Crooked Hills

by Cullen Bunn

  “To help butter her up,” Marty said.

  I wanted to try one of the smoked turkey sandwiches, but Marty hissed under his breath and stopped me. He shook his head, short and quick, so Hap couldn’t see. Then he smiled and paid for everything. He wouldn’t let me pitch in.

  We said our goodbyes and continued into town, sipping our sodas along the way.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Trust me,” Marty said. “It’s sort of like living in the wild. Eventually, you learn which berries you can eat and which are poisonous. You live in these parts long enough, and you know better than to eat one of Hap’s sandwiches unless you want to spend all day in the bathroom.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said.

  Unlike the back roads, the streets here were paved, and we marched through knee-high weeds along the side. The road ran parallel to a wide, slow-moving creek. Several people stood on the banks on the other side, casting fishing lines into the muddy water or reeling fat, flopping fish to their doom. A few of them waved when they saw us. Marty waved back.

  “I guess everyone around here knows everyone else, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live in a place where I didn’t know my neighbors,” Marty said. It sounded like he was quoting something he’d heard someone else say.

  We came upon a crossroad sporting what I guessed to be Crooked Hills’ only stoplight. A truck hauling a trailer full of squealing hogs waited at the intersection for the green light, then rolled on, leaving an awful stench in its wake. The light continued to lazily change from green to yellow to red, but no additional traffic came this way. On the other side of the intersection, railroad tracks cut through the pavement. The tracks stretched into the distance in either direction. This must be where the train passed at night.

  Stepping over the tracks, Marty dug in his pocket and pulled out a penny. He carefully placed it on the metal rail.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Making a peace-offering. Didn’t that book of yours say anything about the railroad crossing?”

  “I haven’t read the whole thing,” I said, “but I haven’t seen anything so far.”

  “Years and years ago, when the trains came through on an almost hourly basis, a school bus full of kids stalled out on the tracks just as a train rounded the bend.” Marty pointed at the tracks, which curved into the trees not far from where we stood. “The train couldn’t stop in time and plowed right into the bus. A bunch of kids and the driver were all killed. Now, if a car ever stalls on the tracks, some unseen force will push it out of the way. And afterwards, tiny fingerprints can be seen on the car’s windshield. It’s good luck to leave pennies on the track when you’re crossing to keep the ghosts happy.”

  Once I looked carefully, I saw dozens of pennies—all mashed paper flat by the crushing weight of train wheels—lying in the dirt around the tracks. Just to be safe, I dug a penny out of my own pocket and placed it on the rail, right beside Marty’s. That taken care of, I crossed the tracks. Wind rushed through nearby trees, and the rustling of the leaves sounded like whispered voices.

  Beyond the tracks awaited Main Street, Crooked Hills.

  A diner, a drug store, and a sporting goods shop lined the right side of the street, directly opposite a five-and-dime and a greasy-looking hamburger joint. Several stores stretched up the hill for a couple of blocks before giving way to rows of houses.

  A little farther up the road, I spotted a movie theater. But before I got too excited Marty told me it had been closed for years. The windows were boarded, the glass covered in thick dust. A couple of sun-faded movie posters hung in the windows. I didn’t recognize the advertised movies, though. They must have been new when I was a baby.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The theater’s haunted, too.”

  “You bet it is.” Marty nodded vigorously. “Sometimes, late at night, you can see light flickering behind the boarded windows, and if you listen close you can hear old movies playing.”

  I thought I detected the faint smell of buttered popcorn.

  “We used to have a drive-in, too,” Marty said, “but it closed up a couple of years back.”

  At the very least, I noticed a video store a few doors back. Knowing I could rent a few movies now and then comforted me.

  I still didn’t know if Marty was right about every store selling live bait, but at least a couple certainly did—including the hamburger stand! My stomach gave a little kick, thinking of grubs and crickets bought and sold in such close proximity to hamburgers and hotdogs. But Marty assured me the food there was top-notch—edible without worry of food poisoning.

  “Maybe we can get a bite to eat, then,” I said.

  “Sure, but let’s talk to Lisa first.”

  We approached an old-time barber shop. A candy striped pole rotated red and white next to the door. Marty stopped just outside.

  “Need a haircut?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Come on.”

  The heavy smell of shaving cream rolled out as we opened the door. Old hunting and fishing magazines covered the seats of a couple of wooden benches in the waiting area. The barber—a tall, skinny man with bright red hair—tended a customer. He used a pair of noisy electric clippers to crop the man’s hair down to stubble.

  “Hello, boys.” The barber looked up as he continued to cut a path through his customer’s hair. “Need a trim?”

  “Hi, Mr. Summers,” Marty said. “Actually we’re looking for Lisa. Is she around today?”

  “Sure.” Mr. Summers nodded toward a door in the back. “She’s in the store room. Go on back if you like.”

  So Lisa’s dad was the local barber. Funny, the peppermints she ate so many of were the same color as the barber’s pole. Behind Mr. Summers, a large mirror covered the wall so customers could watch the barber as he worked. Next to the cash register and a glass container filled with black plastic combs floating in greenish fluid, a photograph was taped to the mirror. It depicted Lisa and her mom and dad, all smiles and freckles and red hair.

  We entered the back room, and found Lisa using a big push broom to sweep a massive pile of hair into the corner. I’ve seen mounds of raked autumn leaves that couldn’t compare to the sheer volume of loose hair. Where did all the hair come from? Did they just sweep the clippings into the back room when they finished with a customer? Made sense, although I’d never put much thought into it before.

  My nose started to twitch, but I pinched my nostrils to stifle a sneeze. One “achoo!” and we’d be lost in a blinding blizzard of hair clippings.

  “What’s with all the hair?” I asked.

  Lisa wrinkled her nose in distaste as she looked at the piles of hair. Swept up into the corner, the multi-colored mounds of hair looked like giant calico cats, curled up and snoozing.

  “We sell it to wig makers,” she said. “My dad says he makes more money selling hair than he does cutting it.”

  I wondered if other barbers sold the hair they clipped. Was someone walking around out there with a wig made of my hair?

  “What are you two doing here anyway?” Lisa asked.

  Marty and I looked at each other. I raised my eyebrows.

  “Go on,” I said. “Ask.”

  “We need your help.” With a flourish, Marty presented Lisa with the paper bag full of peppermints.

  Lisa looked in the bag, then leaned on the broom handle and eyed us suspiciously. “Help with what?” she asked, looking at me.

  I drew in a deep breath before telling her about the train whistle, about the strange howling in the night, and about the dog. I started to mention the dreams, but realized she most likely wouldn’t believe us anyway.

  “And you want me to sneak out of my house, risk getting into all sorts of trouble, just to help you find this dog?”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” I said.

  She considered her options for a moment or two, then said, “Where do you want to meet?”

  “You mea
n you’ll help us?”

  “Somebody has to keep you out of trouble,” she said.

  “And you think you’ll be able to get out of the house?” I dropped my voice to a whisper, although I doubted Mr. Summers could hear us over the buzz of the clippers. “I mean, without getting caught?”

  Marty answered for her.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? Of course she can sneak out without getting caught.” He slung his arm around my neck, grabbed me in a headlock, and rubbed his knuckles roughly against my skull. “I taught her everything she needs to know about sneaking.”

  “You wish,” Lisa said. “It’s more like the other way around.”

  We agreed to meet that night at the bridge. That was a good halfway point between Lisa’s house and Marty’s. The train usually came through town within a couple of hours after midnight, so we decided to meet at eleven o’clock sharp.

  As we left the barber shop, Marty clapped an arm around my shoulder and said, “See? I told you she liked you!”

  “Whatever. What makes you think she likes me?”

  “Didn’t you see the way she was batting her eyelashes at you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t see any such thing—” I felt my ears burning a little and knew they must have been beet red. “—because she didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, Charlie!” Marty raised his voice to a shrill pitch, clasped his hands together next to his cheek, and fluttered his eyelids. “I’d be glad to help you, sweetie snookums!”

  “Cut it out.” I gave him a shove. Laughing, he pushed me back.

  I stumbled right into someone, almost knocking them over.

  “Excuse me,” I said, turning.

  The old woman I’d bumped swore under her breath. A tall, gangly woman, she glowered at me with a pinched face that looked like she’d just tasted something sour. She wore her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and her plain gray dress had been patched and stitched in several places. She leaned on a bent wooden cane, and in the other hand she carried a heavy bucket full of rich, dark soil and worms. A few worms squirmed on the sidewalk. They must have fallen out when I jostled her. The woman chewed on the inside of her mouth and fixed me with a cruel stare. Her blue eyes were so light they almost looked white.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I gingerly plucked the worms off the sidewalk. They wriggled wetly in my fingers as I dropped them into the bucket.

  I heard a strange clicking noise and noticed the old woman’s gnarled fingers flexing on the head of her cane. Her fingernails were long and curled and dirty. They looked as though they’d been sharpened into points, and the dirt made them look almost black. A strange puffy scar covered the back of her hand.

  She said nothing, but she watched me as Marty tugged my arm. We walked in the other direction—quickly.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Never mind her,” Marty said. “You want to stay away from her if you can.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name’s Dottie Brewster. She’s crazy. She used to be the school’s sixth grade science teacher, years and years ago, but she left under... strange circumstances.”

  “What do you mean, strange?”

  “There are all sorts of rumors. After her husband disappeared, people started talking. The official story is he ran off with another woman, but a lot of people believe he didn’t run off at all. They believe she killed him. Some folks say she was into all sorts of awful things. She quit working for the school after she was caught performing some sort of awful experiment in the science lab. The point is, she’s no good—dangerous—and we’re better off avoiding her. You saw her eyes, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “My granddad used to say those were witching eyes. When evil burns in a person’s heart and mind, it boils the color right out of their eyes. They can hex you with a look.”

  I could tell Marty didn’t like talking about the old woman. That scared me a little, since he seemed to like to talk about anything creepy at length. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mrs. Brewster was still watching the two of us. After a second or two, she shuffled across the road, lugging the bucket full of worms along.

  “Why do you think she needs all those worms?”

  “Could be any number of reasons, I reckon. Fishing, probably, or farming. Some farmers use worms to help fertilize their crops. Something about enriching the soil. Or maybe—just maybe—she’s using the worms for some sort of horrible tests and research. She lives out in the woods somewhere. Nobody knows where for sure. Nobody wants to know! She could be conducting any number of wild experiments!”

  “So Crooked Hills has its own mad scientist.” I chuckled under my breath. “A regular Dr. Brewsterstein.”

  We stopped at the hamburger stand and got a bite to eat. I had a hamburger with chili, and Marty got a big container of French fries and fried onions. It took me a minute to get used to the idea of night crawlers sold so close to the kitchen, but my hunger overwhelmed my revulsion. The food was delicious, super greasy just the way I like it.

  “What now?” Marty asked. “Anything in particular you want to see?”

  “Lots, actually. Guess there’s not a library around here, is there? I wouldn’t mind trying to dig up some more information on that dog and Maddie S—” I stopped myself, because I didn’t feel like I could muster enough spit on such a hot day. “—and local witch legends. Might help if we knew for sure what we’re getting into tracking the dog.”

  “Good idea.” Marty set off down the street. “Follow me.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I glanced over my shoulder. Even though I no longer saw Mrs. Brewster, I still got the feeling she watched us. I felt the weight of her eyes.

  Her witching eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE CROOKED HILLS LIBRARY a quaint, Victorian-style house with the local Post Office. Except for the hand-painted sign out front, the building looked like any other house on the block, surrounded by a white picket fence and blooming flower gardens. We opened the gate—the hinges squeaked—and walked down the brick walkway. Marty waved to a woman tending the gardens.

  “Hi, Mrs. Trilby.”

  “Hello there, Martin.” Mrs. Trilby never looked up from her gardening. She wore a floppy hat, and shade covered her face. She drove a sharp hand spade into the earth and rooted up stones and weeds. She must have recognized my cousin’s voice. “I trust you’re behaving yourself this summer.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Marty said, taking the steps to the front door of the library two at a time. “See you around.”

  “Good seeing you.” She drove the spade into the earth, rooting up rocks and clods of dirt. “And nice meeting you, Charlie.”

  How does she know my name?

  “Who was that?” I asked as we entered the library.

  “She teaches English at my school. During the summer, she does odd jobs around town, usually something to do with gardening. She’s got a green thumb, I guess. She’s pretty much my favorite teacher, but she’s a little peculiar.”

  I was starting to believe everyone in Crooked Hills was a little off-center, Marty included.

  “She knew my name.”

  “Well, yeah. I introduced you.”

  “No, you didn’t. She never even looked at me, but she knew my name.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Marty said. “Word travels pretty fast in such a small town. She probably heard you were visiting from some busybody or another. Either that or—”

  “Or what?”

  “Well, she claims to have been raised by Gypsies. Says she can read fortunes and predict the future. I always figured she just said that stuff to make her students more interested, but you never know.”

  A fortune-telling teacher? Marty was probably right. She probably just heard I was visiting and guessed who I was. Nothing magical about that. Why would someone who could predict the future waste their time teaching? I’d be playing the lotte
ry, myself.

  The portion of the house dedicated to the Crooked Hills Post Office amounted to little more than a glass-topped display case full of stamp books, a leaning tower of cardboard boxes and unruly envelopes destined for who knows where, and a metal desk bell marked with a handwritten sign reading “ring for service.” Behind the counter, the Postmaster leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlocked above his round belly, his head tilted back, his eyes closed, and his mouth hanging open as he snored. A fat green fly circled around his head, occasionally lighting on his lips. The Postmaster stirred when the fly landed, not waking but smacking his lips like a Venus flytrap snapping at prey.

  Marty held his hand over the ringer and looked at me, the sides of his mouth curling devilishly. If he slapped the bell, he’d likely scare the napping Postmaster so bad he’d out of his chair.

  I shook my head and mouthed, “no.”

  Marty pursed his lips as if to say “you’re no fun,” but he moved his hand away from the bell.

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  The rest of the house was filled with books, stacked along the hallway walls, covering the steps leading upstairs, and piled two or three books deep on the mismatched shelves. A wooden card catalog stood in the corner, but it was also covered in books and looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. I didn’t see any sign of a computer, and I wondered how anyone could find what they were searching for amidst all the clutter.

  “This is the library?” I asked. “It looks more like the place where old books go to die.”

  But Marty had already vanished, probably slipping through one of the side doors to search for Hardy Boys Mysteries in a junky chamber. I continued down the hall into the main room, looking for any sign of books on local legends and true ghost stories. I figured in a town as haunted as Crooked Hills, there had to be plenty of books on the subject.

  A large wooden counter—again piled with books—dominated what must have once been the living room. The leaning towers of mismatched paperbacks and hardbacks stretched like curvy columns almost to the ceiling. I couldn’t see behind the counter, the books were stacked so tall and close together.