by Jim McKenna
I started to pull back into the darkness and as I moved I saw the rear of the giant mound. A thick wooden door was open in the back, and inside, lit with a lantern, was yet another site of unimaginable horror. For in this mound, crushed and mashed in and pressed one on top of the other were the bodies of children flayed on the brutal wheel.
I dragged myself back into the darkness as far as I could go. A raging pain swelled in my chest. In the darkness of the woods I laid on my back, staring up once more at the night sky. She came and stood over me, urging me to get up and get away, but I could do nothing, but stare up at her, that tragic little face framed by a halo of black trees and starlight. I felt myself losing consciousness, and the last thing I remember was Betsy Tanner heaving me up, grabbing me under both arms from behind and dragging me off into the night.
I awoke with a jolt in my bed, the light of the morning streaming into my bedroom window. Something had awakened me. A sound. A door closing downstairs. I sat up and looked around. She sat primly on the edge of my bed, in a pose not unlike in the museum photograph. Her dress was clean and pressed. Her hair brushed back and held at her neck with a silver comb. But her face had not changed. Her face was still white as bone, her lips black, her eyes sunken and haunted in bruised sockets.
“You have to go now,” she said in a high piping voice. “They’re coming for you.”
“What?” I sputtered. “Who?”
“The locals. They know you know.”
I sat up on the bed next to her. “Why?”
She turned her head and tilted it slightly. “Because that’s the way. The way it’s always been. To keep things as they are.”
“Was the stone there when they started the town?”
“No,” she said. Turning her sad eyes to me again. “Grogan brought it with him from the old country. This is ancient magic. As old as the stars. Older maybe. Daddy helped him bring it here. Daddy helped convert the town elders and make them believe. Daddy gave me to them. And then I died. Badly.”
“Dear God!”
She shook her little head sadly. “No, there is no God.”
“How many?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Hundreds. One a year at least, more.”
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder, then caressed her cheek with the back of my hand. She was cold as marble in winter, but she leaned her face into my hand, smiling sadly.
“Are you real?” I whispered.
She seemed lost for a while in my touch, taking in the blood warmth of my skin. Then raised her black eyes to mine. “Are you?”
We sat in silence for a while.
“You have to go now. They’re coming for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Some just left. Downstairs. You have to run away.”
“Why?”
“They’ve done something to you.”
“What?”
Betsy Tanner shrugged. “They were in your basement.”
I got up and slowly made my way into the bathroom. My heart medicine sat on the counter. I took it with several glasses of water, then brushed my teeth and pissed. The whole world was hollow, and I felt nothing. Here I was in my upstairs room in Grogan Mills, Illinois, talking to a dead girl about a witch cult. Clearly I had gone insane. I walked past the bedroom on my way to the stairs, and she still sat on the bed, staring at me as I passed. I descended the stairs and walked through the house to the kitchen and the basement door. It was standing open. The backpack was on the kitchen table. The camera was gone.
I switched on the light and walked down the steps. The basement was empty, at first. Then I followed the stench into the furnace room and saw the tarp on the floor. A red crowbar stood propped against the furnace. I picked it up and walked to the tarp on the floor with the bumps underneath. Slowly I lifted the tarp and peered underneath.
My stomach lurched and I jerked away, the tarp falling back over the twisted little bodies.
They were setting me up. They put bodies of their victims here to be found. Their victims would look like my victims.
No.
NO!
I would not give in to this madness. I would not let it go. I rose and headed to the stairs just as I heard the back door open, and felt the footsteps in the floor right above me.
I moved quickly under the basement stairs, willing myself to not make a sound, not even breathe.
“Gary?” I heard from the door at the top of the stairs. Chief Hardwick.
I heard him plant his feet on each step as he came down. “Gary? Gary Nilsson? This is Chief Hardwick. It’s Fred. Are you down there Gary?”
Another step.
Another.
His uniformed leg came into view through the stair. I peered up at him, raising the crowbar. When his foot was right in front of me I waited until he raised his other to take a step, then hooked his ankle with the crowbar and yanked. He cursed and fell forward, smacking his head on the bricks opposite the landing. I came out from behind the stairs swinging, and caught him a solid hit right between the eyes. I kept hitting the evil bastard over and over again. Wailing on him in a blind fury until there was nothing left to hit.
Then I left him there. I gathered up what I could carry and soon I was escaping Grogan Mills forever.
I suppose you know the rest, or at least you think you do. I don’t know how this will end, I just know it will. I grabbed as much money as I could from ATMs and drove to a place where I could rent a car, and I drove west as carefully as I could, switching license plates along the way. It was getting dark when I heard the first news reports of the gruesome find in my basement, and a description of me went out on the wires. In Iowa I bought a razor, and shaved all my hair off. As I slipped through a truck stop to get gas I saw my face on CNN. Some crime and justice show with a real pissed off woman holding a gavel and calling me a monster. Through the window of an appliance store in Cheyenne, Wyoming I saw my face from pictures that used to be in my house.
I guess my idea was to get to Arizona, and from there who knows. I remember at a going away party when I followed that little honey to Illinois I laughed and said if anyone saw me in Arizona again they would know something really bad happened. Boy was I right about that.
The cult is looking for me. North of Denver I saw Kyle, and another guy named Nick he worked with in Grogan Mills. In Pueblo only about three hours ago I saw Jake Mather, and something tells me he saw me, too.
And Betsy has been with me, now and then. I can see in her haunted eyes she knows I won’t get far. She is fading the farther she gets from her haunt at Grogan Mills.
I’m sending this to you along with the SD Card with the photos of the grotto. I don’t know what you are going to do with it. Hell, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t think I’m going to make it to Phoenix. I might, but I have a bad feeling. I’m going to get some rest and press on. That is all I have left, really.
And buddy? Take care of yourself. Never, ever let your heart stop. If there is one thing I know it’s the secret to living: not dying.
Excerpt: Denver Post.
ILLINOIS FUGITIVE GUNNED DOWN IN MOTEL STAND-OFF
Walsenburg, CO.
Colorado State Police are confirming that Gary Nilsson, alleged child murderer and killer of a police chief in Grogan Mills, IL, was shot and killed after a brief standoff at a local motel. This ends a four day nationwide manhunt for the fugitive that began when three bodies were discovered in the suspect’s basement. Grogan Mills police and Indiana authorities have confirmed the identities of two of the victims as the local Chief of Police and a boy abducted from his home in rural Indiana over a month ago.
Ironically, it was a fellow Grogan Mills resident who called in the tip to authorities, which led to the standoff. The man was vacationing when he saw Nilsson at a gas station. He then tailed the suspect to the Sky Chief Motel and called police.
The police state they did not proceed directly to the room to apprehend the suspect due to a report by an o
fficer of seeing a little girl in the room. This observation appears to be a mistake, since no hostage was found and no evidence of anyone else being in the room was recovered.
Cameron Walsh, spokesman for the FBI, states it is possible Nilsson had a hostage at one time. Security cameras at a Holmes, Kansas convenience store show what appears to be Nilsson’s vehicle, with a small, unidentified female in the backseat. There are no leads at this time as to who the girl might have been. “All we can tell from the picture, which is kind of blurry, is she looks lost, and afraid.”
