Crimson Falls (The Depravity Chronicles)

by Joshua Grove

  “Oh,” Trevor murmured, stunned by his mother’s rare show of aggression. “I’m sorry.” He managed a smile, feeling a little guilty that he was causing a scene as Acorn Alan was lying dead on the ground.

  Then it hit him. He had just seen a dead body. A small chill traveled down his spine, but he did his best to disguise it.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Trevor,” Anna said, seemingly a bit more in control of her emotions.

  “What happened to Mr. Brickton?”

  “He died.”

  He swallowed the answer he wanted to give, and instead chose a more diplomatic approach. “I figured. I mean, like, what happened?”

  “We don’t know yet,” she said in a monotone voice. Then she suddenly stopped and took him by the shoulders. “Trevor Blackwood. You cannot say a word to this to anyone. Do you understand me? Anyone!”

  “I get it Mom. Geesh.”

  Anna extended her hand. He looked at it in confusion.

  “I need your phone.”

  “What?”

  “Your phone. Cough it up. Right now.”

  “But Mom!”

  She stared directly into his eyes. “Now.” He reached into his pocket and surrendered his phone. “Not a word to your brother or sister, either.” She paused, as if reconsidering. “Not yet. Not until we can talk about it as a family. But right now, I need to take you home and get back to work.”

  As Anna and Trevor began walking back up the yard toward the house, the wind howled through the trees. Trevor looked into the forest that surrounded them on all sides. He had enough sense to realize that Mr. Brickton had not died of natural causes. For a moment he thought he saw something moving behind the trees.

  “Mom!” he shouted in fear, pointing away from the house. Anna quickly unsheathed her gun and glared toward where Trevor was pointing.

  “I saw it too!” Jake yelled as he ran toward them. Everyone stood motionless. Watching. Listening.

  “How could something just disappear?” Trevor asked, breathing heavily.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t like it,” Anna said. “Jake, call dispatch and get the dogs out here. We need to get a team together to move through these woods. Sam, take Trevor and go to my house. Get my kids and bring them to the station. I don’t want them to be alone. And make sure to spread the word.”

  “Uh, Sheriff?” Jake asked.

  “What?”

  “The dogs? A team? Aren’t you worried that you’ll cause a panic? I mean, the whole town will know in a matter of minutes and we have no idea what actually happened here. Dr. Styles may have been a bit overdramatic.”

  “Do what you’re told,” Anna said briskly.

  “But I don’t want you to lose your job,” he said.

  “And she doesn’t want anyone else to die, dumbass,” Trevor shouted. Anna grabbed her son’s arm tightly.

  “Just do it,” she said. Sam and Trevor nodded and walked toward the driveway. By this point three other deputies were making their way through the backyard.

  Trevor turned around to face his mother. “Can’t I stay with you?”

  “No, honey. Go with Sam. You’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  Anna laughed. “Trevor, nothing is going to happen to me. I promise.” Trevor noticed a little tremor in her voice.

  “Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep, Mom,” he said as he hugged her as tightly as he could. He turned away from her and walked toward Sam and the cruisers. He didn’t want to lose the only parent he had left.

  As Trevor climbed into the Ford Explorer, he looked at Sam with a hint of distrust.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked politely.

  “Do you make a habit of questioning your superiors?”

  Sam grinned. “Well if I do then I’m in good company.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “From what I understand, you give your mother shit all the time.” Trevor tried not to wince at Sam’s words. He knew they were true. He turned and looked out the window.

  “Look, man, I’m not trying to give you a hard time,” Sam said as he began driving down the long driveway. “But it’s been a rough day and your mom has a lot on her plate.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Trevor shot back. “So why would you question her?”

  “Whether you believe it or not kid, I like your mom. I’ve worked with a lot of sheriffs, and she’s the real deal. I’m trying to protect her job. If I didn’t trust her, I wouldn’t work for her.”

  Trevor said nothing. After a moment he nodded, smiled a half smile, and returned to the window.

  “So do you know how the Bricktons made all their money?” Sam asked, trying to fill the nervous silence with small talk.

  “Something about logging, I guess. They pretty much owned the town for like a century,” Trevor answered. As he studied the trees he tried to forget the past half hour. In the distance he thought he could see something running alongside them. Fear enveloped him.

  “Something wrong?” Sam asked.

  “How fast are we going?” Trevor inquired without removing his gaze from the shadow.

  “Only about 20. Why?”

  “Okay, don’t freak out or stop driving. But I need you to look out my window and see if you can see something running beside us.” Trevor could almost feel Sam’s body tense. He was too afraid to look at Sam, and too afraid to take his eyes off the shadow.

  “Mary, mother of God,” Sam gasped.

  “Do you see it? Do you see it?” Trevor shrieked.

  “Yeah, yeah, I see it.” Both men stared out the window. The shadow moved in perfect unison with the Explorer.

  “What the hell is that?” Trevor asked nervously. “It doesn’t seem to have a shape. Like, can a guy run that fast?”

  “Holy hell,” was all Sam could say. Suddenly the shadow stopped. Trevor craned his neck to try and follow the shape, but without warning he was wretched forward. His seatbelt caught and shoved against his chest, and he heard loud popping sounds in the car. Something slammed against his face, stinging and burning him like fire.

  “God…” Sam started to shout, but was suddenly cut off. A loud Pop! echoed through the SUV. Trevor turned his head to his left as slowly as he could to check on Sam. Panic was pushing its way through his body.

  “Sam?” Trevor whimpered. “Are you okay?” Sam didn’t respond. Blood was pouring from his forehead and running over his closed eyes. Trevor reached over and tried to shake him softly. “Sam!”

  No response.

  Trevor leaned his head back against the headrest and sighed. Without thinking, he turned toward the window. He screamed so loudly his voice broke, but he was too afraid to notice the pain. The figure that had been running beside them was now only a few yards away from them. Although most of its body was hiding behind a bush, Trevor felt sure it was watching them.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he breathed. The terror he felt was so consuming it was difficult to contain. “Oh, Jesus,” was all he kept repeating. The figure began to disappear behind the bush. Then, like a bullet shot from its chamber, the figure leaped over the brush and ran toward them. Trevor wanted to close his eyes, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew he was watching Death itself sprinting toward him. He didn’t even have time to scream.

  About twenty feet from the Explorer, the shadow abruptly stopped. Trevor tried to look at it, but his vision was fuzzy and his head was pounding. His eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness.

  When he opened his eyes, he knew that not much time had passed because no one had come to help them. He looked straight ahead and realized that while Sam had been watching the thing in the woods, he failed to notice the sharp curve in the driveway. They had driven right into the forest, down a small hill, and directly into the path of a tree.

  “Sam, you okay?” Trevor asked, grateful to be alive. He looked out the window again to see if the shadow was still watching them. Thankfully, it had
disappeared. A gust of wind blew through the truck. As he turned toward the driver seat, he realized Sam was gone.

  “What the hell?” Trevor blurted in confusion. He unhooked his seatbelt and slowly turned in his seat to look behind them. There was no sign of anyone. Smoke was flowing into the air from under the hood and was beginning to stream through the vents.

  “Gotta get outta here,” he mumbled to himself. He opened his door. Although it creaked in protest against his pushing, it opened with little effort. He slipped trying to get out and fell face first onto the ground.

  “Damn,” he winced. His face toward the rear end of the Ford, he opened his eyes. Across from him, on the other side of the truck, he saw Sam lying on his back. He was staring at him. “Sam! Thank God!”

  Sam said nothing.

  “Sam?”

  Still nothing. Suddenly Sam began sliding forward. It didn’t take Trevor long to realize that he was being dragged by his legs. He gulped, and began crawling under the truck as quietly as he could. He could see blood on Sam’s mouth. He tried to collect his senses. The heavy steps of whoever was dragging Sam seemed deafening. Trevor stretched his neck to try and see what the stranger’s feet might look like, but they were hidden by the large front tire of the Explorer. Without warning, Sam’s legs fell to the ground and Trevor heard the heavy steps of the stranger quicken. He watched in horror as the shadow ran deep into the woods.

  “Trevor! Trevor!” he heard his mom screaming. Within seconds she was on the ground beside him. She reached out her hands and pulled Trevor from under the vehicle and onto his feet.

  “Mom!” Trevor yelled.

  “It’s okay, honey. You’re okay.” She threw her arms around her son.

  Meanwhile, Jake and another deputy, Michael Mullins, were tending to Sam.

  “Is he alive? Is he alive?” Trevor asked repeatedly.

  “He’s got a pulse!” Michael screamed.

  “Holy Christ, I thought he was dead,” Jake breathed.

  “He’s in shock,” Anna instructed. “Quickly, get blankets from the back. Get another ambulance here stat!”

  “Mom, holy shit, Mom,” Trevor whispered.

  “What happened, baby?”

  “Someone in the woods,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Someone, something, it was running, and then it was here. Sam was being pulled…” He planted his face in his mother’s shoulder. He didn’t care if he looked like a wuss.

  “Hey boss,” Jake interrupted. “Check this out.” Both Anna and Trevor walked around the front to where Jake was standing. Trevor continued to look in all directions, convinced the shadow was still somewhere close by, lurking.

  “He was being dragged, alright,” Jake observed.

  “What the hell kind of tracks are these?” Anna asked.

  “I’ve been hunting these woods since I was a kid. And I ain’t ever seen nothing like this.” Jake shook his head. Then, as if a light bulb was lit above his head, he shook his head again as if arguing with himself.

  “What, Jake? What is it?” Anna pushed.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is a person.”

  Everyone looked at him in confusion.

  “What the hell else would it be?” Anna laughed.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Jake said irritably, still shaking his head.

  “Then enlighten us,” Trevor demanded.

  “It’s a person, but whoever it is wasn’t wearing shoes.”

  Anna leaned down so she could take a closer look at the tracks. “Aren’t these a little large to be someone’s bare feet?”

  “What, you think it’s Big Foot for Christ sake?” Jake hissed.

  Anna shot him a look that expressed both her frustration as well as her authority. “Then why do you look so confused, Jake?”

  “I ain’t ever seen feet as big as this,” he said as he used his hands to estimate the size of the feet. “If this is a person, they gotta have at least a size eighteen.”

  “No one in this town is that big,” Michael said.

  “Well, there is one person,” Jake said.

  “You can’t really think that, Jake,” Anna said.

  No one said anything for what seemed like an eternity to Trevor. Finally, he broke the silence. “Okay, I’ll ask. Who can’t it be?”

  “Father McMillan,” Jake said with confidence. Everyone laughed at him. Trevor noticed that it wasn’t a laugh of comfort and humor. It was one of confusion and disbelief.

  * * * * * *

  4

  Anna took one last look around the smoking Explorer for any sign of movement.

  “I’m thinking he’s long gone by now,” Jake said as he watched her studying the trees.

  “I seriously doubt Father McMillan can run like that,” Trevor offered.

  “Run like what?” Michael asked.

  “Trevor said the suspect was running alongside the patroller,” Anna reported.

  “He’s just a kid, we can’t be sure of what he saw,” Jake said, ignoring Trevor’s rundown of the events leading to the accident. Anna became irritated with Jake’s flippant attitude toward her son.

  “We can be sure that Sam wouldn’t simply run off the road and then fall out of the car, in shock, as someone began pulling his body away,” Anna shot back.

  “We’ll have to wait and see what Sam has to say before we make any assumptions.”

  “I’m sorry,” Trevor interjected, “but isn’t my mother your boss? A little respect, don’t you think?” Jake turned away, his face reddening his light Irish complexion.

  “The dogs will be here any second,” Deputy Aaron Peterson shouted as he jogged toward the group. Only 24 years old, quite attractive with sandy hair and brooding eyes, Aaron was one of Anna’s finest cops. At least he usually was.

  “Does anyone else find it strange that a town as small as ours has a team of dogs?” Trevor asked.

  “Rural towns need dogs for search and rescue,” Anna lied. “All of us have them.” She knew Trevor could read her well. She analyzed his expression but could not tell if he believed her or not.

  “Well I am going to pay a visit to St. Mark’s,” Jake said. He looked to Anna for her approval. She nodded and waved him on his way.

  “He’s an ass,” Trevor said when Jake was out of range. Anna laughed as she hugged her son again.

  “Come on, Trevor,” she said. “You’re coming with me.” She looked at deputies Michael and Aaron as she began walking toward the cruisers parked in the driveway several yards behind the Explorer. “Call dispatch and have all available units here to secure the area. Call deputies Felber, Staley, MacDonald, and Gross and have them report to the station. I’ll be there waiting and setting up the command post. We have to catch this guy before he hurts anyone else.”

  “Will do, boss,” Aaron said.

  “And have the others go through the house. I have a sneaking suspicion that Alan may have had cameras set up throughout the property. He was as paranoid as they come. It may be what helps us solve this case.”

  “Anything else?” Aaron asked.

  “Yes, when Dr. Styles leaves with the paramedics, I want you to stay with him. Observe him while he figures out the cause of death. He will most likely object to this, so make sure you tell him that it’s what I ordered you to do.” Aaron nodded and walked to his cruiser to radio Janet.

  She didn’t want to show it, but Anna had been shaken badly. During her first year on the force, her predecessor, Sheriff Ron Kelly, had told her about similar occurrences. Much of the information obtained by police had been sealed so that panic would not grip the small town. People lived and vacationed here for the quiet, pristine environment. Tourism was a key part of the economy and any talk of danger in the woods would devastate the community campgrounds.

  Although the cases remained cold, three similar deaths had occurred in 1990. Each victim was reclusive, and each of them had part of their brain stem ripped from their bodies. She remembered back to their cryptic co
nversation.

  “A couple years ago some serious shit went down in these woods. Only a few people know the intimate details,” Sheriff Kelly had told her.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well, as you know, we keep information close to our chest,” he said as he bit down on his pipe, lighting it. Smoke swirled around his face.

  “Of course,” Anna agreed. He paused and chose his next words carefully.

  “We never found the killer,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. Anna respected the gravity of the situation, as well as the drama the sheriff attached to the story. “And who’s to say that he won’t do it again?”

  “So what did you do to prevent more murders and keep people safe? Obviously it’s been almost five years and nothing’s happened.”

  “Well, we used dogs for about six months. A few times a week we covered about ten square miles of Crimson Falls, looking for any kind of clues or evidence of someone hiding out.”

  “So that’s why we have such a strong presence of K-9s here,” Anna said.

  “Indeed. Most folks think they’re about keeping kids off the marijuana and so forth. So we do drug checks in the schools to keep up appearances. And should the time come that we need them, we got ‘em.”

  “What else?”

  “Well, come with me.” The sheriff led her to a door in the back of his office, locked by three deadbolts. His large key ring jingled as he slowly unlocked them. When they walked inside Anna was floored.

  “This is the best technology we could afford, given the fact that we had to, let’s say, resort to some unseemly measures to pay for them.” Television screens, at least twenty of them, lined the walls. Each of them revealed parts of the woods, some of them familiar to Anna, some of them remote. She studied them intently.

  “They’re set to go off if something goes past them. You know, triggered by movement and whatnot.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Sheriff Kelly laughed, pointing at her. He leaned over, his large stomach hanging nearly to his knees as he reached behind a shelf for a videotape simply labeled “11/11/90.” He slid the tape into the VCR and clumsily hit ‘Play’.