by Isaac Thorne
Afia and Staff glanced at each other, then turned their attention back to Patsy. “Her who?” Afia said. “Who did we see?”
Patsy clasped her hands under her chin and bounced on the balls of her feet, her colossal owl eyes drifted toward the ceiling. For a moment, Staff feared she might topple down the stairs, taking him and Afia along with her on an injurious ride back to the first floor.
“Oh, my dear, I have so much to tell you. But not right now. We have to get you both settled first, and I need to finish dinner. I have a plump turkey that’s been baking downstairs all day long. I need to go check on that. Then I’ll whip up a few quick side dishes and bake some biscuits. We’ll talk about it over dinner. Really. I’ll tell you all about it.”
She made a right turn at the top of the stairs and threw open a door. “This is your room, Ms. Afton. You’ll find it provides you with a lovely view of the backyard. I planted a small orchard back there in the spring, and the leaves are at their most stunningly beautiful right now. There’s a bathroom a little farther down the hall that you can have all to yourself. We have three full baths in this house, and two of them are up here.”
Afia dragged her suitcase into her room. “Thank you. See you at dinner, then.” She closed the door without looking back at either of them.
Patsy turned to Staff, her face positively glowing. “You, Mr. Staff, get the room in the opposite hallway. Mustn’t allow the boys and girls to be too close to each other!” She led him across the top of the stairs to the west wing of the house and, not without some amount of drama, flung open the door. “You too have a view of the backyard, but you also get a lovely look at our developing public square. You can see the monument and some of the buildings from here, a nice sign of our progress.”
“Thank you.” Staff dragged his own suitcase into the room and turned to shut the door, only to find Patsy’s face floating in the way.
“Oh, my,” she said again. The euphoria in her voice was unmistakable, although she was whispering now, as if she were about to impart a secret that she didn’t want anyone to overhear. “Oh, my dear, you’re going to go back to Channel 6 with such a wonderful story. I can’t wait to tell you all about the black bitch.”
***
When the dinner bell rang, Staff washed up and then padded downstairs to the dining room to find Afia already seated there, looking exhausted and irritable. The table had been set with white china that sported a grandmotherly pink floral arrangement in its center. Beside each plate was a cloth napkin, a water glass, and a wine glass. Afia’s water glass was full. Her wine glass, on the other hand, was only one-third full of the crimson liquid. Staff suspected this meant that she had already downed most of it. All of the other glassware on the table sat empty and dry.
“Oh, there you are,” came Patsy’s musical voice from behind him. “Hot dishes coming through!” She whisked by him with two serving platters, one full of thinly sliced turkey slices overlapping in a long accordion shape and one carrying a bowl of steaming mashed potatoes alongside a boat of thick brown gravy. “I’ll be back with the rest of the sides in a moment. Why don’t you go ahead and have a seat by Ms. Afton there? I’ll fill up your water glass and pour you some wine so you two can relax while you wait.”
Staff thanked her and pulled himself up beside Afia at the table. When Patsy disappeared into the kitchen again, he took up his wine glass and sipped from it. It was a semi-sweet, not bitter at all, and probably less than fifteen bucks a bottle at the local Grab ‘n’ Go. Just the way he liked it. He smacked his lips, grinning, and eyeballed the liquid with the satisfied expression of a man who has just settled into his favorite chair for the evening. Afia rolled her eyes.
“You would.”
“I would, and I do. Although you don’t seem averse to it, either, based on the contents of your own glass. Don’t you know it’s not polite to start drinking before the other guests arrive?”
“I guess I’m not in a manners mood.”
Staff nodded. “Well, try to lighten up a little bit if you can. I’m not sure what I think about this place or this Patsy yet. She’s very...odd, I guess is the right word for now. If she starts to go too far off the deep end, we should pick up and take ourselves to some other place for this story.”
Afia chuckled. “You mean some other place where people who claim to have seen ghosts don’t come off sounding like they’re missing a few tools from the shed?”
“Here we go,” Patsy sang as she bustled into the room balancing three more steaming dishes of food. Among them was a basket of dinner rolls wrapped in red-checked cloth, a bowl of Southern-style green beans (Staff could smell the aroma of freshly cooked bacon wafting off it), and a giant gelatinous glob of can-shaped cranberry sauce that had been carved into eight equal disk-shaped pieces. Staff unfolded his napkin and placed it in his lap, as did Afia almost simultaneously. “I hope you like it. I wanted to cook up a nice and filling autumn dinner so we can all get a good night’s sleep before our busy day of ghost hunting tomorrow.”
Staff smiled indulgently and cut his eyes at Afia, who met his glance. Let’s just play along, for now, he tried to transmit to her.
“Now,” Patsy said, wrinkling her nose above a preschool story time smile. “I was going to tell you all about the black bitch.”
Afia set her fork against the edge of her plate. Her eyes narrowed. “The what?”
Patsy set down her own silverware and nudged her chair back from the table a smidge, making some room for what Staff figured was about to be a long-winded Lost Hollow history lesson.
“The black bitch. She’s Lost Hollow’s very own cryptid omen bearer. And you saw her! You saw her on your way into town. You said so!”
“What’s a cryptid omen bearer?” Staff asked. He sounded the last three words out slowly, ensuring he enunciated them properly.
“Well, a cryptid is nothing more than a type of creature that some people believe exists but for which there is yet to be scientific evidence or proof. You know, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. An omen is just something that signifies the approach of something life-changing, good or bad. It’s a harbinger for something like a horrible accident or an untimely death.”
“Oh,” said Afia, not disguising her sarcasm. “Great.”
Patsy ignored her.
“On the other side of the world, there’s a supernatural omen bearer they call a black dog or a hellhound. It’s usually a ghost dog, larger than most normal dogs, that has glowing eyes and most of the time portends death. You’ve read about them before if you’ve ever read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“I think I read that in middle school,” Staff said. “Or maybe when I was a freshman.”
“Most people think of the black dog as a European ghost or demon dog. In America, you don’t hear much about them. Probably the most famous case of an American black dog was the one that John Bell saw just before all the poltergeist activity started at the Bell farm up in Adams, back in the 1800s. He said it looked like a large black dog with a rabbit’s head. He took a shot at it, and it just vanished into thin air. Soon after, a poltergeist-style haunting began at the Bell farm. The whole thing eventually ended with John Bell’s death. They say the spirit—who the family sometimes called Kate and who history tends to name The Bell Witch—quite literally laughed out loud as Bell’s casket was being laid in the ground. Makes me shudder every time I think about it.”
“And you think this is what I nearly ran over when we drove into town?” To Afia’s credit, Staff thought, there was not a hint of skepticism or intrigue in her voice. “I should point out that we’re miles and miles away from Adams. I’ve never even been there, and I’ve traveled pretty much all over this state covering the news.”
Staff nodded. “Same. I’m not sure I even knew there was an Adams, Tennessee.”
Patsy scoffed. “Pretty much anyone who studies American folklore knows the story of the Bell Witch in Adams, but not everyone studies Ame
rican folklore. Surely you’ve seen that horribly inaccurate movie they made about it? An American Haunting?”
“I’m not really into modern horror movies,” Staff replied.
“Oh. Well, in any event, I’m not saying that the black bitch is the same black dog that appeared to John Bell in Adams. I’ve never seen the black bitch, but I know a few people who claim to have and have lived to tell about it. Maybe I can introduce you to a couple of them tomorrow sometime for your story. The way they usually describe the black bitch is that she has the body of a small to medium-sized dog. She has completely black fur from head to toe and kind of a stocky build and a stubby tail, like some kind of bulldog.”
“Sounds like a cute pupper,” Staff said, grinning.
“Oh, you won’t think so if you get a look at her face. Her face is where the similarities between her and a normal dog end. They say she has a human head on top of that bulldog body, and the face of a screaming woman on the front of that head. Every time someone reports seeing her, she’s always screaming with an open mouth and wide human eyes. Some folks say she looks angry. Others say she looks anguished like she’s sad or in pain. All I know is the two people I’ve met who saw her eventually suffered horrible tragedy in their personal lives. It was only about a month after old Mr. Kenner saw her that his house burned down and took his wife and cat with it. Now he’s living by himself in a double-wide just outside the limits, crazy as a bat. The other one? Mr. Jepsen? He was a school bus driver for Hollow County. Flipped the bus traveling the speed limit over plain dry asphalt one day not two years after he saw the black bitch. Killed about half the kids on that bus.”
“I remember that accident,” Afia interjected. “Just a couple of years ago, wasn’t it? We covered it on Channel 6. The authorities at the time said it was most likely a medical emergency and that Jepsen wouldn’t be charged with anything.”
Patsy nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they came up with on account of a brain scan they did on Mr. Jepsen afterward. Said he’d had a stroke while on his route. The thing is, Mr. Jepsen did have a stroke a few years before that. He says he didn’t feel any warning signs before the accident, and that the place on the scan where they say he had a new stroke was the exact same place he’d had the old one. Now I’m no heart doctor, but I was under the impression that once you had a stroke the part of the brain that was affected is pretty much killed. If he’d had another stroke and it had caused him to roll a bus, you’d think it would have been in a living part of his brain. Needless to say, he’s not driving the school bus anymore. He says he wants to move back to Canada but hasn’t been able to come up with the money.”
Staff leaned forward, hands clasped together in his lap. “What does he do now?”
“Oh, he still works for the school system. They won’t let him drive anymore, but the school board didn’t feel right about letting him go completely. He’d already devoted more than fifteen years of a bachelor life to hauling snot-nosed brats around to school and then back to their ungrateful parents. He was barely making a living doing that, to be honest. Now he’s a custodian for the school here in Lost Hollow.”
Afia’s eyebrows shot upward. “He actually works in the school with the friends of the kids that were killed in the accident? I would think that would be kind of awkward for both him and the kids.”
“I would have assumed a custodian makes more money than a bus driver, too,” Staff added.
Patsy nodded. “You’re right on both counts.” She sat back in her chair and dabbed her fingertips on the napkin that lay draped over her lap. “He probably does make more than he did driving the bus, considering the job and the hours, but it’s still not enough to both pay his bills and purchase his way back to Toronto. I also suspect he doesn’t really make as much as most custodians do. The school board addressed your concern, Ms. Afton, by ensuring that Mr. Jepsen works late afternoons and evenings when most of the kids are long gone for the day. Custodians from the county’s other schools rotate out the day job. It’s not a perfect system, but for the most part, it keeps the kids out of Mr. Jepsen’s sight and mind and him out of theirs.”
“Do you think he might be willing to talk to us on camera?” Staff asked. “If the other guy, Kenner, has mental health problems that might make him come off as odd in an interview, Mr. Jepsen sounds like our only other option to discuss a ‘black bitch’ sighting.” He formed air quotes when he spoke the creature’s local nickname. “His story has a little less ring of truth to it, though, when you consider the stroke and the span of time between his sighting and the accident. Two years is a long time. Kind of smacks of the King Tut’s tomb curse to me.”
“He might talk about it. We could try to meet him at the school tomorrow evening and ask him if he’s willing. I understand your skepticism, Mr. Staff, but you’ll need to make sure you’re sensitive to his story. Try not to ask him too many questions about the bus accident itself. He still carries so much guilt.”
“I’m not sure the Jepsen bus story is a good piece for us,” Afia said. “It will end up being less about the ghost dog and more about the dead kids and how horrible the bus driver feels about it. This is supposed to be a light story for Halloween, something that gives the viewers a little thrill of excitement without bringing them too close to the tragedy. We can interview you about the black bitch, Ms. Blankenship, as long as you can keep some of the gorier details vague, but I don’t think we should try to force Mr. Jepsen to discuss it.”
Staff, who now felt a little embarrassed about having suggested it, nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “This is supposed to be a feature story, so we should probably stick more to the mysterious and less to the psychologically damaging.”
“I see. Well, I can give you the black bitch story myself, I guess. I’ve sort of become the unofficial curator of Lost Hollow history anyway, so it might as well come from me. I do have someone else in mind that I think you should meet, though. He’s our newly elected constable. He just recently bought up his family’s old place out on Hollow Creek Road, near the edge of town. The city had been planning to demolish it because it seems to have become a hangout for vagrants and truant teens who need a place to smoke and drink and God knows what else.”
“What does that have to do with hauntings and Halloween in Lost Hollow?” Afia asked.
“Oh, that’s the best part! Right after our new constable saved the old place, rumors started flying around town that some kids who were skipping school to drink beer had broken in and been nearly scared to death by some disembodied screams coming from somewhere inside the house. Later on, people started reporting seeing weird lights and hearing the most god-awful moaning sounds coming from inside.” She laughed. “It doesn’t seem to have stopped people from trespassing, but it’s made our little town somewhat of an in-county tourist spot as the kids here have spread the story to other kids around Hollow County.” She paused then, looking up and to the right, somewhere above Afia.
“Oh!” she said suddenly, and looked back at them. “I just made a connection there! At least one of those trespassing kids heard about my ghost tour idea and came forward recently. Jeremy was his name. Jeremy Beard. He said he’d been exploring the house and heard some frightful screams when he did. He gave me his number. Said he’s going to major in history in college and thought helping me with ghost tours might be good experience. Maybe you could talk to him?”
Afia grinned. “An alleged eyewitness to a haunting who isn’t burdened by a tragedy? That sounds more like a plan for a fun Halloween story to me.”
Patsy was positively giddy. “Yay! You should see the place. Even if there’s actually nothing there, it’s got a great haunted house look, like something out of The Munsters or The Addams Family.”
“Definitely sounds like a place we’d like to see,” Staff said. “Is there any backstory to it? Any stories about someone who lived there that might shed some light on why it would be haunted? Some kind of incident, maybe?”
“I don’t know
of anything in particular that happened there. Our constable lived there when he was just a kid. I would love to have you meet him, though. Maybe he can give you some background that would be good for a chill or two besides the black bitch. The house is older than his family, so it’s possible he conducted a little research into its history before deciding to save it. I can’t imagine anyone buying that place for its sentimental value alone. Of course, the constable is a bit of an odd bird. But don’t you dare tell him I said that!”
Afia assured her that they wouldn’t. “So where can we find this new constable?”
“It’s getting late. You two have had a long day, and I need to clean up our dinner mess here. How about I give him a call first thing in the morning and set up a meeting at the old place? I’m sure he’ll be happy to show you around and tell you anything you want to know about it. I’ll go out there with you if you don’t mind. I’d love to know more about it myself. If the constable’s not going to live in it, we might be able to turn it into something else: another B&B, maybe, or an events venue, or a little headquarters and museum for future ghost tours. I’ll call Jeremy Beard for you, too. Maybe you can talk to him first.
“When we’re done at the constable’s place, I’ll show you all around the other supposedly haunted sites in Lost Hollow. The obelisk in the square is said to have a bit of tragic civil rights history to it, as do some of the older buildings there.”
From the corner of his eye, Staff thought he saw Afia flinch. “I’d like to steer clear of anything too racially charged if you don’t mind,” she said. “Those are important stories to tell, but I don’t want to use them for entertainment.”
“Oh, all right then. I also want to take you over to our cemetery on the other side of town. No one gets buried in it anymore because it’s so old that all the spots were finally filled. The county keeps after the grounds now, but for a long time, we had a caretaker there who kept mostly to himself and had become quite insane by the time he died. There’s a bit of mystery surrounding that whole thing. Some people say they see weird lights there when they drive past it at night, like little flames flickering among the graves.”
