“Who writes any book? Where do the words come from? Are they plucked from thin air, or are they rooted in something else? Genetics, maybe? Human consciousness?”
Stevie started to open the cover, but Seth’s hand, which somehow looked much older than his smooth, youthful face, came down on top.
“Not here,” the man said, his voice lacking the joviality of a few moments ago.
Stevie was about to protest, but the expression on Seth’s face convinced him otherwise.
“Oh, there’s one more thing. There’s another book you might be interested, one that’s been around for a long time.”
Stevie raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but before he could respond, Seth set off again, rooting through the shelves for another dusty volume.
Stevie didn’t know what to expect when he returned, but what he didn’t expect was a copy of the town census.
“Is this what I think—”
“Yep, it’s the census. You better get going, I think your boss will want to see these.”
Chapter 26
It wasn’t unheard of for Elloree’s Sheriff to visit the mayor, especially considering that the Sheriff was nominated by the mayor himself. And yet, Liam had the sneaking suspicion that this would be one of his last visits to see the big man.
The mayor had another year to go in his term, but with the death of not only the preacher’s daughter, but the preacher himself…
And then there was this new information about the mayor’s son, the delinquent Tommy Ray Ross, and his alleged involvement in a heroin ring of all things. Liam knew Tommy Ray Ross more than he would’ve liked, and on more than half a dozen occasions he had let the boy’s transgressions slide. This didn’t bother Liam so much, considering that most of the offenses were benign: speeding tickets, drinking underage, the occasional bar fight. What troubled Liam, however, was the sneaking suspicion that Tommy Ray was capable of something much more devious.
And maybe this was it…
Liam shook his head, and turned his mind to the task at hand; or at least he tried to. He couldn’t help, however, think about what Hugh Freeman had said about the witch in the swamp, the conviction in his voice.
“C’mon Liam, you’re here to solve a murder, not start a literal witch hunt.”
A murder; a single murder. Two bodies, one murder, because Father Smith’s death was a suicide… wasn’t it?
And with these strange thoughts rattling around in his brain, Liam stepped out of his cruiser and walked towards the building. Located on the northern end of Main Street, Bobby Lee Ross’s office was the only modern building on the block. In fact, it was the only new building in the downtown core.
His first act as Mayor was to build a new office for himself. The second was to hire Liam.
Liam stepped inside and nodded at the receptionist.
“Morning Nancy,” Liam said. “How’re you doing?”
Nancy smiled at him with lips painted a bright red—and a smudge on her teeth, Liam noted.
“Aw, you know, they’re doing just peachy. And you?”
Liam returned her smile.
“Well, if you’re peachy, then I’m plum.”
The secretary giggled and covered her mouth with her hand.
“What can I do you for Liam?” she asked after she was done laughing.
“Well, as much as I wish that this was a personal call, I’m afraid that it isn’t; I need to speak to the mayor.”
The woman behind the desk stopped smiling and shook her head.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible now, Liam. Bobby Lee’s in a meeting with some very important investors interested in revitalizing the downtown core.”
Liam raised an eyebrow at this; this was the first he had heard of any investors. Besides, as far as he was concerned, the downtown core wasn’t in need of revitalization. A coat of paint and some new window dressings, maybe, but not revitalization.
“Listen, Nancy, you know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. I really need to speak to him.”
The woman’s red lips twitched. It was painfully obvious that Bobby Lee had told her not to let anybody intrude, but Liam Lancaster wasn’t just anybody; he was the damn Sheriff.
“Nancy, I really need to talk to him. It’s very important.”
She gnawed on her lower lip and then offered him a subtle nod. With a manicured finger, she pressed the button on the intercom on the corner of her desk and it squawked a life.
“Bobby, there’s someone here to see you.”
There was a pause, during which Liam considered speaking into the intercom himself, when Bobby Lee’s southern drawl filled the room.
“I’m here with very important investors, Nancy. I’m sure this can wait.”
Nancy was biting her lip so hard now that Liam feared in a few moments the red on her lips wouldn’t just be Macy’s Ruby Woo. Rather than put her through any more of this torture, he leaned over her and pressed the intercom himself.
“Mayor Ross, it’s Sheriff Liam. We need to talk, and, no, this can’t wait.”
There was another short pause, but eventually, Bobby Lee replied.
“Gimme a minute.”
Liam offered a tight smile to Nancy, who indicated that he could sit in one of the chairs in the waiting room. He took the most comfortable looking one and sat.
And then he waited.
As he did, Liam thought about witches brandishing tiny pieces of bark and slicing Patty Smith’s naked flesh.
Death of a thousand cuts… and a fear-induced heart attack, maybe?
Chapter 27
Dwight was less than pleased with being teamed up with the strange detective from New York City, and was pretty damn pissed off that he was stuck back at the station babysitting not only Hugh Freeman, but in the presence of Sylvie Sinclair and the girl that, while she apparently had a name, he referred to as Child of the Corn.
I should be out there; I should be out there talking to the mayor, going to speak to the principal again, or even shipped out to the library. Just anywhere but here.
“Did you find anything on the computer?” Hugh asked.
Dwight typed a few more keystrokes before answering.
“Four missing girls all from around Elloree, all between six and eight years old and—” something flashed on Dwight’s screen that gave him pause.
The child of the corn, Stacy Weller, might have been from Batesburg, but she had ties to Elloree: her mother was born and raised just down the street from where Dwight currently resided.
Typing quickly, he looked up the second girl, Carla Shari, except this time he didn’t focus on the little girl, but her parents. And like Stacey, the girl’s mother was also from Elloree.
“What? What is it?”
Dwight hushed him and continued to search on information concerning the other two girls. Sure enough, they too had links to Elloree.
“Huh, that’s strange; the mothers of all four of these girls either grew up in Elloree or spent significant time here. What the hell is that all about?”
Hugh’s response surprised him, not just because of the words, but because Dwight hadn’t realized that he was verbalizing his own thoughts.
“Of course; that makes sense. You can leave the swamp, you can leave mother, but the kids can’t. The kids always come back.”
Dwight still wasn’t used to Hugh’s method of speaking, his morose tone, his apparent proclivity for likening everything to witches and mothers in the swamp.
He shook his head.
When Liam had mentioned the four missing girls, the ones that Officer Jenkins from Batesburg had told him about, that’d been the first Dwight had heard about them, because the girls weren’t actually from Elloree, at least not when they went missing.
Dwight turned back to the computer and started to search for missing girls not just from Elloree but the surrounding districts, including any references to Stumphole swamp.
It didn’t take long for him to find what he was lookin
g for: more than three dozen children had gone missing from South Carolina over the past decade alone. A quick scan showed that most, if not all, appeared to have female names.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
Hugh was leaning over his shoulder now, and while this made Dwight uncomfortable, he was too consumed by what he was doing to take much notice.
“Check back further,” Hugh whispered.
Dwight did as he was asked. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary from 1985 or so to the early 2000s—just a handful of missing children, several of which were boys in their mid-teens. But before 1985…
“Jesus,” he gasped.
Twenty-four girls all up and vanished over a two-year period from 1982 to 1984.
What does this mean?
Dwight tried to scroll back even further, but 1982 appeared to be the earliest record that had been digitized.
“What about before that? In the seventies?” Hugh asked.
Dwight shook his head.
“It doesn’t go back any further.”
Almost fifty girls missing from around Elloree during two events roughly twenty years apart.
And it looked like it was starting again…
“She’s calling to them,” Hugh said in a far-off voice. “She’s calling to them and they’re coming.”
Can this be… some sort of mistake?
Mistake or not, Dwight was compelled to let Liam know about what he’d found.
He instinctively reached for the radio on his shoulder and was about to press the talk button, when he felt Hugh’s warm breath on his neck.
“Excuse me,” Dwight grumbled. Hugh leaned backward and Dwight rose to his feet. As he made his way toward the police station doors, Sylvie looked up at him with tired eyes.
“She say anything yet?” Dwight asked, indicating the girl who sat in the chair across from Sylvie with her hands folded neatly in her lap.
Sylvie shook her head.
“Alright, just keep her calm, then. I’m gonna go make a call.”
The woman nodded and as Dwight continued past them, Stacey Weller suddenly raised her blond head.
When he’d arrived at the station, when Father Smith’s body had still been warm, he had looked over at Stacey, who was standing in the corner of the interrogation room. She had had blue eyes then, Dwight was sure of it; only now when she looked at him, they appeared darker. Not hazel or even brown, but black.
Dwight shuddered and looked away.
“I’ll be right back,” he said softly as he stepped outside. After a deep breath, he clicked the radio on his shoulder.
“Liam? Liam, I think I found something. Something… strange.”
Chapter 28
“Get away from me,” Clifford stammered, pushing himself backward through the mud. “Get away from me, please.”
There were so many girls now that Clifford, in his terror, was having a hard time distinguishing them from the trees that surrounded him, surrounded 8181 Coverfeld Ave.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the lead girl repeated for what felt like the fiftieth time. “Mother says nobody should be here, except for her children.”
Clifford could feel mud not just on his wrists, but his forearms, the seat of his pants; his sneakers were covered in the foul-smelling stuff. He tried to push himself back even further, but found this an increasingly difficult task; the mud was too thick, and it clung to him like desperate hands.
“Okay, fine, okay, I was just leaving… I’ll leave here and never come back,” he pleaded, raising a filthy hand out in front of him.
The lead girl, who looked identical to the others, opened her mouth to speak.
“You—”
The girl beside the first said the next word.
“—shouldn’t—”
Then a third girl chimed in.
“—be—”
Then a fourth.
“—here—”
The words skipped seamlessly from one girl’s mouth to the next, traveling the circumference of the circle that continued to constrict around Cliff.
“—Mother—”
“—says—”
“—only—”
“—her—”
“—children.”
Clifford suddenly felt dizzy, and his vision blurred; he could no longer tell if there were a dozen girls or three times that many surrounding him.
“Please,” he tried to say, but he was sobbing now, and it came out as a whimper instead of a word.
The lead girl opened her mouth to speak again, when a voice, a male voice this time, interrupted her.
“Get in the house! Get in the house!”
For some reason, hearing words not from the mouths of little children seemed to imbue Cliff with strength. Without thinking, he drove his hands into the mud, and with one monumental shove, he managed to propel himself to his feet.
And then he was running.
He vaguely perceived driving his shoulder into one of the girls, which sent her sprawling to the mud, but neither the act nor the realization slowed him down. Survival; survival was all that mattered now.
Clifford ran for the front door of the dilapidated house, which was boarded up by a thin sheet of plywood. He reached it less than a minute later, and when he did, he drove his palms against the wood, which splintered loudly beneath his bodyweight.
Words followed him up the porch and to the door. Whispers about mother, about how he shouldn’t be here, about how he didn’t belong. And then there were mutterings in a language he didn’t understand, something that sounded old to him, ancient even. Clifford forced these from his mind as he tore at the plywood with untold desperation. Blood from ragged and torn nails soon started to mix with the brown coating of rot on the wood.
Eventually, Clifford managed to peel enough of it away that he could reach inside the musty interior and grasp for the doorknob.
“In the house!” The male voice hollered after him. “In the house!”
And then, by some strange miracle, Clifford found himself inside the foul-smelling house.
It was pitch black, and it reeked of mold and must and… something else.
Clifford didn’t slow down; he just continued to run headlong into the house, his heart degenerating into a spastic hummingbird in his narrow chest. Eventually, his shin struck something solid—a table, he thought—and he crouched before trying, and failing, to slide his body completely beneath it.
Anything to shelter him from those horrible children.
Clifford held his breath, and between thrums of his heart, he heard the pitter-patter of small, bare feet entering the house.
He squeezed his eyes closed so tightly that he saw stars behind his dark lids.
Please, just leave me alone. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, I don’t know who you are or what you want.
The man’s thoughts quickly deteriorated into nonsense.
I can’t be here I can’t do this I have students to look after I have a family Jesus Christ I have a daughter I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to die—
Clifford was no longer able to hold his breath, and he drew a sharp inhalation through his nose.
And when he did, he realized that there was another smell amidst the pervasive odor of rot and death, a smell he was familiar with, but in his terror, couldn’t immediately place.
Just as he felt the first of many tiny fingers intertwine in his hair, claw at his face, grab his limbs, Clifford realized what that smell was.
It was gasoline.
“No,” he moaned.
There was a soft pop, followed by a hiss, and then a match illuminated a male figure in the doorway.
One of the girls yanked his head back, and his eyes drifted from the man who had instructed him to enter the house, to the faces of the children that held him.
Only they weren’t children anymore; they weren’t even human.
Their faces had mostly rotted away, revealing a lit
any of fetid holes that brimmed with beetles and cockroaches and other burrowing, six-legged creatures. What little flesh they had left hung from their jaws and cheeks like putrid beef jerky.
Daughter Page 10
