by Gord Rollo
“Son of a bitch,” Pat said, breaking the silence. “That’s by far the most crazy thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. He looks like Jesus, man…or maybe some sort of demented scarecrow. That’s just fucking bizarre!”
“Sure is,” Dan said. “Can you imagine what dying like this must have been like?”
“No, and I don’t want to,” Kelly said. “Let’s get out of this room. The heat and the smell are making me sick. Can’t we at least open a few of these windows and let some air and light in?”
“I second that,” Rich said, having spent more time inside this hellhole than any of them had. “Besides, there are holes in the floor all over here. We need some light in here so no one gets hurt. Trust me, you don’t want to fall into the basement. Some of Joshua’s buddies are chained up down there.”
“Are you serious?” Kelly asked.
“Unfortunately, yeah. You wanna see them?”
Kelly and Lizzy both said an emphatic, “No!” at the same time.
“Kel and Rich are right, guys,” Dan said. “Before we explore any further, let’s get some more fresh air and light in here. Come on. Let’s start out in the other room. Getting these oak planks off isn’t easy and I’d rather work out there than in this creepy-ass place.”
The gang followed Dan back out into the front room to get to work, but Kelly hung back for a moment, shining her light on the crucified man at the far end of the room. She’d known all along that her grandfather had been telling the truth, but a huge part of her had hoped Malcolm had either misremembered the past or had been flat-out lying. Now she knew her family had been a party to murder and no matter how long ago it had happened or how justified they thought they’d been, Kelly couldn’t help but feel a little dirty and ashamed of her ancestors. She supposed this wasn’t the time for feeling sorry for herself though. Her friends needed her help.
Turning to exit the room, Kelly took a step toward the door, but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and swung back around and shone her light at the dead man on the cross. Nothing moved on the altar other than the dust motes in the air. Kelly’s heart was thumping like a jackhammer in her chest but there was nothing in sight to have scared her like that.
“Easy now, girl,” she chided herself. “It’s just your imagination. The dead can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Steeling her nerves she turned away from the cross and walked out the sanctuary door, determined not to be a scaredy-cat and have the rest of the gang laughing at her. Still, deep down she honestly thought she’d seen Reverend Miller move. Just for a moment, she’d been positive the crucified man had defied death and had somehow lifted his head and opened his eyes to look at her.
Chapter Sixteen
Travis and Timothy Skyler weren’t due into work at Carlton Auto until noon today, and the twins had spent most of Wednesday morning talking about the future. Or at least Tim certainly had been. Travis had been forced to do all the listening, his brother fully cranked up and building steam by the minute. Even now, he was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger out front of the trailer home their father had left to them after his untimely death.
“I’m telling you, Bro,” Tim said. “This is it, the one we’ve been dreaming about all these years. The hoax to end all hoaxes.”
“I don’t know. The Reverend of Rock Creek sounds a bit corny to me. I thought I liked it but—”
“Nah, forget that name. That’s old news. I got a better one.”
“What?”
“Well, think about it for a minute. Those broads that were at the garage said this whole area used to be called Oak Valley, right?”
“If you say so. I wasn’t—”
“And they said the villagers didn’t kill Reverend Miller…they strung him up on a cross in a church out in the middle of the fucking cornfield, right?”
“That’s what you keep telling me, yeah. What about it?”
“Come on, man, think. Strung up on a cross…cornfields? What does that make you think of?”
“I don’t know…scarecrows?”
“Yes! Now you’re with me, Bro. We’re gonna start calling this place Valley of the Scarecrow and the woods north of here are ground zero, dude. We’re gonna plaster this all over the Web. Just think what we can do with a supercool legend like that? I can see it already: Yea though you walk through the Valley of the Scarecrow…ye SHALL fear his evil! It’s perfect. Don’t you just freakin’ love it?”
Travis had to admit he liked what he was hearing. Valley of the Scarecrow had an awesome ring to it and when they tied in the spooky story of the murdered holy man, this thing might really have legs. It was certainly better than anything they’d ever come up with in the past, that was for sure. “It’s fantastic. The only problem I see is it’s not our legend, it’s those campers’ you talked to.”
“Exactly. And that’s what makes it all the more perfect.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s their story, Travis, so they’re naturally going to believe it. That one broad’s grandfather supposedly lived there for God’s sake. He told her it was all true.”
“Which it probably isn’t.”
“Of course it isn’t. All these damn legends are bullshit, but we’re going to sneak up there and bring this one to life for those campers. They think it’s all true and after we’re done fucking with them they’ll be even more sure. They’re gonna run back home and start telling other people what they think they saw up here, which is exactly what we want. It’s how the story spreads, right?”
“Others will eventually start coming here to check it out.”
“You got it.”
“What do you mean, ‘fucking with them’? What are we gonna do?”
“Aha! That’s the fun part. Follow me.”
Tim led his brother around the side of the trailer and headed out back through a maze of rusty car parts and discarded trash, eventually stopping outside an old falling-down shed with a corrugated metal roof. Before opening the shed, he stopped to talk some more. “I’ve got a few ideas planned. For starters, I figure we can put together a scarecrow outfit easy enough. We got all kinds of old work clothes and hats and shit around here. We’ll just stuff some straw or cornstalks or something sticking out the sleeves and pant legs. Doesn’t have to be perfect, because we won’t be getting close enough for them to get a real good look at us. I also found this…” Opening the shed door, Tim reached inside and brought out a wicked-looking curved blade on the end of a six-foot-long wooden handle.
“A scythe? Cool! Where the hell did that come from?”
“No idea. Maybe Dad used it at work, hacking down weeds and bushes when he was spraying for bugs? Who knows? I just found it last night out here in the shed.”
Their father, before he’d gotten so sick, had run his own pest control company, spraying neighbors’ farms and houses to get rid of spiders and pretty much any other little bugs that were becoming a nuisance.
“Why were you poking around out here in Dad’s shed? It’s just a bunch of crap out here, isn’t it?”
“To most people, yes, but not to us. Here, look at this…” Tim stepped inside the shed and pointed to a set of large metal tanks welded together and fastened to a sturdy leather harness that someone could slip their arms into and wear the contraption on their back. A plastic tube ran from the top of the metal tanks, joining together into a copper hand wand.
“What is it?” Travis asked.
“It’s a sprayer. Dad mostly did bigger farm jobs, but every now and then he’d just have a porch on a house or something to spray. Instead of taking the whole spray truck, he used to just fill these tanks and wear it on his back. Prime it up and blast away.”
“What are we gonna do with it?”
“Crop circles,” Tim said with a straight face.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding? No.”
“What do crop circles have to do with scarecrows or evil preachers?”
>
“Nothing, but people love them. More importantly, people flock to them. All we’re gonna do is make a few small burned-out areas in the cornfield and let our campers find them. We can make religious symbols or something like that, to tie it into the reverend. Satanic stuff, maybe, like the number of the beast or a big inverted cross. That kind of shit, you know? We get some aerial shots of them on the Internet and we’re in business, man!”
“Sounds good, but you’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Dad’s chemicals. His sprays were used to get rid of bugs. They don’t harm the crops. That’s the whole point, you know? Kill the bugs but not the plants. That’s why they’re called pesticides. Spraying them on the cornfield won’t do squat. You’ll need a strong herbicide to do what you have in mind. Where are we gonna get our hands on some of that?”
“Vietnam,” Tim said with a grin.
“The hell you talking about? The country?”
“Nope. The war. You’re gonna love this.” Tim stepped over a broken toolbox and grabbed hold of a rotted burlap tarp, lifting it up and showing his brother the two fifty-five-gallon drums with bright orange stripes on them that were hidden underneath.
“Are those what I think they are?”
“Agent Orange, dude. The most fucked-up chemical soup Uncle Sam ever invented. It also just happens to be one of the most powerful herbicides on the planet. A few squirts of this shit and those cornstalks will melt like butter.”
“It’s also illegal to use, not to mention own. That crap is really dangerous. It causes cancer.”
“I know it does. It might even be what killed Dad. He always used to tell us how they dumped it all over the jungles to clear out the vegetation and kill the trees so Charlie didn’t have anywhere to hide, remember? Said it used to fall like silver rain and stick to them like greasepaint that they had a hard time getting off.”
“I remember. Wonder why he would have a supply of it sitting around though? Seems pretty dangerous and stupid, really.”
“To be honest, I think he used to keep it in case some of his customers stiffed him on his bill. If they didn’t pay up, I think he used to secretly spray a little Orange on their precious crops. Serves the bastards right, I’d say. He must have done it too, because there’s at least half of one of those drums gone already. That still leaves lots for us though.”
“I don’t know, Tim. You sure it’s safe?”
“No, but we’re not going to have a bath in the damn stuff like Dad did over in ’Nam. We’ll fill those portable tanks and be in and out quick. Don’t worry about it. I’ll do the spraying if you wear the scarecrow suit. Deal?”
“Fine with me, I guess. When were you thinking of going?”
“Tomorrow morning, I think. First thing. It’s our day off so no one will miss us at the shop. We’ll load up, hop on the quads, and see if we can track those campers down. Shouldn’t be that hard. We basically know where they are from what they told us.”
“You really think we can pull this off? I mean, if the campers see either of us, we’re screwed.”
“Not necessarily. It might mean those guys never fall for it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get things set up and start planning for other people. We can get the inverted cross burned into the field and take some video of it, maybe get some shots of the church for the website too, if we actually find one up there. It all works better and the word will definitely spread faster if we can scare those guys without them seeing us, but it doesn’t kill our idea if they do. We’ve waited a long time for this chance. There ain’t nothing gonna stop us this time, Bro. Valley of the Scarecrow is our ticket out of this dump, I can feel it. We just gotta get the ball rolling, then quietly get the hell out of the way. Sneak in there, scare the bejesus out of those campers, and then hope they go home and help us spread the word. You with me?”
“All the way, big guy. One hundred percent!”
“Atta boy.”
Chapter Seventeen
“So, any of you clowns want another drink?” Rich said, his words slightly slurred and much too loud trying to speak over the sound of drunken conversation and the crackling noise of the roaring fire.
“I do! I do!” Dan said, laughing and jumping unsteadily to his feet so Rich could pour another inch of Jack Daniel’s into the bottom of his plastic glass.
“Hey, me too,” Kim said, giggling as she nearly tripped trying to step over Pat’s outstretched legs. “Don’t forget me.”
The party was definitely in full swing, all six campers having drunk more than enough already but no one ready to call it quits just yet. It had been Rich and Lizzy who’d smuggled in the booze in their backpacks—a forty-ouncer of sour mash whiskey and a twenty-sixer of peach schnapps. They only had water to mix it with, but after the long, tiring day they’d had, that hadn’t slowed anyone down. Add a few home-rolled “doobies” into the mix and everyone was feeling quite fine. More than fine, actually; they were all smashed.
It had taken most of the morning for the gang to strip off a decent number of wooden planks barricading the windows and finish uncovering the front doors. When they were finished, the entranceway was completely clear and every window in the front reception chamber was wide-open, letting the cool breeze and bright sunlight into the church for the first time in over seventy years. The light radically altered the appearance of the front room, chasing the shadows away and making the reception area a bright and friendly place, surely how the villagers of Miller’s Grove had originally intended it to look all along.
The basement windows were uncovered after lunch, and an impromptu search of its contents was done in the hope Rich had overlooked something earlier and they might luck out and find the treasure. Nothing of value was found. After some debate, even the room with the reverend’s three dead faithful followers had been reexamined, in case there was something stashed in with the grisly remains. The girls wanted nothing to do with seeing any more dead bodies, but Dan and Rich had taken turns holding their breath and darting in and out of the room until they were satisfied there was nothing hidden inside. Pat had taken pictures, documenting their progress every step of the way. They sealed the metal door again and everyone went outside for some fresh air and a drink of cool water.
A quick search of the second floor (via the staircase beside the front entranceway) revealed nothing but an empty room with an old rope going up high toward the peaked ceiling. There was a rickety wooden ladder nailed to the wall heading up into the bell loft, but the ladder didn’t look at all safe to use and no one wanted a closer look at the bell anyway. Just as they’d suspected, the thin cord was still attached to the bell above and when Pat gave a tentative pull on the cord it rang out surprisingly loud three times before settling back down into silence. The noise startled the crows outside and they took to the air at once, cawing madly and circling the church for ten minutes before they’d calmed down enough to perch on the roof again. Rich wanted a turn ringing the bell, but Dan convinced him the sound might carry for miles out here in the woods and it wasn’t a great idea to needlessly draw attention to themselves. Disappointed, Rich followed everyone downstairs again.
Without ever discussing it, they’d left the sanctuary until last, none of them particularly interested in hanging out with Reverend Miller if they didn’t have to. They’d taken the time to knock a few boards off the rear windows, just enough to let some light inside, then did a quick but thorough search of the room to see if by any chance the silver and gold might be lying around. None of them expected the treasure to be out in the open in a public place like this, and they were right. Finding nothing, the gang removed themselves from that room and closed the sanctuary doors. Knowing he’d been dead for a long time still wasn’t enough to make any of them want to stay in that room any longer than necessary, especially Kelly, who kept feeling Joshua’s eyes burning into the back of her head every time she turned away.
They’d spent the rest of the day outside, gathering firew
ood from the nearby woods and talking about their plans for tomorrow, which included searching for the Miller’s Grove settlement. Everyone had high hopes that the town was where they’d have their best chance of finding the treasure stash. Somewhere in the village they were sure they’d find Joshua Miller’s house, and inside there had to be a secret hiding place where he’d stored his silver and gold. They were determined to find it even if they had to tear the whole damn village apart. But that was for tomorrow.
Tonight was for partying.
And for dying, but none of them knew what fate had in store for them yet…
Pat staggered to his feet, heading for his camera bag. He wanted to get some pictures of his drunken friends dancing around the fire. “Hey, guys, gather around. I wanna get a pic of everyone together.”
“Screw you, amigo!” Rich said, but put his arms around Kelly and Liz, getting set to ham it up for the camera.
“You too, Dan-o,” Pat said. “Come on, Kim. Get your little butt in there too.”
“Sure thing,” Kim said, taking her chance to wrap her arms around Dan and secretly squeezing his ass while the picture was being taken.
Dan quickly stepped away once Pat was done, saying, “Hey, you know what would be really cool? How about we go back inside and get a few party shots taken with the good reverend?”
“Yeah, great idea,” Rich said. “Show him we ain’t scared of his ugly ol’ ass. Maybe bring him a drink so he can celebrate with us!”
“No way,” Kelly said. “Just leave him alone. It’s…I don’t know, sacrilegious or something. Respect for the dead and all that.”
“Fuck that. Fuck the dead!” Rich said, then repeated it even louder, shouting it into the chilly night air. “You hear me, Joshua? FUCK YOU!”
“Okay, tough guy,” Pat said. “I dare you. Let’s go in there and I’ll get some pics of you and the big guy up on the altar. You ain’t got the balls, I know it!”