Land of the Hoosier Dawn (Events From The Hoosier Dawn Book 1)

by Nick Younker

  It was the perfect trade-off for him. He could snatch a body up from any number of towns along the river, in four different states. He typically avoided small towns because his victims were more likely to be missed and searched for. He preferred the larger areas around Louisville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and even Evansville and Paducah. He never killed anyone from Fogstow, or for that matter Jamison County (at least none that he could remember). That rule also spilled over the bridge into Loudon County in Kentucky.

  He did sometimes stake out people in the little town of Santa Claus, Indiana, though, since the tourism there gave him better means to snatch an out-of-state traveler. It made him smile when he would close his eyes and think about it. Those summer days were some of his favorites. Young mothers taking their kids to a Midwestern dreamland full of Christmas spirit and summer fun. But he didn’t spend much time there since it was so far away from the river.

  It gave him great pleasure to choke the life out of people. He had never known much of anything in his life but rage and desire. He never carried a gun and only used his knife for simple tasks. He would never kill anyone with anything but his bare hands, unless, of course, the situation got out of control. He got no satisfaction from stabbing or shooting someone, with the lone exception of his father, the moment of his true birth. He felt his efforts would be wasted if he could not feel the life exiting their bodies.

  He also took no pleasure in killing young children, teenagers or handicapped people. Although he did choke the life out of several men in his time, his favorite victim was young mothers. They gave him the most bang for his buck. All he had to do was make them believe he was going to hurt or kill their children. That was all it took to bring out the lioness in them. He loved it when they fought him, and he also liked to make them think they were winning. It was only when they believed they were winning that they truly fought until the bitter end. It was only when they had hope of survival that they would keep going until that very last breath. The last breath he allowed them to take before he took them.

  After years of hunting up and down the Ohio, he came across Ceril Jeffries and his merry band of inbreds. He had disposed of an old farmer about five miles north of Fogstow in a gully deep inside the Hoosier National Forest two days before. He had liked that spot and decided he was going to take the farmer’s wife there after he went back and beat her to death. When he returned to his new dumping zone, he found Ceril Jeffries there, overseeing two other men who were dragging the dead farmer, his dead farmer, through the woods. He laid the wife down and covered her with loose brush and leaves, and then followed the Jeffries. For all he knew, they were pulling him back to the highway, on their way to call the police. He knew before they could get there, he was going to have to deal with them. But they didn’t go anywhere near the highway. Instead, they tracked through the woods toward Fogstow. But they didn’t make it to Fogstow. They went directly to their plateau, where he knew the family had been squatting for generations and had laid claim to. And this was the moment he knew that the stories were true. The Jeffries were cannibals.

  When they pulled the farmer into a makeshift barn, Ceril came outside and lit a cigarette. With the stealth instincts endowed to him by his nature, Shane managed to sneak up on Ceril Jeffries and apply a choke hold that rendered him unconscious. He carried his body into the cellar of a nearby house (a makeshift house built over the abandoned remnants of a military bunker) and found some duct tape, which he used to bind his hands, legs and mouth.

  When Ceril woke up, he was scared to death. That puzzled Shane to no end. Why would a murderous cannibal like him be scared? Sure, no one wants to die. But this man was supposed to be like him. Not once in his new life had Shane experienced fear. Not once had he had an emotional breakdown, or so he thought. So why would this guy respond in such a strange way? Did he not have the necessary instincts? Did he not possess the necessary drive to carry out these tasks?

  But then it started to become clear to Shane. This man served his people. His people were not killers. They were scavengers. They were those wretched birds who flew in circles over the carcasses of the dead and waited for their opportunity to swoop in for a meal. They were poor folk who did not leave their home to labor or socialize. They did not even leave their homes to mate. They hunted down their animals in the woods and picked up the roadside meals. They didn’t let anything go to waste, including human meat.

  A smile appeared on Shane’s face. He couldn’t help but wonder what happened if they ran out of food. Did they dig up bodies at a cemetery and dine on them? It made him laugh out loud while Ceril Jeffries sat there, engulfed in fear and crying with snot covering the duct-tape on his mouth. He struggled to breathe through his congested nose.

  He squatted down beside him and laughed into his face. “Tell me something. Has anyone from your family ever died from poisoning? Maybe from something like, oh, say, . . . formaldehyde?” Shane asked.

  He stood up, already knowing the answer. Ceril calmed himself down and realized that Shane already knew. Shane pulled the duct tape partially off his mouth so he could breathe and speak.

  “So why is it that I see you pulling a body out of the forest and you don’t take it to the police, but instead, you take it . . . here?” Shane said, spreading his arms to indicate the room.

  Ceril bowed his head in shame, and then looked up at him with the most despondent answer he could find. “So why is it that you find us pulling a body out of the woods, see us bring him home and you snatch me up and bring me . . . here?”

  Shane just snickered and turned to look around the cellar. In all the excitement, he had not even realized what was in the cellar with them. Various pieces of camping gear, boat motors, grills, small propane tanks, coolers, fishing gear, jamboxes, outdoors clothing and even empty purses.

  The Jeffries were indeed vultures. Those who stole from campers and hikers in the national forest. Those who stole from cars broken down on the sides of the highway and the interstate. Those who made do with whatever they could, by any means they could find. And most importantly, those who ate whatever they could find to survive on.

  Shane and Ceril made a lasting arrangement that day. The Jeffries would dispose of his bodies, and Shane would dispose of their loot. It was an even trade between two very different devils. A win-win pact that made no waves. An understanding.

  ***

  11

  Joe Terrance and his gang were making progress, slowly descending the dark mine shaft. They knew that at some point they were going to hit that filthy water that had poured in earlier, but they wanted to see how far it went and whether or not it really made it all the way out to the other side of the Turkey Crossing.

  The walls of the shaft were starting to crumble, little by little. There were supports still in place in most sections, but in others they had given way, and if more were to give way, well, the shaft could end up collapsing and the town would have another sinkhole to worry about. If too much of it collapsed, then the entire TC could end up buried beneath the surface, and that was some dangerous business for the community. That could kill a lot of people.

  “Guys, I think we need to report what we found here as soon as we’re done. This entire shaft could cave in and all those people over in the TC would be goners,” Mark said.

  They were all thinking the same thing and they all agreed at the same time. It just made good sense to let the Boss know if his town’s in any danger. Of course they had all assumed the worst when it came to the reclaim land from the old mines. Most of the townsfolk were all pretty hip to theory as well. But it was these boys that were going to come back with the confirmations. If they could just make it all the way through to the TC and come out the other end, before they had to give it all up. That’s all they wanted to do. Complete the adventure. Have something to tell their grandchildren about someday, which would include how they saved a lot of lives by discovering the mineshaft and letting the Boss know about it so he could evacuate the area and make su
re no ended up dead.

  In their minds, that was how it was going to play out.

  They had approached a portion of the shaft where the rocks and junk stone had broken loose from the walls on both sides. The rock must have rolled all the way down to the bottom of the shaft, because it was nowhere in sight. And by the looks of the holes in the wall, those rocks must have been house-sized boulders, because they could have easily hidden a car.

  “Jesus Christ! Look at these! They could be new tunnels and lead to more places down here!” Mark said.

  Mark and Joe went into the one on the right and Dean and Noah went into the one on the left.

  “Just explore and come right back, we don’t want to get separated for long. Got it?” Joe said to Dean and Noah.

  They both confirmed and both parties went their separate ways.

  Joe stood at the entrance to his side while Mark was already deep inside exploring the cleared cave-in.

  Joe could hear something from behind them, from the direction they had come in. He stood there for a moment praying the water barrier had not broken loose, and then he saw light. It wasn’t sunlight because it was bouncing around. It was a flashlight. It was coming from their entrance. At first, he thought it might have been Rush and his gang, but then he heard a man grunting and something dragging along behind them. He quickly shut his light off.

  Dean walked back to his own side entrance with his light on and Joe motioned to him to turn it off. When the strange man got closer, Joe waved for Dean to go back into the wall and hide. Dean gave him a scared nod and retreated back into the wall. Joe also found Mark and turned his light off. He whispered into Mark’s ear what was going on and Mark went quiet, obviously scared out of his mind.

  Outside their walled hideouts, the man made it to where they were at in the shaft. Joe peered around the corner and could see by the wavering shine of the man’s flashlight that it was Shane Duncan Siders.

  What in the world could that lunatic be doing here? And what in the hell is he dragging along behind him? Joe thought.

  Then he could see clear as day. That gigantic knapsack was actually a feed mill bag that was commonly used when people came into the Co-op and picked up their grain. Some used those extra heavy sized sacks to cram more into their loads. But there was no way that bag was packed with grain. That’s when he saw it, the hand that was hanging out of the sack. And he knew right away it was a woman’s hand because there was a ring on the finger, which looked like it might have been an promise ring. Kind of like the one that Jaci Pinker wanted Noah to buy her when they went on the Louisville field trip to the museum and they saw it in the gift shop.

  It all became clear to Joe in a single moment that Shane Duncan Siders was dragging a body deep into the ruins of this old mine shaft, and it probably wasn’t the first one. They had always known that there was something off about that lunatic but they never could know for sure. All the times they encountered him, he was always grimacing, as if he was in pain at the mere sight of them. When he saw them, he looked as though he had just stubbed his toe on the edge of a table and all the pain was in his face. He didn’t talk to anybody when he came to town and always disappeared for days, weeks, even months at a time. It didn’t surprise Joe one bit that Siders turned out to be a murderer. Seeing with his own eyes was enough for him to believe.

  Joe looked back at Mark to see if he saw the hand, too. Mark was standing against the wall with his hands over his goggles, covering his eyes. That was something Joe used to do when he was in his room all alone and scared something was going to get him. He used to think all he had to do was cover his eyes and that would somehow cloak him from any monster, or keep anything scary away from him, as if it would just move on to the next person and leave him alone. He wanted Mark to see what he saw, just so the others wouldn’t think he was crazy, but he could not make any noise, so he just let it go and turned back to the main shaft.

  Luckily, he could see Noah peeking around the corner too, his face white as a ghost, and he knew right away that Noah had seen the same hand and the same bag. Siders might have groaned a few times as he dragged her, but if it were Joe and his buddies, they couldn’t have even moved her a few inches.

  Shane heaved the knapsack by the boys, and just before he passed their hideouts, he picked the sack up completely and gave it toss down the shaft. The body thudded and tumbled the rest of the way down for several seconds, and then they could hear a splash. Shane smiled when he heard it hit the water, and then picked a cigarette out of his pocket and pulled a match out of his trousers. But just before he lit it, he sniffed a couple of times and looked around. He sniffed again, then continued to look around as if he was trying to locate the source of a smell.

  Joe and Noah on both sides started to get very frightened and Joe said to himself, Okay. This is it. He can smell us now and he’s going to find us. If he does, I’ll punch him in the dick and we’ll all jump out and push him down the shaft, then we make a break for it. He just hoped that Noah was thinking the same thing. God, he hoped so! The last thing he wanted to happen was for him to get Siders off track and for no one to come to help. They could miss their opportunity to get out of this alive, and then they would be the next ones in a grain sack being tossed down a mineshaft into that god-awful water below.

  Shane sniffed around a few more times and looked at the match he was about to light and smiled.

  “Oh no. Better not this time, old chucky,” Shane said to no one in particular as he put his match back into his pants. He put the cigarette in his left front shirt pocket and took off down the mineshaft.

  Joe peered around the corner to make sure he was gone and then walked back out to the main shaft. He motioned for everyone to come out and shooed them with his index finger. He pointed to all of them and pointed back up the shaft to the exit. They all just nodded their heads in agreement and quickly, but quietly, hustled up the shaft and out of the mine.

  * * *

  It took them less than five minutes to run all the way back to Floating Asshole, where their bikes were stashed. They still wore their protective gear, and when they got there, they started pulling it off and hiding it all in the brush.

  “What the fuck was that?!” Noah yelled at Joe.

  Joe was out of breath and still in a state of panic. He hunched over to catch his air and he could not answer right away. Dean, although he knew that the situation was tense, had no idea what Joe and Noah had seen. He checked Mark over to make sure he was okay. Mark was vulnerable to situations like these and he sometimes would withdraw.

  “You okay, bub?” Dean asked Mark.

  Mark just stood there, still wearing his goggles, and didn’t say anything. He just whimpered. Dean grabbed his shoulders, gave him a little shake and pulled his goggles off.

  This upset Mark, and he quickly pulled the goggles out of Dean’s hand and put them back on.

  “Mark! Talk to me, bub! Are you okay?” Dean said. He looked around and saw they were in a completely hidden area. No one was around and the danger was all gone. “Look, Mark. Look around. There’s no more danger. Nothing to be scared of anymore.”

  Joe and Noah took a moment to observe them. They were more interested in making sure that Mark was okay than discussing the hand of the dead lady they saw in the grain sack. They also didn’t want to upset Mark anymore.

  “Mark, we’re safe, buddy. No one can get to us here. And Siders didn’t even see us, so he has no reason to come after us,” Joe said.

  Mark felt safe with his goggles on. As if they were the only things that protected him while they were in the cave. They were what gave him his invisibility and they would keep him out of the sight. No one bad could hurt him when he had those goggles on. He knew those boys thought that he was just a young kid and could not understand what Shane Duncan Siders was pulling along in that grain sack, into an abandoned mineshaft. He knew all too well that man was a criminal, just one who hadn’t been caught, and he scared the hell out of Mark. There was n
o doubt that Siders was dragging a human body along behind him. That is why he covered his eyes. If Siders saw him, he might just pass him up and decide that Mark wouldn’t know anything and did not need to be killed. He also covered his eyes at home when he did not want Brad Oxley to break his stuff. It never worked and Brad just kept on breaking everything that Mark cared about and he knew covering his eyes wasn’t working anymore. But this time, he had his goggles on and Siders didn’t catch them. This time, he was truly invisible to bad things. His goggles saved their lives.

  “I, I just . . . I need to keep these goggles with me. That’s all,” Mark said.

  Dean looked relieved, and he took his hands off Mark’s shoulders. “It’s okay, bub. You can keep them. Just always remember to talk to me when something’s wrong. That’s all.”

  Darkness was starting to fall. The skies had covered in what seemed like an approaching thunderstorm from the west, but they could not see nor hear any rain. Noah checked his watch; it was rounding 5.

  “Let’s just get back before we get poured on. It looks like a wicked storm is rolling in and we don’t wanna get caught in the middle of it,” Noah said.

  They all agreed and slowly wheeled their bikes up over Floating Asshole and glided down the other side, straight onto the Bluff Trail.

  Joe and Noah didn't stop at the Chapmans’ house. They rolled straight through to Joe’s, which was deep in the heart of Squaw Creek. Noah lived right beside Joe.

  Chapter 3

  The Dusk Before the Dawn

  ***

  1

  The A-frame cabin Bob Stamps had rented just a mile away from Patoka Lake smelled a lot like no one had been inside it for a couple of years. Although everything seemed clean when Bob and his children hurried inside to get out of the pouring rain, it still had a stale, musty smell, like it had been sitting empty for a long time. Bob certainly didn’t mind, nor was he surprised. That’s what he expected out of this trip: a smelly log cabin, no TV, fishing on the Patoka in a rented pontoon boat, a table and a kitchen supplied with cooking utensils and a small refrigerator to keep their food and root beers cold.