shoulders and smiled again at Logan.
“Can you tell me how to get to the apartment?” Logan asked.
The waitress suddenly seemed apprehensive. She knew that Colby liked Logan but that didn’t mean that he needed to know where they all lived. But after a few seconds she put the thought out of her mind. She decided Logan looked harmless enough.
“Sure, just down the street. You’ll see the building on the left. The number is 247.” The waitress then pointed out of the window of the diner to the street out front.
“Thanks,” Logan replied. Then he turned and left the diner. Once outside he ran into the street without looking and was almost run over by a car. Logan tried to smile and play it off while the driver cussed him from behind the wheel. He waved politely and made his way across the street and then began to walk briskly down the sidewalk. He was anxious to find Colby and he was also worried about her since Harmon said that he had just seen Chip McPhale in town. Logan felt pang of regret that Chip has survived the blow to the head from the two by four. He wished he had finished him off. Sheriff Patterson would have ruled it self-defense and Colby could have backed him up on it.
Logan walked past the old movie theater now serving as a church. The windows were dark but he could hear music playing and he thought he could hear a choir singing. Then the music stopped and he heard someone talking over a PA system. But then the sounds began to fade away as he continued on down the sidewalk. Up ahead he could see a small building sitting in the middle of a gravel lot. He knew it had to be Colby’s apartment building.
It didn’t take Logan long to find the door marked 247. It was on the second floor. As Logan stood outside the door he looked down into the parking lot. There were only a few cars in it and this led Logan to think that the apartments were mostly vacant. He turned and knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer. Then he knocked again. After several minutes he decided that no one was home. But Colby had to be there. Where else could she be? Why would her car be at the diner if she had not walked back to her apartment?
He leaned to his side and peered through the small window beside the door. But the shade was pulled and he couldn’t see inside the apartment.
“Colby? It’s me, Logan,” he said as he knocked on the door again.
After calling out Colby’s name a few more times while knocking on the door, Logan finally gave up and walked back down the stairs to the gravel parking lot. Then he walked out to the sidewalk and looked both ways down the street. Maybe Colby had stepped into a store for some reason. But most of the storefronts were boarded up, and the ones that were open for business didn’t look like the kind of stores Colby would be interested in.
“What a depressing town,” Logan said as he looked down the street. He had no idea about what to do so he just turned and started to make his way back to the diner. Maybe the waitress he had talked to would have another idea about where Colby might be.
Once back in the diner, Logan was disappointed to find out that the waitress had no other theories about where Colby might be, other than she might have walked over to the Post Office. Logan figured if she had done that then she would be back by now so he dismissed the idea.
“Where else could she be?” Logan asked the waitress. He was growing frustrated.
“She might have walked down to the law office looking for you. Other than that, I have no idea. Sorry.”
The waitress then turned and disappeared into the kitchen leaving Logan standing alone by the cash register. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sheriff sitting near the end of the bar sipping on a cup of coffee. There was an empty plate in front of him.
“Sheriff Patterson,” Logan said as he walked up and sat down on the stool next to the man. The sheriff took a sip of coffee and looked at Logan.
“Thought you’d have high-tailed it out of town by now. How’s uh, how’s your new house?” The sheriff looked at Logan and gave him half a smile while nodding his head. Apparently he knew the stories about the old house. Logan looked back at the sheriff while trying to figure out if the man was on his side or not.
“The house is fine, sheriff. If you just ignore the lost souls wandering the damn halls at night the place isn’t all that bad to tell you the truth. I’m trying to find Colby. I’m worried about her.” Logan was trying to gain the upper hand with the sheriff. Logan knew he was on the man’s turf and he also had a good suspicion that the sheriff could really care less about helping him. So Logan tried to center the conversation on Colby.
The sheriff put down his cup and looked at Logan. Logan couldn’t tell if the sheriff was just a lazy country boy that didn’t take his job seriously, or someone who had his shit wired and would not hesitate to lock up a stranger from out of town if he thought that stranger was a threat. Logan silently decided it was the latter of the two.
“Find her? Is she missing?” Sheriff Patterson said as he picked up his cup again and took a sip. Then he stared through the opening in the wall behind the counter. He watched the cook working on an order while waiting for Logan to answer him.
“Well, yes. I think she is. Her car is parked outside and I just checked her apartment. She’s not there.”
The sheriff smirked and looked into his cup of coffee. Then his eyes met Logan’s.
“Come on, Mr. Shaw. You watch TV, right? You know I can’t file a missing person report until she has been gone for forty eight hours.”
Logan knew his case was thin. The sheriff was right. Colby was hardly a missing person when she had just been seen about an hour ago by everyone in the diner. But this didn’t help Logan understand why her car was out in the parking lot and she was nowhere to be found. Then he reminded himself that the sheriff didn’t know about the fight at the old train station. If he did he might consider Colby’s car out in the parking lot to be a little more suspicious. But Logan knew better than to tell the sheriff that he had hit Chip McPhale with a two by four and then left him to die. For all Logan knew, the sheriff and Chip were related. He had heard enough about small towns to know how that worked.
Sheriff Patterson stood up from the stool and took a couple of dollar bills from his wallet. He tossed them on the counter beside his plate and then turned to Logan.
“I tell you what, Mr. Shaw.”
“Call me Logan.”
“I tell you what, Logan. I’ll keep my eyes open.”
Logan exhaled, trying to hide his frustration. “Thanks, sheriff.”
Logan nodded to Sheriff Patterson as he walked past him to the cash register. He watched as the sheriff paid for his meal and then left the diner. Then Logan walked over to the waitress, who had watched the entire exchange between the two men.
“Do you have Colby’s phone number?” Then Logan thought to himself how bad that sounded. He didn’t even know her phone number. Logan pulled out his phone and, amazed the he had service for once, punched in the number as the waitress recited it for him. Then he smiled and thanked her. As he was walking out of the diner he listened into his phone. There was no answer.
Outside, Logan tried to figure out what to do. He knew he should be worried about Colby and then again he thought that maybe he was overreacting. But when he thought about Chip McPhale, Logan knew that he had every reason to worry that something bad had happened to her.
With no idea about what to do, Logan did the only thing he could think of. He walked back to Harmon’s office and got in his car. Then he drove up and down Main Street again in the hopes that he might see Colby. When he didn’t see any sign of her he headed out of town towards his house. He figured that she might show up later, or she might at least call him. Then Logan thought about spending the night in the old house all a
lone and felt a sense of dread begin to percolate in his gut.
22
Logan was sitting on the back porch of the house watching the moon rise over the tobacco field. Colby had been right when she said she thought they would get a harvest moon sometime this week. He watched as the huge yellow ball rose up above the tree line. He missed Colby and was terrified that something had happened to her. She had not shown up at the house, and she hadn’t even called. Deep down in the pit of his stomach, Logan knew that somehow his worst fears were going to come true.
He felt anger flare inside him. If Chip McPhale harmed Colby, Logan knew he would kill him if it was the last thing he did. He thought about this as he watched the harvest moon begin its trek to its place in the night sky. He missed Colby. He missed her badly.
Logan got up from the porch swing and walked back into the house. He had to do something to occupy his time. He tried to tell himself that Colby would show up and everything would be fine. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket but noticed that he didn’t have a signal. Since coming to Starlight his cellphone had alternated from being barely useful to totally worthless. Service this far out in the country had been sketchy at best.
As Logan walked into the kitchen he stopped dead in his tracks in front of the sink. Then he listened. He thought he had heard a noise coming from somewhere in the house. He looked up as if he was trying to see through the ceiling to the hallway above him but the house fell silent. He waited a few more seconds and had just about convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks on him when he heard the sound again. It was a swift pat pat pat and it seemed to be coming from upstairs. Logan stood frozen as he listened to the sound. It seemed to grow louder and then fade away before growing louder again.
With his heart hammering in his chest, Logan turned and walked quickly through the kitchen until he was in the foyer. The sound continued above him.
Pat pat pat…
He stopped at the foot of the stairs. He didn’t want to go upstairs; he didn’t even want to look up the stairway to the second floor but he knew he had no choice. It was fight or flight, and Logan knew he couldn’t just run from the house and hope everything would get better. He knew he had to fight. But against what?
Pat pat pat…
Logan swallowed hard and looked up the stairway towards the second floor hallway. He could hear the noise but it seemed to be at the other end of the house. But then the noise stopped and Logan felt a brief moment of relief. But then the noise resumed and started to get louder.
Something was coming down the upstairs hallway from the other side of the house.
He took a step backwards but continued to look up towards the second floor hallway. It took all the strength he had to stand there while the sound grew louder. Suddenly there was a flash of motion as someone ran past the top of the stairway. Logan gasped and took another step backwards.
“Hey!” Logan yelled up the stairway. Suddenly the sound stopped.
For what seemed like an eternity Logan stood at the bottom of the stairs afraid to move. Time seemed to slow and then stand still. He heard a floorboard creak from somewhere down near the end of the upstairs hallway, near where the master bedroom was located. Then there was silence followed by another creak of a board. Whoever had just run down the hallway was now walking back towards the top of the stairway.
He waited as the skin on the back of his neck started to tingle. The front door was just a few steps away. He knew he could bolt for it and then run out into the front yard. But that would be the cowardly thing to do and Logan desperately wanted his days as a coward to be over with. It was time to confront whatever was in the house.
Logan heard another creak as nausea began to ferment in his intestines. Then there was movement at the top of the stairs. Logan drew in a sharp breath as the little girl with the flower stepped into the dim light at the top of the staircase.
He stood paralyzed with fear as he looked up at the face of the little girl standing at the top of the stairs. Her dress was varying shades of gray and seemed to be made of scraps of cloth sewn together. It hung down to her knees, leaving the bottom of her legs exposed. Logan could see what looked like scratches and scars on her legs below her knees. The little girl’s hair hung down onto her shoulders and her face was solemn. She was peering down the staircase and looking directly at Logan. Her eyes were dark and lifeless. Just as before, she was holding a flower in her hand.
He watched as the little girl twirled the flower in her fingers. Then she dropped it and stepped to the side out of sight. Logan listened as the old floorboards in the hallway creaked and groaned as the little girl made her way back down the hallway. Then the sound stopped and the house grew silent.
With every ounce of courage Logan could muster he took a few steps forward and placed a foot on the bottom step. Then he slowly began to climb the stairs, stopping every few steps to listen for the sound of the little girl’s footsteps. But the house remained silent.
Once at the top of the stairs, Logan paused and tried to gather his strength. The only light in the hallway was the yellowish glow of a small lamp on a table near the entrance to the master bedroom. Logan closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and then he leaned forward and peered down the hallway in the direction the little girl had gone.
The hallway was empty.
He knew the ordeal was far from over. The little girl could be in any of the rooms off the hallway. But when his eyes settle on the door to the attic, Logan knew immediately where the little girl had gone. The attic door was cracked open and the faint light from inside traced a thin yellow line across the hardwood floor.
When Logan stepped onto the top stair a board groaned under his feet causing him to curse under his breath. He promised himself at that very moment that if he made it through the night he was going into town tomorrow and buy a box of nails and then put a nail through every damn squeaky board in the hallway. The thought was merely a diversion to the problem at hand, an attempt by his mind to find something rational to process. But when Logan looked down the hallway at the attic door he regained his focus. He knew what he had to do.
Logan walked slowly down the hallway until he came to the first door to a bedroom. He looked into the shadowy room but only saw the dark silhouette of the bed. The window shades were open and he could see the moonlit field behind the house through the glass. Just as he was about to step away and continue down the hallway, the light coming through the window flared and changed color. Suddenly the walls of the bedroom were bathed in a kaleidoscope of colors that moved and swirled through the room. Then as quickly as it had started, the brilliant show of colors died out. When Logan looked through the window he could see that now the fields were awash in the late afternoon sun.
Standing in the doorway Logan knew that he had to walk to the window and look outside. He didn’t want to think what would happen if he just ignored what was happening and the continued on down the hallway. The house wanted him to see what was outside and he knew he had no choice but to go look.
Logan walked slowly into the bedroom past the foot of the small bed and then to the window. He looked out across the sunlit tobacco field and felt a sudden sense of relief when he realized that nothing had changed and that he was just merely looking out into the daytime version of his tobacco fields. Mercifully, he was not going to be treated to another scene from the house’s grisly past. Logan stood at the window and surveyed the fields and the row of tobacco barns situated in a straight line off to his right. Then something about the tobacco barns caught his eye.
The barns were bathed in the golden haze of the late afternoon sun but something looked different about them. At first Logan couldn’t put a finger on what it was. It took him a minute of studying the barns until he realized the difference.
The tobacco barns he was looking at seemed new, like that had just recently been built. Smoke was coming from each chimney, rising slowly into the afternoon sky. Logan had not noticed the smoke before and now that
he saw it he knew that he was looking out into a scene from the past.
The fields were still, the leafless tobacco plant stalks sat motionless in the sun. Apparently in the scene the harvest was complete and the tobacco was now being cured in the barns. Logan scanned the distant tree line and realized that it looked different too. He could see the Skeleton River shining through an opening in the trees. And rising up from the distant tree line was another plume of smoke. Logan tried to figure out where the smoke was coming from but it took him a few seconds before it came to him.
The sharecropper’s house.
Logan figured that the smoke had to be coming from the sharecropper’s house, obviously the lived-in version of it and not the abandoned one that Colby had taken him to. Logan scanned the field and the barns, and then his eyes returned to the smoke rising from the tree line. He knew what he was seeing was another scene from the era of when sharecropper’s worked the Shaw land.
Movement caught Logan’s eye, off to the left near the far edge of the field. He wanted to step away from the window when he saw it but his legs would not obey his commands. Instead, he stood still at the window as he watched a horse-drawn cart followed by a group of people moved down the far edge of the tobacco field headed towards the woods. On the cart was an oblong wooden box. A solitary horse pulled the cart guided by a man in dark suit wearing a brim hat.
He watched as the procession moved along the edge of the field and then turned onto a wide path cut through the trees. When the cart turned it allowed Logan a better view of the wooden box. It was then that he realized that the rectangular box was a coffin.
The small group of people followed the cart into the woods and before long the entire procession disappeared from view. Logan frowned and turned the scene over and over in his mind trying to figure out what he had just witnessed. It was obvious that it was a funeral procession. But whose funeral procession was it? Whose body was inside the coffins? Why was he being allowed to see this?