Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  As they watched, the burning diesel truck smashed into the Willamette Bridge. The cargo, whatever was contained in that long silver tank, exploded. For a moment the entire southern valley was bright, illuminated by the blaze of a new sun. The noise shattered the snowy silence.

  A wave of hot air struck their faces, whistling in the dark.

  “Get down,” Dean screamed, pushing her to the ground, covering her body with his body as shards of concrete and asphalt rained down on them. Embers shot out in a thousand different directions.

  A slab the size of a baseball struck Dean in the small of his back, knocking the air from his lungs.

  “Dean?”

  Pebbles and firefly embers peppered the snow around them.

  “Dean?” Piper repeated.

  “I’m – I’m fine,” he lied, sucking burning-cold air into his empty lungs. He rolled off her. “You?”

  “Okay. Good Lord!” she said, rising to her elbows.

  Below them the road was still lit by a raging fire, casting flames and shadows in a thousand directions. The fire emanated not from the bridge, but from somewhere far below – down near the river. There was just enough light for them to see that the Willamette Bridge was no longer there.

  Destroyed.

  With the pass closed and the bridge gone, the city of Black Valley, Oregon, was truly and totally alone.

  18

  Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

  Sheriff John Evans could hear his grandfather’s pocket watch ticking. He knew it was impossible. The watch, a family heirloom, was safely buried deep in the pocket of his uniform, which was covered by his thick, insulated outer coat. But he could hear it. Hear it marking the seconds, keeping time -- no, not keeping time, counting down.

  Counting down. Down to what?

  Though Ava was physically unharmed by the attempted rape doctors were keeping her hospitalized overnight. She was sedated and sleeping soundly. In many ways she was doing better than her husband. Nathan was frantic. He had been given something for his nerves but was still wired.

  John wiped his face with his hand. It came away damp, sweaty. He contemplated it as if seeing blood instead of perspiration. Sweatin’ in the snow, hell of a deal.

  Nathan’s words still rang in his head. “He had white hair, John. That’s all I saw was white hair. Ava saw it, too. The color of bleached bones. You know who had hair like that don’t you?”

  Whitey Dobbs.

  Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

  “He was in the room with me, John. I never saw him, but I could feel him. I could hear him. And” – Nathan talked between gasps of air and debilitating tears – “I never saw him leave, he was just gone.”

  Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

  The phones were shit. Radios not much better. John had managed to talk to the Oregon State Police, but only for a minute, just long enough to tell them that all hell was breaking loose. The storm had come from nowhere, they told him.

  Never seen anything like it. The closest anyone could recall was a tornado or microburst, back in 1974, that sprang from nothing, took the top clean off a grain silo, and vanished. It was so powerful, they never found the debris. It was obliterated. In a state that averaged no more than one tornado a year, the storm was a complete surprise. But even that was isolated, confined.

  Nothing like this, nothing.

  Even now, as snow piled on Black Valley, the weather wizards down at the Eugene television stations were still saying it was impossible. Should not be happening. A little rain, but that was all.

  The storm had come from nowhere.

  Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

  Dean and Piper entered the Black Valley Sheriff’s Department with the storm snapping at their heels. John wasn’t in his office or in the main workroom. They found him in the break area, sitting alone at the small oval table, an untouched cup of coffee in front of him.

  He didn’t look up.

  “The bridge is out,” Dean said.

  “Ava was attacked,” John replied.

  “What?” The refrigerator hummed roughly. “By who?”

  John raised his head. “Good question. What about the bridge?”

  Dean opened his mouth but made no sound; questions clogged his throat.

  Piper answered for him. “A truck, a big flaming truck. Struck the bridge and exploded. Kaboom! Just like Coye Cheevers said he saw two days ago. Except this one landed.”

  John was silent.

  “You don’t understand,” Piper said. “It hit the bridge. But not from the road, from the sky.”

  John nodded.

  “You hear what I’m saying? A burning semi fell out of the sky and slammed into the Willamette Bridge, blasting the hell out of it.” Piper’s voice was strained and high, nearing hysteria. “It fell out of the sky. And – and I knew it was going to happen.”

  The vulnerability in her voice jerked Dean from his haze of confusion.

  John accepted the news as if such things were commonplace. A new panic flared in Dean’s mind. Come on, John, we need you. Don’t go crazy on us. Not now, not now.

  “What about Ava?” Dean asked, hoping to make the lawman focus.

  John met his eyes. His jaw tightened. “Recovering. Sleeping. But Nathan’s a basket case. He says her attacker was a man with white hair.”

  Silence filled the room.

  The sheriff looked at Dean. “We’re cut off. The pass is snowed under. Bridge is gone.” He motioned toward the blinded windows. “Helicopter can’t fly in this. You tried the phones?”

  Dean shook his head.

  “Gone to shit. Not just the phone line. Cellular, two-way, all of it. You can make out a word here or there, but otherwise static.”

  “We’re on our own,” Dean said, suddenly understanding the sheriff’s mood. Might as well look for answers in the blackness of a cup of coffee as anywhere else.

  “There’s more.” John’s voice was as still as the night was frantic.

  Dean pulled out a plastic-backed chair and sat heavily. More was not the word he wanted to hear.

  “I haven’t told the others yet. A hunter found a body up on the north side of Hawkins Hill. Been there awhile, at least ten years, maybe longer. Not much to go on, but enough to tell the poor son of a bitch had been mutilated.”

  “Mutilated,” Dean repeated.

  “Missing his right hand.”

  “Ten years?” Dean muttered.

  “Ten years? What does that mean?” Piper asked.

  “It means he’s done it before,” John said with a steady voice.

  “Before?” Piper repeated. Dappled in the light and shadows of the break room, she looked like a little girl.

  “Serial killer?” Dean ventured. “Someone repeating a pattern.”

  John nodded. “The ten-year gap could be due to prison time or, worse, could mean a drifter who kills and keeps moving.”

  “Different jurisdictions, different states. A roving serial killer is hard to identify, let alone catch. And without phones there’s no way to get any outside aid.”

  “Flaming trucks, showers of glass, serial killers?” Piper shook her head. “How can all of this be happening?”

  John returned his gaze to the motionless coffee. “Found a wallet on the corpse.”

  “A wallet?” Dean asked.

  The sheriff looked up again. Even in the veiling darkness his cold, hard eyes seemed hazy, moist. “It’s Larry. Larry Pepperdine. Our old buddy, our old freakin’ DJ buddy, Larry Pepperdine.”

  Piper jerked. A shudder ran the length of her body.

  Her eyes, her eyes, Dean thought. Sparks of blue.

  “What the hell?” John saw it, too.

  “Something’s coming,” Piper whispered.

  Mavis Connetti played the message for a third
time. The phone had awakened her from a deep sleep; the answering machine had caught the call before she was able to emerge from slumber.

  She played the message again to make sure, absolutely sure, that she had heard right. It was Dean. His voice tinny, spilling from the machine.

  “Mavis . . . I need to talk to you . . . I need to see you . . . I’ve been a fool. I need you. Please come over to my house. We need to talk – talk about us. Don’t try to call me. I won’t discuss it on the phone . . . Please come . . . I looove yoouu . . . “

  Dean.

  She had tried to call him back despite his instructions, but the phones were out.

  Dean?

  She was both thrilled and baffled. He wants me, she thought, a wave of excitement crashing over her body.

  Please come over to my house.

  His house. That had been part of the wall he had put up. The dividing line. How could their relationship flourish if she wasn’t even allowed in his house? But now? The invitation was a sign that he was ready for a true relationship.

  She dressed without making a conscious decision to do so. Outside, the night howled. A cold, nasty wind slammed against the storm windows. A horrible night to be out. But . . .

  Please, come over to my house.

  “Oh, Dean, are you really ready?” she asked the air. “I am.”

  19

  Deputy Jerry Niles was off duty. It was late. He was tired and tense and looking forward to nothing more than putting his body in park, his mind in neutral, and watching the world go by on his big screen TV. It didn’t matter what program was on. He would watch anything – sitcoms, dramas, PBS specials on the mating cycle of the Cajun Moth, anything. Just as long as it made that requisite mind-numbing noise.

  Cindy, his wife of three years, recognized the mood and accordingly gave him a wide berth. She did not ask why he was two hours late, again, or why he spoke in one- word sentences, his eyes never meeting hers.

  His goal was obvious and simple – to sit in his old, plaid, saggy-bottomed chair and vegetate . The glow from the television lit his face as the buzzing voices dulled his senses. He pressed the remote. A TV family was having a TV-family crisis. One of the children needed a lesson in friendship. Part of his mind noticed that TV families never had to discuss things like severed body parts shoved down the throat of beautiful women. He shooed away the thought. He tried to find comfort in the canned laughter as the TV child learned that true friends were the best friends of all.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Jerry frowned and studied the screen, willing himself to ignore the knocking at the back door. He tried to lose himself in the pixels on the screen, tried to mute the frantic exchange between his wife and the visitor.

  He didn’t even look up when his wife apologetically led the visitor into the den, then stepped in front of the television. He tried not to listen as the kid spewed out his story, all the while nervously kneading his box-boy apron.

  To his credit, Jerry hung on to the illusion that he was off duty – despite the frantic nature of the boy’s plea, despite the fact that his wife was physically blocking his view of the television – until he heard: “ . . . we were doing stock when he came in. Guess we forgot to lock the door. You said to let you know if anything unusual happened. Well, this fellow, this stranger, is pretty unusual. He’s still at the store. Mr. Jones is trying to delay him till you can get there. He figured it would be quicker to tell you than to call into town, what with you living so close and all.”

  The stranger!

  “Mr. Jones says it’s the same guy he saw before. Fellow wearing a green coat and a big – uh – floppy hat.”

  Jerry almost heard the click; the sound of that switch in his head flipping from off to on, bringing his senses to full and instant alert, the switch that made him a cop.

  Jones’s market was just two doors over. Jenkins Jones had reported seeing the stranger once before. John had told them all to be on the lookout for anyone, anyone out of the ordinary.

  His wife knew the moment when his mind went back on duty. Maybe she heard the click? Not successfully masking the concern on her face, she dutifully and gingerly handed him his gun belt.

  For just a second, the time it took to take the belt and wrap it around his waist, Jerry wondered how she did it. How she tolerated the hours, the moods, the uncertainty. And for the first time he wondered how long before she would burn out -- give up and leave him – or before duty won and Jerry didn’t come home.

  He kissed her.

  It was quick but heartfelt. He kissed her on the lips, in the living room, in front of the box boy, trying to convey all his emotions, regrets, and desires in that instant – with that one move and no words.

  Then he was gone.

  After he left, Cindy Niles stood quietly in her living room, her fingers on her lips, tracing the touch of his lips – trying to overcome her surprise.

  She cried.

  He had never done that before, never been that passionate, that concerned, and it scared the hell out of her.

  The sky was black and the ground was white, as if someone had taken a negative picture of the world and pasted it to the windshield of Mavis Connetti’s Jeep Cherokee. Ordinarily, nothing short of a fire could get her out on a night like this. But Dean. Dr. Dean. That was different.

  His house was dark when she arrived.

  The doctor’s not in.

  The storm, it must be the storm. His power was out. That meant candles and a fireplace, all very romantic. The wind clawed at her like a hungry horde as she hurried up the walkway and climbed the steps to the porch.

  She pressed the doorbell, the wind preventing her from hearing its peal. No response. Maybe he wasn’t home? No, if his power was off, then the doorbell wouldn’t be working. She knocked instead.

  Creak.

  The door opened. Just a bit. A crack of dark about two inches wide.

  “Dean?” Her heart sprinted. “Dean, are you there?”

  No answer.

  She eyed the small gap, the strip of dark, searching for evidence that he was home. “Dean, it’s me, Mavis.”

  No answer.

  A tree limb cracked, sounding like a gunshot. The door opened wider, silently now – and Mavis felt an irrational wave of fear.

  “Dean?”

  The opening was now almost six inches wide. The streetlight leaked in slightly, hinting of depth and definition – a world beyond the black.

  Had it been the wind? A strong gust perhaps, one strong enough to force the door open?

  Creak.

  A foot wide now. She could see the first trappings of furniture, the light colors of a sofa.

  “Dean, is that you?”

  Silence.

  Like a helium balloon being jerked by a child, Mavis felt her emotions pulling her – jerking her toward the safety of the Jeep. She turned to leave.

  “Maaviss . . .” It was the sound of wind rustling through a heavily leafed tree. Had she imagined it? Wished herself into hearing it?

  She stopped, turned back to the door. “Is that you, Dean?”

  No answer.

  “Dean, I don’t like this.”

  “Mavis . . .” said the voice, this time with greater clarity, as if her attention had given it definition. It was Dean. Wasn’t it?

  She took a step closer and pushed the door open. The scream of fear from her child’s brain was almost deafening, triggering the memory of the message on her answering machine.

  Something was wrong here. She had to get away.

  “Mavis . . .”

  Leave! Shrieked her irrational mind.

  As if sensing that thought the voice said, “Mavis . . . I huuurt . . . “

  The Klaxon wail of the child’s warning, was pushed aside, discarded like soiled clothing. “Oh, Dean,” she cried.
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  And then she entered the house.

  20

  The stranger was brought in the back way. His hands cuffed behind his back; Jerry Niles at his side; Coye Cheevers by the door, gun in hand. The stranger was taken directly to a holding cell, a no-nonsense room of gray blocks and black bars in the basement. Jerry pushed him inside, where the sheriff sat waiting on the thin, flat bed.

  The stranger’s raincoat, hat, belt, and boots had been removed. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved black T-shirt. His socks were thick, dark gray and wool. It was as if he couldn’t decide whether to dress for warm or cold weather.

  “Who the hell are you?” John demanded, anger cutting deeply into his stubbled face.

  The stranger smiled. The beard and long brown hair had given the impression of age, but his eyes, gas-flame-blue, made him look surprisingly young.

  “He says his name is Elijah,” Jerry said. He remained behind the suspect, holding him by the cuffs. “That’s it. Won’t give a last name.”

  “Elijah!” John spit the name as if he had just bitten into something foul. “No last name? That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”

  “I find the truth to be the greatest conundrum of all,” said the stranger. His voice was softer than John expected and, like his eyes, hinting of a young, vigorous mind and body.

  John rolled his shoulders, suddenly uncomfortable. Troubled. Alert. Unnerved by the fact that this man was not what he appeared to be.

  “He talks like that all the time. Son of a bitch wouldn’t shut up on the ride over here. But it’s all crazy talk.”

  The stranger smiled. “You think I’m insane, don’t you? In fact, you want me to be insane. My insanity makes the rest of the world sane.”

  Jerry wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, yeah, it does. Means you’re the sorry bastard that’s been killing folks.”

  John nodded, a barely perceptible move.

  Jerry responded by tightening the cuffs. Elijah winced but didn’t complain.