Southern House

by Mark Deloy

  There were many yells for Jacob, Anni, and Mike, the three children. We all yelled ourselves hoarse calling for them. Our voices echoed against the limestone and through the trees, but there was never a response. The woods were quiet and dark and gave no clues as to where the children had gone.

  After four hours Sheriff Pratt decided, reluctantly to give up the search for the night and come back at first light. He said he didn’t want to risk anyone else getting hurt or lost in the dark. We’d covered the fields three times from one end of them to another. He asked Jim if there were any parents he could talk to, to see if they’d seen anything, but Jim said he thought they had all taken their kids and fled. I didn’t blame them. When we wandered back to the tent, the sheriff looked frustrated and tired. Jim and I followed him back to his car.

  “I don’t want to stop looking,” he said, “but I can’t risk someone else getting hurt out there in the dark.”

  “I understand,” Jim said.

  “Not to mention, I have no idea even what happened out there. I haven’t been able to talk to one eyewitness. I was too busy looking for those missing kids. I hope I did everything right. God, why did this have to happen?”

  I was surprised by Sheriff Pratt’s statement. Normally, cops I meet are always sure of themselves and don’t second guess their decisions. It made him seem like more of a person than just a cop. I respected him immediately.

  “We’ll find them,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Hickory Grimble. I own this land.”

  “Mr. Grimble,” the sheriff said, taking my hand. “Have you seen any wild animals in the area that could have done this? Any mountain lions, bears, anything like that?”

  I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to lie. Perhaps it was because I might have been held accountable if I said I’d seen many strange and wild creatures since I’d been on the farm, or perhaps it was because I’d known, even then, none of those animals had killed Carly Bennett and taken those kids. Then again, I wondered why Jim hadn’t said anything about the markings on the tent. I decided to play it safe for now.

  “I heard coyotes howling the other night. Could they have taken children?”

  He nodded. “They could. I guess it’s possible, but unlikely. They stay pretty well fed with all the deer in the area. I guess you know this land better than any of my men. Do you mind leading the search with me tomorrow as soon as the sun’s up?”

  “Of course, Sheriff,” I said. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “And Jim, I need a list of names for every parent that had a kid here tonight. I’ll need to question those kids. We should have already done that, but the parents took off as soon as they found their kids, not that I blame them, but I’ll bet one of them saw something.”

  “Sure, Jensen. Carla, the church secretary keeps a roll of any kids in the daycare. I’ll call her when I get home and have the list here tomorrow morning.”

  “This is going to take more men than I have,” Jim said, thinking out loud. “I’m going to call fish and wildlife as soon as I get back to the station. It’s protocol for any animal attacks, and that’s what this is looking like right now.”

  Jim and I went back to the house. It felt wrong to just leave those kids out there for the night, but the Sheriff was right, there was nothing more we could do until morning. That decision hadn’t been popular with the parents. I finally invited them to come up to the house and have some coffee while Jim counseled them. They would also feel better being close in case there was any word.

  Of the parents, two were single mothers, and one was a couple. I let the single mothers call their ex-husbands with my phone, to alert them and soon, I had a house full of people.

  Brandy Holst, the mother of the youngest boy, Jacob just sat on my couch and cried. She didn’t want to talk to Jim at all and took no comfort from anyone. I felt horrible for her, for all of them, really.

  Anni Baker’s parent’s had been separated, but Evan had his arm around Julie, his estranged wife and was telling her everything would be okay. She nodded between choked sobs.

  Wil and Cathy Harris were divorced and Wil’s new wife came as well. They sat at my kitchen table with Jim drinking coffee. I stood by the stairs, with Girl to keep me company. She kept whining. All of us were just waiting for one thing… for the sunrise to come so we could get into those woods and find those kids.

  Carla Simpson, the Church’s secretary brought the roll from the daycare. I got Lisa’s name from it and called her. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Lisa, its Hickory. I just called to see if you and Connor were alright.”

  “Yes, he’s fine, I’m fine,” she said. “What happened? I wanted to stay, but Connor was screaming that we had to leave, to get away. I just wanted to get him out of there. He still won’t tell me what he saw.”

  “The girl who was watching the kids, Carly Bennett is dead. It looks like an animal killed her,” I said, sparing her the gory details.

  There was silence on the line for a moment, and then she said she had been afraid of that.

  “I saw her lying on the ground and thought maybe she’d just fallen down, but with the way Connor was screaming, I figured he saw what happened.”

  “And he wouldn’t tell you what he saw?”

  “No, after he stopped screaming, he wouldn’t say a word. He just stared straight ahead and was mumbling something, but I couldn’t make it out, it was gibberish.”

  “Sheriff Pratt is going to be calling you. He’ll want to ask Connor what he saw. I’m not sure when, I just wanted to give you a heads up. We are going back out to look for the kids in the morning.”

  “What kids?”

  I realized I’d never said a word about the missing kids yet, and with how fast she’d left, there was no way she could have known.

  “There are three missing kids. Jacob Holst, Anni Baker and Michael Harris. It looks like whatever killed Carly took them. Either that, or I hope this is how it happened, they ran off into the woods scared and got lost. We searched for them for a few hours, but if they were scared that badly, they might be like Connor and be non-responsive, in shock.”

  “Jesus, I can’t believe this.”

  “Me, neither. It’s a nightmare.”

  “I want to come and help look for the kids, but I can’t leave Connor when he’s like this.”

  “It’s fine, I’m sure we’ll have more than enough people looking in the morning. I would imagine when word gets out, the whole town will be out here.”

  “If Connor is better, I’ll come out in the morning. Maybe he’ll tell me what he saw. I’ll bet he will open up to Jensen. He’s my cousin.”

  “I hope he’s okay and I’m sorry this happened.”

  “I am, too. I just pray you find those little kids,” she said. “Bye, Hick.”

  “Bye”

  Jim came over as I was hanging up and asked me if I wanted some more coffee.

  “No, I think I’m good. I’m starting to shake from the caffeine. How are the families?”

  “As good as to be expected, I guess,” Jim said, lowering his voice. “Do you think those marks on the tent had anything to do with what happened?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I lied.

  “What if it was some satanic cult thing,” he wondered in a whisper. “I wasn’t truthful when I said those marks didn’t have any meaning to me. I recognized some of them. I did my seminary at Belmont. I had a professor who was into ancient texts and the occult. He always asked, ‘How do you expect to fight an enemy you know nothing about?’. In any case, he went into great detail about the evil spirits that lived in the elements. Water, fire, earth, all that. I can’t be totally sure, but I could have sworn one of those symbols was the one for earth, as in soil, dirt.”

  “So what does it mean?” I asked.

  “I have no idea, other than the night we happened to find occult symbols, a young woman is killed and three children go missing. I’m scare
d, Hick, and I don’t even know why.”

  “Me, too,” I said, but I knew why, and of what.

  16

  I opened my eyes and smelled coffee. It took me a second to realize where I was. I had been dreaming of New York, of being with my wife at Christmas. When I realized where I was, I also realized there would be no more Christmases in New York.

  Jim made coffee and handed me a cup as I sat up. Girl was still asleep beside me on the floor near the couch. I’d given Brandy Holst my bedroom and the other parents had split the remaining rooms. I didn’t think any of them had slept at all. They were all surrounding my small table in the kitchen, looking at a map of the property.

  “Thanks,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five,” he said. “You slept for two hours. I actually surprised myself by dozing for an hour, too. How’re you feeling?”

  “Like sh…er…crap. But I’m ready to get out in those woods and find those kids. I hope to God Pratt was right last night and they just ran off and are hiding somewhere.”

  What I didn’t tell Jim was, I was again craving my drug. I was missing my Percocet coffee morning boost.

  Jim just looked at me. I started to ask him why he was looking at me so strangely, when I heard a car pull up in the driveway. I pulled the blinds apart and saw it was Sheriff Pratt. Three other patrol cars pulled in right behind him. The officers all climbed onto the porch; Girl awakened and gave a little woof.

  I let them in before they could knock.

  “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “Mr. Grimble, Jim.”

  Jim handed the sheriff and his two deputies each their own cups of coffee; each nodded and thanked him.

  “These are deputies, Evans and Truit. Truit has a brother with a bloodhound who’s going to help us. They’ll be here at six.”

  “Good, good,” I said. “Were you able to talk to any of the other children last night to find out what they saw?”

  “Yes, a woman I know was here last night. She called me last night. Her son was in the daycare. I went over there last night, but he is only five. I couldn’t get him to talk about what he saw. He was pretty traumatized.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  I wanted to tell Pratt about the creature I saw my first night here, walking across the field and about the other large wolf-like creature that killed the bobcat, but he would surely think I was either insane or delusional. Then I thought about the house and whatever it was that I’d seen inside. I wondered who would come across it first that morning, and how I was going to explain it. Luckily I had only been on this property for a week and could claim ignorance. There was no way I was going to claim to have knowledge of a mysterious house in the middle of my land with a twelve-foot-tall, shadowy man inside. I’d be eating my supper tonight in a padded room.

  I heard another car pull into the driveway. Then a few more cars... probably people who wanted to help. I stuck my head out the door and asked them to park against the fence that ran between the first field and the back yard. If there were going to be as many people as I thought there would be here today, we’d have to be organized about parking or everyone would get blocked in.

  By six, the first field was nearly full. There were women who brought food, hot chocolate and coffee; nearly all the men were armed. Everyone wanted to help. I got choked up thinking about the outpouring of support and the community coming together. Then the news crews started arriving. They were just local stations, but I knew from watching CNN and MSNBC for nearly my whole adult life, it wouldn’t be long before this story got international coverage. I prayed we found the three kids before that happened. The last thing we needed was a circus.

  Deputy Truit’s brother, Dale brought his bloodhound as promised and the missing kids’ parents each were able to give him an article of clothing to use. Sheriff Pratt told everyone the search was to begin right where they had disappeared and would fan out from there in a three hundred and sixty degree circle. If anyone found or saw anything, they were to yell out and not touch whatever it was. Three large groups of thirty or so men were formed. The Sheriff and I led the first, Deputy Truit led another and Deputy Evans led the third. Jim went with Truit who had the help of Dale and Cecil, Dale’s bloodhound.

  As Pratt instructed, we all started in the large open space behind the tent. The three groups all went in three different directions, yelling the kids’ names. Cecil, the bloodhound, took one sniff of the first child’s jacket and headed toward the third field and the forest beyond it where I’d seen the house, just as I’d suspected he would.

  I wanted to go in that direction as well, but Pratt wanted me with him.

  “I want to be able to see this whole area. Maybe we’ll see the kids from up there,” he’d pointed to the tower. “How do we get up there?”

  “I’ll show you,” I said. “We can go up and keep an eye on everything.”

  It took us fifteen minutes to reach the summit. The big silvery tower loomed above us. Its cables stretched out on northern and southern paths like ley lines. We scanned the fields with the binoculars. If it had been winter instead of summer, we would have been able to see for hundreds of yards in every direction. I could see the other two groups in the fields below us. Truit’s group was trying to keep up with Dale and his dog as they reached the edge of the forest and started pushing their way in. They moved past the brambles and blackberry bushes that were scattered around the area and would make it difficult. I should have told them there was a path a little higher up that Girl and I had used, but that would have also told them we’d been down there.

  I was sure Truit would find our footprints, especially near the soft silt next to the stream, but I’d explain it when I had to. If I had to. They might not even go in that direction, but even as I thought that, I knew it was exactly where they’d be heading because of Cecil’s nose leading the way.

  “Maybe we should all be following the dog,” I said. “He seems to have locked onto a scent.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Pratt said. “That dog could just as well be hunting a rabbit for all we know. It’s better like this. We’ll cover more ground.”

  I nodded and looked at the sheriff. He looked rather young to be a sheriff… he couldn’t be thirty-five yet. His hair was blond, which tended to give him a more youthful look anyway. I wondered if his family was in law enforcement. Sometimes that was your ticket into the profession, especially in small towns like this.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “No, nothing,” Pratt said. “Hey, can you take a few men down in that direction? There looks like there’s a path that goes even higher. I think if those kids did just run off and weren’t taken, they’d stick to paths, especially in the dark. There was a full moon last night; they would have been able to see it.”

  “Sure thing. Come on, guys, we’re going a bit further!” I called.

  I led a group of ten men onto a path that split the trees just past the power line. It was narrow, so we stayed single file as we trudged up the rocky path. I found myself wondering where these trails came from, then remembered following countless deer trails when I was boy. They’d go on for miles. I knew deer were also creatures of habit.

  The path went up on the ridge about a hundred yards, then circled back around. We came out just to the left of where we went in.

  “Nothing up there but trees,” I stated.

  “Where could they be?” Pratt said. “I’m regretting my decision to call off the search last night.”

  “I think that was the right decision,” I said. “These woods are not very tame. We’re on one of the few true paths that exist in them. I know. I’ve hunted here my whole life and nearly gotten lost a few times. In the dark it can be even trickier.”

  Then, I realized what I said and knew it would be harder to feign ignorance about the secret house if it were found.

  “Thanks for that,” Pratt said with a slight smile. “This job has been cake so far. My dad was sheriff for thirty-
three years and retired four years ago. I got elected last year. I used to tell myself I wanted something big to happen so I could prove myself to the old man. Prove to him I was as good as any big city cop. Now something big has happened and I’m at a loss as to what to do.”

  “We’ll find them,” I said. “This is a big area to search. They’ve got to be here somewhere.”

  “I convinced myself last night and this morning we’d come out here this morning and they’d come out of hiding as soon as we started yelling their names,” Pratt said, adjusting his work gloves. “They’d be cold and hungry and scared, but they’d come out safe and sound. I figured they had just gotten spooked and run, then got turned around. Now, I just don’t know. Between you and me, it’s looking like whatever killed Carly took them as well.”

  “So what if an animal did take them? Or a pack of animals as Jim suggested?” I lowered my voice.

  “Then we are looking for three bodies. We’re looking for remains. I don’t know of any predators that just take children and don’t kill them. According to the Fish and Wildlife Department rep I spoke to last night, the only animal which might attack children would be a black bear. I’ve heard people say they’ve seen mountain lions all over middle Tennessee, but the F and W deny it. If it was a mountain lion, we’ll probably find what’s left of those kids up a tree. The big cats kill their prey, and then stash the remains high up for later. If that’s the case, and it was a big cat, or a bear, we’re going to find it, hunt it down and kill it.”

  I nodded again. I had been wondering why the sheriff kept looking up as he walked—now I knew.

  I was carrying the Remington 700 rifle PawPaw Hickory had bought a few years before he died. I didn’t think he’d ever gotten a chance to hunt with it before he died. It was the tactical version and I felt like a badass carrying it, but it was heavy as hell. If I got a clear shot at what I saw in the house, I was going to take it. I told myself there would be no weak-kneed reaction today, especially after I had convinced myself it had taken Jacob, Anni, and Mike.