Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  I reflexively twisted the steering wheel in the direction of the skid and pumped the brakes slowly. Each time they would catch the wet pavement, the truck would slide farther toward the center of the highway. As the bed of the truck whipped around, I was now facing the opposite direction, and I straightened the wheel as I jammed on the brakes hard.

  The tortured squeal of rubber against asphalt married with the sound of scraping metal as the passenger side impacted the concrete barrier dividing the highway, and I jerked to a sudden halt.

  I had finally stopped at a point twenty yards beyond the exit ramp on the Riverview Drive overpass. I was pointing west in the eastbound lanes, and I was butted up against the concrete median, so I couldn’t see for sure where the van had gone. Without a second thought I let off the brake and jumped once again on the accelerator, shooting diagonally across the traffic lanes and making a hard left down the ramp.

  At the bottom of the hill I locked up the brakes once again and slid to a halt with the battered nose of my truck sticking out into the intersection. I flipped a mental coin and turned left, ignoring the stop signs as I went. I was less than a mile down the road when my head began to clear, and the throbbing pain that had once occupied it drained away.

  I immediately slammed on the brakes and turned around.

  The category five migraine returned as soon as I cleared the underpass heading south, and I knew I couldn’t be far behind him. My misaligned driver’s side headlamp canted awkwardly at the pavement, illuminating it in a harsh swath of blue-white. If it hadn’t been for the bizarre angle at which it now shone, I probably would have missed the shining skid marks.

  * * * * *

  In June of 1929 the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge opened. The fifth bridge to cross the Mississippi, linking Missouri to Illinois, it was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the country at slightly over one mile in length. By 1968 a newer, wider bridge had been opened up river, and the “Old Lady” had been closed. After over thirty years of sitting silent, the structure had finally been renovated for use as a pedestrian-only bridge linking hiking and biking trails on either side of the river.

  It was here to which the skid marks led.

  Yet again I applied my overtaxed brakes and slid the truck to a slightly canted halt. At this stage the bridge was only open on weekends between early spring and late autumn. A tall, chain link fence surrounded the entrance to what was originally a park-like area leading up to the old toll bridge. The wide gate that would normally be locked shut was now splayed open in a deformed mass, barely hanging from its hinges.

  This close to the river the fog was nearing terminal density, and visibility was threatening to disappear. I twisted the steering wheel and followed the marks through the ruined gate, advancing with caution as I pushed through the opening.

  With my engine revving barely above idle, I made my way around the left perimeter of the gravel parking area, fully expecting a large black panel van to loom dully in my headlights at any moment. It never did, and as I came upon the entrance proper to the old bridge, my fear was confirmed.

  Two evenly spaced metal posts had been set at the mouth of the bridge to bar vehicular traffic from entering. The leftmost of the barrier posts was now slanted at an outward angle from a recent impact. If I strained to follow the beam of my one still-aligned headlamp, I could just barely make out the Iron Gate slightly beyond the posts that was used to close off the entrance. Just like its chain link predecessor, this one had been violently flung open.

  I slowly idled the truck up the ramp and between the metal barriers. The rampant itching on my forearm had intensified and joined with a painful soreness that I knew to be a precursor to yet another weeping stigmata. Urgent emotion was declaring that I needed to race across the bridge to catch up with my quarry before the gory symbol was brought into being. Bitter logic was arguing that I was crossing a bridge that hadn’t been used by vehicles in over thirty years and that visibility was near zero.

  My throbbing temples told me that he wasn’t far away, so logic won out for a change.

  Now at the opposite end of the scale from the earlier chase, I cautiously urged the truck along at just over ten miles per hour. The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge was only a two-lane structure, and I steered up the center, casting my intent gaze forward as I made my way along the slow incline.

  The clinging mist combined with my headlights to create an eerie forced perspective. The rust-marred superstructure rose around me to blend with the shadows. The lower beams bore a recent coat of dull green paint, and a four-foot fence painted a bright blue lined each side. The sight line of the structure faded quickly into the veiled atmosphere to join with an imaginary vanishing point.

  The old patched pavement before me was marred by graffiti imprinted upon it throughout the years of non-use. Some of it benign declarations of so-and-so-loves-so-and-so, some of it disgusting epithets, all of it enhanced by the shiny wetness overlaying the asphalt.

  I had traveled maybe a third of the distance across the bridge when I finally saw the red taillights of the panel van peering back at me like a pair of demonic eyes in the grey ether. I forced myself to maintain my wary pace and much to my surprise continued to gain on them. In less than a minute a perfect outline of the vehicle was visible, and the swath of my headlamp fell across the back to reveal the rear doors hanging open.

  In an automatic motion I halted the truck and pushed the gearshift into park. A demolition crew was now working with a jackhammer directly behind my eyes, and the rabid itch on my forearm had mutated into a fiery burn. Somewhere within all of the pain, it crossed my mind that I was suddenly in way over my head.

  I sent my hand in search of my cell phone and fumbled the device out of the dash-mounted holder. When I glanced down to punch in Ben’s number, I realized why I hadn’t heard from him yet. I had forgotten to switch it on. I quickly pressed my thumb against the power button, and the moment the unit completed its flashing and self-diagnostic chirping, an urgent peal emitted from it. I stabbed the button to answer and placed it against my ear.

  “Ben?”

  “GODFUCKINGDAMMIT, ROWAN!” my friend’s voice distorted through the earpiece, “WHAT THE HELL DO YA’ THINK YOU’RE DOIN’?”

  “He’s here, Ben,” I stated urgently. “I’m right behind him, and I think he might have someone else out here!”

  “WHERE? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

  I had quickly switched the phone to my left ear and was reaching to the dash to turn down the volume on the CD player when the battered driver’s side door of the truck swung violently open with a loud groan. Before I could utter anything more than a surprised yelp, a massive hand slapped against the back of my neck, its bony fingers wrapping around to almost completely encircle my throat.

  The cell phone flew from my hand and clattered across the pavement as I was wrenched forcefully from the seat and tossed like a piece of discarded trash against the bridge’s safety rail.

  In the confusion my fingers had spun the volume knob on the stereo in the opposite of the intended direction, and music now blared raucously into the night.

  CHAPTER 26

  Acute slivers of pain were rapidly followed by an overwhelming dull ache across my back as I roughly impacted the metal railing and tumbled to the wet asphalt. I let out a tortured scream as I suddenly felt the flesh ripping on my forearm to form what I knew could only be a bloody rendition of a religious symbol. Realization punctured the storm of agony inside my skull, and I knew instantly that the victim I was assuming he had in his clutches was in fact, me.

  “Wherefore, since you, Rowan Linden Gant, are fallen into the damned heresies of Witches, practicing them publicly, and have been by legitimate witnesses and your own confession, been convicted of the sin of heresy,” an ominously dark and distinct voice began in the shadows, blending deeply with the music to lend a surreal edge to the recitation.

  The tone was intimately familiar from my visions, and hearing it now, steeped
in the trappings of the physical plane, paralyzing fear arced through my very being.

  “And as you have refused the medicine of your salvation, we have summoned you to answer for the said crimes before us, but you, led away and seduced by a wicked spirit have refused to appear.”

  Eddies of the thick mist swirled around the huge silhouette as it advanced toward me. Looking up from my prone position, he appeared to me as an absolute giant, easily dwarfing Ben by several inches. I shuddered with an involuntary start as I pressed myself into the cold metal fencing and reached upward to the rail. Gritting my teeth against the aches criss-crossing my body, I fought to drag myself to my feet.

  “Whereas the Holy Church of God has long awaited you up to this present day of kindness and mercy.” He continued his recitation of question thirty-two as he moved closer still; verbally applying the razor to the guilt he had already confirmed. “That you might fly to the bosom of her mercy, renouncing your errors and professing the Catholic Faith, and be nourished by the bounty of her mercy; but you have refused to consent, persisting instead in your obstinacy.”

  My knees were weak with terror as I unsteadily gained my feet. His imposing figure was stationed directly between my still idling truck and me, making that avenue of escape unattainable. I seriously doubted that I could outrun him, and as he loomed through the fog, my options were growing slim.

  The man was haloed in backlighting from the oddly canted headlamp on my truck reflecting from the damp sheen that coated the bridge. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the odd scheme, and I could just make out his long, haggard face. His eyes were set back in deep shadowy wells and were framed by a shoulder length hood of stringy white hair that blended into his colorless pallor.

  His thin frame was clad entirely in black with a priest’s collar encircling his craning neck. With each word he spoke, his throat would undulate as if he were swallowing hard. His freakish appearance served to propel the already soul-chilling fear deeper into my core.

  He was directly before me now, and as had happened in my vision, that fear became an all-consuming visceral terror. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare back in stunned horror.

  In a sudden flash, the man brought his hand up and thrust it downward. Out of pure reflex I brought my arm up and twisted quickly away—but unfortunately, not quickly enough. The cold steel spike of an ice pick bit hard into my shoulder, and I could feel it scrape along the bones that formed the joint. I howled in agony as he mercilessly ripped the stiletto back out and plunged it once again into my upper arm.

  His voice boomed imperiously against the backdrop of the music and my agonized screams. “Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Blessed Apostle Paul, we declare, judge and sentence you to be a stubborn heretic and as such to be abandoned to secular justice!”

  The sharp pain slapped me out of my quadriplegic stupor, and I lashed out, throwing my uninjured arm forward and into his midsection. Twisting my weight into the motion, I connected with a solid punch that took him by surprise and staggered him backward. I didn’t believe for even a brief second that I would get that lucky again, and I bolted for the first opening that presented itself.

  I could feel the ice pick still buried to its handle in my upper left arm, and my hand was tucked into a deformed claw that shuddered with pain. Hot tears were streaming down my cheeks, and the wet mist of the fog felt even colder wherever it touched my bare skin. My attempt at escape lasted for a half dozen frenzied steps around the front end of my truck before I felt the bony hand clamp like a vise on my shoulder.

  I was jerked violently backward then immediately thrust back forward at an angle where I made an instantaneous stop against the railing on the south side of the bridge. The air leapt from my lungs, and I gasped as I pitched forward. The erupting stigmata on my forearm intensified to compete with, and then overshadow, all of the other pains that racked my body. At some point my glasses had gone the way of the cell phone, and I cast an unfocused gaze at my hand and saw the small streams of blood dripping from my clawed knuckles.

  I fought to regain my breath, and I was once again grasped by the neck and pushed sideways. As the killer held me against the chilled metal, I felt something rough and plastic-like dragged across my face. Looking down with bleary eyes, I saw the nylon rope hanging about my neck bound with a coil of thirteen loops in a perfect hangman’s noose.

  “Rowan Linden Gant,” the deep voice began once again. “By this our definitive sentence we drive you from the ecclesiastical Court, and abandon you to the power of the secular Court, that having you in its power now moderates its sentence of death against you.”

  In a sudden sense of motion, I felt my feet leave the ground and my body being lifted forcibly upward. I tried to grab for the rail, but my hand slipped from its slick surface and I continued to rise.

  The killer proceeded with the passing of my fate, “Whereas you, Rowan Linden Gant have duly and properly admitted your crimes, and having before us the Holy Gospels that our judgment may proceed as from the countenance of God, by this sentence we cast you away as an impenitent heretic and sorcerer.”

  He had now lifted me over his head, as one would press a set of barbells. As strong as he was, he was struggling against my weight and was unable to fully extend his arms. I could feel him shaking as he held me there and stepped against the rail. I almost froze in panic, fearing that if I fought against him he would drop me over the side. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that just such an action was what he had planned, but I certainly didn’t want to help him accomplish it.

  “In accordance with the thirty second question we do hereby deliver you unto the power of our most Holy God…” His voice cracked as he strained to hold me.

  My mind raced in search of a way out, and I realized that in his haste to end my existence, he had neglected to bind my hands. If it was, as it appeared, his intention to hang me, the opposite end of the rope had to be secured. I could think of only one thing to do.

  Trying my best not to attract his attention, I quickly hooked my injured left arm up against my chest and forced my bloody fist up through the noose encircling my neck. As I pressed upward, I was able to slide the nylon rope over my head, and the loop dropped down along my arm to encircle it just above my elbow.

  “As you, Rowan Linden Gant, are damned in body and soul, your sentence on this day is death. The sentence, to be executed immediately and without appeal in the manner of hanging.”

  So intent was he on passing sentence, he had yet to notice my movements. I knew there were only seconds left now that the words of judgment had officially been spoken. In an adrenalin edged rush, I rotated my wrist and twisted a pair of loops around my forearm then forced my hand open and grasped tightly to the nylon rope. The fleetingly morbid thought that it was too bad that we Witches couldn’t really fly shot through my mind as he pronounced my end.

  “May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your soul.”

  With his last statement, he pitched forward and grunted as he forced his arms outward. As I began to roll and drop away, I shot my free right hand out and grasped tightly to a handful of his stringy hair and held fast. I heard him yelp in surprise as he was pulled forward and levered over the rail.

  Together, we fell into the shadowy mist of nothingness.

  CHAPTER 27

  The steel trusses that make up the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge form a superstructure that rests upon beams and piers to span the five thousand plus feet to the other side of the Mississippi. In an angular trek they hopscotch across the water like an undulating multi-humped serpent before taking a twenty-four degree turn and continuing on their merry way to the other side. It was at the vertices of two of these truss sections that we went over the side.

  In the pit of my stomach, I experienced an instant feeling of weightlessness followed rapidly by the heavy sense of impending death. I held tightly to the nylon rope as it slid quickly through my bare hand like a serrated knife. My palm burned, beggi
ng to let go, and I consciously gripped the lifeline even tighter.

  There was a loud, clanging thump as our bodies impacted the wide steel support running beneath the joint of the trusses. We hesitated for a moment, and I felt myself continuing to fall as I slid between the decking and the beam. I continued downward for a handful of inches before the rope tightened around my forearm. Less than a foot later, I jerked to a sudden halt as the noose tightened and the line snapped taut.

  I felt muscle tear as the inertia of my plummeting body was stopped cold by nothing more than my left shoulder being forcibly dislocated. I had cried out in pain so often in the past few minutes that my voice was completely raw, and all I could manage was a pathetic whimper.

  Thus far my idea had worked. I was still alive.

  Through the mist I could just make out the lights of the water treatment plant located in the distance, just south of the actual rock chain that gave the bridge its name. The normally lazy river rushed over this stone anomaly to create a dull roar below. My ever-present phobia of drowning sent a wave of fear to pierce my bowels and was rapidly joined by the terrifying realization that I was not all that fond of heights either.

  Above, music still blared from my idling truck, and the mournful strains of a violin added sad emotion to a slowly rising bass hum. A heavy groan punctuated the music from somewhere near my head.

  I was twisting slowly on the end of the rope and simply hung there trying to deal with the pain as I lazily spun around to face north. Prickling numbness was overtaking the pain in my hand and forearm as the tight nylon cord dammed off the blood flow. I was almost thankful as it began to ooze downward into my dislocated shoulder.