Ed had come to a decision. He was not going to reveal what he knew just yet. He would have to check this lead out personally. He leaned forward in his chair and stood up, placed his hands on his lower back and gently pushed to relieve the back strain he had been experiencing over the last few years. He took his hat and holster, turned off the ceiling fan, and headed out of his office. He was going upstairs to pack. He was going to Boston tonight. He would follow up this lead while the trail was still warm.
Ed packed light. He had developed an ability over his years with the FBI, of reducing his travel packing needs to the necessary bare essentials. After he closed his suitcase, he went outside and tossed the small bag into the trunk of his car. He checked his travel wallet, especially prepared for clandestine missions. It contained several false identifications, from driver licenses to credit cards. He had over three thousand dollars in small bills with him. Four hundred dollars was in the wallet, with the rest tucked inside the two false pockets of his well worn and heavily wrinkled suit coat. On the front seat was a copy of the latest Steven King novel, with a compartment carved out to carry essential lock picking tools. He always chose a Steven King book because they were usually large, and since he was a popular author, they didn’t draw any suspicion. He was going to have to change cars several times to make sure he would be untraceable. He would visit airports and pick up a car from the car rental agencies, renting them for a week at a time. He would leave the cars in parking garages along his route. These cars would not draw suspicion if he left them for a couple of days.
Before he left the house, he placed one telephone call. It was to the Reverend Simon B. Mitchell.
“Hello, Simon, Ed here. Yes, I’m doing fine. Yeah, I’ve got a new lead. I don’t know yet. I’m leaving right now to check it out for myself. I’ll call you in a couple of days. Sure, I understand. I expect to be back by Saturday night. I’ll try to make it back for Sammy’s, I mean Samuel’s, welcoming ceremony. If I do, I’ll see you there. No, there isn’t anything solid to report yet. I know the others would want to know! I don’t think I need to remind you that we’ve had false leads before. Okay. Yes, I will. Later.”
He hung the phone up and patted his shoulder holster to remind himself that he was packing his piece. The familiar shape was reassuring to the touch. He climbed into his car and backed out of his driveway onto
Walnut Lane. Next he headed south to pick up Interstate 89. Reverend Mitchell tried to contain his exuberance. In his heart, he just knew the all powerful coven would be completely restored on his watch. This new lead could turn out to be the long awaited missing link.
He went over to his fireplace. It was summertime and the fireplace was dark, heavily covered in soot and undisturbed. Reverend Mitchell knelt down in front of the open hearth and reached up inside the top of the fireplace. There was a scraping sound of stone against stone as three bricks that met at the upper left corner, moved away from the rest of the brick face to reveal a sort of drawer. The top of this drawer was metal. He pulled up on a small black metal ring, which lifted the metal lid open. Out of habit, he looked around the room even though he was completely alone.
He carefully removed a sheaf of old yellowed papers. These papers were tied together with a black ribbon. He carried the small bundle over to his desk, where he laid it carefully in the center. Moving around the desk, he sat down. He turned on the small brass desk lamp. He untied the black ribbon and began to pour through the papers. Selecting one in particular, he pulled it closer to him. He began to read the words inscribed on the yellowed dog eared paper. He moved his lips much like someone in silent prayer.
Stopping at a particular point in his reading, he stood up in a bolt. He slammed his right fist into his left palm with a smacking sound.
“Yes! I knew it. I knew it,” he exclaimed to the empty room.
“It was foretold by Elisa Porter Cummings,” he knew somehow, he knew. “Moloch must have told him,” he said as he paced back and forth in his office.
He turned and headed for his telephone, but before he could reach it, it rang. The sound of the ringing phone startled him for a moment. He hesitated, but before the second ring was over he picked up the receiver.
“Reverend, John here. We’ve got a problem. There are some boys in town from Barre looking for some trouble. They’ve been pestering some of our girls down on Route 2, next to Frida’s.”
“Anyone go with them?”
“No, not yet, but these boys are pretty persistent from what I hear.”
“Keep an eye on them for me. Call me if any one from our Church falls in with these outsiders.”
“I will, Reverend.”
Reverend Mitchell hung up the phone. He had changed his mind and would speak to the entire Church about what he had read in Reverend Cummings prophetic writings at Samuel’s welcoming ceremony. With Moloch’s help, Ed Townsend will return Saturday night with joyous news that they have located a male Powell descendant. The coming of Moloch could be soon, very soon and then they all will rule this earth as Moloch had promised that first time long ago.
He carefully put all the old papers into a neat stack and retied them with the black ribbon. He carried them over to the metal drawer and placed them back in the box. He closed the lid and pushed the bricks back into place. It only took a gentle nudge for the bricks to slide back into place. Once again, his fireplace looked as ordinary as it was supposed to.
Each member of Moloch’s coven was imbued with a unique power or force. Reverend’s power was special indeed. He had the ability to find that one weakness even the righteous had and to use it to break them down, to destroy them and to deliver their soul to Moloch. It was so because he, himself, had no scruples, no moral compass. He was as nearly and completely evil as Moloch himself.
His telephone rang again.
“Yes, I see. Okay, call Trainor, Fairchild and Yandow. That should be enough. I’ll meet you behind the recycling center in ten minutes.”
He hung up the phone and hurried to the hallway where he retrieved his hat from the old oak hat rack next to the door. Soon he was in his car hurrying to the rendezvous point. As his car pulled to a stop in the backyard behind Sutton’s recycling center, two other vehicles pulled to a stop next to his car. He walked over to greet the others. As they were shaking hands another car pulled up and stopped. The driver of this latest vehicle got out of his car. It was Walter Yandow. He headed straight for the others.
“Hello, Walter. How’s it running?” asked “Chucky” Trainor, a local radio personality.
“You know Bob, if he works on a car it’s gonna run right. The man’s a genius.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far, Walter,” laughed Judge Fairchild.
“Where does this car come from?” asked Reverend Mitchell.
“Rochester, New Hampshire. It’s a big old Ford Crown Victoria with a 351 cubic inch Police pursuit package. Bob picked it up at a place called Seacoast Salvage. The car had an electrical fire and was totaled by the insurance company before it could be delivered to New Hampshire State Police. Right now, she runs like a deer. Even with the extra weight from the roll cage and other reinforcements, it hauls ass,” said Yandow.
“The usual black, I see,” said Trainor.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” responded Yandow.
“Enough, let’s go,” said the Reverend.
They all piled into the car. The Reverend sat in the back with the Judge while Trainor rode “shotgun” with Yandow behind the wheel. They all immediately buckled their shoulder safety harnesses that Bob Senecal had installed for their safety. Yandow placed the key in the ignition and turned the key. The car roared in response. In a hail of sprayed gravel, he spun the car around and exited the recycling center backyard. They drove off in the direction of Frida’s Famous Fries, a popular summer hang out for area teenagers out on US Route 2.
In just a few short minutes, the Crown Victoria pulled to a stop at the gas station across from the fast food res
taurant. An old man came out of the station and pulled a rag from the back pocket of his work coveralls. He was carrying a bottle of windshield washer, which he proceeded to spray on the windshield. As he began to slowly clean the driver’s side, the Reverend poked his head out from the backseat window.
“Hank, can you point out the interlopers?”
“Sure can, Reverend. They’re the ones standing next to the dark blue pickup with the light bar on its roof. See it on the left, the Toyota.”
“I see it now, thank you.”
“I do what I can.”
Hank continued to wash the windows of the car while keeping an eye on the activity across the street. His passengers likewise watched the activity with keen interest.
Frida’s Famous Fries was once an A&W car hop restaurant. It took on its new name when an interloper from down country (shorthand for southern New England), bought the place in 1991. The middle aged husband and wife kept to themselves. They were not church going people, and certainly weren’t candidates for the Reverend’s closely held congregation. The followers of Moloch left them alone even though they recognized this new business would bring outsiders, interlopers, to their community. They had to accept this risk. Being able to hide among others was an accepted way of life for Moloch’s Church and its coven.
Every once and a while they had to move to protect themselves from discovery. This was such a time. A young girl, age fourteen and daughter of a Church member, was being tempted to go for a joy ride with two boys from Barre, a community about twenty-five miles southeast of Sutton. This girl, named Brittany, knew a great deal about Moloch’s Church. If she, through any means, revealed what she knew it could threaten their life’s work.
They watched and waited.
Brittany was obviously flirting with these boys and they clearly enjoyed her attention. She was wearing a halter top, cut-off blue shorts and sandals. The boys were wearing dark colored tee shirts and blue jeans with dirty white sneakers. One of the boys was smoking a cigarette.
Brittany opened the driver side door and was looking inside.
“We could give her mom or dad a call and they’ll come and get her,” said Chucky.
“And what would that accomplish, Mr. Trainor?” said the Reverend in an icy tone.
“I don’t know, I...”
“Moloch demands our obedience. He has kept his word and we must keep ours as our ancestors did, or have you forgotten, Mr. Trainor?
“No, Reverend, I haven’t, I’m sorry.”
“Look, she got into the truck,” said Judge Fairchild.
“Yeah, and it looks like the boys are following her lead,” said Walter.
“Our mission is clear, our purpose is for the greater good, let us do Moloch’s work,” said the Reverend.
The pickup truck with the girl sitting in the middle pulled out of Frida’s parking lot and drove off in a southerly direction down US Route 2.
The black Ford left the gas station and followed the truck from a distance, tracking its taillights.
After a couple of miles the truck slowed down and took a left turn onto
Middlesex Road. The Ford Crown Victoria followed along. After three miles or so, the truck turned right onto an unmarked dirt road. Once again the Ford followed. After a half mile, the truck suddenly turned around in the narrow dirt road. It bounced in and out of the ditch. Yandow stopped the car.
“What are they doing?” asked the Judge.
“They’ve figured out they’re being followed,” said Yandow.
The truck lurched forward. A cloud of dust kicked up behind the truck as it shot straight at the black Ford Crown Victoria. The truck’s light bar was turned on and the high beams were on as well. In a moment, the truck slammed to a stop directly in front of the car. A cloud of dust blew across the eerily lit scene. The truck engine gunned a couple of times and roared as it rocked in place.
Yandow gunned the police engine of the Ford Crown Victoria and it roared its response.
Suddenly, the truck surged backwards for nearly a hundred feet and suddenly spun around. Now, its tail lights once again faced the former police car. The rear wheels of the truck spun furiously as they kicked up a plume of white gray dust in the direction of the car. The truck pulled away quickly, disappearing down the dirt road.
“They’re running,” said Yandow.
“They must not be allowed to get away,” said the Judge.
“I know,” said Yandow as he stepped firmly on the gas pedal and the car shot forward.
In a moment, they could see the truck taillights flickering in the dust filled haze. Several seconds later their car was within ten feet of the truck’s back bumper. Both vehicles were traveling over seventy miles an hour along the narrow, windy, sometimes rolling road. At times, their speed slowed to forty miles an hour and at others it exceeded a hundred. Houses and mailboxes whizzed past. Tree branches wiped against the truck and car.
“Mr. Yandow, end it,” demanded the Reverend.
With those words Yandow pushed the car faster. It slammed into the back of the truck. The truck fishtailed from the impact, but the driver managed to still hold the road. The truck’s rear lights were smashed and no longer worked.
“What the hell?” said the boy sitting in the passenger seat.
“Those crazy bastards just hit my truck,” said the driver, “they can’t be cops.”
“Please let me out, please. If they catch me, they’ll kill me,” screamed Brittany. She was sitting in the middle of the two boys.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” said the boy riding shotgun.
“They want me. I’m not supposed to be with interlopers,” she cried.
“Bitch, you’re talking crazy,” said the driver.
Bamm.
The truck was slammed from behind again.
“Loose him man, loose him,” screamed the boy passenger.
“I can’t. I’m going as fast as I can on this shit ass road.”
Bamm...Bamm, screech...
The truck tailgate was now pushed in.
“The crazy fuck’s trying to pass me,” said the driver.
“Moloch, I was wrong. I was wrong, please,” she cried as she reached for the passenger’s side door handle, trying to open it.
“Get her under control, Freddy...shit,” said the driver.
The former police car slammed into the truck’s left side as Yandow tried to force the truck off the road. The truck’s right side smashed a mailbox into hundreds of pieces as the vehicles careened along. Another car’s headlights loomed about three hundred yards ahead. Yandow saw it first. He slowed the car down so he could pull in behind the truck. The young boy driving the truck noticed the oncoming car and braced for what he thought was going to be certain impact between the three vehicles. He had not noticed the Ford pull back.
Swoosh.
The wind currents whipped the passing vehicles, rocking them as they speed by.
The incident lasted only a short while when once again Yandow had pulled the restored police car alongside of the truck.
This time, the truck’s young driver responded by slamming his own truck into the car’s now dented right side. The car held steady. The three people in the truck were screaming all at once. Nobody noticed the car had lurched back a few feet until its right front tire was pulled even with the truck’s left rear tire. Now the car pulled quickly to the right.
There was a sudden impact that sent the truck into a spin. The tires bit into the road’s heavily packed dirt surface as the truck went sideways. It began to flip itself along the road at over eighty miles an hour. Two bodies flew out of the truck as the doors flapped wildly. The headlights broadcast their bounding light into an empty field to the left side of the road. The truck came to rest on the roof, in the middle of the road, over three hundred feet from the last impact with the pursuing car.
Yandow managed to pull the Ford Crown Victoria to a stop immediately after its last contact with the truck. The occupants w
atched the tumbling truck until it came to a stop. The Ford’s headlights covered the dust filled crash scene. The car now slowly moved forward towards the first body, which was lying in the ditch on the right side of the road. The car stopped and Chucky and Walter got out first.
“He’s still alive, he’s got a pulse,” said Trainor who was bending over the twisted body of the boy passenger. The boy was unconscious.
The Reverend and the Judge got out of the car and slowly approached the boy.
“By the power granted to me by Moloch, the Prince of Darkness, the right hand to the all powerful Lucifer, I condemn you to death. Your soul will belong to Moloch, may you serve him well,” said Judge Fairchild.
Chucky pulled the boy’s head up from the ground. At the angle he held the head the boy was unable to breath. In a moment the boy stopped breathing.
The four men walked down to the second body. It was Brittany. She was lying on her right side with her back to the truck. She, too, was unconscious. She had an obviously broken arm. Her eyes were rolled back, her eyelids frozen open, so that only the white’s of her eyes could be seen. Blood ran down the side of her face from her left ear. Her legs were badly scrapped and bloody.
“Should we take her or send her to Moloch?” asked Yandow.
“Let’s see the other boy first,” answered the Judge. His decision on these matters was final as ordained by the word of Moloch.
They moved along to the truck. The smell of gasoline was everywhere. The gas tank had ruptured during the tumbling and it was now leaking gas onto the ground underneath the truck. Pinned beneath the steering wheel, inside of the upside down truck, still strapped in with his seat and shoulder belt was the driver. He moaned softly as the four men approached. Glistening glass splinters offered multiple reflections from the Mercury’s headlights. The long shadows of the men now stretched across the truck. The night was quiet except for the boy’s moaning.
From his upside down position he could see, through one eye, the approach of shadowy figures. His other eye had been cut out of its socket by a shard of glass from the broken truck windshield. He had several broken bones. His right lung was punctured by a broken rib. His breathing was labored. He was well into shock so he didn’t feel the full effects of the pain messages his body was generating. He could now only see the feet of the men standing next to his truck. The driver door was missing. It had flown off halfway along the several rollovers that the truck traveled in its solo crash.
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