The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos
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Staci kept her job as a Phys Ed teacher and was currently working on getting a marathon together with her friend Sally Hendricks, to raise money for breast cancer awareness. She filled her life with charity work, and her work at school, and her husband and kids, and it was fulfilling. Her relationship with Dan had been strained for a time, but he had finally come around, and everything was good again, as it should be.
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Jeremy and Eve became a couple, a week after the events in Mercy Falls. The age difference, his forty-four to her twenty-six, didn't matter to them. She stayed with him in his small apartment for a year, and then they were able to get a home together. A month before he had found out that his manager Emmanuel "Manny" Ortiz, had died of sudden heart failure, and had willed the bookstore to Jeremy. Jeremy loved working there, but he didn't have the foggiest notion how to run a business, but he knew someone who would know what to do. Besides, he wanted to call his friends again to tell them the news he had found out yesterday- that Eve was pregnant.
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Myron was excited by the news and truly glad for his friend. Jeremy would finally know the joy of being a father, and Eve a mother. Jeremy's other news surprised him more though. He wanted to give the bookstore to Myron. Jeremy knew how much he loved books, and after losing the job at the bank, collecting unemployment on and off for a year between odd jobs, and currently working as a retail clerk at a clothing store, with Donna supplementing their income as an office assistant, he knew Myron was ready for a job he really enjoyed- If he was willing to move to New York. Both Myron and Donna agreed. They were both tired of Florida anyway. Within a few years they turned Myron's Books and Music (they'd decided to sell vintage vinyl LPs, cassettes, and CDs along with their great selection of books- We BUY SELL AND TRADE the sign outside the door proudly proclaimed) into a profitable business. And the kids were fascinated by his plastic hand, and his adventurous tales of fighting pirates, werewolves, and vampires with his childhood friends. Kids were his biggest customers, along with the parents who bought books for them. The old timers loved being able to buy vinyl records, dusting off their classic record players and putting new needles in,
partly due to a resurgence in interest for vinyl outside DJ circles.
One particular old codger came in one day he never expected to see at all. He was his usual grumpy best.
"Well, Mr. Demi! What brings you up here to my part of town?"
Carlton Demi did not reply so much as grumble.
He pushed a stack of books and a John Denver LP across the counter. "Are you going to ring me up or am I going to have to go someplace else?"
"Well if you can find this stuff someplace else, be my guest sir. But John Denver, really? That's just too tame for you. You need something a little more aggressive, like perhaps some Death Metal."
"Are you getting lippy with me son?" Demi said.
"Why no sir, I'd never dream of it," Myron replied, grinning.
"I want to speak to your manager!"
"Why yes sir, right away." Myron motioned as if to walk off, and instead spun himself all the way around, and said, "Yes sir, how can I help you?"
The shades of red that Carlton Demi's face turned could not be counted. He turned and walked off mumbling, "Asshole."
Myron waved. "Yes sir, you as well! Have a good day! Please don't come again."
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The holidays were not good to her boy Cody last year with his father gone, but Lori Stewart promised to make this year better for her son. John Winter wasn’t the perfect man, but deep down she knew he’d been a good man, a kind man, a brave man, and she promised to never speak ill of the dead again to her son. He needed a role model he could respect. Cody was inheriting Johnny’s humor and he was starting to look a little more like him as he grew. He was a bright boy with a bright future. She wouldn’t have taken that away from him for the world.
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With Myron and Donna living close to Jeremy and Eve, they went out at least once a week to dinner to keep in touch, and sometimes Eve and Jeremy would pop in the store to surprise him. They all kept in touch with Staci, who stayed in Connecticut, and made her first visit that year to New York City to see them all, this time with her husband and kids, and made at least one visit a year thereafter. Myron and Staci's kids got to play together, while the adults got to catch up, and eventually the children would have a new baby to play with- Jeremy and Eve's baby.
They had a boy. They named him Fulton Blake Daniels.
Special thanks to Rachel Stinnett and Allison Bonato for their invaluable aid in the creation of the cover image for this edition.