"We're lost, aren't we?" she asked him, shining the flashlight on the map. "We should have turned back there where the sign said Haverhill Turnpike. We're on the wrong road, and we're going to end up in Snellville. Just admit it, Sam!"
Sam kept his eyes on the road. "Never. Look, Mary," Sam told her, "It's two in the morning. Do you really want to argue with me? I know these mountain roads a lot better than you because I come up here with the hunt club. I'm telling you we'll be home in forty-five minutes. I know a short cut through Snellville. We need to get down off this mountain and as far as I'm concerned, all roads lead in the general direction of down."
Mary started to remark about men and directions but thought better of it. He was right. It wasn't worth turning around at this hour of the night. They were both tired, and the drive back from Chicago had been a long and tedious twelve hours. It was a good thing they were in love or they would have killed each other by now.
As Sam drove his Honda SUV around the curve, she felt the free sample boxes shift in th back seat. They were returning from the annual Eastern Coast Mortician Conference where they had enjoyed a week of seminars on new technology in the funeral business. Sam had loaded up the car with boxes of free embalming fluids, cosmetics, and arterial washes. He couldn't wait to try them out.
Mary, although also a licensed embalmer, had gravitated more toward the booths demonstrating new ways to advertise the business and promote package deals. She knew from experience that the real money was in selling pre-burial arrangements. The ever present struggle to balance rising expenses against what the client could afford was a juggling act for any funeral home owner.
Mary settled back and pulled her coat tighter around her. "It feels cold enough to snow."
Sam adjusted his knit cap over his bald head. "It should be snowing. It's almost Christmas. What kind of place is this, so close to West Virginia, that there isn't snow on the ground already? Up in Maryland, we always had snow by the end of October."
"It must be that global warming you don't believe in. We used to have big snows. Now days, they say the mountains keep all the bad weather in West Virginia. They can have it, I say. Why is it so light out here in the middle of nowhere? It's after midnight."
"Full moon," Sam answered and then mumbled, "Sure explains your mood."
Mary looked up and suddenly gripped the dashboard. "Watch out, Sam! Just saw eyes on the left!" Sam hit the brakes, and the car swerved back and forth in the road. Mary hung on to her seat as Sam fought the streering wheel. He brought the SUV back to the middle of the road and straightened out. They came to a stop.
"I'm awake now," he announced. "Are you still breathing?"
Mary nodded, looking in her side mirror for a glimpse of what they almost hit. "I'm glad you're driving. I'd have been over the bank in an instant. Oh my God, Sam! It's a man. Not a deer. Back up! Back up!"
Sam shoved the gearshift into reverse and moved the car backwards. Staring into his mirror, Sam saw a man illuminated by the moonlight standing by the side of the road. When they were close, the man staggered out into the road, his hand waving for help.
Sam stopped the car. "What's he doing up here at this hour of the night? We're surrounded by National Forrest. How did he get up here?"
"Maybe his car is down over that bank. Plenty of deer around here. He probably plowed into one."
Mary lowered her window and watched as the man walked right into the side of their car and then slumped to his knees on the cold pavement. He was a tall man, his face obscured by the dark hood of his jacket. He wavered on his knees for a moment, then fell face down on the road.
"Help me," Mary heard the man murmur, the air barely gurgling from his lips. Mary cracked her door, ready to get out, but Sam grabbed her arm.
"You don't know what's going on, Mary. You're too trusting. Let me park the car. I hope we're the only stupid people out here tonight." Sam moved the car to the narrow strip of gravel on the side of the road and turned the engine off. He reached across Mary and pulled out a handgun from the glove compartment.
"Is that really necessary, Sam? He's passed out on the road!"
"I've been shot and stabbed so you can hardly blame me for being suspicious. And this is suspicious. Let's go."
They got out of the car and walked back to the man who had fallen over. Mary shone her flashlight on the unconscious man, lying face down. She crouched down by his side.
"Should we call 911?" Mary asked, looking up.
Sam shook his head. "No cell service up here. It'll be faster if we take him in ourselves. He'll freeze to death if he stays out here. Not really dressed for the weather, is he?"
Mary reached down and felt for a pulse. "Alive. Feverish." She pulled back the man's hood and gasped. "What are all these purple splotches on his face? Bruises? He's hemorrhaging. Maybe he was hit by a car."
The man suddenly moaned and rolled his head. Sam grabbed his arm to help him to his feet. "Get him to the car. We'll have to take him to the hospital. Something very weird about all this, Mary. How could he get hit by a car up here? There's no traffic. No one lives up here but bears. He looks sick. He might have something contagious. Mortician school 101."
Mary grabbed the man's other arm and together they got the man to their car. Sam roughly shoved the few boxes he had on the seat into the back of his SUV. They pulled and pushed the man into the back seat where he immediately collapsed in ball, moaning in pain.
"Had all your shots?" Sam whispered to Mary.
Mary sighed. "We've seen a lot of terrible things in our business, Sam and we survived them all. I doubt if this is going to be the exception to the rule. I do worry that he's not going to make it, though. Hurry! Onward!"
"Well, we did the best we could do. We're not doctors. Undertakers aren't really trained for this. Call Joey and tell him we're taking a detour. You're going to be late."
They sped off into the cold night, the moon light leading the way. Half way down the mountain, snowflakes began to fall.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Return to Drohrback Hollow, Chapter One
Return to Drohrback Hollow
Chapter One
The loggers arrived at sunrise to begin the day's work. They had a full day of work ahead of them sawing trees, loading logs on the trucks, and burning the brush left over in the pit the bulldozer kept enlarging. With time slipping by, they were behind schedule, and it was May already. Drohrback Hollow was slated to become Sweet Hollow Springs in just a few months, a community of two-story rustic cabins with modern conveniences that appealed to the suburbanites who wanted country living with city luxuries. Half the lots were sold already.
The experienced crew of the Bentonville Logging company climbed out of their pickup trucks and huddled together at the supervisor's trailer, hard hats in their hands. They stood around the steps of their temporary headquarters. The boss, Frank Johnson, appeared on the wooden steps with a clipboard in his hands.
"What's the word on Jimmy Black?" someone asked.
Frank looked away from the clipboard and into the men's concerned faces. "They couldn't save the thumb, but they did re-attach the index finger. He's home, resting."
Some of the men mumbled expletives. Sam, the crane operator, shook his head. "That was some freak accident, man. It was like that saw just flew out of his hands and turned on him. He was lucky he didn't lose his whole arm."
"This place is cursed," someone else grumbled loudly.
"No luck here for sure," Sam agreed.
The boss frowned. "Come on now. We've got to finish this job. I know there have been a lot of accidents on this assignment, but we're loggers. It's dangerous work. That's why you have insurance. Jimmy got all his medical bills paid for. Pay attention to the task. Don't get sloppy, and you'll be just fine. Now, get to work. These trees won't disappear on their own."
The men moved on to their assigned work stations. Frank turned to his assistant John who stood at the door to the trailer. "The men are right, John. This place is cursed. I can feel it. How can you explain Daniel's broken leg when that tree fell on him, Jake's stitches from that stray branch, and Jimmy's saw accident? All these men are veteran loggers. They don't make careless mistakes."
John nodded. "Corporation is asking questions, Frank. OSHA is coming by to insepct the work site next week. What did this place used to be before we started cutting down the trees? There are no sacred burial grounds around here, right?
Frank shrugged. "I've never heard of any graveyard around here at all. When they did the survey, all they found were some deserted and falling down cabins. No one lives out here anymore. What for? We're just now putting in a road, electricity, and water lines. Sure, I guess there were farmers up in these mountains a long time ago. Appalachian people. But they're all gone now. They've moved on to civilization by now."
John looked up at the sky. "What's up with the weather here? The forecast says bright and sunny, but it does nothing but rain here."
Frank agreed. "Tell me about it. The rain has put us behind for the last six weeks. It's like black clouds just follow us around. One minute the work is going great, and the next we're standing up to our ankles in mud."
The sun was up now, glowing red and pink through the trees. Around the men's heads bugs buzzed in the growing heat. The boss and his assistant walked down the steps of the trailer and out among the men who were oiling and fueling up their chain saws and heavy machinery. The bulldozer was piling up brush and pushing it toward the fire pit. The crane warmed up, preparing to stack loads of logs on the backs of trucks waiting to leave for the paper mill.
Frank glanced up at two men up on the ridge overlooking the trailer and current work site. They were measuring trunks of trees and marking those big enough to be cut with bright orange tape.
One of the men, Ed, was tying a knot in the tape wrapped around a massive oak tree when his partner Tom yanked on his T-shirt.
"Who's that, Ed?"
Ed looked up to see a strange woman walking out of woods. She was tall with dark tanned skin and long, straight black hair that hung to her waist. Wearing a white peasant blouse and multi-colored skirt that touched her ankles, she walked softly on the grassy floor of the forest on bare feet,
"Hey lady," Ed called out. "This is a work site. You can't be here!"
She slowly turned her head to look at the men at the tree. Reaching for her necklace of white bones, she slipped it over her head and held it up to the sky. As she spoke, large black clouds gathered quickly overhead.
"When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people that you should besiege them?"
Ed felt the hair raise on his neck. The wind rose up suddenly, blowing dead leaves in a spiral pattern around him. "What the hell?" he muttered as he was hammered by forest debris.
Tom's eyes were blank. "Deuteronomy 20:19." Ed shook Tom back to the present.
"How did you know that?" Ed asked him, pulling him away from the woman and toward their truck.
Tom glared back at the woman. "I just do. She put it in my head. Oh God, look at the trailer."
The wind grew stronger, swirling tree limbs, dirt, and gravel around the work site as though a tornado was touching down. Men tried to take cover under the beds of the logging trucks. When the trailer began to lift off its foundation, Ed and Tom took off running in earnest for the safety of their pickup truck parked off in the woods.
One side of the trailer tore away from the cement pad it was resting on with a loud screech and flew into air. Howling, roaring like a runaway train, the wind ripped the rest of the trailer away and rolled it toward the brush pit. The bulldozer driver who was trapped inside his cab watched in horror as the metal trailer came at him, rolling over the ground like a tin can. With the engine still running, the driver gunned the bulldozer and barely got out of the way before the trailer rolled by him and into the pit of brush. Seconds later, the trailer exploded in a ball of flames.
The woman on the ridge lowered her arm and slipped the bone necklace back around her neck. As she walked away, the sun returned, and the wind died down to a cool breeze. The black clouds blew away revealing blue sky. As the men crawled out from under the logging trucks, they brushed the dirt out of their eyes and hair. They walked around the work site, dazed and stunned. Broken chain saws, overturned oil cans, and scattered tools lay scattered over the work site covered in a layer of dark dirt.
Frank pulled out his cell phone and called headquarters, pleading for help.
"What the hell just happened?" John asked Steve who had run from his bulldozer as soon as the wind had stopped.
"Oh Jesus, up on the ridge. Didn't you see her?"
John squinted in the sun and looked up at the ridge where Steve was pointing. "Ed and Tom were up there. What exactly did you see?"
"The witch. She was standing up there chanting something, some verse from the Bible. I could hear her in my head. That's when all hell broke loose."
John stared at the man. "That's not really possible, Steve. You sound like you took a hard knock to the head."
Steve was furious. "Ask everyone else! Ask Ed and Tom. Here they come in their truck. I bet they saw her!"
Ed and Tom and the rest of the crew walked off the job before the hour was over. John and Frank stood alone on the now silent work site, watching the last of the men drive off.
"What do you really think happened here, Frank? Did you hear her in your head like the rest of the men?"
Frank sighed. "I heard this project going down the toilet, that what I heard, John. Don't ever use the word "witch." I can't tell those idiots in Bentonville that the site is cursed. I have to say a tornado came through. We'll wait for more orders from headquarters. They're sending some men out to clean up this mess. They're also transporting a new trailer to the site."
When Frank walked off to answer his phone that was buzzing, John looked again at the ridge overhead. That's when he saw her. She fingered her bone necklace and stared straight at him, her skirt swaying in the breeze. John didn't know why, but suddenly he had the sudden urge to run away and hide. As they locked eyes, he knew there was no where to hide where she wouldn't find him. And kill him. Kill all of them. Frank was right. This place was cursed.
"This place is cursed," someone else grumbled loudly.
"No luck here for sure," Sam agreed.
The boss frowned. "Come on now. We've got to finish this job. I know there have been a lot of accidents on this assignment, but we're loggers. It's dangerous work. That's why you have insurance. Jimmy got all his medical bills paid for. Pay attention to the task. Don't get sloppy, and you'll be just fine. Now, get to work. These trees won't disappear on their own."
The men moved on to their assigned work stations. Frank turned to his assistant John who stood at the door to the trailer. "The men are right, John. This place is cursed. I can feel it. How can you explain Daniel's broken leg when that tree fell on him, Jake's stitches from that stray branch, and Jimmy's saw accident? All these men are veteran loggers. They don't make careless mistakes."
John nodded. "Corporation is asking questions, Frank. OSHA is coming by to insepct the work site next week. What did this place used to be before we started cutting down the trees? There are no sacred burial grounds around here, right?
Frank shrugged. "I've never heard of any graveyard around here at all. When they did the survey, all they found were some deserted and falling down cabins. No one lives out here anymore. What for? We're just now putting in a road, electricity, and water lines. Sure, I guess there were farmers up in these mountains a long time ago. Appalachian people. But they're all gone now. They've moved on to civilization by now."
John looked up at the sky. "What's up with the weather here? The forecast says bright and sunny, but it does nothing but rain here."
Frank agreed. "Tell me about it. The rain has put us behind for the last six weeks. It's like black clouds just follow us around. One minute the work is going great, and the next we're standing up to our ankles in mud."
The sun was up now, glowing red and pink through the trees. Around the men's heads bugs buzzed in the growing heat. The boss and his assistant walked down the steps of the trailer and out among the men who were oiling and fueling up their chain saws and heavy machinery. The bulldozer was piling up brush and pushing it toward the fire pit. The crane warmed up, preparing to stack loads of logs on the backs of trucks waiting to leave for the paper mill.
Frank glanced up at two men up on the ridge overlooking the trailer and current work site. They were measuring trunks of trees and marking those big enough to be cut with bright orange tape.
One of the men, Ed, was tying a knot in the tape wrapped around a massive oak tree when his partner Tom yanked on his T-shirt.
"Who's that, Ed?"
Ed looked up to see a strange woman walking out of woods. She was tall with dark tanned skin and long, straight black hair that hung to her waist. Wearing a white peasant blouse and multi-colored skirt that touched her ankles, she walked softly on the grassy floor of the forest on bare feet,
"Hey lady," Ed called out. "This is a work site. You can't be here!"
She slowly turned her head to look at the men at the tree. Reaching for her necklace of white bones, she slipped it over her head and held it up to the sky. As she spoke, large black clouds gathered quickly overhead.
"When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people that you should besiege them?"
Ed felt the hair raise on his neck. The wind rose up suddenly, blowing dead leaves in a spiral pattern around him. "What the hell?" he muttered as he was hammered by forest debris.
Tom's eyes were blank. "Deuteronomy 20:19." Ed shook Tom back to the present.
"How did you know that?" Ed asked him, pulling him away from the woman and toward their truck.
Tom glared back at the woman. "I just do. She put it in my head. Oh God, look at the trailer."
The wind grew stronger, swirling tree limbs, dirt, and gravel around the work site as though a tornado was touching down. Men tried to take cover under the beds of the logging trucks. When the trailer began to lift off its foundation, Ed and Tom took off running in earnest for the safety of their pickup truck parked off in the woods.
One side of the trailer tore away from the cement pad it was resting on with a loud screech and flew into air. Howling, roaring like a runaway train, the wind ripped the rest of the trailer away and rolled it toward the brush pit. The bulldozer driver who was trapped inside his cab watched in horror as the metal trailer came at him, rolling over the ground like a tin can. With the engine still running, the driver gunned the bulldozer and barely got out of the way before the trailer rolled by him and into the pit of brush. Seconds later, the trailer exploded in a ball of flames.
The woman on the ridge lowered her arm and slipped the bone necklace back around her neck. As she walked away, the sun returned, and the wind died down to a cool breeze. The black clouds blew away revealing blue sky. As the men crawled out from under the logging trucks, they brushed the dirt out of their eyes and hair. They walked around the work site, dazed and stunned. Broken chain saws, overturned oil cans, and scattered tools lay scattered over the work site covered in a layer of dark dirt.
Frank pulled out his cell phone and called headquarters, pleading for help.
"What the hell just happened?" John asked Steve who had run from his bulldozer as soon as the wind had stopped.
"Oh Jesus, up on the ridge. Didn't you see her?"
John squinted in the sun and looked up at the ridge where Steve was pointing. "Ed and Tom were up there. What exactly did you see?"
"The witch. She was standing up there chanting something, some verse from the Bible. I could hear her in my head. That's when all hell broke loose."
John stared at the man. "That's not really possible, Steve. You sound like you took a hard knock to the head."
Steve was furious. "Ask everyone else! Ask Ed and Tom. Here they come in their truck. I bet they saw her!"
Ed and Tom and the rest of the crew walked off the job before the hour was over. John and Frank stood alone on the now silent work site, watching the last of the men drive off.
"What do you really think happened here, Frank? Did you hear her in your head like the rest of the men?"
Frank sighed. "I heard this project going down the toilet, that what I heard, John. Don't ever use the word "witch." I can't tell those idiots in Bentonville that the site is cursed. I have to say a tornado came through. We'll wait for more orders from headquarters. They're sending some men out to clean up this mess. They're also transporting a new trailer to the site."
When Frank walked off to answer his phone that was buzzing, John looked again at the ridge overhead. That's when he saw her. She fingered her bone necklace and stared straight at him, her skirt swaying in the breeze. John didn't know why, but suddenly he had the sudden urge to run away and hide. As they locked eyes, he knew there was no where to hide where she wouldn't find him. And kill him. Kill all of them. Frank was right. This place was cursed.
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