“I don’t think I deserve help,” Gary said. “I’ve been alone in the woods for days without anything to eat until I broke into that farmhouse. All I can hear are my wife’s screams. Sometimes, I just want to confess it all. That might be the only way to get him to go away.”
“Don’t talk like that, Gary. You know what that would mean. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison?”
“Do you think I care about that anymore? My family is gone.”
“What about us then?” Logan asked. “Your decision will affect all of your friends. Surely you don’t want us to get locked up. Think about it.”
This conversation was quickly taking a turn for the worse. He and Gary paced around each other in circles, surrounded by the forest. Logan kept one eye trained on the rifle resting atop the moist soil. He wondered if the gun was loaded.
“Do you want me to go to prison because of your actions, Gary?”
Gary bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Logan. I’ve got to do what is best for my conscience. It’s what Mary would have wanted.”
“Then I’m sorry, too,” Logan replied, seizing his opening. He punched Gary as hard as he could in the jaw, and Gary stumbled back.
“What are you doing?” he shouted while trying to regain his footing as Logan kicked the rifle down the other side of the hill.
“You’re a threat to everything,” Logan said. “I didn’t want to do this, Gary, but you’ve left me with no choice. I’m not going to prison.”
Just as Logan reached for his pistol, Gary threw himself at the deputy’s legs. Logan stumbled back, which gave Gary enough of an opening to grab at the pistol. The two struggled over the gun as each attempted to gain an advantage over the other. Finally Logan’s grip failed, and the gun toppled over the waterfall.
Before Logan could recover, Gary’s arms were around his neck. He pushed Logan back toward the edge of the deafening waterfall. Logan grabbed his friend’s injured leg, squeezing as hard as he could. Gary screamed in pain and released him.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Logan said. He jumped on top of Gary and hit the man again and again. “Too bad you had to open your mouth.”
Gary snarled before butting heads with him. Logan winced and released the man. Then Gary tackled him, and the two men rolled down the muddy hillside in the direction of the darker portion of the forest.
Logan found himself lying facedown in the mud at the foot of the hill. Gary, only a few feet away, crawled toward an object resting in the mud. When he realized what the item was, Logan jumped to his feet. He was too slow.
“That’s what you get, you piece of filth,” Gary said, his outstretched hand grabbing the fallen rifle. He swung the rifle in the air, pointed it right at Logan’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The rifle didn’t fire. Gary’s eyes grew wide.
Logan removed his service revolver from behind his back, nestled safely away while he had used the replacement weapon now lost in the waters. The sound of the gun echoed throughout the forest. Logan stared at the corpse of his friend for a few moments, watching the blood sink into the soil. He could feel the mud clinging to his skin. The feeling of contamination made him queasy. He needed to wash off, and quickly. Logan wasn’t about to wait for Rick. He had brought his own vehicle.
Logan turned around and left.
***
Having joined his family in death, Gary Davis sunk slowly into the scarlet-tinted mud.
The darkness welcomed him.
Chapter Eleven
When Thomas passed over the lake, gray clouds covered the sky, ushering in a dull pallor over the town reflected in his rearview mirror. His tires kicked up mist from the morning’s small rain shower, which sprayed the sides of the concrete bridge. The reporter glanced out the window at the sky. Over the past few days, he noticed that the weather was growing murkier as the month stretched on.
The dark recesses of Cavern Lake loomed below the large bridge, trickling into the rivers and tributaries that ran throughout the town. Cold water rushed harshly against the shoreline beneath the massive concrete structure, stirred by the fierce winds. Cavern Lake separated Gray Hollow from the nearby city of Thistlewood. Only by traveling across the bridge could a car reach the city on the other side. In this respect, the community was virtually isolated from the outside world. Gray Hollow was for the most part an inaccessible location.
After flipping off the radio, currently playing unintelligible static, Thomas’ thoughts kept returning to the twin pools of darkness inside the horrific jack o’ lantern. Outside the car, thunder roared across the heavens.
Maybe I can get inside before it starts raining, he thought as he pulled onto the street on the other side of the bridge. In contrast to Gray Hollow, the city of Thistlewood was brimming with scores of bustling homes and businesses. Despite the influx of traffic, Thomas located the city library with little difficulty.
“Max, it’s me,” Thomas said into his cell phone on his way out of the car. “I’m heading into the library in Thistlewood.” He ducked inside the building and out of the worsening weather. “Would you mind looking up a name for me?” he asked.
“What do you need?” his editor replied.
“Go back through the newspaper archives and find everything you can about someone named Salem Alistair. I don’t know how long I’m going to be at the library.”
“All right,” Max said.
Thomas hung up the phone and walked into the sparsely populated library. Having to travel twenty minutes to Thistlewood was still a minor inconvenience compared with his commute in New York.
Gray Hollow had yet to catch up to the Age of the Internet. Lacking a library of its own, the town’s historical documents were located in the Gray Hollow Primary Sources section of the Thistlewood Public Library. Since Thomas possessed a keen eye for seeking out information anyway, the task at hand didn’t pose too much of a problem for him.
The public records area of the library was empty, which didn’t surprise Thomas. Although Thistlewood was larger than Gray Hollow, it was by no means a big city. Settling into the small room, Thomas swung his jacket over a chair and began selecting books from the shelves.
He started with some of the most recent books he could find. Many texts contained tedious information pertaining to financial transactions unimportant to him. The general books covering town history were more gossip oriented than Thomas expected. One section over a series of church fires in the sixties surprised him. Each of the seven churches were set on fire and completely razed to the ground. From what Thomas gathered, the fires appeared to be the result of arson, although the culprits were never caught.
“Weird,” Thomas muttered. His own parents had taken him to church often as a child. Thomas fell out of the habit in recent years, likely attributable to the hectic nature of his career. Upon surviving his near-death experience, he was seriously rethinking that position.
After retrieving an older book from the shelf, Thomas delved deeper into the town’s past. This particular volume contained a wealth of information about the early development of Gray Hollow. Located on fertile ground and bordering Cavern Lake, the town prospered for a long time from agricultural output and commerce. The lake and nearby rivers allowed for extensive fishing. Finally, he came to a passage that was particularly of note.
In the early nineteenth century, the economic success of Gray Hollow was largely inhibited by its geographic isolation. Regardless, the town was self-sufficient enough to support its growing population. A period of drought heralded famine at the end of the decade, prompting a rise in unemployment and crime. This may have contributed to records of renewed practice of pagan rituals among some citizens. It is well documented that these practices resulted in conflict throughout the territory. All of the factors outlined above are generally held to be responsible for a mass migration of individuals to what became the city of Thistlewood. Positioned in an area more accessible to trade, the population of This
tlewood eclipsed Gray Hollow within two decades.
Thomas read the paragraph twice before skimming through other sections of the book. What did it mean by “renewed interest” in pagan rituals? Were there pagan rituals before? It sounded out of place for nineteenth century America. Then again, the dated book’s definition of paganism was probably antiquated at best. He flipped back across the pages of the book but could find no other sources to back up the claim.
“Maybe the scarecrow has some significance to the town’s pagan history,” he said to himself, scribbling the thought down on a notepad. He returned to the bookshelf and removed a new stack before placing the well-weathered volumes on the table. It took him brief forays into all the books to find what he was looking for.
Two primary groups settled the town that would come to be called Gray Hollow: traders pressing westward from the colonies, and colonists from a fort in the vicinity. Due to a lack of preparedness and an extensive drought, the small settlement’s population was reduced to sixty-three people sometime around the late eighteenth century.
According to popular myth, around that time a man named Bartholomew appeared in the settlement. Claiming to have escaped an Indian encampment, Bartholomew showed the settlers agricultural practices he learned during his entrapment to help them survive the drought. Bartholomew also introduced the settlers to what he claimed were Indian rituals he had witnessed designed to make the land fertile. The documented rituals, however, show little resemblance to known Native American practices.
There was little church influence at the time. As a result, there was no resistance to Bartholomew from the desperate settlers. It is unknown what happened to Bartholomew, but at some point in the winter he disappeared.
The next spring the harvest was plentiful, and the townspeople survived. The influence of Christianity returned as more settlers arrived into the town, and the rituals heralded by Bartholomew were largely abandoned. Many in the town believed, however, that there were those who continued to practice pagan rituals. Indeed, there are at least three documented outbreaks of witchcraft practiced in Gray Hollow since that time.
Some of those accused of witchcraft claimed they were worshiping the demon Baal of the biblical Old Testament. These practitioners were driven underground with fierce resistance, and for good reason. The Baal worshipers believed that successful rituals required blood sacrifice to the demon in order to fertilize the land. A few of the cultists declared to have been “touched” by the demon, asserting they were given special knowledge and abilities—to date these claims have not been properly documented.
“Wow,” Thomas said as he set the book down. This wasn’t what he was expecting. While the bit about Baal didn’t make sense to him, the town legend potentially explained the scarecrow costume. Maybe the killer was trying to use the legend about the pagan rituals to frighten his victims. Thomas doubted that was actually the case. It sounded too far out there. The people of Gray Hollow had their own superstitions, but from what Thomas had seen, they wouldn’t panic over someone dressed in an admittedly realistic Halloween costume. As the reporter waited for Max’s call, he continued reading.
He didn’t have to wait long. In the middle of scanning some pages of interest using the library’s copier, his phone started vibrating. Thomas answered the phone and turned around just in time to find himself starting into the eyes of a stern-looking librarian.
“Sorry,” he offered apologetically. Thomas attempted to speed up the process of copying. He glanced out over the rows of computers. Several people were looking at him with irritated expressions. “I hope you have something good for me,” he muttered quietly over the line. “Half of Thistlewood is staring at me right now.”
“‘Good’ might not be the word I would pick, but I definitely have something for you,” Max replied. “You’ve really got me scratching my head on this one. There are literally dozens of articles on Salem Alistair, but I’m not sure what it has to do with this case.”
“Jezebel said it was important, so it probably is. What have you found?”
“This happened several years before I came to Gray Hollow. It’s no small wonder I haven’t heard of this before now. Despite my love for this town, there are a lot of closely guarded secrets around here.”
“You’re telling me. I just spent the last hour learning about early colonial demon worship in Gray Hollow.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish. So what’s so big about this old story?”
On the other end of the line, Thomas could hear Max take a big breath before continuing.
“Salem Alistair was a teenager who disappeared in 1987. He lived in Gray Hollow all his life, at the Alistair Farm. Now that I think about it, the Alistair Farm is right next to the Daniels Farm.”
Then it’s also close to where Jeffrey Daniels’ body was discovered, Thomas thought.
“There are no coincidences in this town, Max. Is this the same Alistair Farm everyone seems to think is haunted?”
“The very same,” the editor replied. “From my understanding, it’s a silly local superstition.”
“Of course it is. It looks like this story was the reason for it. When did Salem disappear?”
“Around Halloween, according to the articles. Most of them don’t say much about him, other than to update the readers on the search. It quotes several police officers commenting on the case every so often. In the last few, the police indicate that they believed he was dead.”
OK Jezebel, you’ve got me on this one, Thomas thought. Other than the proximity of the two farms, he had no clue what bearing Salem Alistair had to the current murders. “Anything else? You were right, I’m not seeing what’s so important about this case either.”
“Salem lived alone in the house with his elderly aunt, who died two years later. Both his parents were already dead. When he died, the estate was left without an heir, and no one has been able to sell it since. No wonder. The farm is worth a fortune, and there aren’t that many people in Gray Hollow with that much money.”
Maybe Jezebel believes that Salem was murdered, and whoever did it is the same killer active today. The idea seemed far-fetched, but so had his theory about the scarecrow costume.
“Thanks,” Thomas said as he left the library and moved outside into the wind. “I’m on my way back to the newspaper. We can catch up when I get there. I have another meeting with Jezebel after that.” He crossed through the parking lot and returned to his car.
“Whatever it takes,” Max said as Thomas started the engine. “As long as the stories are coming in, I’m happy. You are running behind on a few deadlines, but we don’t go to press until Monday, so I’m not worried.”
“Trust me, this story is bigger than all the rest. Remember the response we got yesterday? It’s only going to snowball from here. Anyway, I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Thomas hung up hastily before punching another number into the phone and starting on the road back to Gray Hollow. As much as he hated to admit it, he had liked hearing Eve’s voice on the phone, regardless of the mixed emotions it created. The saga of Salem Alistair provided him the perfect opportunity to call her back; if anyone could unearth something beneath the surface of the case, it was Eve.
“Hi, it’s me,” he said after succeeding only in getting her voicemail. “I thought about what you said, and it made a lot of sense. I’m going to take you up on your offer to help with the case. There is an old local mystery I’m looking into about a teenage boy named Salem Alistair, who disappeared in Gray Hollow. The sheriff suspects the disappearance relates to the current string of deaths.
“I was hoping you could find any regional or state stories dealing with Salem Alistair or any of his relatives. Are they still out there? Has he resurfaced? I don’t really know that much about him at this point. If you could do this for me, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.”
The car raced toward the impending storm building over Gray Hollow. In the distance loomed the bridge
, overlooking the dark lake. The killer was out there somewhere, and Thomas intended to find him.
***
Jezebel was starting to get seriously worried. With strong misgivings, she had shared the name of Salem Alistair with Thomas Brooks. The sheriff prayed Salem’s disappearance wasn’t related to the killings, but seeing the murderer at the Daniels Farm had convinced her otherwise. For years, the mystery of what happened to Salem had gone unsolved. Now the cold trail was hot once more. While Jezebel wanted to solve the mystery more than anyone, she also needed to stop the killings. If she caught the man who had murdered Paul Morris, maybe she could do both.
Since his disappearance, Jezebel had avoided thinking about what might have happened to Salem. The past was back in full force, and there was no escape from it. As she stepped out of the police cruiser, she folded her arms across her chest to keep warm. The clouds in the sky were ominous, and she could tell a storm was coming.
With any luck, I’ll be out of here and back with Thomas Brooks before the storm hits, she hoped.
Her thoughts settled on the reporter. His information and analysis of the situation were proving helpful. Jezebel was glad he hadn’t pressed her about Salem when she gave him the name. The sheriff was not lying when she told Thomas she needed to take her mother to her appointment, but she was also thankful for the excuse. She had never opened up to anyone about the events of the past before. Doing so to anyone, let alone a complete stranger, would be painful for her.
Then again, Thomas Brooks was no longer a stranger. The concern he showed for Al Pittman, and the way he had bravely confronted the individual who attacked Dr. Morris was impressive—and Jezebel wasn’t easily impressed. In many ways, the reporter was frustrating for her to characterize. At times he seemed capable of thoughtfulness and intelligence. Other times, he struck her as selfish and overly ambitious.
Jezebel had researched Thomas’ fall from grace. She wondered how losing such a prestigious career would affect someone’s sense of identity. Thomas was still probably coming to terms with what happened to him. That didn’t excuse his unprofessional behavior, but at least she knew where he was coming from.
The Keeper of the Crows Page 14