The Enfield Horror Trilogy

by Ripley, Ron

  Two days ago.

  Harbor Chemicals from Boston, Massachusetts had called the Enfield Police Department to do a health and welfare check on Mr. Sandock. The chemist had missed a meeting in Boston, which was unlike him, and then he hadn’t reported for work in Durham. Again, out of character.

  Mr. Sandock wasn’t friendly with anyone at work, but the company was concerned. Evidently, despite his lack of social skills, he was a motivated employee. Never late. Never sick.

  Tom didn’t think that Mr. Sandock was either one of those things. The scene in front of him showed Tom that Mr. Sandock had been scraping his windshield, evidently getting ready to go to that meeting in Boston. Mr. Sandock’s briefcase was on the passenger seat. A travel mug was in a cup holder between the seats. The keys were in the ignition, and the ignition was in the ‘on’ position.

  But there was no Mr. Sandock.

  There was a smattering of what looked like dried blood on the driveway, but without a test he wouldn’t be able to tell for sure if it was blood or how old the damn stuff was.

  That was a job for the State Police Crime Scene Unit. Enfield wasn’t big enough to have their own CSI unit.

  They usually didn’t need one.

  "This is a crime scene," Tom said. He looked around the property again. "But there was no body. Just a missing man."

  A loud, grumbling noise sounded close by, and Tom stepped back and looked past his cruiser to the end of the street. A beat to hell old Chevy pickup was rumbling down the road at a steady pace and slowed down as it neared Tom. An old man leaned over from the driver’s side and rolled down the passenger window before shifting the truck into ‘park’.

  “Everything all right?” an old farmer asked.

  “For now,” Tom said, walking up to the truck. “Israel Porter, right?”

  The man nodded.

  “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary lately, Mr. Porter?”

  Israel looked at him for a long moment, the old farmer’s eyes hard within the etched lines of his face. “Depends on what your idea of ordinary is, son.”

  Tom smiled. “Just about everything and nothing, I suppose.”

  A smile cracked Israel’s seemingly stony face. “Well,” the old farmer said, “I saw something the other morning, and I like to chalk it up to age and not insanity.”

  “What morning was that?” Tom asked.

  “Friday,” Israel said. “Friday morning.”

  Tom nodded. “Do you mind if I ask you what it was that you think that you saw?”

  Israel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I thought that I saw a dragon.”

  Tom couldn’t stop his eyes from widening, but he managed to keep a straight face. “A dragon.”

  Israel rubbed the back of his head. “I know. I know. I can only figure that I was overtired. I don’t sleep especially well anymore. Insomnia. Part of getting old. But,” he said, “that’s what I thought that I saw. A dragon. Right around four thirty, five o’clock Friday morning.”

  Tom nodded.

  As Israel started to roll the window back up, Tom said, “I’m sorry, Israel?”

  “Yes?”

  “I had Friday off,” Tom said, glancing back at the broken scraper for a moment. “Was there a frost Friday?”

  “Ayuh,” Israel nodded. “First real hard frost of the season.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said, stepping away from the truck.

  Israel gave another nod, finished rolling up the window and shifted the truck back into ‘drive’. A moment later the truck was rumbling back up the road.

  Tom looked back at the scraper again, shaking his head. No such things as dragons, but something sure as hell snatched up Mr. Justin Sandock.

  Tom walked back to his cruiser, climbed in and called for the State Police Crime Scene Unit.

  Chapter Five

  What They Saw While Flying

  “You can’t be serious, Hank,” Janet said as she got out of the car.

  “What do you mean?” Hank asked, walking around to her side of the car and looking out into the woods.

  “What do you mean, what do I mean?” she asked, looking over at him with a frown. “That,” she said, pointing into the woods. “Seriously. You want me to go hiking through all of that?”

  “Well, that’s where that house is that we saw.”

  “Hank,” she said, “that’s about a mile and a half, maybe even two miles in. Two miles in. Two miles. One,” she said, holding up her index finger, “I am not dressed to hike through that crap. Two,” she continued, adding her middle finger, “I am not dressed to hike through that crap. Do you understand?”

  “Come on, Janet,” he smiled, winking at her, “we could get romantic out there.”

  “We could also get romantic at a decent restaurant in Concord,” she replied. “Walking through two miles of forest is not going to put me in the mood, Hank. I want you to know that.”

  “I just want to see what’s out there,” Hank said, looking back into the forest.

  “You saw what’s out there,” Janet said. “There’s a house. In the middle of the forest. We live in New England, Hank. Houses in the middle of the forest aren’t that uncommon. There’s nothing special about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Hank said, still looking into the forest. “I don’t know. That place might be. I want to see it.”

  “Tell you what,” Janet said to him, “I’ll go back into Lebanon and grab something to eat for us. Maybe a couple of subs and a six pack of beer. I’ll also pick up something from the Redbox for us to watch tonight. And while I’m doing all of that, you can hike out to the house in the woods, have a look around, snap a few pics on your phone, and come back. Sound good?”

  Hank looked at her and nodded. “Let me grab my jacket.”

  Janet watched as he opened the back door, reached in and took his Northface jacket out, pulling it on.

  “Are you sure that you don’t want to walk out there with me?” he asked her.

  “Hank,” Janet sighed, “I don’t like walking in the woods on a regular, cleared trail. Why am I going to want to break a path of my own?”

  “I just thought it looked cool from the plane.”

  “And I don’t like the plane,” she said, exasperated. “I fly in it to be with you, and because I trust that you can land it even if the engine dies. I am not, however, walking through that.” She pointed to the forest.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Okay.”

  “Do you have your cellphone?”

  Hank nodded, patting his back pocket.

  “And the keys?”

  “In the ignition still,” he answered.

  “Good. How long do you think you’ll be?”

  “An hour and a half, two hours tops. Even if the path is rough, it shouldn’t take me more than twenty minutes a mile, but we’ll count on extra time, just in case.”

  “Alright,” Janet said. “Just be safe, okay? I really don’t like this.”

  He smiled at her and winked. “I’ll be fine.”

  Janet stood by the car and watched him walk steadily into the forest. His arms swung easily at his side, and he whistled as he went. She waited until he was merely a shape slipping between the trees before walking around the car and getting in. Janet adjusted the seat and mirrors, put on her seatbelt and started the car. She checked her mirrors and the way ahead before doing a three point turn and heading back into Lebanon to get some food.

  ***

  Hank walked at a good pace, moving faster than he thought he would, which was fine as far as he was concerned. It would give him that much more time to poke around the old house. He couldn’t wait to get up close to it. Janet didn’t understand how exciting it was to be able to explore something like that.

  Hank had always wanted to be an archeologist as a kid, but when puberty hit, he discovered that none of the schools that had archeology programs had good looking girls. Well, he didn’t think so at the time.

  He couldn’t complain too much, though.
He’d eventually gotten his MBA, and that had set him up pretty well financially. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to retire at fifty instead of sixty-five. And, if that house that he’d seen from the plane was really accessible, well, he’d even be able to take up his interest in archeology again.

  Hank smiled to himself and picked up his pace a little.

  It was alright that Janet didn’t come with him. He could understand how she wouldn’t want to go out there. The fact that she had moved out of Concord and into Enfield with him had been a big step for their relationship, and he didn’t want to push her too much.

  And hey, if she kept flying with him that was really all that mattered when it came to things to do outside of her comfort zone. He loved to fly, and the fact that Janet made that sacrifice for him was more important than her exploring an old and abandoned house.

  Sooner than he expected, Hank found himself walking towards the house, and when he did he stopped suddenly and stared at it.

  The sun was setting. It would be a while until it had set completely, but there was a strange feeling in the air around the house. The house itself looked odd—nothing that he could quite put his finger on, but it looked wrong. It looked newer than it had when he’d seen it from the air.

  Usually, things looked better from up top because you couldn’t inspect them close up.

  But not here.

  The stones looked bright, the wooden shutters perfect. And while he could have sworn that the front door had been missing, there it was, open ever so slightly. The roof, too, didn’t look nearly as bad as it had from the Cessna. A quick glance around showed that no one had been working on the property. Too many trees down around the building. No path cut through it.

  No, the place just looked better in person than it had from the air.

  Strange.

  And then Hank put the thought out of his mind. Whistling happily to himself he made his way through the debris around the building.

  Within a few minutes, he was pushing the curiously heavy front door open and looking into the house. The structure consisted of a single large room. At the far end was a large chimney, and there were bare bunks and other furnishings, as well as a pair of large hiking packs stacked in one corner.

  Everything was clean.

  Brilliantly so.

  “Hello?” Hank called out, wanting to make sure that there wasn’t anyone hiding somewhere in the room that he might not be able to see.

  A cold, uncomfortable feeling crept over him. It started in his toes and wormed its way up through his feet and into his legs. Soon the feeling swarmed over his balls, causing his body to try and pull them into the safety of the abdominal cavity even as the feeling crawled like a thousand spiders up his back.

  Hank turned slowly to leave.

  There on the ground, just outside of the door and surrounded by fallen trees, Hank saw a man. The man lay face down, and a long, oriental dragon stood over him, the right foreleg resting comfortably on the man’s back.

  A feeling of satisfaction washed over and above Hank, as though the house itself was pleased to see the dragon.

  You see, my friend, the dragon chuckled, knocking Hank backward with the power of his thoughts, we were right to expect that the food would deliver itself.

  ***

  Janet had been sitting in the car with the engine running, the heater on low as she waited for Hank to come back out of the woods.

  The digital clock had switched to 4:00 and there was no sign of him.

  Hank had been gone for two hours, and he wasn’t responding to any of her text messages. When she tried to call, it rang and eventually went to voicemail. Janet knew that he wasn’t out of range. Even out in the middle of nowhere, their phones had great reception.

  But Hank wasn’t back. Hank hadn’t even sent her a text or pictures to let her know that he’d made it there.

  Their cold subs were in the back seat getting warm, as was the beer. The movie she’d picked out—Fury Road—was beside a bag of potato chips.

  And Hank wasn’t back.

  Janet started to feel worried.

  Motion in the rearview mirror caught her attention, and she looked up. An Enfield police cruiser, its lights flashing, pulled up behind her.

  Janet let out a breath that she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding, and rolled the window down before turning the car off. Behind her, the officer stepped out of the car, putting his hat on before closing the door and walking towards her.

  Chapter Six

  Israel at Fred Danbury’s Farm

  Israel pulled into Fred Danbury’s barnyard and saw that the lights were still on around the barn. That simple sight kept his hand on the keys as he looked out the windows of his truck.

  The back door to Fred’s house was open, the light on in the kitchen. Fred and Elizabeth’s car was still in the yard, as was the old Jeep that Fred liked to drive around in. But there was no sign of Fred or Elizabeth. From the barn, whose doors were still closed and locked, there came a long, pitiful howl.

  Israel turned off the truck, got out with a grunt and rubbed his right knee. His rheumatism was terrible, especially when it decided to act up. Limping slightly until the joint started working properly, Israel reached the barn door and found the key in the lock.

  Frowning, he turned the key, undid the lock and pulled open the right-hand door.

  The howling stopped, and an agitated bark sounded.

  “Turk,” Israel said, “it’s just Israel.”

  As Israel approached the stall that Turk lived in, the giant black German shepherd watched him cautiously. A heartbeat later the dog wagged his tail and smelled the closed fist that Israel extended to him. Israel flipped the latch and let the dog out to run circles around him, barking playfully.

  “I know,” Israel said, patting the dog as he stopped for a moment. “I know. Where’s Fred, Turk? Where’s Elizabeth?”

  The playful attitude of the dog disappeared. Turk became all business and trotted out of the barn, stopping just beyond the doors. He put his nose to the ground and turned right from where Israel had been standing. Israel followed the dog to the back of the barn where he found what he could only assume was Elizabeth.

  He recognized the blue dress. It was what she liked to wear into town on Sunday mornings.

  The body was mangled, and there wasn’t much left to it.

  Israel managed to keep his breakfast down, and Turk, hackles raised, sniffed the ground around Elizabeth’s remains.

  A few minutes later, the dog sat down, whining as he looked at Elizabeth.

  “No sign of Fred?” Israel asked the dog.

  Turk merely looked at him.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Israel said. “Come on. Let’s go for a ride.”

  It was only when Israel was driving back towards the main road with Turk on the passenger seat beside him that Israel realized that there hadn’t been enough on the ground to make up all of Elizabeth.

  She had been a tall, stout woman.

  There was a lot of meat missing from her bones.

  ***

  Tom got out of his cruiser, put his hat back on and started carefully walking towards the dark green, late model Camry parked on the side of Old Route 4. The engine had been turned off, and the window rolled down, both of which were good things, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t a potentially lethal situation. The cemeteries were full of cops who were foolish enough to believe that these situations weren’t.

  With his hand near his weapon, Tom walked up to the Camry and stood a little back from the door. “Hello,” he said cheerfully, “do you have a problem that I could help with?”

  The woman, perhaps in her early to mid-thirties, nodded. “My boyfriend went into the woods about two hours ago,” she said. “He was going to go check a house that he saw in there?”

  “A house?” Tom asked. “There’s nothing in there. How did he find out about the house?”

  “We saw it yesterday when
we were doing a flyover to look at the damage from the storm.”

  “And he went in two hours ago?” Tom asked.

  The woman nodded, her eyes wet with tears as the worry she was feeling stole completely over her.

  Tom looked back into the forest. It was getting dark, and soon the sun would set. The temperature would drop, uncomfortably so, but not so much the man would die from exposure.

  “Miss…” Tom said.

  “Janet,” she said. “My name’s Janet.”

  “Janet,” Tom nodded. “I’m Tom Henderson. What was he wearing?”

  “Hank?” she thought for a moment. “Timberland boots, jeans, a sweatshirt and his jacket.”

  “No hat or gloves?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Okay,” Tom nodded.

  A sputtering, grumbling sound interrupted his thoughts and Tom turned and saw, once again, Israel Porter rumbling along in his beat-up pickup. When the old man pulled up, he rolled down the driver’s side window. There was an extremely large German shepherd in the passenger seat.

  “What’s going on now?” Israel asked.

  “Man walked in,” Tom said. “He hasn’t come back out.”

  Israel looked into the woods. “Something’s not right.”

  Tom looked at him. “No?”

  “I just left the Danbury farm. You know them, Fred and Elizabeth?”

  Tom nodded, recognizing the dog now.

  “That’s Turk,” Tom said, the dog’s ears perking up at the mention of his own name.

  “Ayuh, he is,” Israel said. “Fred’s gone, but the cars are both there. Elizabeth’s dead ‘round the back of the barn.”

  A chill raced up Tom’s spine, then back down and settled into the pit of his stomach. He was about to ask if Israel had called 911, but then he remembered that neither Israel nor the Danburys had phones. Old school New Englanders, who couldn’t be bothered with people calling.