EPPINGTON
THE GUARDED SECRET
(A COZY CONSPIRACY)
HEWEY SPADER COZY MYSTERY SERIES
BOOK ONE
Tanya R. Taylor
Copyright© 2020 Tanya R. Taylor
All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this work may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the Author.
This is a fictitious work in its entirety. The author bears no responsibility for any possible similarities concerning names, places or events.
CONTENTS
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
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1
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I’ll never forget the day my life was changed in the blink of an eye. Before that strange thing hovered above us, we were an ordinary town with somewhat ordinary people like Mr. Mark Jeffreys who lived across the street, for example. He was a reclusive bachelor who’d obviously planned to remain one for the rest of his days. He’d already mastered the lifestyle for the greater part of his sixty-two years of existence and seemed quite contented and conceited, I might add. Didn’t matter if he was sort of the odd one out in our neighborhood where other homes were mainly comprised of both a father and a mother, and a couple of snot-nosed kids, although there were a few single parent homes where the woman or man of the house had to courageously play both roles.
My name is Hewey, short for Hubert, but just so you know, I refuse to be called Hubert. What kind of a name is that anyway? I swore to my folks that when I turned twenty-one I was gonna change that sucky name and put Hewey on the dotted line instead. I think Hewey has sort of a flair to it. Don’t you think? I lived with my dad and mom, Steve and Pepper Spader. They were the best parents a kid could ask for. My younger brother Carl was generally a pain in the butt, but I figured we may as well keep him since he's already here.
Anyway, I’d better tell you what happened to my hometown of Eppington a long time ago and if you ever got to know me now as an adult, you’d probably understand why I turned out the way I did. When this whole thing happened, I’d just turned sixteen and Carl was twelve. That was twenty-five years ago and I still think about what occurred back then to this very day. It really doesn’t matter if you believe me or not; I just felt the urge to finally let the truth be told. Nobody else in Eppington seems to want to relive those events, but the fact that I never stopped reliving them probably means I’d be better off sharing with the world what actually happened. Dispel all the rumors, if you were unlucky enough to hear them. These are the facts…
2
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The town of Eppington
Population: 7,572
Saturday, June 3, 1995
The four of us were the best of friends. We grew up in a community that believed in the village raising a child concept—which meant that Rob, Jason, Sam and I knew fully well what it was like to get the occasional whooping from random grown-ups, particularly when we were allegedly caught doing something mischievous. Subsequently telling our parents about the said whooping was a horrid mistake since that only made things a thousand times worse. Most folks back then would just compile another whooping on top of that whooping for the initial transgression. Undeniably, playing pranks on other kids and throwing eggs at the neighbors’ houses whenever we felt like it pretty much fit our M.O. Mr. Jeffreys’ house was mainly our target since we got the impression he thought he was better than everybody else. To be honest, we usually got blamed for everything, even when our hands were squeaky clean.
Jason, aka Jase, and I were the same age. He was five feet eleven; three inches taller than I was at the time. To say he was a sloppy dresser was putting it mildly. The guy didn’t give one iota if his clothes were smelly or not, had gaping holes or even remotely matched. Never mind the well-known fact that his folks constantly overstocked his closet with brand new rags simply because they had the money to do so. Broad-shouldered and handsome, straggly-haired and all, Jase was unapologetically carefree and didn’t have to do much to impress the girls either. I wasn’t as lucky as he was when it came to girls, but I wasn’t ugly either. I had short brown hair at the time, sort of spiky; a dimple in my left cheek and was more on the slim side.
Rob was fifteen, freckled face with crimson colored hair. He was the shortest in the bunch, but a nice guy whenever he wasn’t hungry. Did I say, he was roughly about two hundred pounds? Nevertheless, he wore his extra poundage well, probably because as much as he ate, he was also almost equally as active. I mean… how could he not be? The four of us were hardly at home during the daytime since we never ran short of something to do outside of school.
Sam—short for Samantha—was a twin. She was sort of like the tomboy in the group. Never did anything girlish and literally scoffed at girls that did, including her identical twin, Taylor, who acted like a princess and couldn’t keep her nose out of a book. Sam hated reading and basically only had the mindset for outdoor activities or watching action-packed movies. Just my type of gal.
Sam and I were bosom buddies from way back in grade school. She came to my defense at break time when a big kid snatched my ham sandwich right out of my hands and dashed off with it. Never knew if he was just that hungry, but I didn’t care. I burst out crying right where I stood and Sam, who saw the whole thing happen, ran behind the kid, grabbed the back of his shirt and flung him onto the dusty ground. Immediately, the sandwich dropped out of his hand, so both of us lost out. The yard was still quite damp after a drizzle of rain had fallen early that morning, so when Sam scooped up a handful of dirt and tossed it into his face for good measure, I felt totally gratified. Suddenly looking deflated and now screaming like a girl, the weasel got up and ran off towards the swings where Miss Potter, a teacher, was watching her class play.
Sam hurried back over to me. By then, I’d stopped crying and she asked if I was all right.
“Uh-huh,” I replied, wiping my face with both hands.
The beautiful, ebony-skinned girl actually caressed my back a bit; it was probably something she saw her folks do a lot. At that moment, I realized I was looking into the eyes of my hero and we were instant friends from that day forward. I know it’s sort of strange having a girl come to a guy’s rescue, but Sam was no ordinary girl. She was special.
In our town, there’s a vast lake that borders a portion of our neighboring town of Crescent. The guys and I (Sam included) would usually take my Uncle Charlie’s dinghy out there on the shimmering water at least once a week to fish and just to get away from all the “normal”, judgmental folk for a few hours. Uncle Charlie was instrumental in teaching a lot of kids around the neighborhood who had an interest in fishing, how to do it right. He was my dad’s older brother who never took much lip from anybody. Rough, thick-skinned, but had a heart of gold, he never acted up whenever the guys and I wanted to borrow his dinghy. He even
owned a collection of canoes which people rented during certain holidays for spirited races across the lake.
The lake was called Olivia—believe it or not! It was named after a girl who’d drowned there ages before we were ever born. The talk was that her dog Ace tried to save her, but unfortunately, was unsuccessful. He did manage to pull her body out of the water though.
We were at Lake Olivia when the four of us noticed the strange, luminous, circular object hovering over our town that day in June. It was hot and sunny, but the object with its numerous miniature lights surrounding the edge of the craft glowed more brightly than anything we’d ever seen before. The steel base, as I call it, rotated slowly as it remained there for what felt like a good five minutes. Then suddenly, we witnessed a ball of light dart out of it, heading downwards like a lightning flash. The craft remained steady thereafter for another minute of two before it bolted towards the east, far into the distance.
“Bloody Mary! Did y’all see that?” Rob exclaimed.
Our jaws were dropped.
“Uh...yeah…” Jase muttered.
“What the hell was that?” Sam asked, still looking up at the sky.
“Seemed like some kind of UFO or something,” I replied.
There were collective nods.
“I don’t believe in UFO’s,” Rob commented.
“I don’t either, dimwit!” Jase barked. “But does that mean we didn’t see something up there that we just admitted we saw?”
“Calm down, guys,” Sam interjected. “Maybe it was something sent by the government to spy on us.” It sounded like she really watched too many of those action movies.
“Whatever it was, surely was huge as hell! Up close, it must be as big as a baseball field,” Rob said.
I felt a bit uneasy about the strange visitor, so much so that I wanted us to call it a day on Olivia, so that I could get back home and tell my folks what we’d seen. If they’d believe me or not was another story, but I just had to tell them.
It didn’t take much convincing at all as the guys all agreed it was time for us to get back. Jase lived alone with his mom. They’d moved to the area from Wisconsin after his dad went to the store for cigarettes one day and never came back. Jase seemed to have had a real chip on his shoulder because of that. I could tell it bothered him every time he mentioned anything about his dad. “Guess that store was in the Twilight Zone,” he once said. “And he couldn’t find his way out.” That probably sounded better to him than saying his dad simply abandoned his family, leaving the two of them to manage on their own.
We rowed across the lake and with a collective effort, pulled the dinghy ashore. Uncle Charlie would collect it later that evening before dark fell, which was the usual routine. We never worried about the boat since we knew it was perfectly safe. Furthermore, Uncle Charlie lived roughly three hundred yards down the road and he could see it by walking right out of his back door.
Eppington was a place where locals were generally trustworthy and didn’t do their neighbors any dirt. I did say generally. I heard about fifty or sixty years earlier, it was actually named ‘Happy Town’ by the presiding governor since it was deemed the most perfect town anyone could possibly be blessed to live in. Crime was always on the low end and our prison compound was only occupied by about five or six inmates at a time. Prison personnel were, in my opinion, paid on slack because it was said that Brevin Forbes who’d been warden for about a hundred years had an office full of porn magazines stacked as high as the ceiling in one corner because all he did the entire day was sit in that lazy chair of his and drool over what he saw on those glossy pages.
Frank Arahna, a guard who’d put in twenty years on the job said they barely had anything to do on a regular work day because the inmates housed there for petty crimes were no bother at all. Not that the situation bugged him one bit. Wouldn’t have bugged me either. Anyway, the town of Eppington was changed from Happy Town back to its original name after Governor Cleland Foulkes was elected. He wasn’t as happy-go-lucky as his predecessor and in short thought Happy Town was a comical name. Guess he felt our neighbors in Crescent and elsewhere couldn’t possibly take us seriously with a name like that.
“Let’s go!” Jase exclaimed, leading the way as we headed through the bushes toward the edge of the asphalt road.
“You guys look worried…” Sam remarked. “What’s with all the serious faces, all of a sudden?”
“Didn’t you see what we just saw?” Rob asked her.
“You mean the UFO you don’t believe in?” she retorted.
“Knock it off, you two!” Jase said. “Let’s just focus on getting back home, okay?”
“You’re worried about your mom, aren’t you?” Sam asked.
Jase didn’t respond.
“Look guys...I think you’re all taking what we saw too seriously. Trust me, it was just one of the government’s clandestine operations. Y’all can’t possibly think that’s a real UFO.”
No one replied.
Sam shook her head. “You guys have got to be kidding.”
When we arrived at the edge of the road, something immediately caught our attention. It wasn’t just one thing, in particular. It was…everything.
3
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Instinctively, we all halted and crouched down in the overgrown brush near the road.
“Holy cow!” Rob softly blurted. “What’s going on?”
I don’t know about the others, but my heart started racing. I was disbelieving my own eyes, yet believing them at the same time, if you know what I mean. What I’m trying to convey is that just like with the UFO, I couldn’t ignore what was at least ten to fifteen yards in front of me—of us.
Our street was packed with animals—dogs and cats mainly, and I spotted a few squirrels and raccoons. We only saw raccoons occasionally; the li’l critters preferred their privacy even when they were surreptitiously climbing up the sugar apple tree in our backyard nabbing the delectable fruits. I didn’t mind though, since I figured they also needed a belly full every few hours or so; Rob wasn’t the only one.
Compared to other animals in the street, there was something noticeably different about the dogs. Although they looked like regular canines, some were on all fours as expected, but others were standing effortlessly on their hind legs. I noticed two—a rather large German Shepherd and a Labrador leaning against opposite sides of a wall and they appeared to be chatting. Yes—chatting! Not barking, but they were behaving more like humans instead of dogs. I was blown away as I watched. Our neighbors were standing in the street as well, facing the dogs who’d gathered near the eastern edge of the street, roughly six or seven feet in front of them. Other animals were sort of intermingled with the humans.
“What the hell?” Sam exclaimed. “They’re all just standing there looking like zombies or something!” She was referring to the people. “And do you see those dogs? It’s like they’re…”
“Human?” Rob chimed in.
“Yeah.”
I noticed that Jase was unusually quiet.
“There’s your mom, Jase!” Rob whispered. She’d moved from somewhere in the crowd closer to the front.
“Mom…” Jase stood up and started inching out further towards the road.
I yanked him by his shirt. “What’re you doing?” I whispered loudly. “Can’t you see there’s something wrong with them?”
“I’ve got to get to my Mom and find out what’s going on.” He looked back at me with those determined eyes of his.
“But it might not be safe,” I warned.
He shook himself free of my grip. “I’m going, bro, and that’s all there is to it!”
I watched worriedly as he headed toward the crowd and the rest of us moved slightly further back into the brush to avoid being seen on the heel of Jase’s departure. I knew he viewed himself as his mom’s protector, especially since they only had each other. So, in a way, I couldn’t say I blamed hi
m.
“Mom!” He called as he moved in closer to her.
Suddenly, everyone’s head shifted in his direction, and that’s when I got a better look at our neighbors’ faces. There was definitely something off about them. As far as I could see, their eyes were eerily blank and they appeared to be in some sort of daze. A Rottweiler standing on hind legs approached Jase as he was a few feet away from his mom, who was looking at him as he called out to her, but wasn’t responding. The dog was rather poised, from what I could tell, no growling or anything which might indicate he was in attack mode.
“Why isn’t she answering, Jase?” Rob asked us.
“Beats me,” Sam replied. “They all look like they’re under some sort of spell.”
“Wonder where my folks are,” Rob said.
I sighed. “I’d bet all our folks are somewhere in that crowd.”
“You better not think of joining Jase, Rob, ‘cause we don’t know what the hell’s going on!” Sam clearly articulated.
Sam only had to say the word and Rob would stay in line. I doubt Mr. or Mrs. Powell had that kind of power over him on a daily basis. I always thought Rob felt Sam could kick his you know what if she was so inclined and he simply didn’t want to take the chance. Being a girl, Sam was taller and definitely stronger than Rob. I’d bet if they ever were to go at it, Sam would have him on the ground quicker than he could blink, similar to what she’d done to that boy back in grade school. Years ago, I told Rob and Jase about the incident after I introduced them to Sam and the guys instantly had the utmost respect for her.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Rob had a slight crack in his voice.
EPPINGTON: THE GUARDED SECRET Page 1