by Lila Beckham
I have to say though,” Metcalf grimaced, “None of the schooling I did prepared me for what I have to see and investigate out here in the real world.
Bloody, gory pictures and a few weeks at a body farm do not compare to this, at all,” the investigator exclaimed.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll hear something soon enough” the Sheriff said, taking another long draw off his cigarette, again, taking his time and releasing it slowly, as if he hated to get back to the job at hand.
“Yep, too soon I’m sure” Metcalf replied, gathering up his gear and looking as if he did not know which way to turn next.
“Looks as if you are dreading this as much as I am,” Sheriff Stokes said, dropping the cigarette butt to the ground. He stepped on it, mashed it down, and then twisted it into the earth with the toe of his boot.
Stokes looked once more at the Polaroid in his hand before stuffing it into his shirt pocket. He got into his patrol car and drove away.
2
primal instinct
Late Feb 1976
Alabama/Mississippi State Line
Emma Carr had never been as frightened in her life as she was fleeing through the darkness toward the river.
The whizzing sound of a bullet flying past her head caused her to drop to her knees and begin to crawl. She crawled as fast as she could, but the thickets alongside the river were a tangled mess of scrubby shrubs and vines.
Emma, had been resourceful most of her life, she was no different now. She felt she was doing a good job of dodging bullets, but she was scared slap to death.
Why, are they trying to kill me, Emma wondered as she scanned the surrounding area with her eyes. I don’t even know who they are. I cannot tell on them, if I don’t know who they are, she rationalized as she crawled into the hollow of a large river birch. She felt a little more secure in the hollow tree. It was like a protective covering.
The ground beneath her caved in slightly and Emma tried to crawl deeper into it.
Mental images of her Aunt Hannah having practically gone through the same situation six years earlier ran through her mind.
Autry Reston had murdered Emma’s uncle Willie, and then when Hannah and Lacy were searching for the absentee Willie, Reston had ambushed them at the river.
He shot and killed Willie’s wife, Lacey and tried to shoot Hannah. Hannah escaped by running through the woods along the river to the main highway where she flagged down a trucker who helped her.
Emma heard her pursuer’s footsteps, somewhere in the woods behind her. She ducked deeper into the cavity under the rotted tree.
The difference between her and her Aunt Hannah’s situation was that Hannah had known who was trying to kill her. Emma did not know who these two maniacs were that was after her, just that they killed those two campers.
It all began when Emma had awakened during the night, hearing grunting and moaning noises, along with several muffled thumps that seemed to shake the ground beneath her tent.
Her family had camped there for years and had never experienced anything like that before. However, it was the first time Emma had ever gone camping alone and it had been several years since she was at the campground with her family.
Maybe it’s nothing, Emma thought to herself as she lay there. Then she wished she were home, in her own bed.
The only reason she was camping was because she wanted to get away from all the drama at home. Her brother and sister were driving her nuts, and she was sure her mother was whoring around again, drinking too. She was never home at night anymore.
Emma heard and felt the thumping again. Is someone chopping wood this time of night, Emma wondered? This time though, it seemed as if the sounds were coming from the left of her tent somewhere.
Emma knew that further upriver, was a place where folks gathered, built bond fires, drank, and listened to music, but that was near the highway. She did not think the noise they made traveled this far down river.
After hearing several more thumps and then moans, Emma unzipped her sleeping bag. She decided to go see for herself what was going on.
The campground was not very big. There were probably only ten primitive sites at the location. In its heyday, back in the fifties and early sixties, it was good enough for the local folks who wanted a cooler place to go to get away from the heat of the Deep South summers.
When Emma crawled out of her tent, she saw firelight flickering through the trees from a neighboring campsite. She heard more of the low, moaning noises, along with grunts. An eerie, almost foreboding feeling, caused Emma to return to her sleeping bag, but after several more minutes, her curiosity was stronger than her fear was.
As she slowly eased her way toward the other campsite, Emma’s curiosity intensified. She could see figures moving around in the fire’s shadowy light. Hoping to get a better view of what they were doing, Emma peeked around a large loblolly pine just as she heard another thump. Something wet, splattered across her face, causing her to flinch. She stifled a gasp at the unexpected sensation and drew back.
Emma repositioned herself so she could peek around the tree again. This time, she could not contain the gasp that exploded from her lips at the sight before her.
A dark figure, stood straddle-legged over something holding an axe, and another figure stood behind him, encouraging him, and whispering, “Do it, Do it!” The expression on both their faces was one of pure ecstasy. They were both grinning from ear to ear and both were covered in blood. Emma could not help but to look down to see what they were looking at.
When she did, she let out a scream. The young naked couple sprawled face up on the ground, was unrecognizable as the hippie couple she had seen there earlier that afternoon. Both were bloody lumps of flesh and bone.
Completely severed, the man’s head had rolled several feet away from his body, and the woman had several large gaping wounds; her breasts were gone!
When Emma first heard the loud scream, she did not realize it was coming from her lips. Even when she did, it was hard to stop them.
The man, standing behind the one wielding the axe, raised his arm and pointed toward her, mumbling something she could not understand. When she saw the gun in his hand, she almost screamed again, but clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle herself.
The man with the axe turned, looked at her and then moved toward her. Nearly frozen from fear, Emma almost fainted. Finally, she came to her senses and ran, darting back in the direction she had come.
After taking three or four steps, Emma heard the first shot. She began running as fast as she could. She ran, zigzagging through wisteria vines and honeysuckle frapped undergrowth that grew thick beneath the mature pines, maples, and birches alongside the river.
The huge vines had a stranglehold on the forest and getting through them was not an easy task. Several times, Emma tripped over one of the massive vines, almost falling face first. Luckily, she caught herself and kept moving.
The chase continued until Emma crawled up into the hollowed out tree.
Now, as she huddled in what she prayed was a safe haven, all she could see in her mind was the bloodied corpses and the gruesome figure holding the axe. His face was twisted in grotesque pleasure, and the fellow with the gun was just plain weird. Emma had never witnessed anything so frightening or bizarre in her life.
The looks on their blood-splattered faces was so grotesquely odd that it haunted her soul, but in some odd way, it fascinated her too.
She wondered how anyone could take such pleasure in the mutilation of a human. The glazed look in their eyes, as though each were experiencing some sort of orgasmic rush. They were actually glorifying in the gore!
She would bet good money that they would probably get naked and wallow in the blood once they were done; then dance around the fire and howl at the moon.They must be sadistic maniacs, relishing the slaughter of human beings the way they were, thought Emma. She began to shiver uncontrollably.
I need to get out of here, thought Emma. I have to
try to get to town. If I get to town, I can report this.
Emma decided to leave the security of the hollow tree. She wanted to try to make it to the main highway, but then she thought about trying to loop back to her tent. Parked beside her tent, was her trusty moped.
Which direction is toward the tent? Emma’s heart pounded with uncertainty.
She stuck her head out to listen, but trying to hear over the thump of her rapidly beating heart, was impossible. It was also getting harder to see where she was at; a fog was settling in.
Emma took several deep breaths of air, trying to remain calm. Once the blood stopped pounding through her ears, the surrounding forest grew deathly quiet.
Emma did not hear anything. No bullfrogs croaking, or locusts either. There were no sounds coming through the murky fog that had settled around her. Not even a cricket chirped; it was just that quiet. It was very odd.
Emma sat still, listening. As she listened, she tried to remember some of the stories her grandfather had told her when she was younger. She felt they would calm her and give her strength. His great-grandfather, her great-great-grandfather, was Goyaałé, the great leader of the Chiricahua Apache. He was nicknamed Geronimo by Mexican soldiers he had fought against in the mid 1800’s.
The United States Calvary was never able to capture him; he always managed to elude them. Geronimo’s greatest regret was his surrender. Once he surrendered, he was paraded across the country by railroad, held at various encampments, and then displayed as a sideshow attraction.
During the time Geronimo was held at Mount Vernon Barracks, in Alabama, was when he fathered Walełé. Walełé grew up to marry Samuel Crabtree. They were the grandparents of Emma’s father.
Geronimo was a legend in his time.
I will not surrender grandfather. I will be like the Great Goyaałé and escape to live another day, Emma whispered into the night, and as she did, she heard a great horned owl answer her, signaling his approval. She wondered if his was the spirit of Goyaałé answering her.
If you are out there Goyaałé, please guide me, keep me from becoming a prisoner. Teach me how to be invisible to my pursuers, the way you were invisible to yours, she said, standing up straight and turning to go.
Emma had not gone far, before she heard them, their footsteps heavy upon the forest floor. Aunt Hannah did not give up, thought Emma. She made it out alive; therefore, I am not going to give up either.
Emma knew in her heart that the spirits would guide her to safety. However, as fate would have it, her luck in dodging the men pursuing her, had run out.
She was about to question her faith in the olden tales of her grandfather Sam.
Before she had taken twenty steps from the hollowed out tree, she felt something hard come down on her skull and heard a loud crack before darkness engulfed her.
3
to Serve and protect
Joshua Stokes drove into his driveway and parked. He lit another cigarette before opening the door to get out.
His reflection in the rearview mirror was haggard looking when illuminated by the interior light. Joshua grimaced at the sight seen through tired bloodshot eyes. Actually, time had been considerate to Joshua Stokes. The years had sprinkled salt through his dark hair and mustache and the smile lines around his intense green eyes only added youth to his good looks, actually making him more handsome than in his younger days.
His wide shoulders and narrow hips did not detract from his six-foot frame.
He could have his pick of most women in the county, maybe even several counties, but Joshua chose to live alone. He had lived alone, there on the river, ever since he was a young man in his twenties. He had bought the house and land right after he joined the force, got married about the same time, but that had not worked out well. His bride, Francine, a virgin when he married her, turned into a floozy soon afterward. Yep, she lost her cherry and then went plumb crazy. He had heard that expression from an old-timer when he was a young man and it about summed up Francine, to a tee.
On this night though, women were the last thing on Joshua’s mind. This latest murder was haunting Joshua Stokes. It was haunting him worse than the previous three had. Maybe it was even haunting him worse than Lacey Stringer’s murder had haunted him, in the spring of 1970.
“Has it really been six years,” he wondered aloud, then remembered that day, the 5th day of March, marked exactly six years on the calendar since Lacey’s murder. Lacey’s death haunted him more than her husband Willie’s did, although both were tragic.
It was the look on Lacey Stringer’s face when he saw her sitting there, dead, in Hannah’s car.
There was such sadness to her expression. Maybe because when she knew that she was dying, she thought of her children. Her thoughts were something he would never know for sure, pure speculation on his part.
Autry Reston ambushed her and Willie’s sister, Hannah, along the river as they searched for Willie. He had damn near killed Hannah too.
Every time Joshua saw Hannah, those memories returned. At least Hannah seemed to be doing fairly well these days.
Joshua wondered why this girl’s death was bothering him so much. Was it because he could tell from what was left of her body that she was very young, or was it because of the tattoo? Even her tattoo symbolized youth. It was such a tiny perfect rosebud, about the size of a quarter and just below and to the right of her navel.
Maybe it was because he thought he was getting too damn old for his job; at least that was how he felt most of the time. All Joshua Stokes knew for sure was that he was tired. Tired of all the years of trying to serve and protect Mobile County from criminals, when, Hell, I can’t even protect it from itself, he thought sadly.
Why people did the things they did to other people, and why they took such stupid risks with their own lives was beyond Joshua’s understanding. He did not need more on his mind to worry about.
Just tonight, as he was on his way home, he had come on two girl’s walking alone down the middle of McCrary Road. It was Joy Hawse and that young Cox girl she hung out with all the time, the one that looked like a half-breed, blue-eyed Indian with that long black hair of hers.
Joy was Snake’um Hawse’s baby girl, and he would lay down good money, Ole Snake’um probably had no idea where Joy was. Snake’um was probably three sheets to the wind himself, right about then.
Joshua made the girls get into his patrol car and then carried them to Snake’ums even though they were headed in the opposite direction when he first came on them.
He preached to them, told them walking McCrary Road at dark thirty in the morning would get them about as far as the morgue, but he doubted very seriously that they had paid any attention at all to what he told them. They were too busy trying to get him to take them to the Cox girl’s house instead of Snake’ums.
These young folks think they have it all figured out. You can’t tell them a damn thing. They think they already know everything and they think they know everything there is to know about life. The shame of it is they don’t know shit and they don’t a goddamn thing about life, thought the Sheriff, getting out of his patrol car and walking inside.
Joshua poured himself a half a glass of Jack Daniels and then walked back out onto the porch and sat down in his rocking chair.
He knew those girls had been smoking and drinking. Hell, he could smell it on them and their eyes were as red as a fox’s ass. He figured they had been over at a party on Spice Pond Road at the Wilkins’s house. Those Wilkins boys and the ones they ran with were a rough bunch.
Joshua knew the boys folks were out of town again too. Those Wilkins’s were the most traveling people he had ever seen in his life.
The daddy was supposed to be some sort of aerospace engineer or something, but his true job was a mystery.
Joshua had looked into them before, but had found nothing that blatantly stuck out. He had even wondered if they were under some sort of witness protection plan or something. The feds did not share information
like that with local authorities.
They had been leaving those boys at home alone for the last three years with only a part-time housemaid to look after them. It was a disaster waiting to happen and it would happen, eventually, you could take that to the bank.
He had told several officers earlier that evening to keep an eye out over that way. There was always a bunch of teenagers gathered over there. They had probably scattered like cockroaches when the deputies he sent over there earlier, showed up.
Joshua had known those boys would have a crowd show up to their house with it being a Friday night.
Small towns like Semmes did not have much to offer teenagers on the weekends after the ball games were over. There was a skating rink in Wilmer, seven miles west of Semmes; it offered some entertainment. However, on Friday and Saturday nights, it too drew in the rougher, older crowds; those who liked to drink and then party at the river when the crowds thinned out and the youngest ones were sent home.
A few of the younger ones would be bold enough to sneak off with the older ones, even knowing there’d be hell to pay when they didn’t go home, but not caring if they did get their asses tore up when they got home.
Those two he had picked up earlier were a prime example of that. They did not care about the consequences. He had seen it too many times over the years.
He recognized the eagerness in their eyes to explore all their world had to offer.
It’s a damn shame, too, thought Joshua. That is why so much crazy shit goes on in the world. No one uses common sense anymore.
“They just want to live in the moment,” he mumbled to his dog Jack, who lay sprawled on the porch swing, listening.
Stokes went inside to get the bottle of whiskey. He came back out and sat down in the old cowhide rocker and then propped his booted feet on the railing. He poured another glass, took a swallow, and then lit another smoke. He knew it was going to be a long night.