Threshold Series (Book 1): Threshold

by Luquer, David

  “I have called around this morning when I got back to the office. There have been no other instances recently. One thing that bothers me is how many graves were dug up. It seems like too many to be done in a single night, unless there was an entire group of people digging.”

  “Was anything taken from the graves?” Brighton asked.

  “The bodies were taken.”

  Brighton’s eyes widened for a moment. “Excuse me. Did you say the bodies were taken?”

  Rob nodded. “That’s right, the bodies were all missing, and there was blood in the bed of Bill Thurmon’s truck. It was dried, so it must have been there for hours before we arrived early this morning. It rained last night but that stopped early this morning so the blood could have been there from either last night or this morning.”

  “Bill Thurmon’s truck? What was his truck still doing there? He should have left last night. He wouldn’t have continued to work with the rain as heavy as it was.”

  “I don’t know, we haven’t found Bill or heard from him. His wife called this morning before I even arrived because she hasn’t seen him either.”

  “My God, what’s going on here Sheriff?” the reverend said, looking more confused by the moment. “I didn’t hear about any of this at the diner this morning.”

  “No one has, we have been keeping this quiet for the time being. Jimmy and I locked the gate to the cemetery when we left until we sort this out. I trust you can keep this under your hat for now.”

  “Of course, but please keep me informed and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

  “We may call on you for advice, Reverend. I know you probably have more information on grave robbing and the reasons for it than I do.”

  Brighton shook his head. “Not really. The most obvious reason is to pawn anything they can find on the bodies, jewelry and such.”

  “Rituals of some sort? Satanic rites? Perhaps some sort of sick, twisted cult?”

  “To be honest, sheriff, there are no rituals of any kind that I am aware of involving the already deceased. I have studied cult and occult rituals, but in the case of human sacrifice, the victim is alive.”

  “The victim is always alive?”

  “Well, yes, as far as I know,” Brighton answered. “You see, in many rituals, the offender believes that the longer the victim suffers, the more power he can draw from them. So, the victim would have to be alive. And in a vampire cult, the victim would need to be alive in that case as well, since the blood coagulates shortly after death.”

  “Are there really vampire cults?” Rob asked in surprise.

  Brighton nodded. “Oh, yes. More than you would imagine. Some of them are just gothic cults, just for show mostly. But there are Satanic cults, the Occult, which are very much involved in blood rituals.”

  “Gentlemen, please!” Shirley exclaimed from her desk. “I am going to eat lunch soon!”

  “Sorry, Shirley,” Rob said. “Just trying to get what information I can that may be helpful.”

  “Have you run anything on footprints that you may have found?” Brighton suggested.

  “Too early for anything on that, but the tread was not from work boots or sneakers or anything like that. They all appeared to be dress shoes.”

  “Dress shoes?”

  “Yes, the bottoms were smooth with no tread to speak of.”

  Just then, the door opened and John Wheat walked in, looking pale and disoriented. Jim walked over and led him to a chair, helping him sit down. Rob stood as John was eased into a chair, his hands trembling. His face was ashen and masked in absolute fear.

  “John, what’s wrong?” Jim asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I did,” John said, looking into the deputy’s eyes. “I did see a ghost.”

  “John, you know there’s no such thing.”

  “Tell that to Jeremy Collins,” John stammered.

  Rob’s breath caught for a moment. “What about Jeremy?”

  “I just saw Jeremy Collins walking down by the river, headed toward town.”

  They all looked at each other, then back at John. Rob realized he’d stopped breathing for a moment. He sat back down and placed his hands on his desk. This day was getting more and more unbelievable by the minute. How could Jon have seen a man they had recently buried?

  “John, Jeremy’s been dead for over a week now,” Shirley said, finally breaking the silence. “Are you sure it was him? Could it have been someone who looked like him?”

  “It was him. He was wearing the suit he was buried in, covered in dirt but it was him.”

  Rob set his hand on John’s arm, attempting to calm him down. “Where, exactly, did you see him?”

  “Out by the park, walking toward the pavilion,” John answered, his voice still shaking.

  “Jim, you come with me,” Rob said. “John, I want you to stay with Shirley until she can get the doctor here, okay?”

  John nodded his head and leaned back in the chair, staring ahead into nothing.

  “Reverend, you want to come too?” Rob asked.

  “Right behind you, Sheriff,” Brighton replied, following them out the door.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Doctor Blake and Doctor Williams walked among the gravestones, looking at the heaps of dirt and the holes that appeared to descend all the way to the caskets. It was hard to tell for sure because the holes disappeared into darkness after only a few feet, the shade from the trees blocked out any sunlight they needed to see beyond that. Blake whistled in amazement as they peered down some of the holes they walked past.

  Blake moved to one of the graves in the direct sunlight, squinting into the hole. After a moment, he was able to see the casket lid. Looking over the damaged area as best he could see, he decided it appeared the body was gone. He moved back to where Williams was standing, his mind attempting to process the situation.

  “What do you make of this, Fred?” Williams asked.

  “I don’t know, John. It almost looks like they dug out instead of someone digging down to them.”

  Williams shook his head. “That’s impossible. You saying the dead are coming back?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, John. I am just looking at the marks in the dirt coming up the holes. And if you look at the graves in the sunlight over there you can see that the caskets are busted out, not in. If someone was digging down, they would bust the caskets in. It’s pretty damned peculiar, don’t you think?”

  Williams laughed before answering. “I suppose so, but I don’t think they came out on their own.”

  “You don’t suppose PEF07 could have gotten in here, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. How would it get out here?”

  “What if someone was being careless when they disposed of it?”

  “Don’t go getting paranoid on me. You oversaw the destruction of it. You should know as well as anyone that it can’t be PEF07.”

  “You see the blood all over the bed of that truck? Why would there be blood in a cemetery?”

  “Looks like someone was murdered,” Williams said. “He probably saw the grave robbers, so they did him in. From the appearance, I would say they did him in brutally.”

  “Maybe, but we better get back to the building before any more law enforcement arrives and finds us snooping around.”

  As they started back to NeurAx, Blake couldn’t keep his mind off the broken caskets.

  * * * *

  Fred Parsons opened the back door to let his dog, Buster, out of the house and into the back yard. Buster was always at the door an hour after eating, without fail. Fred headed back to the kitchen, buttered some toast and sat down to the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. He had done the puzzle every day for the last twenty years and nearly always completed it in less than fifteen minutes. This morning, however, it was taking him a little longer than usual. He marked some of the clues he would have to come back to, unsure of the answer.

  He looked out the window to make sure Buster didn’t wa
nder into any of the neighbors’ houses. He would occasionally have to yell at the dog to get back in the yard. Everything looked fine so he returned to his paper.

  He was just about to jot down an answer when he was interrupted by the phone ringing. He cursed under his breath, figuring it was a telemarketer. He hated telemarketers and they called at least twice a week trying to sell him something he would never need or want. On the other hand, maybe it was something important after all.

  “Hello,” he said as picked up the receiver.

  “Hi, is this Fred?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “It’s Joanne Reed.”

  Joanne Reed called almost as much as the damned telemarketers, but she was far less pleasant than they were. He hated that woman and he was certain she hated him equally as much.

  “What the hell do you want?” He demanded.

  “I want you to keep that damn mutt of yours out of my yard.”

  Of course, she did. This was the reason she always called. Normally he would get a call from the sheriff either before or after he got a call from her stating that she had called the local authorities earlier in the day.

  “Why don’t you go screw yourself, bitch!” he yelled into the phone.

  “Watch your tone with me, you old bastard!” she said, sounding even more pissed off now, which was just what he’d had intended.

  This could be an interesting conversation after all. Fred enjoyed agitating Joanne. He hated it when she called him, but at least he got a little pleasure when she was fuming by the time he hung up on her.

  “I would rather watch my foot up your ass!” he said.

  “Why you foul-mouthed son if a bitch! If I have to come over there, I’ll put my foot somewhere!”

  “I ain’t scared of you, you hag!”

  “You will be when I kick the living shit out of you!”

  “Blah, Blah, Blah. I’d like to see you try!”

  In reality, he wasn’t so sure he would want to trade punches with Joanne. She had threatened it before, but she had never backed up her threats in the past so he figured she wouldn’t now. He’d heard stories of Joanne in her younger days. By many accounts, she used to be able to hold her own quite well in a bar fight.

  “Remember you said that when I finally do kick the shit out of you! Just keep that dog out of my yard!”

  There was a loud click indicating she had slammed the phone receiver down. Fred chuckled before hanging up the phone and heading to the window to check on the dog again, but the yard was empty. He figured he had better go outside before Buster wandered into Joanne’s yard and she called the sheriff again, starting a war.

  Stepping outside his back door, he was surprised to find an unfamiliar woman in his back yard. She was gazing at him with cloudy eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess. She was dressed in black, standing slightly hunched over. Her flesh was almost white, as if she hadn’t been in the sun at all for the last few years. A long stream of drool hung from her bottom lip, connecting to the front of her shirt.

  “What do you want?” he demanded, still in a bad mood, thanks to Joanne.

  The woman gave no response. Instead, she slowly shuffled toward him. She was drooling even more now, slowly tilting her head up to look at him with a cold empty gaze coming from her lifeless eyes. Her fingernails were ragged and broken. Her hands were dirty, as if she had been digging in the soil.

  “Look, lady, I don’t want any trouble from you. Just get out of my yard.”

  She continued to show no signs of comprehending to him in the least. She kept shuffling closer until she was right in front of him. She let out a low moan as she stopped inches from him. Her breath was horrible and made his stomach turn. She smelled as if it had been months since she had showered or bathed.

  “That’s it!” Fred yelled, trying not to gag or vomit from her stench. “I have had it with people today! Now you’re pissing me off! Get the hell out of here or I’ll call the sheriff and have you taken off my property!”

  Buster came around the corner of the house and started barking at the woman, running around her in a circle. She reached down and grabbed the dog as he ran in front of her, lifting him toward her open mouth. Fred watched in horror as she bit down on Buster’s head, crushing the dog’s skull in her jaws, silencing the small canine for good. Buster’s brains spilled out of his broken skull, hanging against the woman’s chin, now covered in blood. The dog’s feet twitched for a moment before finally hanging limp.

  Fred ran at her, screaming as she dropped Buster to the ground in a broken heap. As he came within an arm’s length of her, she moved her arms up quickly and grabbed him by the throat. He tried to fight her off but her grip tightened until he was gasping and choking. He couldn’t believe the strength she possessed. She didn’t look like she was that strong.

  He tried to push her away, fighting for air as he struggled. She opened her mouth and moved her face to his, biting down hard on his bottom lip, tearing it off in one quick move. From there it got worse. Fred was torn open, his innards spilling out before he finally passed out for the last time.

  * * * *

  In the backyard at her parents’ house, Helen Jones kept herself busy hanging wet laundry on the clothesline to dry. Her mother, Bernice, was still dealing with the grief of losing her mother in law who she had been fortunate enough to have a good relationship with. Helen knew Bernice had never been close to her own mother but Abigail had treated her as if she were her own daughter for as long as Helen could remember. She’d heard it had always been that way, right from the time Bernice and her Richard had been engaged.

  For the last couple of years that Abigail was battling cancer, Richard and Bernice had moved her into their home to offer her around the clock care. Now that she was gone, the house seemed so empty. To Helen, it was almost like coming back to a strange place instead of coming home. It was the same house, yet something important was missing from each room.

  Helen had loved her grandmother dearly but seemed to be adjusting to life without her faster than her parents. Doing chores around the house kept her busy and allowed her mother and father to deal with the grief of loss in their own way without the worry of all the tasks of running the home. Of course, her father still insisted on doing his own work around the place.

  She looked up to notice some hawks circling above the trees along the back yard where the woods began. The thought occurred to her that they must have found something dead or dying, wondering if she should take a walk through the woods later and see what it might be. Anything to keep her mind occupied and keep her outside the house would be a welcome adventure. There were about six or seven of them in the sky, more than she was accustomed to seeing at one time.

  “Helen, I am going to make some sandwiches for dinner. Is ham and cheese ok?” her mother called from the kitchen window, pulling her attention away from the hawks.

  “Sounds great, Mom.”

  At least her mother was concentrating on dinner instead of just sitting in a chair, wasting away in her grief. Helen knew the grieving process was important, but she had seen people who never quite recovered from losing a loved one. They just seemed to exist for months or even years. Her father was handling it better than she’d expected. She just couldn’t stand the thought of her parents living for years in sorrow.

  “What are you guys after?” she muttered, taking one more glance at the birds.

  She left the laundry basket, heading to the garage to locate her father. She might as well let him know dinner would be ready shortly. He was working on the lawn mower when she entered. He looked up at her and smiled, though she could see his eyes were moist. The man had been putting up a strong front but he couldn’t always hide his sensitive side from her.

  “I doubt I’ll be able to use this anytime soon with all the rain keeping the grass wet,” he said. The back yard may start to look like a hay field before I get the chance to mow.”

  “You might want to
wrap it up for a little while,” she said. “Mom’s making sandwiches.”

  He nodded. “Good. I’m starved.”

  “I’m going to grab the laundry basket on the way in.”

  “I’ll see you in there,” he said, standing up and starting toward the house.

  She was glad to see he still had his appetite. Her mother had only picked at her food each meal since Helen returned home but her father continued to eat, keeping his strength up while he grieved in his own way.

  Helen noticed the birds were still circling as she grabbed the basket. She slowly scanned the trees to see if she could spot anything. There was a slight movement coming out of the foliage before something finally came into view.

  “Looks like your meal isn’t quite dead yet,” she said in a low voice.

  The movement continued as whatever the hawks were circling made it's way closer to the edge of the trees. She began to see hints of something, though it was too upright to be an animal. She squinted to make out what it could be, her eyes widening when she realized it was a pale human. Her first instinct was to go and assist them but she stopped in her tracks as the figure came fully into view.

  It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible!

  Helen’s breath caught in her throat. She tried to scream, but no sound came out at first. There, at the edge of the trees that lined the back yard, was her grandmother, Abigail Jones.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Joanne Reed inhaled deeply from her cigarette as she made a fresh pot of coffee. She’d grown extremely impatient waiting for the sheriff to return her call. She was tempted to telephone again and let him know just how pissed off she was. Surely, nobody at the sheriff’s office would put up with Fred Parsons’ dog shitting on their lawn. Calling Fred allowed her to blow off some of the steam but she still wanted to file her formal complaint. Actually, what she wanted more than anything was to give Fred Parsons the beating of his miserable life.

  Snuffing her cigarette in the ashtray, she exhaled the smoke, turned and lit another. Chain smoking was a side effect of impatience and stress with Joanne. Her impatience grew, not only waiting for the sheriff’s call but also because she awaited the arrival of her latest fling, Tim Harris.