by Amy Cross
"Show mercy to him," she replies. "For all his sins, he is a troubled young man and he..." She pauses, evidently short of breath. "He would be best offered kindness, that he might repent of his sins of his own accord. I should hate to think of him being killed. Only God should decide when it's time for a man to leave this mortal world, just as he has decided that today is my time. There is no value in..."
I wait for her to finish her sentence, but it soon becomes apparent that she's too weak.
"We will deal with the boy appropriately," I assure her eventually, "but he cannot be allowed to continue acting in this way. He cannot take more lives. The Lord God would not look kindly upon us if we were to keep from delivering justice." I wait for Adelaide to reply, but as I look at her face I realize she has left us. Reaching over, I close her cold, dead eyes before carefully letting go of her hand and placing it on her chest. "May the Lord have mercy," I say quietly, "in his infinite wisdom." A tear rolls down my cheek.
"How awfully sad," says a female voice from the door.
Looking up, I see the most beautiful, the most divine young woman upon whom it has ever been my privilege to lay eyes. With dark black hair and the most innocent eyes, she wears a light blue dress that accentuates her wondrous form exquisitely. For a moment, I'm quite convinced that I'm seeing an angel sent from Heaven. I've certainly never seen such a beauty in Devil's Briar before.
"My dear," I say, getting to my feet, "I'm afraid I didn't hear you approach. Please forgive my rudeness." I hurry across the room and shake the young woman's hand. Without my walking cane, I'm afraid I struggle a little to convey my bulk, of which I am rather self-conscious. "My name is Albert Caster. I'm the mayor of Devil's Briar. I'm quite certain I have never before had the pleasure of your acquaintance."
"My name is Victoria Paternoster," she replies, curtsying. "I arrived in Devil's Briar today, with my uncle. I believe you met with him earlier?"
"Of course!" I say, ushering Victoria from the room and pulling the door shut. Such a beautiful young lady should not have to witness a prune like Adelaide.
"I do hope the lady didn't suffer," she says, looking genuinely concerned.
"One can but pray," I reply, finding it a little difficult to keep my thoughts composed while in the company of a young woman who radiates such wondrous beauty. My pulse is racing and I'm deathly afraid of saying something to offend such a delicate creature. "She was a good woman," I say after a moment, "and I have no doubt that the Lord will have taken her conduct into account. After all, she was a -" I pause, staring into Victoria's large, beautiful brown eyes.
"She was a what?" she asks after a moment.
"I'm sorry?"
She smiles, and blushes a little. "The lady who passed away. You were going to say something about her?"
"Yes!" I say loudly, trying desperately to remember where the conversation was going. "I was going to say that she..." I sigh, once again finding it impossible to look away from Victoria's eyes. "She was a..." I mutter, unable to complete a sentence. "Oh dear," I say eventually, "I'm afraid that, in my distress, I've quite lost my train of thought."
"I'm sure she was a good and God-fearing woman," Victoria says after a moment. "Is that not the gist of what you were going to say?"
"Quite," I say. "Absolutely."
"Come," she says. "My uncle would very much like to speak with you some more, if it's convenient."
"Of course," I reply.
Smiling, Victoria turns and heads to the top of the stairs. I cannot help but stare at her firm, round behind as she walks. May God forgive me for having such carnal thoughts, but I have never before seen a more perfect woman. "My dear," I say suddenly, "might I inquire as to your age?"
Turning, she smiles again. "I'm twenty-two years old," she replies. "I suppose you think I'm awfully young."
"I suppose so," I reply, still rather transfixed by her features.
"I shall be downstairs with my uncle," she replies. "Please, won't you join us when you get an opportunity? I hope you don't mind my saying that I can tell you're a little overcome with grief following the death of the lady. Please take your time in composing yourself, and rest assured that my uncle would be only too willing to wait and speak to you on another day, if you so wish."
"Thank you," I say, watching as she walks gracefully down the stairs. As soon as she's gone, I feel myself starting to relax. The effect that the young woman had on me was quite unusual, bordering on madness. The females of Devil's Bridge are not, on the whole, renowned for their beauty, although there are certainly a few reasonably attractive specimens. Victoria Paternoster, on the other hand, is by far the most beautiful creature I have seen in my life; furthermore, there is something about her that makes me think she would make the perfect wife for a man such as myself. After all, her uncle did indicate that he is minded to find a husband for her. As a forty-seven-year-old mayor of a small town, I feel I'm a rather eligible catch. I could certainly keep Victoria in a very comfortable lifestyle, and I'm quite certain that she and I could create the most wonderful offspring: with her beauty and my intelligence, they would be wonderful children indeed.
Taking a deep breath, I resolve to not push matters too fast, but to nevertheless ascertain her availability at some point during the next few days. Victoria Paternoster would quite clearly make a very fine wife. I'm quite determined to make her mine, and I'm not the kind of man who takes 'No' for an answer.
Chapter Five
Today.
"Iron," Bill says, tapping the base of the cross. "Solid iron, all the way through." He looks up. "This thing must be heavy. The foundations have got to be pretty deep to support it, given the bad weather around here. A forty-foot cross isn't the kind of thing you want to have blowing over during the night."
"It's impressive," I say, "I'll give you that. Pretty daunting, too. Imagine living with this thing."
"A lot of these rural communities were extremely religious," Bill says. "Still, they were also mostly kinda poor, which makes me wonder how the people of Devil's Briar could afford something like this. I mean, it wouldn't have been cheap, and it wouldn't have been easy. The technical know-how to erect something like this a hundred years ago must have been beyond the prowess of most people."
"Maybe they had a wealthy benefactor," I point out.
"Most likely," he says, walking around the cross. "Then again, there's no inscription. Don't wealthy benefactors usually want to plaster their names all over the place, so they can get the credit? Isn't that the whole point?"
"Not if they think God will reward them in Heaven," I say.
He shrugs. "We need to find the council office, or some kind of town hall. There have to be records about something like this. I mean..." He pauses for a moment. "This is quite possibly the most interesting find in modern American history. The idea that such a huge thing could have been out here all this time, with no-one knowing about it... You've got to admit, it's hard to believe."
"The mystery of Devil's Briar," I say, smiling as I step back to get a better look at the cross. "Sounds like a good paper. So, does this huge thing make you feel any less keen to stay the night?"
"Are you kidding?" he replies. "I'm in, baby. If you're out, you'd better head home now, 'cause the light'll be fading soon."
Turning, I look across the small square that surrounds the cross. On the opposite side, there's a large building that identifies itself, thanks to a sign above the door, as the Devil's Briar Hotel. The windows are dirty and the place looks like it's starting to fall apart. I don't like the idea of staying in this town overnight, and I definitely don't like the idea of Bill thinking he can force me to do something I'd rather not do, but at the same time I figure maybe one night would be okay, provided I'm certain we'll be leaving tomorrow.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Bill asks.
"I doubt it," I reply. "Why, what are you thinking?"
"That we should check in."
"That's definitely not what I was thinking
."
"Come on," he says, walking across the square toward the hotel. Reluctantly following him, I glance back at the cross. I have no idea how the people of Devil's Briar could possibly have lived with such a monstrous thing in their midst. It towers over everything, defining the whole environment. I guess if you were devoutly religious, you'd probably get a kick out of something like that, but for everyone else here, it must have been kind of ominous.
"No-one home," Bill says, as he tries the front door of the hotel. "Interesting that all these abandoned buildings seem to have been locked. Kinda suggests that the locals knew they were leaving and thought they might be back."
I smile. "Maybe. Or maybe they were still inside, and they were trying to lock something out."
"That's the spirit," he replies. "Now you're seeing why this is gonna be such a kick. Stand back."
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"I'm gonna kick the door down," he says.
Sighing, I take a couple of steps back and watch as Bill gives the door a hefty kick. To my surprise, it starts to buckle and almost opens; a second kick does the job, and Bill turns to me, looking kind of pleased with himself.
"Great job," I say unenthusiastically.
"Thanks," he replies. "I've always wanted to kick a door down." Stepping forward, he peers into the building. "Dusty," he says. "Undisturbed, but neat. No sign of panic." He walks inside, and I follow cautiously.
"Maybe we should go get masks from the truck," I say. "It can't be healthy to breathe all this crap in."
"In a minute," he says, walking over to the reception desk. He runs his hand along the surface, wiping off a thick layer of grime. "How long do you reckon this place has been abandoned?"
I shrug. "Decades. I mean, there's nothing that looks post-war. I'd say 1930s at the latest, maybe 1940s if they were particularly backward."
"Or 1925?" Bill says, holding up a dusty old book. "That's the last guest sign-in recorded on the ledger. Mr. Thomas Paternoster and Ms. Victoria Paternoster."
"Father and daughter?" I suggest. "It looks like they had separate rooms."
Putting the ledger down, Bill turns back through the pages. "The earliest entry is from 1905. It doesn't look like this place got a lot of visitors. In twenty years, they only seem to have had eight guests, and two of those were the Paternosters." He pauses for a moment. "According to this, the Paternosters never checked out. They must have been here when... well, when the place got abandoned. I guess they picked a bad time to visit." He leans forward and opens a small box on the counter. "Money," he says. "Old notes. I guess this was the closest they had to a cash register back then."
"What rooms were the Paternosters in?" I ask.
"Five and six," he says, with a sparkle in his eye. "You want to go take a look?"
"It might answer some questions," I suggest, figuring it might be a good idea to see what we can find out.
Bill leads the way over to the staircase. Looking up, I'm struck by the thought that we must be the first people to walk through this place in decades. The air has been so still, hanging undisturbed between the walls, and now we're walking the scene. It almost feels as if we shouldn't be here, as if we're intruding on something private; it's as if the buildings no longer need to have people inside them.
"You sure you're okay with this?" Bill asks.
"No," I reply. "You know I'm not okay with it."
"But you can handle it, right? You're not too scared?"
"My reluctance to stay here tonight has nothing to do with fear," I tell him. "I simply think the place is creepy, and I think it's a waste of time for us just to potter around. You should come here with a proper team."
We head up the stairs, arriving on a narrow landing. The door nearest to me has a brass number five screwed onto the front, which I guess means it was one of the rooms occupied by the Paternosters. As I reach out for the handle, it suddenly occurs to me that there really might be bodies in the room. After all, this is the first building we've been into since we arrived, and as far as we know there could be dead people all over the place. Every building, every room, could be hiding the corpses of the people who used to live here. In fact, the odds are that there must be at least some bodies left in Devil's Briar.
"Here," says Bill, reaching past me and opening the door.
Looking inside, I see with relief that there's just a bed. Stepping into the room, I look around and realize that this is possibly the most sparse hotel room I've ever seen. Even a hundred years ago, I'm pretty sure that a place like this would have seemed kind of bare, and perhaps even unwelcoming. Apart from the bed, the only other furniture is a wardrobe, next to which there's what appears to be an old suitcase. Opening the wardrobe, I find a set of dresses.
"Looks like you were right," I say, glancing back at Bill. "This must have been Victoria Paternoster's room." Pulling out one of the dresses, I find that it's an old-fashioned blue number. It's strange to imagine Victoria hanging this up, expecting to wear it sometime and then... and then what? I walk over to the bedside table and open the drawer; unusually, there's no Bible. Most hotels had Bibles, even back then.
"Nice view," Bill says, looking out the window. I walk over and see that the room affords a great view of the cross and the square.
"Doesn't this place make you feel a little weird?" I ask. "I mean, where the hell did everyone go? It's like the Marie Celeste. People don't just vanish, and if they decide to leave town, they don't leave all their belongings behind."
"Or their cufflinks," Bill says, leaning down and picking a small metal cufflink off the floor. "I guess the maids weren't very thorough when they cleaned the rooms between guests. Either that, or this belonged to Thomas Paternoster."
"It's too dusty in here," I say, heading to the door. "I need to go outside and get some air."
"I'll keep looking around," he replies. "I'll try to find us a nice big room for the night."
Sighing, I head out and walk carefully down the rickety stairs. Once I'm back down in the lobby, I'm about to go to the exit when I suddenly hear a muffled bump from one of the nearby rooms. Looking past the reception desk, I see a door marked 'Bar'. My first instinct is to call for Bill, but I figure that as a rational, evidence-based scientist I should dismiss all thoughts of ghosts and ghouls. Heading through the door, I find myself in a long saloon, with tables set along the side and a large, ornate bar directly opposite. I head over to the bar and run my hand through the thick layer of dust, before noticing that there are a number of old glasses a little further along. Seeing something over in the corner, I walk across the room and find what appears to be an old walking cane leaning against the wall; I pick it up and try to imagine the person who must have once owned it. When the -
Suddenly there's the sound of glass smashing behind me. I spin around and see that one of the glasses has fallen from the bar, shattering on the floor. The glasses were all well away from the edge, so I don't see how one of them could have just toppled off by itself. Maybe I accidentally bumped the bar, or maybe the air pressure changed and... I sigh, realizing I'm fumbling for explanations. My pulse is racing and I'm having to fight my instinct to turn and run. Then again, just because I don't see the rational explanation, that doesn't mean there isn't one. A broken glass just isn't going to be enough to get me to believe in ghosts. I'm too smart to be easily tricked by my own fear. Anyway, what kind of ghost goes around knocking glasses over?
Chapter Six
1925.
"This is a dark day," I say, leaning my walking cane against the wall as I sit next to the bar. "Give me a whiskey."
Saying nothing, Henry unscrews the lid of a bottle and pours me a small shot. Henry's always been the kind of man who'll happily pour you a drink and take your money, but he'll give you a dirty look while he's doing it. I've known Henry since we were both children, and he hasn't changed. He was an ass then, and he's an ass now.
"Fill the damn glass," I say, downing the drink as soon as he's pushed it over to me. "
Another," I say, looking over at the window. The street outside seems mostly empty, with just a few people strolling past. I imagine word of Adelaide's death has well and truly spread by now, which means there'll be more hysteria about Lawrence. This is the last thing I needed; perhaps it's time to rein Lawrence in a little, though I have no idea whether the people of Devil's Briar are capable of addressing the situation in a mature and rational manner. Perhaps their panic will never end.
"That's three women dead," Henry says, passing another whiskey to me. "Three seems like a nice, round number. Maybe it'd be better to stop there."
"You don't know what you're talking about," I spit back at him, downing the shot before slamming the glass down onto the counter. "Another."
"I know people are getting nervous," he replies. "You keep saying you have the situation under control, but..." He fills up the glass and sends it back my way. "Don't take this the wrong way, Albert, but folks are gonna start questioning whether they can trust what you say."
"No-one's questioning me!" I reply, filled with loathing for Henry's petty, low sniping. If he has something to say, he should come right out and say it, instead of constantly peppering me with these snide little remarks. "Not one person in this whole town has said a word against me!" I pause, staring at Henry's sly smile. "Name them!" I say after a moment. "If anyone has spoken out against me, name the bastard and I'll go straight to him! He can say things to my face, and then we'll see whether he's brave!"
"It was just a friendly warning," Henry says. "No need to get all hot under the collar." At that moment, the bell in the reception area rings. "Excuse me," he adds, before setting the whiskey bottle next to me. "Help yourself to free refills," he says. "On the house."
Taking another shot, I glance over my shoulder as he heads through the door. For a moment, I get a glimpse of the divine Victoria Paternoster standing by the reception desk. That young woman's figure is so fine, I just want to strip her naked and show her what a real man can do. My moment will surely come, just as soon as I've negotiated a betrothal arrangement with her uncle.
