Instead, he decided to change the subject, fearing that if he continued along this line of thinking they would never find out what happened to Patty Smith.
“You said that a friend of yours, another agent came here with you from… Jersey did you say?”
Detective Hugh Freeman averted his eyes and stared out the window. He took several deep breaths before replying.
“I wouldn’t say that he was a friend, but yes, I came here with FBI special agent Brett Cherry.”
Liam expected the man to expound on this, and waited for him to do so. But when this didn’t happen, he left it up to Stevie to ask the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“And? What happened to agent Cherry? Where is he?” Stevie asked.
Hugh hesitated before replying.
“Something happened to him… we made it to the house in the swamp. He started to… lose it. Started to talk about some woman, about Kendra something, about how she had been taken from him and murdered, burned alive. I tried to reign him in, because I needed him—we needed him—to finally put an end to the curse that had hung over Stumphole swamp for the better part of three centuries.”
The man’s reply was completely unsatisfactory, and Stevie called him on it.
“Yeah, well, what happened to Brett Cherry? Did he go back to Jersey or something?”
Hugh shook his head slowly.
“No, he’s still out there in the swamp. I think… I think that he’s going to—”
Liam had enough.
“We’ve got a murder to solve, and this ain’t no Dr. Who mystery. Now look, I’m getting tired here, I’ve got one dead girl, I’ve got a suicide of the local pastor, and I’ve got a detective from New York and a missing FBI agent.”
“And we have the three other missing girls,” Stevie offered. “You found Stacey, but there’s still the others that are missing.”
Liam nodded.
“Yeah, there’s that too.”
“And we got a missing boyfriend, and a whole whack a heroin that they’re dealing from the swamp,” Dwight offered, speaking up for the first time since they had entered the car.
Liam let out an audible sigh. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to recruit the very strange, and likely insane detective Freeman, but what choice did he have? There was just too much crap going on here, too much craziness that he just didn’t understand and didn’t have the manpower to deal with.
And again, he had this twisting, grinding sensation in the pit of his stomach this was only the tip of the iceberg, that something bad was going to happen—something more bad, and soon.
Liam rubbed the bridge of his nose with the heel of his hand, as he started to develop a plan.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do…” And then Liam laid out his plan, focusing first on the swamp, where he thought this had all begun.
When he was done, Stevie interjected with something wholly unrelated.
“Remember I said earlier that I had something to tell you? Well, I heard about this witch in the swamp—”
“No fucking way, I’m not hearing this right now,” Liam said.
Chapter 24
Cliff was out of breath when he reached the open storm shelter door, and was preparing to run again should it be empty, when he managed to pick out the familiar outline of the waterproof case.
They had re-purposed a specialized box used by divers to keep recording equipment dry to store their heroin in, and had fastened a combination lock to it. But like the storm shelter door, this lock had also been discarded and removed.
With a racing heart, Cliff looked inside and was relieved to see that the three packages of the remaining heroin were still there.
He had no idea why the storm shelter and the case were open, but the drugs were all there. To confirm this fact, Clifford reached inside and picked up one of the packages and weighed in his hand. It felt like a kilo, and when he inspected the package closely, he didn’t notice any cuts or tears on it.
Clifford was in the process of replacing the first brick beside the other two packages, when he heard that strange creaking sound again and his ears perked. He gently replaced the heroin and closed the box. Then, gripping the handle tightly in one hand, he stepped out from the shadow of the house and back into the fading sunlight.
And then he froze.
There was somebody sitting on the rotting porch swing.
He also thought that the porch swing was swaying slightly, but with the shadows he couldn’t be certain that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him as they often did out here in Stumphole.
“Tommy?” Clifford said as he squinted at the shadowy figure. It appeared to be a muscular man, his legs splayed, arms resting on the back of the swing, a casual, Sunday Night Football pose. There was also something very wrong with this picture.
“Tommy?” His voice was tentative now, barely more than a whisper. Clifford was torn: he didn’t know if he should go to the man even though he was fairly certain that it was Tommy Ray now, or if he should just get back in his car and get the hell out of here. Never to return to this godforsaken place.
But for some reason, Clifford felt compelled to move towards the porch. And he did just that, walking slowly, his feet barely lifting out of the soft mud before coming back down again.
“Tommy? Why was the case open?”
Clifford Zanbar wasn’t sure that he had ever been this nervous before in his entire life. Not at the bar when he’d first encountered the man with the tattoo, or even this afternoon when Deputy Porter had come to speak to him and the students about Patty.
No, this was a new type of nervousness, one that bordered on terror.
The creaking of the chains filled the swamp air again, and now it seemed like the only sound in the world. There were no bullfrog bellows, no splash of a beaver tail or a gator groan. There wasn’t even so much as a hiss of a tree frog.
There was nothing but the sound of his own labored breathing and the sound of those damn chains.
There’s something wrong here, his mind repeated. There’s something so wrong here, Clifford. Get out get out get out get out get out get out get out—
Tommy Ray Ross’s body suddenly came into view and Clifford forgot all about the heroin. The case slipped from his fingers and smashed to the ground, where it flung open and one of the packages spilled onto the swampy earth.
Tommy Ray Ross’s posture looked awkward, because it was completely unnatural. His arms were stretched out at his sides and his palms were pressed flat against the boards of the porch swing. His legs were also stretched, only his knees were bent inward, when they have bent outward, and his feet rested firmly against the rotting porch boards.
But it was the nails, the thick nails that looked like railroad spikes that were driven into the back of each of his palms and the tops of his feet, rooting him in place, that made Clifford break into a cold sweat.
That and the fact that his eyes had been clawed out, leaving behind sockets filled with coagulated blood.
Clifford felt his entire body quiver, and then he retched violently, unable to control the vomit that first filled his cheeks and then sprayed on the front of his shirt and tie.
Get out get out get out get out get out get out, his mind continued to scream.
Somehow, Cliff managed to move, to slowly back away from the porch, from Tommy Ray’s horribly mutilated body, when he heard a giggle.
It was the giggle of a young girl, a sound so strange in this environment that Clifford spun around too quickly, and he fell on his ass.
To his surprise, a young girl of about six or seven years of age, with bright blue eyes and long blond hair that spilled past her shoulders stood not ten feet from him. Her hands were at her sides, the most innocent of postures, and in any other circumstances the principal would’ve thought nothing of it, would’ve thought that the girl was just lost, or out camping with her father, but this wasn’t normal.
Nothing about this was normal.
/> And when that giggle came, this time in stereo, he knew that this was the last time he would hear that noise.
“Mother says you shouldn’t be here,” the little girl said in a high-pitched voice. And then in the matter of time it took him to blink twice, there were more than a dozen girls all around him, their eyes changing from blue to black.
Chapter 25
Deputy Stevie Johnson drove quickly, ignoring the majority of road signs as he made his way towards the local library.
As he drove, his mind wandered back to what Detective Freeman had told them inside Sheriff Lancaster’s patrol car.
The witch haunts the swamp, she’s seeking revenge for the horrible things that they did to her…
Unlike Liam, Stevie wasn’t averse to the idea that there was something supernatural at play here. He didn’t say anything, or at least he didn’t press, in the car, simply because he could see that Liam was struggling to keep it together. But when he had sat down with little Stacey Weller before she had locked herself in the room with Father Smith… there had been something different about her, and it wasn’t just that she refused to say a single word to either him or Sylvie. There was something seriously wrong with the little girl.
When Sylvie had gone to drain her lizard, he’d asked Stacey in hushed tones if she knew anything about the swamp, about the demon who lived there.
Stacey said nothing, but her eyes… something dark passed over them. And it wasn’t like a shadow either, the way his dad used to get before he put a beating on him, but something much more sinister. It was as if ink had been spilled into her eyes.
If we can only manage to get a hold of Hugh’s partner… Agent Fox Mulder or whatever the hell his name is, I’m sure he could convince Liam that normal police procedures weren’t going to cut it in this case.
A woman suddenly stepped out in front of his car.
“Shit!” he swore as he swerved just in time to avoid running the woman over.
The woman, who Stevie recognized as Mrs. Pincourt, had the gall to shake her fist at him.
“Get the fuck off the road!” he hollered as his car bumped up against the median. Mrs. Pincourt glared at him and shouted something that was lost in the wind.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered as he righted the vehicle. “Maybe she’s possessed, for Christ’s sake.”
Stevie’s blood pressure barely recovered by the time he pulled up outside the library. Like every building in Elloree, save the Mayor’s swanky new office, the public library was small, squat, and whitewashed from years of exposure to the hot Southern Carolina sun. Stevie had only been to the library four times, and those visits had come way back when he was a student. It simply held no interest to him.
And the smell… a combination of damp hair and mildew… Stevie shuddered just thinking about it.
He hopped out of the cruiser and quickly up the handful of steps to the wooden doors. Taking a deep gulp of fresh air, he pulled the door wide and stepped inside.
Not wasting any time, he hollered into the dim interior even before his eyes adjusted.
“Ms. LeBlanc, you around? Ms. LeBlanc, it’s Deputy Johnson, I need your help with something.”
When there was no answer, Stevie stepped completely into the library and allowed the door to close behind him. Predictably, the dusty library was empty.
He walked directly up to the front desk and didn’t hesitate before ringing the bell.
“Ms. LeBlanc, it’s the police.”
When there was still no answer, Stevie looked around, becoming more desperate. He didn’t want to be here, but he didn’t want to let Liam down either.
“Ms. Le—”
A voice from behind him startled Stevie, and he whipped around.
“Hi, there.”
It wasn’t Ms. Leblanc, as he expected given that she was the only librarian that had worked there since… forever, really. Instead, a young man with long blond hair that nearly reached his shoulders and a thin goatee to match stood before him. He had an accent that sounded expensive to Stevie, but having never left Elloree, he couldn’t place it.
“Who are you?” Stevie asked making sure to thrust his chest forward as he spoke, ensuring that the deputy shield was in full view.
The man looked at the badge, made a comical face and then raised his hands defensively.
“I go by many names, but like my daddy used to say, you can call me whatever you want, so long as you don’t call me late for dinner.”
Stevie just blinked; he had no idea what that meant.
“Who are you?” He repeated.
The man pressed his lips together, shrugged, and then said, “I’m the Curator, but you can just call me Seth Parsons.”
Curator? What the hell is a curator? What happened to Mrs. LeBlanc?
“Well, Seth, I’m here on official police business, and I’m looking for Mrs. LeBlanc. You know where she is?”
The man offered a wan smile.
“Haven’t seen her in quite some time, actually. Maybe I can help you with something; what is it that you’re looking for?”
Stevie eyed the man suspiciously; he didn’t know all of Elloree’s nine-hundred and change residents, but he thought he would have heard about a man with a long hair and goatee speaking with an accent.
“Naw, I don’t think so,” Stevie said hesitantly. “I’m looking for Mrs. LeBlanc.”
Seth shrugged again.
“Like I said, I don’t know where she is. But I’m pretty sure I can help you.”
“No, I don’t—”
“Mater est, matrem omnium?”
Stevie’s jaw unhinged, and his chin slapped against his Adam’s apple.
“Wh-wh-what’d you say?”
Seth Parsons smirked. When he spoke next, he put on another accent, this one thicker and reminiscence of somewhere in Europe, maybe.
“Mater est, matrem omnium.”
“How do you… how do you know that?”
“Well, when you’re at this game for as long as I have, you learn things about books and how they affect people. I see you come in here and look around… you reminded me of another guy just like you, although he wasn’t as lean and his eyes weren’t off-center and wonky, but a guy like you just the same. His name was Cal Godfrey, and I knew what book he wanted, just like I know what you’re looking for.”
“This… this Cal guy, he wanted a book by this name, too?”
Seth chuckled.
“No, not the same one. One kinda related though, to be honest.”
Stevie suddenly felt dizzy; dizzy and very, very tired.
Mater est, matrem omnium.
Those four words… there was just something about them that made his guts clench and his forehead break out into a cold sweat.
“Do you—do you have the book?” he managed through clenched teeth.
“You’re in luck! We got one in by that name just this very week.”
Still in a daze, Stevie followed the strange man toward the back of the library and into a section he had never been before. As he watched, Seth bent down going to one of the lower shelves and pulled out a book with the plain blue jacket. He blew on the cover and then dramatically leaned away from it as a cloud of dust filled the air.
“Argh, this might be it,” Seth said in another accent that Stevie would’ve pegged as pirate if anything at all.
The man held out the book, but Stevie stared at it for a moment without reaching for it. The cover was emblazoned with the very words—in deep red, embossed type—scribbled on the piece of paper in his pocket. Stevie, his eyes still locked on the book, reached into his pocket to pull out the sheet of paper to compare the letters, to make sure that they weren’t just similar but exactly the same.
“How is this possible?”
But even before Stevie posed the question, he knew that there would be no answer forthcoming; at least no answer that would make any sense to him.
And he was right.
“How is it possible that I
’m here after all this time? How is it possible that anybody is here?”
Stevie gawked.
Instead of bothering to struggle to interpret this nonsense, he looked at the spine of the book; there didn’t appear to be an author listed.
“Who wrote it?”
Seth Parsons’ next answer was equally as obtuse, but the words actually made a little sense to Stevie.
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