Onyx Webb 10
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“Fine. I’ll bid five dollars.”
“Do I hear ten? Ten dollars? Who knows what treasure may be hidden beneath? Do I hear—?”
“It’s Ogallala, Bill,” Susan said. “Now, Fred is offering you five dollars. Do you want it or not?”
The auctioneer shook his head. “I’m just trying to make a living here, folks. Sold for five dollars to Fred and Susan.”
“Well, go on and uncover whatever it is,” the manager said. “I’ve got paperwork to do.”
Fred walked over, grabbed the corner of the blanket, and pulled it away. Everyone gasped when they saw a large glass container with a pair of severed legs floating in the liquid inside it.
“Dear God, Almighty,” the manager said. “The auction is cancelled. I think we’re going to need to call the police.”
CRIMSON COVE, OREGON
SEPTEMBER 10, 2011
THE OBITUARY FOR the passing of George Dietz ran on page three of the Crimson Cove Gazette. The paper said he died of old age, with his two adult children—Aaron Dietz and Abigale Dietz-Sloan—at his bedside.
Page six had an interview with Aaron and Abigale about the future of the Dietz Theater. “We want to assure the residents and fellow merchants of Crimson Cove that the Dietz Theater will continue operating exactly as it has for over half a century. Our father would have wanted it that way.”
Despite filming Onyx roaming the woods seventy years earlier, George was a good guy. His kids, however, were opportunists. They would undoubtedly find some way to capitalize on their father’s passing.
As if on cue, Clay turned the page and saw their full-page ad.
In Honor of Their Father’s Passing, Aaron and Abigale Dietz are pleased to announce the Seventieth Anniversary Onyx Webb Film Festival!
January 19 – 22, 2012
Clay closed the paper.
It was time for a trip out to the lighthouse.
Clay pulled the cruiser to a stop fifty-feet from the caretaker’s house, which looked dark. Clay could hear music drifting from the lighthouse, though, so he walked in that direction.
He climbed the stairs and stood outside the door, but waited before knocking—listening to see if he could hear voices.
He didn’t—only the music.
All alone, unknown they find me,
Memories like these remind me
Of the girl I left behind me,
Down on Moonlight Bay.
The song sounded old. Nothing he recognized.
Clay knocked on the door and waited. A few seconds later, the music stopped. Then the door opened.
“Clay,” Noah said. “What’s up?”
“Well, hello to you too,” Clay said. “You going to invite me in?”
“What can I help you with, Clay?” Noah said.
“I see the roses are blooming again,” Clay said, motioning toward the bushes by the caretaker’s house. “Nice when you can get two blooms out of them. Too bad Onyx isn’t here to see them.”
“Is that what you came all the way out here for? To talk about roses?”
“No, I surely didn’t,” Clay said. “Actually, I came out to deliver some news.”
“News? About what?” Noah asked.
“George Dietz passed away,” Clay said.
“Okay.”
“There’s more,” Clay said. “The Dietz kids, Aaron and Abigale, are planning a Seventieth Anniversary Onyx Webb Film Festival in January.”
Noah said nothing.
“Last one they had was ten years ago for the sixtieth,” Clay said. “One hell of a mess, that was—couple thousand people flooding in from all over, making a mess, out late partying.”
“So stop them,” Noah said.
“Wish it were that easy,” Clay said. “People are going to be camping out down on the beach, traipsing through the woods all hours of the day and night, trying to see if they can get a glimpse of Onyx.”
Noah said nothing.
“You haven’t seen Onyx lately, have you?” Clay asked.
Noah pointed over Clay’s shoulder to the row of headstones on the far edge of the clearing. “She’s right over there, Clay. I see her every day.”
Clay glanced over his shoulder at the graves, and then back at Noah. “Come on, Noah. You know what I’m asking.”
“Yes, I do,” Noah said.
“Killings have picked up again,” Clay said. “A few out by the Sea Lion Caves. Couple more up north in Lincoln City, and down south near Newport.”
“What do you care?” Noah asked. “None of that is in your jurisdiction.”
“You’re right. Technically, it’s not,” Clay said. “But anything that happens in or around the cove tends to get my attention.”
“Sometimes things are better left alone,” Noah said. “At least between friends they are.”
“Is that what we are, Noah?” Clay asked. “Friends? You don’t come to town. We haven’t so much as had a beer in six months.”
“I appreciate the heads up, Clay. I really do,” Noah said. “Thanks for coming by.”
“You’ll let me know if you want to grab a beer sometime, huh?”
Noah remained silent.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Clay said. “Well, if you get lonely out here, you’ve got my number.”
Noah waited for Clay to leave and then went to the shed and located the pruning shears. He cut one of the red roses and brought it to the kitchen inside the caretaker’s house.
Noah pulled a bud vase from the cabinet and rinsed it out, and then filled it with water. Next, he pulled a knife from the drawer and carefully cut the stem at a forty-five-degree angle to keep it from resting flat in the bottom of the vase, which would prevent the flower from drinking water and opening.
Noah walked from the caretaker’s house over to the lighthouse and went inside.
Then he started up the stairs, noticing the single red step—the paint faded now, worn with age—which, as always, made him smile. His grandfather took fifteen years of notes on that step—notes Noah destroyed in five minutes by setting them on fire.
Finally, Noah reached the top of the spiral metal staircase, and set the bud vase on the table next to the easel.
“That was Clay,” Noah said.
“I know,” Onyx said, gazing through the lighthouse window at the setting sun as she applied a vermillion red line of paint to the canvas. “I heard.”
EPILOGUE...
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
OLYMPIA FUDGE GAVE birth to a seven-pound, four-ounce baby girl at NYC Health + Hospital in Queens, New York, with Graeme Kingsley by her side. They named the baby Imani Olivia Fudge. Graeme and Olympia planned to marry but hadn’t found a convenient date.
DESOTO, MISSOURI
SEPTEMBER 22, 2011
THE INVESTIGATION INTO the bones discovered during the construction of the new Mulvaney House in DeSoto, Missouri, had finally been completed.
The five primary findings were:
1)The bones uncovered were human.
2)The total number of bodies recovered stood at
3) seventeen.
4)All seventeen of the deceased were male.
5)Analysis of the bones led to the determination that all seventeen bodies were buried on the property somewhere between 1920 and 1940.
6)Only three of the seventeen bodies had been positively identified: Richard Abney, Leland Spooner, and Randall Iglewski.
Because of the completion of the criminal probe, the property was now cleared for construction to resume.
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
IN THE WAKE of Gerylyn Stoller’s inaccurate prediction of a ghost outbreak during the solstice eclipse, the University of Richmond withdrew funding for her parapsychology research—leading to the announcement of Dr. Stoller’s immediate retirement.
Gerylyn turned her attention to a new book, this time focused on her calculation that a similar ghost invasion would t
ake place during the coming solar eclipse in August 2017. Gerylyn’s publisher, Simon Prentice, had not yet determined if they were going to publish the work.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
OCTOBER 4, 2011
ALEC YOST PASSED away from complications of hepatocellular carcinoma—commonly known as cirrhosis of the liver—at NorthShore Hospice in Skokie, Illinois.
While in Chicago, Alec recorded a double album, Live from Fat Sal’s Freezer, with Walter “Chicken Legs” Williams on guitar and an unnamed musician on piano.
Their single, “Moving Fast on Deadman’s Curve,” was the number one release on iTunes for the week of September 4 – 10, 2011. Alec left his entire $31.4 million estate to the Mulvaney House Charities.
PORTLAND, OREGON
OCTOBER 10, 2011
KIZZY ASHLEY PLED guilty to drug possession with the intent to distribute. Due to her age, the judge reduced the sentence, and she was given five years of probation and fined $14,300 by the State of Oregon.
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
OCTOBER 23, 2011
EIGHT HUNDRED PEOPLE jammed into the main ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Pittsburg to attend Paul and Ingrid Luckner’s Messages from Beyond workshop. It was based on the true story of the devastating loss of their son, Dane—who was hit by a train in Orlando, Florida, the previous summer—and with whom they’d claimed to be in regular contact with ever since.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
NOVEMBER 4, 2011
AFTER QUIETLY SEEING each other for several months, Carlos and Ellen flew to Las Vegas, where they were married at The Little Chapel of the Flowers. Unfortunately, Carlos lost their entire honeymoon bankroll playing blackjack at The Stratosphere, leaving them with just enough money to get two Double-Doubles, an order of fries, and a chocolate shake at In-N-Out Burger before catching a cab back to the airport for the flight home.
They were already planning a return trip to Vegas before the flight took off—not to gamble, but for the burgers.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
NOVEMBER 13, 2011
QUINN AND GRAEME announced a deal they’d made with the governor of Georgia to base their new company headquarters in Atlanta. They planned to open a total of twenty-two Kingsley Cole Workout Centers across the state.
Koda Mulvaney invested $5 million for a 15 percent share of the company.
WASHINGTON, DC
NOVEMBER 25, 2011
IN A PRESS release issued on the Friday after Thanks-giving, the Department of Justice announced it dropped all charges against Beatrice Shaw for her involvement in the deaths of thirty-nine people in Charleston, South Carolina, eleven months earlier.
Behind the scenes, Beatrice was offered a $250,000 compensation payment from an unnamed government agency on the provision that she did not speak with the media. Beatrice took the money and immediately began making plans to relocate her business to New Orleans, where she was not as well known.
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA
DECEMBER 23, 2011
EXACTLY FORTY YEARS to the day of Juniper Cole’s appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Wyatt Scrogger appeared with current host Jay Leno.
The other guests on the show that evening included ex-NFL quarterback and TV announcer Terry Bradshaw and musician Chris Isaak, who performed “Blue Christmas.”
Though not a planned part of the show, Leno offered Wyatt the rare honor of doing several minutes of standup.
Wyatt politely declined.
GET ENTANGLED
www.OnyxWebb.com
To all those who helped make the Onyx Webb series possible—and, in doing so, helped Onyx “come to life”—we offer our deepest gratitude.
-Richard & Andrea
(Diandra Archer)
About Diandra Archer…
With two previous #1 Amazon bestsellers to their credit, Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz—writing as Diandra Archer—have had a burning desire to create a paranormal ghost series for as long as they can remember.
Then, one day while walking around Lake Eola in the heart of downtown Orlando, the right idea struck. “The minute we came up with Onyx Webb—a ghost that would give anything for one more day of life, watching in torment while the living sleep-walk through life like ghosts—we knew we had it,” Andrea says.
“The story lines for the major characters were created within a matter of days,” Richard adds. “But getting a collection of complex characters from mind to page—in a 10-book saga that spans more than a century, in an easy-to-consume format—was another matter entirely.”
When not traveling, Richard & Andrea can be found in Orlando, Florida—typing as fast as they can—with their ghost cat, Courage, at their feet.